NBC
April 25, 2005



It looks as though that "galaxy far far away" won't be going away
after the next "Star Wars" movie.

According to StarWars.com, the saga's creator George Lucas told
attendees at the fan convention Celebration III in Indianapolis
Saturday that he is working on two "Star Wars"-related television
projects after "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith."

The first, "Clone Wars," actually exists as series of animated
shorts on the Cartoon Network, but Lucas said it will be turned into
a "3-D animated version full-series" 30 minutes in length.
But the surprise came with his announcement of a live-action
spin-off series that will take place between movie Episodes III and
IV.

At first, according to StarWars.com, Lucas said, "There's none of
the main characters from I, II, and III" in the series, but stopped
mid-sentence and said that "that's not exactly true now that I think
about it." He concluded by saying it's hard to answer what will be
in the show since it's a year away from going into production.
He added that a lot of issues from the films are connected, but you
won't necessarily see a lot of the people that are connected," the
site reported.

SLIDESHOW 'Star Wars' Celebration III

This won't be the first hit film saga from Lucas to have a spin-off
series. After he and director Steven Spielberg made the Indiana
Jones film trilogy, Lucas produced "The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles" for television from 1992-1993. The series was also
produced by the prequel trilogy's producer, Rick McCallum.
"Revenge of the Sith" is the final installment of the prequel
trilogy, which finally realizes Anakin Skywalker's (Hayden
Christensen) path to the "Dark Side" of The Force and his
transformation into the villainous Darth Vader.

The film also stars Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Christopher Lee,
Ian McDiarid, Jimmy Smits and Samuel L. Jackson.

Lucas' appearance at the Celebration III event marked his first
convention appearance since in nearly two decades ago, for the 10th
anniversary of the first movie, according to the site.

"That's as far as I thought we'd get," Lucas told convention-goers.
"I never thought we'd be doing this."

A four day event that ran Thursday through Sunday, Celebration III
attracted more than 30,000 fans from around the world, according to
Lucasfilm publicist Lynn Fox.

"Revenge of the Sith" opens in theaters nationwide May 19.