For years, during the Star Wars prequel era, George Lucas talked about putting together a live-action Star Wars television series known as Underworld. Lucas’ plan was to have the series run for at least one hundred episodes–and he claimed to have half as many scripts already completed–but the show ultimately never came to fruition when it became clear that it would be too expensive to produce. Now, test-footage from the project has surfaced, giving us a look at what might have been.
The footage first surfaced nine years ago on VFX studio Stargate Studios’ Vimeo page (it’s since been removed), but was eventually uploaded to YouTube on January 30th.
The nine-minute clip includes a short scene that looks as though it’s set on Coruscant, and follows a woman getting into trouble with a team of Stormtroopers. The video also includes a behind-the-scenes look at how Stargate Studios shot footage.
The scene is clearly test footage for the project: the stormtroopers are wearing fan-made armor, and the acting and action is a bit rough, but it looks genuinely polished, complete with special effects.
The BTS footage at the end of the clip is fascinating to watch, as the entire video was shot before greenscreens, with the entire background added in digitally after the fact. While Underworld never made it off the ground, it’s an interesting forerunner to the actual first live-action Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian, which utilizes a new filming technology called “Stagecraft”—rear-projected LED screens, which created the scenes behind the actors.
It’s impossible to judge how Underworld might have looked as envisioned, but this clip shows that Lucas was serious about the project’s development. With The Mandalorian now streaming on Disney +, and with a Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi series (one hopes) on the way, Star Wars‘ immediate future is certainly live action television. Maybe Disney will dust off Underworld and give it another try — or maybe some part of it will turn up in one for or another in another project.
Half of the scripts already completed? Omg please let the dream come true!
I could see this perhaps becoming part of the Cassian series if it’s supposed to be in part about his past as a spy.
The designs didn’t come out of Lucasfilm. Most likely it was Stargate putting together a pitch for George. In other words, this is a company using existing Star Wars stuff to show what they could do, not what the show might have looked like with George’s and Lucasfilm’s involvement.
@1 markmaverik – Keeping in mind that Lucas claimed to have fleshed out 12 films as early as 1978, and that his actual writing style is well documented as an on-the-fly affair, I highly doubt he had 50 Underworld scripts completed. If he did, they were probably extremely skeletal – a typical season of a 2010 TV series would’ve been 22 episodes. Even if they were aiming for a more modest season than that, my money says he had 10 rough drafts.
Keeping in mind that Lucas claimed to have fleshed out 12 films as early as 1978, and that his actual writing style is well documented as an on-the-fly affair, I highly doubt he had 50 Underworld scripts completed. If he did, they were probably extremely skeletal – a typical season of a 2010 TV series would’ve been 22 episodes. Even if they were aiming for a more modest season than that, my money says he had 10 rough drafts.
@5/Transceiver: Do your research before offering opinionated claims. Star Wars: Underworld was in pre-production for a long period. Lucas didn’t write 50 scripts himself. He put together a large writers’ room with authors both US-based and international, years before the Disney sale. A room that included Ronald D Moore, of Star Trek and Battlestar fame. They wrote 50 scripts out of a potential 100 bases on story ideas Lucas had been toying with. Plus, Rogue One was originally conceived by ILM’s John Knoll during production of Underworld as a potential episode.
https://www.inverse.com/article/31178-star-wars-underworld-battlestar-ron-moore-darth-vader-may-4
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Underworld
@5 Eduardo Jencarelli
Take a deep breath and re-read your post before you hit quick reply. I looked into it – it wasn’t Lucas who stated there were 50 scripts, it was Rick McCallum. Specifically, they were second drafts, which are typically very rough drafts adding shape to a skeletal series of plot points. Acknowledged – there were other writers involved. I’ll stand by my statement – I bet they only had 10 scripts in the can. No TV series is going to finish 50 scripts before production begins. Forgive me for assuming Lucas was boasting about his prolific writing abilities before actually writing, but he’s done that many times in the past. That’s cool that Rogue One spun out of it. I’m sure other ideas will.
Fan Made Armor? Are we sure this isn’t someone doing a fan production and trying to pass it off as the real thing?