Star Wars: Underworld: The Emperor was going to be a sympathetic character in cancelled live-action TV show

'It was the most mind-blowing thing I’d ever experienced'

Since 2005, Lucasfilm has been teasing Star Wars fans with a live-action TV show, titled Star Wars: Underworld. On various occasions, George Lucas spoke about the idea behind the show, calling it "Deadwood in space” and comparing the drama to The Godfather.

Despite the idea seemingly being thrown out by Disney, small tidbits of information about the series are still hitting the internet, the latest from a particularly unlikely source.

When discussing the upcoming God of War game on PS4, director Cory Balrog started talking about the Star Wars show.

A few years ago, he was invited to read the script and, according to the interview with Venturebeat, it would go on to directly inspire the new God of War, particularly the Emperor’s storyline, as the villainous Sith master.

“Probably the really small beginnings of this idea, the germination of this — 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.

“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 f*cking 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.”

So there you have it; we may not have got a love relationship between a hardcore gangster and the Emperor, but we are getting God of War.

In other Star Wars news, a plot rumour about Star Wars 8 is currently circulating online, and it’s actually mildly believable (but does focus on Force trees).