A New Hope: The Future of Star Wars
by Reg Seeton

What will the future landscape of the Star Wars universe look like in another couple of decades and beyond? One thing is almost a certainty; it’s going to be completely different. After checking out the trailers for the upcoming animated Clone Wars film that will spearhead the new TV series, I began to realize that there’s going to be a an entire generation of fans that will only have grown up with the animated series and possibly the upcoming live-action series, without the foundation of the first theatrically released Star Wars trilogy, the prequels, and the many properties in between. What will the Star Wars universe mean to them in another 20 years? Will the franchise still hold the same magic as it did for the original trilogy purists or the prequel generation?

Since the Star Wars universe is alive and well in today’s entertainment landscape with future animated films/series and live-action shows, we all know that there’s a deep universal connectivity within the franchise that has transcended time for the past 30 years. Will the connectivity be as strong in the next 30 if there’s a lack of theatrically released films? Can a live-action TV series still create that same spark in fans? Although it’s widely known that Revenge of the Sith is supposed to be his final movie, George Lucas even stated in a February interview with Reuters that the Star Wars saga is far from over with the animated series, "I felt there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell... I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward." Whether we’ll see another live-action film sometime down the road remains to be seen.

So, what will the Star Wars landscape look like in the future and how will it transform?

Theater Experience:

As much as Star Wars has evolved throughout the years, so too has the theater experience. Given how video technology and the quality of the home entertainment system has exploded in recent years, the YouTube generation and video game revolutions raise the question of whether Star Wars even needs the theater to survive. The fact the George Lucas won’t be directing any more live action feature films any time soon might be the best overall decision to get ahead of the curve. Whether the decision was directly related to the ever-changing video revolution and advances in technology might be irrelevant. It might simply be an organic inevitability. A while back, about a year and a half ago, I talked to longtime Star Wars producer Rick McCallum about how the home entertainment marketplace is quickly overtaking the theater experience. While theater owners have attempted to keep pace with the download generation, McCallum was well aware of what looks to be the dawn of a new age of watching movies, "If the theater owners don't get their act together and really start providing serious quality, the next generation of filmgoers just isn't going to bother to go [to theaters]. They'll be able to download the content, burn it to their DVD, watch it on their 42-inch plasma screen and we're going to see a shift in the whole process of the adventure of going to the movies."

Although the theater experience is a completely unique medium and experience, it feels like it could go the way of the "Drive-in." From a distance, it looks like the future of Star Wars will likely be more in the palm of your hand and in your home instead of sitting with the collective masses in a theater... And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

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