There’s no denying that Star Wars is an entertainment juggernaut. George Lucas’s breakthrough science fiction series has amassed millions of fans around the world, and spawned countless imitators. But now there are rumors from Hollywood that Lucas is in talks to create a live action series that is “loosely based” on the Star Wars series. Has the world gone mad?

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times earlier this week, Mr. Lucas said he had begun work on a live action series that would feature “minor characters” from the Star Wars series. We can only assume that this rules out the Skywalker’s, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Yoda, or even Jar Jar Binks. Of course, this begs the question, “which minor Star Wars characters are interesting enough to support an entire television series?”

Even though the Star Wars feature films have been hugely successful for decades now, Hollywood insiders still consider the TV series to be a real gamble. The real question is whether the die-hard Star Wars fans will support a primetime television program, or will they consider it a slap in the face to the series and characters they have grown to love?

Additionally, science fiction programs of this stature tend to be mega-expensive to produce. With the per-episode cost likely to be quite high, the new series will need to be an almost instant and undeniable success in order to make money. Perhaps this is why Lucas told The Los Angeles Times that he has had considerable trouble convincing the network brass in Hollywood to back his new Star Wars TV series.

But Lucas has always loved a good challenge; back in the 1970s he had a great deal of trouble arranging financing for the original Star Wars film. 20th Century Fox eventually caved in and agreed to back Lucas’s fledgling “space opera,” and the rest–as they say–is history.

Surprisingly, the biggest obstacle facing the new Star Wars TV series may not be funding at all, but “programming.” Hollywood network executives are said to be having a difficult time finding a “slot” for the new series to fit into. After all, they can’t exactly squeeze it in after “The Office,” or “My Name is Earl.”

But assuming the network big-wigs can find a suitable time slot for the new series, you can expect the new Star Wars-inspired program to appear sometime in 2008, on a television screen near you. Whether hard-core fans will support Star Wars on the small screen or not remains to be seen.

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