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"Lucas can't find home for Star Wars spin-off" — Page 3

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If they were smart, they'd release a few episodes free on the web. Maybe "leak" them to the torrent sites to build buzz and get the traditional media outlets interested. Everyone would have to see the "unaired pilot smuggled out of Skywalker Ranch;" it would hit AICN, SlashDot, and probably the "real" news -- especially if LucasCo could keep up the illusion that it was an unauthorized leak.

Unless the show is terrible, in which case this kind of viral marketing would kill it.
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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"Who the fuck makes 50 episodes of a show before it makes the airwaves? Sounds stupid to me. "

the same kind of moron who claims to be a film preservationist and buries the oot that's who, guess who? uncle scrooge george lucas moneybanks.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Originally posted by: sean wookie
Originally posted by: C3PX
Yeah Sean, they watched the pilot, said it wouldn't fly as is, then after they redid it they took it. But that is the point, they didn't like the pilot and so they said that they would take it with some changes, which was easy enough to do since only one episode had been made. With this silly SW cartoon thing, there are already 50 made, with another 50 being cooked up. That means rather than a "Let's see how this thing is and we'll go from there" sort of thing, it is a commitment to buy the entire 100 episode run. If you consider that most shows have about 24 episodes or so in a season, this is the equivelent to 4 whole seasons before it has even hit the airwaves.

So in the case of this show, it would have to be after the 100th episode before they could give them a second chance and make a new pilot with the cast we might all come to know and love.


Who the fuck makes 50 episodes of a show before it makes the airwaves? Sounds stupid to me.


George can do whatever he wants, because who's going to stop him?

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: DarthPoppy
I think the reason the networks aren't terribly interested in this series are multiple:

1.) Commitment. Normarlly a network buys a (single) pilot episode, focus groups the hell out of it and goes back to the production company with results, which lead to changes in format, characters, etc. (Classic example being the orignal Star Trek pilot with Captain Pike wich was considered to "intellectual" and "liberal" (with a woman 1st officer) and transformed into the series we know). They buy one episode without commitment and work from there; they do not buy 100.

2.) A network buys a series to make a profit (like any other business venture); a network makes a profit by selling advertising. Advertisers buy time to sell a product to a market which has money to spend on said product. If the only people still interested in the franchise (particularly the PT era) agter the reception of the PT are people like the so-called "TF.N gushers", the only products this group spends its money on are Star Wars merchandise, which they will buy anyway. After spending their bucks on this stuff, they have no money left over. So, who would be the target for advertisers? Not beer makers, car makers, pharmaceuticals or any of the regulars.

3.) The reception of the PT. While Sith got a better reception than the first to prequels, this was largely due to the fact that it was the last one. You can only sell something as the last one so many times. Lots of people are just sick of the whole thing. And unlike a film in theaters where a film makes that same amount of money if ten people see it or if one person sees it ten times, advertising based broadcasting is entirely based on ratings--the raw number of people who see it at once. It is clear with cult films (which the franchise has become) that the huge numbers the PT generated at the box office were largely the result of the multiple viewings of a harcore fanbase, which does not translate well to the broadcast arena.


I wish that you'd post here more often!

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Good post Darth Poppy, this is your old friend cjedi72 from ORS. Poppy is a pure Original SW fan, and he and I agree that our favorite SW film is the one from 1977 not 1980.
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The more old-school Star Wars fans here, the better.

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Originally posted by: Mike O

George can do whatever he wants, because who's going to stop him?


Well apparently the networks he's relying on to showcase his latest production

And I agree great post Poppy.

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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Thanks everyone. I do lurk here a bunch and read what you all say quite a bit. I just am not as tech/filmmaking savy as most of you all here. CO is right, I am definitely an old school Star Wars '77 kind of guy! Lately I have been a bit less engaged in things Star Wars (still waiting for an acceptable release of the original Star Wars, and my VHS copy from the 80s died a couple of years ago, so I can't even watch the film I love in good quality) lately. But I have been doing some research here to see how I can get a great "unofficial" version of the film!

The topic of this particular thread really fascinated me, as sometimes it appears that Lucas really does live in a fantasy world--making 50-100 episodes of a TV show that he has not sold. That he is not preoccupied with this problem shows two things:

A) he has a lot of money, and can probably take a loss (i.e. direct to video or subscription net ala "hyperspace")

B) he really has lost perception of reality, which would explain that he is not lying but merely forgotten reality when he says he always thought of Star Wars as the "Tragedy of Darth Vader", etc.

It is all very strange, and a regular working guy like me will never understand the dilemmas and psychology of a guy who lives and works on his own compound, finances his own multi-million dollar projects etc. But it is interesting to see how far Lucas has distanced himself from the human reality that most of us live in and some that his early work (American Graffiti and, yes, Star Wars '77) so well portrayed. What I find particularly fascinating is how this lack of understanding of reality has now seeped into the one place where I thought he was still on top of his game--business sense!
The movie from 1977 was called Star Wars, not Episode IV, not A New Hope, not Star Wars Episode IV: a New Hope, just plane Star Wars
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Originally posted by: Scruffy
If they were smart, they'd release a few episodes free on the web. Maybe "leak" them to the torrent sites to build buzz and get the traditional media outlets interested. Everyone would have to see the "unaired pilot smuggled out of Skywalker Ranch;" it would hit AICN, SlashDot, and probably the "real" news -- especially if LucasCo could keep up the illusion that it was an unauthorized leak.

Unless the show is terrible, in which case this kind of viral marketing would kill it.


Yes, it's true. It reminds me of what happened early this year with all the season premieres of Showtime series (Weeds, Dexter, Californication) "leaking" months early, in finished DVD quality files, no less. That's whats been happening lately, in that companies are covertly releasing episodes of TV shows in order to gauge audience demand (see The Sarah Connor Chronicles).
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Originally posted by: crazyrabbits
Originally posted by: Scruffy
If they were smart, they'd release a few episodes free on the web. Maybe "leak" them to the torrent sites to build buzz and get the traditional media outlets interested. Everyone would have to see the "unaired pilot smuggled out of Skywalker Ranch;" it would hit AICN, SlashDot, and probably the "real" news -- especially if LucasCo could keep up the illusion that it was an unauthorized leak.

Unless the show is terrible, in which case this kind of viral marketing would kill it.


Yes, it's true. It reminds me of what happened early this year with all the season premieres of Showtime series (Weeds, Dexter, Californication) "leaking" months early, in finished DVD quality files, no less. That's whats been happening lately, in that companies are covertly releasing episodes of TV shows in order to gauge audience demand (see The Sarah Connor Chronicles).


Fox sort of did that with the first four episodes of 24 last season. Except in that case, I think it really did leak out. The episodes were scheduled to go on sale on DVD that Tuesday after they aired, except they showed up online the week before they aired. I think that was definitely a case of an early copy getting out and not some intentional "leaking".
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Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Trust me, none of these leaks are intentional. The truth is that its pretty easy for someone involved with a series to get ahold of footage--for instance, I just finished work on a new TV series, and borrowed a few of the completed episodes out of curiosity to see what the show is like. One is just a rough cut from the editor but another is the completed episode. They are on DVD, in high quality broadcast-ready form. Nobody knows and it would be impossible to trace to me, and if I really wanted to I could easily post them online--and the show is not scheduled to debut until the new year! I would never do that, aside from the fact that its not a top-rated show like 24 or Weeds, but it goes to show how easily digital post-production has made leaks.
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Is Lucas' 'Star Wars' TV series preparing for takeoff?

Multiple sources have confirmed to EW.com that George Lucas is coming to Los Angeles next week to meet with writers for his long-gestating live-action Star War series. According to one agent familiar with the project, Lucas' plan is to recruit several freelancers - aka "writers of real significance" - to spend a week at the Skywalker Ranch in November to come up with story ideas for the series. The agent also said that Lucas has indicated a desire to hire writers from other countries. The scribes would then disperse and write the 13 episodes that would be produced and financed by Lucas.

When Lucas first began recruiting Hollywood writers for the project as early as February 2006, according to the agent, his original intent was to produce 26 episodes before he went on the lookout for a network partner. The news put fans in the frenzy as speculation swirled that the live-action series would take place between Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars IV: A New Hope, though the agent believes those rumors are unfounded. Plot points for the series, as a result, remain sketchy.




http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2007/10/star-wars-the-s.html?xid=rss-cnn-todayslatest-20071012

Couldn't find an existing thread for the live action tv show.

So if this is true this tells me there isn't even concrete story ideas let alone scripts, which means the series should air in.... oh say.... two thousand and never.

Interesting reading about the part where it says they have cut the number of episodes to be produced before Lucas finds a network to show them to. I guess he's not going to get burnt twice.

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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As I understand it some preliminary shooting tests have been conducted in California.Not a pilot or full episode or anything like that but some preliminary work.It will definitely be set between ROTS and ANH as stormtroopers have been used in the preliminary work and not clone troopers.Nothing beyond that is concrete yet apparently.

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Being that it's completely financed by Lucasfilm I doubt the networks are too worried about losing money. It's basically a free show for them to air in whatever time slot they can fit it into. They don't have to hire anyone, pay anyone...they just wait for LFL to send them the prints.

And as much as the PT is loathed around here and other fanboy sites... they still made a ton of money and they'll drum up enough interest just out of plain curiosity. Add in DVD sales and the networks will work out fine on the money end.

The shows will air somewhere.
"Among many things I have to be thankful for are you, the fans. I know that some of you haven't liked every single thing that I've done with the saga, and that you have a strong sense of ownership over all things Star Wars. But take that passion and devotion and channel it into a creative project of your own."
-George Lucas
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Originally posted by: JediRandy
Being that it's completely financed by Lucasfilm I doubt the networks are too worried about losing money.

They're probably concerned about ratings. And the advertisers pay them, if we're talking about money. They certainly wouldn't lose money in terms of financing the progam, as LFL have already done that, but they might be concerned about others things. Really, we have no clue.

It's basically a free show for them to air in whatever time slot they can fit it into. They don't have to hire anyone, pay anyone...they just wait for LFL to send them the prints.

Rating, Randy, ratings . You're right, however, that it is they who would be paid by advertisers and such.

And as much as the PT is loathed around here and other fanboy sites...

I never though I'd hear you admit that.

they still made a ton of money and they'll drum up enough interest just out of plain curiosity. Add in DVD sales and the networks will work out fine on the money end.


The mainstream were interested in the films, but how much will they care about the TV series? It's more for fans, I think. Not to say that that means that there's no money (quite the reverse), just that even if people are curious, I doubt that Joe six-pack is all that interested in A HUNDRED PLUS episodes of a Star Wars show.

The shows will air somewhere.


Duh .

So if this is true this tells me there isn't even concrete story ideas let alone scripts, which means the series should air in.... oh say.... two thousand and never.


Hope springs eternal.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: Mike O
Originally posted by: JediRandy
Being that it's completely financed by Lucasfilm I doubt the networks are too worried about losing money.

They're probably concerned about ratings. And the advertisers pay them, if we're talking about money. They certainly wouldn't lose money in terms of financing the progam, as LFL have already done that, but they might be concerned about others things. Really, we have no clue.

It's basically a free show for them to air in whatever time slot they can fit it into. They don't have to hire anyone, pay anyone...they just wait for LFL to send them the prints.

Rating, Randy, ratings . You're right, however, that it is they who would be paid by advertisers and such.

And as much as the PT is loathed around here and other fanboy sites...

I never though I'd hear you admit that.

they still made a ton of money and they'll drum up enough interest just out of plain curiosity. Add in DVD sales and the networks will work out fine on the money end.


The mainstream were interested in the films, but how much will they care about the TV series? It's more for fans, I think. Not to say that that means that there's no money (quite the reverse), just that even if people are curious, I doubt that Joe six-pack is all that interested in A HUNDRED PLUS episodes of a Star Wars show.

The shows will air somewhere.


Duh .

So if this is true this tells me there isn't even concrete story ideas let alone scripts, which means the series should air in.... oh say.... two thousand and never.


Hope springs eternal.


I dunno if the ratings will be that bad, man. I think a lot of haters kinda live in a bubble where SW it now a despised piece of crap that is laughed at... Networks try out these Sci-Fi type shows just hoping it catches a Buffy-like cult following. SW has a built in cult following no matter how much fanboy bitching takes place online.

The Clone Wars cartoon was a blast... even the most pissy fanboy should be able to enjoy a half hour of that stuff once a week. But who knows.


"Among many things I have to be thankful for are you, the fans. I know that some of you haven't liked every single thing that I've done with the saga, and that you have a strong sense of ownership over all things Star Wars. But take that passion and devotion and channel it into a creative project of your own."
-George Lucas
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Originally posted by: JediRandy
[

I dunno if the ratings will be that bad, man. I think a lot of haters kinda live in a bubble where SW it now a despised piece of crap that is laughed at... Networks try out these Sci-Fi type shows just hoping it catches a Buffy-like cult following. SW has a built in cult following no matter how much fanboy bitching takes place online.

The Clone Wars cartoon was a blast... even the most pissy fanboy should be able to enjoy a half hour of that stuff once a week. But who knows.


I really think that the SW TV show will be a purely niche audience, and how much of that I don't even know. I think we all forget that the PT had a built in audience of OT fans who were pretty much going to see all 3 of them in the theaters no matter how bad they were. Just think of many trilogies that faded away because of average sequels: BTTF3, Terminator3, SupermanIII, and Matrix Revolutions. All of those movies did significantly less business then its predecessors, and pretty much put a nail in any sequels, although Superman IV got green lit, but that sucked even more then III!

Everyone has to remember, which was the highest grossing PT movie? TPM, yet which is considered the best by the majority of SW fans? ROTS. The bottom line is that TPM had the widest audience of any SW, old, new, casual, etc. After that, many people, and a couple of them I knew, went once to see TPM caused they liked the OT growing up, didn't like it and moved on. Those people don't hate Lucas, they don't really care about the SE/OOT battle, they don't think Lucas raped their childhood, they just enjoyd the OT movies, didn't like TPM, and could care less about Episode II or III.

The SW movies draw a huge audience for several reasons: They are an event, they harken many people back to their younger days of seeing the OT as kids, and a SW movie has become a phenomenon where you have to be there opening weekend just to talk about it with everybody else.

The TV show has zero of that going for it, so right there you lose the casual fan who just liked the movies. Then you have diehard OT fans who didn't like the PT, and are disgruntled and kinda fed up with SW, so they probably aren't interested in it. Whats left? EU fans, people who just love anything SW, EU, PT, Movies, Clone Wars, more SW the better. There is a market of those fans out there, but I don't think Lucas realizes it isn't nearly as big as the movie crowd.

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I think Randy is pretty much right. Its Star Wars--as much as people disliked the prequels they still saw them, and they'll venture to check out the new series too. If it was set at the time of the PT I think it would have much less an audience in terms of fans--but this thing will have stormtroopers, star destroyers, probably x-wings and TIE fighters, and from the sounds of things Boba Fett. Its got a lot of OT elements in it. Now--that will draw people to the show, but whther they stay or not is purely up to the quality of the program. With the PT people kept coming back because they knew ahead of time that the story would get better, and there was only two more films after TPM. If the show sucks fans will watch the first three or four episodes and see if it improves and if it doesn't they'll drift away. But if its good it will definitely find an audience. Look at Battlestar Galactica--talk about niche audience, a laughably-remembered 1970's sci-fi series that was dead and forgotten. But they made the new series really good and it attracted a large audience--it was still niche-based in the sci-fi-fan specialty for the most part, but so is Star Trek and the like, and theres nothing wrong with that.

So, really the show could go far. People will tune in for the pilot and first few episodes out of curiosity, but after that its up to the strength of the show itself, and if its actually good then people will continue watching, and it could even rescue the rep of Star Wars in the same way that the new Battlestar Galactica made it okay to be a fan of that series.
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I dunno if the ratings will be that bad, man.

Oh, I don't think that they'll be bad at all. The question is...

I think a lot of haters kinda live in a bubble where SW it now a despised piece of crap that is laughed at... Networks try out these Sci-Fi type shows just hoping it catches a Buffy-like cult following. SW has a built in cult following no matter how much fanboy bitching takes place online.

EXACTLY that. Star Wars does of course have a built in following, and the TV series is a shoe-in for some cash. The only question is, how much? Cult shows, as much as we all (even you, I presume ) love them, are just that, and that type of following is usually not enough to carry a show through its run with the earnings that most TV stations would like (look at Firefly or Wonderfalls). SF is a cult thing, normally. I'm not trying to be fanboyish about it at all, it's just that most genre shows don't catch on with the mainstream. Star Wars has the built in cult following, but I think that it's a question of how well that will carry a show. Well enough, certainly, but I don't think that the show will be the next Grey's Anatomy (GEORGE AND IZZIE FOREVER! Ahem, sorry.). I don't think that the average Joe-six pack would care all that much about the mythology of Star Wars.

But who knows?

Not I , that's for sure.

I think Randy is pretty much right.


Don't you hate it when that happens ;P?

Its Star Wars--as much as people disliked the prequels they still saw them, and they'll venture to check out the new series too. If it was set at the time of the PT I think it would have much less an audience in terms of fans--but this thing will have stormtroopers, star destroyers, probably x-wings and TIE fighters, and from the sounds of things Boba Fett. Its got a lot of OT elements in it. Now--that will draw people to the show, but whther they stay or not is purely up to the quality of the program. With the PT people kept coming back because they knew ahead of time that the story would get better, and there was only two more films after TPM. If the show sucks fans will watch the first three or four episodes and see if it improves and if it doesn't they'll drift away. But if its good it will definitely find an audience.


Certainly, they'll check it out. The question is, how do you make the kind of person who doesn't much care about Star Wars STAY with the show for 100+ episodes?

Look at Battlestar Galactica--talk about niche audience, a laughably-remembered 1970's sci-fi series that was dead and forgotten. But they made the new series really good and it attracted a large audience--it was still niche-based in the sci-fi-fan specialty for the most part, but so is Star Trek and the like, and theres nothing wrong with that.


It attracted a large audience, but still mostly of sci-fi fans, wasn't it? I mean, I think that it's mostly critical acclaim that's kept it along with others. I must watch that one of these days. I hear that it's quite good.

So, really the show could go far. People will tune in for the pilot and first few episodes out of curiosity, but after that its up to the strength of the show itself, and if its actually good then people will continue watching, and it could even rescue the rep of Star Wars in the same way that the new Battlestar Galactica made it okay to be a fan of that series.


Maybe. I certainly see the show making its share of cash, that's for sure.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: JediRandy


And as much as the PT is loathed around here and other fanboy sites...

Is this a "fanboy" site? I thought "fanboys" were Lucas-loving sycophants?

I think the show will be like any other show- people will check out the first few episoses and keep watching if it's good. If it's not good, the ratings will drop and the show will get cancelled. I don't even think the most loyal PT fan will support the show if it sucks (or maybe they will, I don't know. The continuing support of the PT baffles me, so maybe the show will suck and still bring in high ratings).

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Galactica wasn't dead and forgotten. There had been a few cons devoted to it in the 90's, and Richard Hatch made a demo reel, (on his own dime) for a revival/continution. Universal suddenly woke up and smelled money in an old property they had forgotten, but the fans had not.
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Where were you in '77?

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Well I think we can all agree that it'll get enough attention from people to get an audience for the first few episodes. If it's good, it'll do well, if not then it won't... just like any other show. But don't think that it won't get picked up by some network/cable channel...

think of it this way... how many times have fans said "I wish GL would let someone else write SW"... well, here it is. Let's see what happens.
"Among many things I have to be thankful for are you, the fans. I know that some of you haven't liked every single thing that I've done with the saga, and that you have a strong sense of ownership over all things Star Wars. But take that passion and devotion and channel it into a creative project of your own."
-George Lucas
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Again, we will see how the ratings do; I don't think we have enought data about how many people actually saw the later PT films (TPM was huge, it had everyone who ever liked Star Wars going, and we brought our skeptical wives and friends--they didn't come with us to see AotC or RotS!). Yes they were very successful movies, but just go and look over at TF.N (back in the days when the movies were out) and see all the people who posted that they saw RotS, literally, 38 times or 50 times, etc. Such fanatical devotion of repeat viewers carries no wait in the TV market where one time market share is all the matters. It will be very interesting to see what kind of ratings these shows garner and will go along way in answering how popular the post-PT Star Wars franchise actually is.
The movie from 1977 was called Star Wars, not Episode IV, not A New Hope, not Star Wars Episode IV: a New Hope, just plane Star Wars
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Originally posted by: DarthPoppy
Again, we will see how the ratings do; I don't think we have enought data about how many people actually saw the later PT films (TPM was huge, it had everyone who ever liked Star Wars going, and we brought our skeptical wives and friends--they didn't come with us to see AotC or RotS!). Yes they were very successful movies, but just go and look over at TF.N (back in the days when the movies were out) and see all the people who posted that they saw RotS, literally, 38 times or 50 times, etc. Such fanatical devotion of repeat viewers carries no wait in the TV market where one time market share is all the matters. It will be very interesting to see what kind of ratings these shows garner and will go along way in answering how popular the post-PT Star Wars franchise actually is.


We shall see... who knows.
"Among many things I have to be thankful for are you, the fans. I know that some of you haven't liked every single thing that I've done with the saga, and that you have a strong sense of ownership over all things Star Wars. But take that passion and devotion and channel it into a creative project of your own."
-George Lucas
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Is there any data on how well the current dvds of the Clone Wars cartoons have sold? Especially compared to something like the dvds of Galactica (which is highly praised and well loved on the internet, yet struggles to get "regular" people to watch it and stay on the air)?