Prior to Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, George Lucas and company spent several years developing a live-action Star Wars series entitled Star Wars: Underworld, which would have run for at least 100 episodes and was reportedly set in the criminal underbelly of Coruscant.
Details on the abandoned project have been kept tightly under wraps, but Cory Barlog – director of the upcoming God of War video game and former employee at Lucasarts – has revealed a few details, including the inclusion of Emperor Palpatine, who would have been made a sympathetic figure.
“When I was working at Lucas, I was allowed to go up to the ranch and read the scripts for the [canceled live-action Star Wars] TV show,” Barlog tells Venture Beat. “It was the most mind-blowing thing I’d ever experienced. I cared about the Emperor. They made the Emperor a sympathetic figure who was wronged by this fucking heartless woman. She’s this hardcore gangster, and she just totally destroyed him as a person. I almost cried while reading this. This is the Emperor, the lightning out of the fingers Emperor. That’s something magical. The writers who worked on that, guys from The Shield and 24, these were excellent writers.”
Would you have liked to see a sympathetic Emperor Palpatine? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
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Originally published June 25, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
