George Lucas needed to chronicle the rise of Emperor Palpatine “like Hitler’s” as a part of a scrapped Star Wars TV present.
Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid has now mentioned plans for the cancelled collection, which he was instructed of instantly by Lucas. The Star Wars creator pitched him the concept of that includes within the mission — though, after all, it in the end by no means made it into manufacturing.
“[George Lucas] was speaking about, I believe I can inform you now, a tv collection,” Ian McDiarmid instructed an viewers at Spacecon 2026 (thanks, Popverse). On the time we did not take into consideration Star Wars when it comes to tv collection. Very speculative.
“We had lunch in the future, and he stated ‘I’ve obtained this concept, and I hope you would possibly wish to be concerned. We may kind of comply with the Emperor’s progress, like Hitler’s, a few of that. There may be an assassination try, and naturally it would not succeed.’
“It sounded actually thrilling,” McDiarmid concluded. “And he additionally stated that perhaps you could possibly direct one, after which I fainted. However sadly, that didn’t come to cross.”
Whereas McDiarmid did not point out the deliberate collection by identify, it sounds lots like this plan referred to Lucas’ long-gestating Star Wars Underworld mission, which might have bridged the hole between Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope with not less than 60 episodes of tv. Lucas labored on the concept for years earlier than in the end promoting the franchise’s rights to Disney, writing quite a few scripts within the course of which have by no means seen the sunshine of day. Our solely actual glimpse on the present stays a quick leak of check footage for the collection, which confirmed a gritty model of galactic captial metropolis planet Coruscant.
Final yr, Star Wars prequels producer Rick McCallum described the mission’s loss as “one of many nice disappointments of our lives,” although urged it had at all times been doomed to failure by Lucas’ ambition, with particular person episodes greater in scope than Star Wars films — one thing that may have seen prices spiralling to not less than $40 million per episode utilizing the expertise accessible on the time.
After all, Star Wars’ Disney-owned period has seen the saga spawn quite a few new TV collection, although spending has now been considerably curtailed following huge funds flops corresponding to The Acolyte and The Guide of Boba Fett. Only one Star Wars collection presently stays in manufacturing: the second and certain last season of Ahsoka, which is because of premiere subsequent yr.
On the film entrance, The Mandalorian and Grogu has struggled on the field workplace, however Lucasfilm reportedly thinks subsequent yr’s Star Wars: Starfighter has a greater likelihood of reviving the franchise.
Picture credit score: Ethan Miller/Getty Photographs.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You possibly can attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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