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My suggestion to Disney: noir crime series in Coruscant underworld

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So I’m watching The Clone Wars series for the first time, because The Mandalorian and Fallen Order piqued my interest in things like the Death Watch and the Nightsister of Dathomir. And I came upon an episode titled “Lightsaber Lost”. It’s a very atmospheric episode set in the lower levels of Coruscant, featuring some unsavory characters.

Now, judging by The Mandalorian, the Star Wars universe is apparently suitable to tell simple, traditional genre stories (like Spaghetti Westerns) with only loose ties to the main saga’s themes. So how about this?

A noir style crime series set in the dark underbelly of Coruscant. The main character is a character is basically Miller from The Expanse. In fact, cast the guy who played him. He solves cases week by week but there is an overarching case for the entire season.

It’s set during the Empire era, because we never really saw Coruscant during that time and now you have the protagonist working for the Empire (vibes of Fatherland by Robert Harris).

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Well, we’re getting three live-action series within roughly three years, and the Coruscant underworld is getting explored more and more in cartoons and other EU materials, so i’ts definitely a possibility. And although main-stream SWhas never touched upon noir in any blatant fashion yet (maybe a little bit in ep. II?) it still fits within that movie-serial-vibe that’s its all based on.

PS. There was a book series called Coruscant Nights which is basically a noir private-eye type of series set in the lower levels of Coruscant during the early days of the Empire.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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I’ve been pining for a series or movie like this since 1313 was cancelled by the Disney buyout. I’ve been totally fascinated by the Coruscant underworld ever since season 2 of the Clone Wars, and was beyond ecstatic when Lucasfilm announced they were developing a series based on it. I’ll have to check out Coruscant Nights, though, it’s on my reading list but I’ve never gotten to it.

If anybody gets a chance, check out concept art of the 1313 series. In my opinion, it’s one of the great missed opportunities of Star Wars, along with Spielberg’s Return of the Jedi.

“Remember, the Force will be with you… always.”

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Dr. Krogshöj - oojason’s post in Tobar’s Star Wars: Underworld (Live Action Series) thread could be right up your street; not only is there now a 10 minute behind the scenes video of footage from the ‘Star Wars: Underworld’ live action tv series, but also a downloadable batch of documents on the show too 😃

50 Cent is just an imposter

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ZkinandBonez said:

PS. There was a book series called Coruscant Nights which is basically a noir private-eye type of series set in the lower levels of Coruscant during the early days of the Empire.

Is this any good? I remember really enjoying his Darth Maul book 20 years ago…

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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LexX said:

ZkinandBonez said:

PS. There was a book series called Coruscant Nights which is basically a noir private-eye type of series set in the lower levels of Coruscant during the early days of the Empire.

Is this any good? I remember really enjoying his Darth Maul book 20 years ago…

I started reading it last year but got distracted by other things and simply forgot about it until recently. I know that sounds a little weird, but I have a bad habit of trying reading multiple books at the same time (it kinda works), and especially when something suddenly swallows up much of my free time a few books tend to slip through the cracks. So I’m not saying it was boring, what I did read (first 1/4-ish) was actually quite interesting. It was very dark and gritty and managed to seem noir-ish while never dipping into clichés or obvious tropes while still managing to feel like a SW story. A “hardboiled SW story” is probably the best way to describe it. I do think Reaves can get a a bit wordy at times, but the characters were all new and pretty fitting for the setting. The only well known character is Vader who appeared very briefly in the part I read. I did really enjoy the descriptions of the lower levels, I’ve always felt that that particular part of Coruscant lore is a perfect blend of sci-fi concepts and fantasy absurdity. It’s basically an IRL slum dialled up to 11.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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V.I.N.Cent said:

Dr. Krogshöj - oojason’s post in Tobar’s Star Wars: Underworld (Live Action Series) thread could be right up your street; not only is there now a 10 minute behind the scenes video of footage from the ‘Star Wars: Underworld’ live action tv series, but also a downloadable batch of documents on the show too 😃

Quite interesting and some excellent ideas there (e.g. aging clones being phased out), but way too much tie-ins to the main OT story/characters. The show I would pitch would definitely not have Vader, Palpatine, Han, Chewie and Lando in it. Star Wars desperately needs to stop going back to the same very narrow set of people and things.

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This was literally planned under Lucas. A series called SW: Underworld. Live-action too. Just wasn’t feasible budget-wise.