In 2007, long before Lucasfilm was absorbed into the Disney collective, George Lucas shared his intention to create a series chronologically set between the prequels and the original trilogy. That superproject was named Star Wars: Underworld in 2012, and besides promising the return of several historical characters, it also aimed for a darker and more dramatic version of Star Wars, taking noir films as inspiration. With more than 50 scripts written, Underworld was going to be gigantic, but the general public didn't see even a second... until now.
A Piece of a Much Bigger Puzzle
Star Wars 1313. A well-known title, right? The specialized press talked endlessly about that project and shared several concept arts. Its story was going to focus on Boba Fett, his career as a bounty hunter, and his conflicts in an underground area of Coruscant called Level 1313. After many back-and-forths, Star Wars 1313 never saw the light, and with Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, the project was left gathering dust in a corner. However... the truth is that "1313" was just one piece of a much bigger puzzle.
The Vision Behind the Series
What you just saw is a kind of pilot and its "behind the scenes" for Star Wars: Underworld, a series originally announced in 2005, but it was in 2007 that George Lucas provided additional details. His idea was to divide this mega-series into four shows, narrating the stories of different characters, among which stand out the aforementioned Boba Fett, Han, Chewie, Lando, C-3PO, and even the emperor Palpatine himself.
The size was one of the most impressive aspects of Star Wars: Underworld. Lucas and the rest of his team created more than 50 scripts (other sources indicate 400 episodes of 42 minutes each), all with complex stories in a huge, dark, dirty Coruscant, with political and criminal powers in conflict, and under constant tension due to the presence of the Stormtroopers. From a certain point of view, Underworld would only ratify Lucas's desire to continue his universe on the small screen, a little further from the demands of the box office.
https://old.neoteo.com/la-version-perdida-de-super-star-wars-para-sega-mega-drive/The Cost Barrier and a New Hope
But Underworld never went beyond that technical demo with green screens and close cameras. The main barrier was the cost: Some sources calculate an average of 50 million dollars per episode, money that Lucasfilm simply didn't have access to. Many of its CGI developments had as a priority a reduction in budget (today, a high-profile series doesn't go below 10 million per episode), but the scripts of Underworld managed to survive in the Disney era. With so much time and money invested, Kathleen Kennedy recognized that they didn't want to discard anything from Underworld sustaining the vision of developing that material a bit more.
A Legacy on Screen
Examples? Well, two of them have already gone through cinema: The plot of Rogue One is based on an episode of Underworld, and the same happened with Solo: A Star Wars Story.
