The Abandoned Star Wars Show From 1986

In the 80's, Star Wars was losing its popularity. Kenner Toys pitched a daring rescue of the franchise by making plans for a sequel series in the form of a Saturday morning cartoon featuring villain Atha Prime. Before the Prequels, Clone Wars, Sequels or the Mandalorian, there was The Epic Continues.
#starwars #kenner #lucasfilm #80s #originaltrilogy

[@PyramidPeak]

I made a Mongo Beefhead sticker. if you want to support me, it’s linked in the description!

[@PyramidPeak]

kzbin.info/door/02j3vpJ_c37BI-uoXtgfDAstore

[@KenshoBeats]

The kitbashed 4-LOM-Squid-Hammerhead! Awesome 👌🏼👌🏼

[@stuartbagley2586]

I’m a big Star Wars guy and this is my first time hearing about this. Well done.

[@clancykohl]

That guy looking at R2 spinning his head for way to long, and then that look of "what am I doing with my life"

[@johnhareiel5118]

So, are you Jabba sized? 😊

[@TruthAndMoreTruth]

"We need to sell more merch, so make up some sh*t to advertise new toys, call it a show". So, absolutely nothing has changed?

[@MichaelBradley1967]

Wasn't that the premise for He-Man (and probably a ton of other cartoons)?

[@saltygumballs2621]

@@MichaelBradley1967 Transformers go brrrr

[@Ron-d2s]

@@MichaelBradley1967 MASK

[@jsizemo]

Merch was part of the project from the get go. Lucas made sure to secure the merchandising rights as part of the deal with 20th Century Fox et al when he was negotiating for funding.

[@moviegoer1993]

Despite all the commercial reasons, there were good story ideas lol

[@haileyshannon7548]

Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen would make a great band name

[@AarnessMusic]

Big Bad Wolf Spider Would Make A Great Band Name would be a great band name..

[@stuartbagley2586]

😂

[@vincelupo8419]

I'd wear a MBT shirt.

[@Ron-d2s]

@@vincelupo8419 The name sounds like it would be 12 second per song 70s punk garage band with loads of spitting and swearing.... No wait... 80s punk when it really went to 💩💥💩

[@d.vaughn8990]

The opening band for Alice in Chains, bitd…

[@Person-wz6iy]

You may produce a toy of Tarkin when ready.

[@crazyfrogextended]

I find your lack of action figures disturbing.

[@patrickwilson1459]

@Person-wz6iy it would not have made sense to bring back Governor Tarkin. Because he died at the moment the Death Star blew up. He was even in the Fire Control Station.

[@Person-wz6iy]

@@Me-qp8vz Don't worry, I know Tarkin died, and I'm not a fake fan. I was just making a silly little joke.

[@philippeamon7271]

You may retire, when ready!

[@ricardor7578]

​@@crazyfrogextended🤣

[@ConvergenceMedia]

Now imagine Poe saying "Somehow Tarkin has returned."

[@PyramidPeak]

That's why i said it like that haha

[@NordicDan]

I caught that too and let out an audible "D'OH!!"

[@kikacruz4560]

Who?

[@daxbashir6232]

"Somehow Athaboy Prime has returned". 🙂 + 😞

[@vincelupo8419]

Yea.... no way Tarkin made it off the death star.

[@wildgoose77]

Atha Prime looks like one of those guards in Veitch and Kennedy's Dark Empire

[@PyramidPeak]

Nice catch, both are based on the same concept art from Return of the Jedi

[@____________838]

@@PyramidPeak the concept for the Royal Guard, right?

[@PyramidPeak]

@@____________838 Yes! Drawn by Nilo Rodis Jamero. He has a cool story, I'd recommend checking it out.

[@____________838]

@ I definitely will, but sadly nothing of those eras will ever hit print or screen again, due to Disney Wars taking things a new direction.

[@smallp6271]

I was about to say the same thing

[@Nebulous6]

5:00 "Evacuate in our moment of triumph?! I think you overest... uh... one moment, I have to use the loo...".

[@lamarravery4094]

Too be fair, I was a kid in the early 80s. I quit collecting action figures after Empire Strikes Back. I only have Squidhead from Return of the Jedi. My dad would ask me if I wanted Star Wars figures for Christmas and I told him no. He was stunned. I wanted a bb gun and a home computer. Then I wanted clothes in my teenage yrs. So, Kenner never had a chance to revive interest in Star Wars toys because a lot of us grew up and moved on. Some friends of mine got into G.i Joes or computers. But no one was collecting Star Wars after 1984.

[@gamewizardks]

This is how I also remember things going. Your timeline and the things you wanted back then is very similar to my own.

[@johnglue1744]

Same but the story could have been interesting but with how 80s cartoons were I don't think it would've done much.

[@daxbashir6232]

OK, but there were always slightly younger kids whose first SW film was ROTJ and they began being gifted SW toys in '83 or so. I'd assume that by the year 1985 Kenner didn't care that much about kids who began playing with their SW toys all the way back in 1978, but rather their number one objective by that point in time was to retain the kids who got into SW after the year 1980 and number two was to attract a completely new "batch" of even younger kids.

[@cesarmedina7080]

Exactly, Starwars was still fresh in kids minds in the mid 80s.

[@TheRealNormanBates]

I didn't give up on *Star Wars* as quickly as you did, but I didn't get, nor asked, for *Star Wars* stuff after the mid 1980's, so yeah.. your assessment about collecting *Star Wars* toys died around 1984 isn't too far off.

[@Hoganply]

Tarkin's return sounds dumb af. He's literally the one who says 'Evacuate? I think you overestimate their chances'.

[@adfkzaha24]

idc

[@nyanarchy]

while this video's narrative suggests lucasfilm didn't let anyone tamper with the IP for fifteen years, in reality it was carried by game developers, book and comic authors + artists from the late eighties to the late nineties until the prequels, things like the thrawn trilogy by timothy zahn also gave a different canon for the clone wars back then.

[@gabethebabe3337]

Yeah but that’s more because Zahn likes to jump the gun a lot and talk about things that were off limits, there’s very little evidence it was retconned because in order for that to happen he would have had to have had notes from George, and George was very particular about not delving into prequel era stuff at that time. Zahn also wanted the Noghri to be the Sith, as well as the explanation for Darth Vader’s mask design. He did this because he wanted to explain the title of “Dark Lord of the Sith”, but George didn’t like it because it made the title too new in-universe. Zahn has a lot of cool ideas, but his world-building skills often shrink the scope of the Star Wars history. Because George said no we managed to get a whole history for the Sith spanning thousands of years and fleshing out their culture and beliefs. If Zahn got his way then the Sith would have been a few primitive tribes of aliens Vader just recently conquered.

[@barkley8285]

@@gabethebabe3337we don’t get any history for the sith by Lucas. All we get is bane making the rule of 2.

[@bureidokaiza2829]

Star Wars went dormant for around 5 years between '86 and '91, with the Role Playing Game being the only official media. It wasn't until Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire that things changed

[@barkley8285]

@@nyanarchy Star Wars from 1985 to 1994 was dead. It wasnt until 1995 when action figures came back and phantom menace was being written

[@Theover4000]

I'd never heard of this before. Thank you for sharing!

[@clonetrooper2003]

Fun fact: Atha Prime was actually canonized into the eu, with a version of him appearing in the Skyewalkers novella (not a typical btw) renamed Zeta Magnus even keeping some of his backstory

[@anthonyyoutubefan7567]

Atha Prime is a cooler name, though. Interestingly enough, both Zeta Magnus and Atha Prime sound like possible names for planets in The SWU.

[@LewisChristisonVids]

@@anthonyyoutubefan7567 Or Transformer names.

[@anthonyyoutubefan7567]

@@LewisChristisonVids Absolutely. Optimus Prime's Brother, Cousin, or Uncle? 🤖😊

[@kds5065]

I think Atha Prime is coming back in a comic book series.

[@anthonyyoutubefan7567]

@@kds5065 Good. He needs to become a much more significant character within canon. He really should be a major villain for the future (post-The ST), the present (The Mandoverse), or the past (The Old or The High Republic). He'd make a good villain for, The Ninth Jedi...I am FAR MORE interested in that SW: Visions story getting a full-fledged treatment than ANYTHING related to Super Rey. Give these 2 men, Tim Effler and Mark Boudreaux credit for their creations, and residuals...they both deserve it.

[@mistymarshall5438]

They could still release this concept as an "Infinities" (what-if) toyline. Star Wars is always recycling unused concepts for future projects (think Asajj Ventress or Starkiller) and they did two major multi-media projects without a movie or show tie-in ("Shadows of the Empire", "The Force Unleashed") so this idea doesn't seem so farfetched.

[@crazyfrogextended]

star wars is dead

[@TheMinskyTerrorist]

Asajj Ventress wasn't an unused concept

[@Ron-d2s]

@@crazyfrogextended NOT as long as the Mongo Beefhead Tribe still exists!!!! That is an action figure we all need!

[@mistymarshall5438]

@TheMinskyTerrorist She was originally a concept sketch for Dooku in Episode 2 but Lucas rejected it. Then it was used for the CW comics. See the book "The Art of Star Wars Episode 2" by Mark Cotta Vaz.

[@lerchfreyley1]

4:22 Back then every animated show based on live action changed the look up. Not just the ones selling toys. It was the 80s not only were TV shows made to sell things but networks always tried animated versions of live action properties. It was all over Saturday cartoons

[@OGbrundle]

Man an Atha Prime black series figure would be so awesome

[@TheLionAndTheLamb777]

Oddly when my sister and I were kids we watched Ewoks and had no idea that they were even related to Star Wars. I was five and had never seen or heard of Star Wars.

[@subraxas]

🙂

[@prophetzarquon]

I had a roommate who watched the Star Wars Holiday Special on TV without his brothers, who never believed him that it existed, afterward. He had tears in his eyes when I handed him a couple copies burned to DVD to give them, before we were even done laughing at the cooking show.

[@alegreboards4022]

Has no one mentioned that the head on "Mongo Beefhead" appears to simply be the head of "Squid Head" from Return of the Jedi turned 180 degrees with eyes painted on the cut-off neck area?

[@namehereandthere]

That’s because Squid Head is simply a Mongo Beefhead head turned 90 degrees and painted to look like a squid head for Squid Head’s head. This is what inspired George Lucas to make the prequels. Mongo Beefhead is the key to all of this.

[@drushe1983]

Incredible insight to this ambitious cancelled project. The 'somehow Tarkin returns' line was delicious

[@inversion66]

Mongo Beefhead actually sounds like a name Lucas could have come up with. Although maybe it would have been Mongo Boffhead.

[@maxordman4100]

I love this series pitch! I was born at the very end of the 80s so I wouldn’t have been able to watch it as an 80s cartoon but this series sounds spectacular to me. I love hearing about canceled shows and movies! Great job on this report!

[@darkdahl5562]

wow this Is super informational! I really loved this video great job man

[@bentonrp]

I was also impressed. Not only by the production, but its new information! Just when you think you know everything about the OT era ..!

[@TheJediKenneth]

This sounds like a show I would have really enjoyed. I would have been the perfect age for it at the time. While Tarken returning doesn’t seem like a great idea now, I might have just shrugged it off back then. I would’ve been one of the kids keeping Kenner afloat.

[@paulloughlin3732]

Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen at the end was too good!

[@BlackArroToons]

Cool Kenner concept and figures. Thanks. They would've faced stiff competition against GI Joe, Transformers, and I wonder if we would have gotten Kenner's M.A.S.K. line in 1985 if they kept producing Star Wars figures. Power of the Force Coin carded figures really struggled without a new film to inspire sales.

[@RetroActionUK]

Very true MASK might’ve never happened if Kenner continued Star Wars.

[@maxis2k]

"Triple decker space ship." No way! They made a Sega Genesis into a spaceship!

[@Nebulous6]

I call it... the 32X-Destroyer!

[@nickpetka]

Also worth mentioning Kenner's new character designs were intended to recycle pieces from old action figures. Mongo Beefhead, for example, re-uses Hammerhead's arms and Squidhead's head flipped upside down

[@Grim2]

1:38 - Budget wasn't the issue (how can you even say it's low when it was never stated how much it cost?!) - ABC was with their idiotic BS&P rules on the Droids (per Paul Dini, they were making a fuss over even the usage of blaster sound effects cuz "they sounded too violent") and George Lucas himself botching Ewoks for its 2nd season as 1st one was "too scary" for his kid.

[@cernstormrunner7263]

thing i'm maddest about is we never got the two-seater X-wing

[@RetroActionUK]

The Tandem X-Wing would’ve been awesome, same for the Imperial Outpost.

[@3TravelBloggers]

Great content! kudos

[@PyramidPeak]

I appreciate it!

[@erichtoler]

I scrolled down and didnt see any mention of this, so if its not a new idea, sorry..... that being said.... did no one else notice that the Atha Prime' personal ship rendering @3:54 looks HIGHLY similar to General Grievous' Flagship in Episode III?

[@bobbymauro3721]

Atha Prime looks like Toy Story’s Zurg !

[@cernstormrunner7263]

1:04 i had that remote controlled R2 as a kind and now i can see why mom hated it

[@prophetzarquon]

I got into electronics as a kid, in part because I came across a whole bin of "broken" toys that had just run their batteries down! 🤔 😂

[@leonardm6858]

The design was taken from the concept art for the royal guards in ROTJ. The Dark Empire comic book series also used that same design for its imperial sentinels. Kenner later released the imperial sentinel as a retail figure in its 1998 Expanded Universe toy line.

[@itsjustm0nty]

Atha Prime is coming back in the new Jedi Knights comic next year!

[@PyramidPeak]

Pretty crazy they are bringing him to canon, I should've waited a little longer to make this video. There might be a follow up in the works

[@itsjustm0nty]

@@PyramidPeak yea its set during the Clone Wars era so, it fits with the original story. Looks to be 7issues and I could be wrong here but from what I've heard, each issue will cover a different Jedi and has an overarching plot so Atha COULD be the main villain. We'll se tho but still VERY cool

[@a_fine_edition2746]

I’m pretty sure it’s actually set pre-Prequels since Qui-Gon is involved. It’s also supposedly going to be a long-running series as well.

[@itsjustm0nty]

@@a_fine_edition2746 yea. i shouldve clarified probs prior to ep1 with Jedi Dooku too but seeing how Atha Prime's original story was set during the Clone Wars, I'd assume some of the comics are to cover that part of the story too.

[@jontuell5338]

Great vid. Super entertaining & good research!

[@BandGeekRecords]

To the kid at 1:53. Jokes on you, Star Wars never got old.

[@Pauric84]

Exactly! But he did!!😅

[@ajzeg01]

With the emphasis on clones maybe Tarkin was going to be a clone.

[@terrylong8894]

The irony of Kenner wanting to utilize Tarkin as the bad guy is that Peter Cushing was actually kind of pissed when he realized that Tarkin died at the end of the movie.

[@tommynoble3428]

"somehow Tarkin survived..."

[@Korgano]

Looking back, that’s one thing I give Lucas and his company a lot of credit for. Generally speaking, they protected the brand pretty well until selling to Disney. Growing up in the 90s, Star Wars was a vibrant brand with games, toys, and software even before the prequels came out. EU projects generally did a good job of advancing the future of the story in the absence of films, and the prequel era was a huge commercial success.

[@sevryn6049]

Flaws and all, this is hundreds of times more creative than the Force Awakens or perhaps anything created by Disney.

[@WhiteChocolate74]

Yeah, and the looks of characters are better

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

Y'all desperate

[@WhiteChocolate74]

@ChangedMyNameFinally69 not anymore. I'm just numb to star wars at this point

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

@@WhiteChocolate74 For no reason really lol

[@WhiteChocolate74]

@ChangedMyNameFinally69 it's not even the quality of the films, just the sheer quantity of them. It's too much of a good thing. I'm of the opinion that even the prequels shouldn't have been made. The original trilogy is all you need and anything more takes away from it being special. Some things like Star Trek or Marvel can have a bigger expanded universe, but with Star Wars I think less is more

[@jesusadrian759]

You know what's crazy? Atha Prime is going back into the current Disney canon, even his backstory, he's still a scientist who lived through the Clone Wars in the new Marvel comics that They will be behind the Phantom Menace, it's funny that a Kenner Concept is in Star Wars again.

[@PyramidPeak]

That is actually crazy. Sounds like I made this video a few months too early. Might have to make a follow up!

[@jesusadrian759]

@@PyramidPeak It has a variant cover in the Legacy of Vader comic, look for it (I'm not putting a link because KZbin deleted it 🗿)

[@PyramidPeak]

Appreciate you bro! I’ll look into it

[@jlescault1983]

So cool thanks for the knowledge drop. Feel like this is a huge miss by Lucas. Especially when you think of Ghostbusters. The cartoon revitalized interest and opened up a new world to kids who were too young for movies.

[@noobymoosehead]

this video was amazing!

[@bakurasplanet4502]

8:08 *"Hamburger Helper" tribesman.*

[@nealgrimes4382]

Sounds like they were trying to get some tie in food with Macdonalds.

[@hgc7000]

Mongo Beefheads could have been the greatest Beefheads ever! A true missed opportunity.

[@TheChristianPsychopath]

Star Wars novels were huge in the 90s. It was a golden era of multimedia expansion of the story.

[@Tifa_Batcheller]

Atha Prime looks like one of the Imperial Sentinels from the Emperor’s Citadel in Dark Empire. 🤔

[@PyramidPeak]

Both come from the same concept art from Return of the Jedi

[@RetroActionUK]

Kenner even released an Imperial Sentinel figure in 1998.

[@rex-rant4322]

Very interesting. I also like that ending.

[@Turtle152]

The Death Star didn't have a transporter room, so sorry Tarkie, you're dead.

[@andrewbecker1013]

Or a clone...

[@Turtle152]

@@andrewbecker1013 😀

[@Hadouken88]

How in the whole world wide living hell did we not get this instead of Ewoks and Droids. I was a huge Star Wars kid in the 80s but never had any interest in the cartoons we got. I bet I would've loved The Epic Continues. What a missed opportunity.

[@cesarmedina7080]

Agreed, I would have been into it. Especially the toys.

[@SilentKitsune33]

Thanks for getting to the point instead of making the video 40 minutes

[@twenty-eightrock]

I have to say I'm glad to hear George Lucas rejected this on account that it didn't fit with his vision for the future of Star Wars. A lot of accounts of George after Empire Strikes Back kind of portray him as a man who became corrupted by commercialism and only desired that merchandising dollar, to which there may be some truth, but it's good to see that he still genuinely cared about his creation and wasn't just going to sacrifice creative control for a quick buck or to keep up with the Joneses. If only he had preserved that mentality ...

[@daxbashir6232]

♥ ♥ ♥

[@PyramidPeak]

Subscribe for more Mongo Beefhead content (and other stuff)

[@levibond9755]

Pleased to report the Mongo Beefheads were canonized during the War of The Bounty Hunters a few years back. Rest easy.

[@S1mply6]

I thought it was Dagoth Ur with the 80s music

[@nomis7791]

it’s basically an admiral ackbar with a flipped squid head and hammerhead arms isn’t it?

[@choostopher5018]

I am glad of the prequels we eventually got

[@mightyrobot42]

The Imperial Attack Droids aren't Star Wars' first droid army. One was featured in the novel Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, originally published in 1980.

[@patrickwilson1459]

Well, even as we were in the mid 90s Star Wars has still nevertheless aged well. Starting with Micro Machines and then before we knew it, BOOM. Action figures, toy and electronic vehicles were back in stock at toy stores around the world. I’m not sure however this canceled spinoff show would’ve worked out well. How could Tarkin have survived the Death Star’s destruction as he was in the firing station all that time, even when he told Bast “I think you overestimate their chances!”?

[@daxbashir6232]

That Kenner pitch was primitive......

[@Stormonu]

God, this just seems awful level of Kenner thinking. I think Heir to the Empire and Shadows that we got later was a much better treatment. The Prequels when accounting for the Clone Wars cartoon I think did pretty well. It's just been the sequels that have nosedived into bad fanfic territory made "canon".

[@subraxas]

Totally agree!

[@BlackieNuff]

Oh, what might have or could have been... I always wonder about "the Star Wars that might have been" every time I look at Ralph McQuarrie's early concept art for the original trilogy, based on the early story ideas Lucas had which included : - Luke Skywalker was originally Luke Starkiller - Luke was intended to be the "princess" as the female protagonist - Han Solo was older, closer to Obi-Wan's age - There was no Darth Vader or Stormtroopers - Wookiees were the antagonists and looked more like hairy Kilingons, who rode around on alien birds - When Darth Vader was conceived, his trademark mask & helmet had a more Samurai esthetic and the suit was intended to allow him to travel through space independently (over short distances) without a spaceship ; typically from vessel to vessel, or vessel to planet and back - Stormtroopers carried not only blasters, but also lightsabers and shields - Everyone used lightsabers - Obi-Wan, like early Vader concepts, held a Japanese look, looking more like a Sensai than a Jedi Master with his bald and beardless appearance. - Yoda was still small but more scrawny, looking more like Gollum - The droids varied slightly ; C-3PO had a far more feminine design, and R2-D2 had more ever-present appendages serving as arms, which emerged from his "shoulders" and his domed head - Boba Fett was all-white, looking more like what came to be the Clone Troopers. - Tauntauns looked more like furry lizards or dinosaurs than the "horned kangaroos" they came to be Those are just what I can recall off the top of my head. If you haven't seen McQuarrie's concept art for Star Wars, look it up - it's fascinating and wild to imagine if that were the Star Wars we got.

[@cesarmedina7080]

I wanted more Starwars action figures really bad in the mid/ late 80s. Sucks we never got them. I never knew we almost did until i saw this. Now that i think about it, i cant believe we never got an animated Starwars show back then either. Seems like a no brainer to me.

[@thelukeofficial9626]

This could be a cool what if

[@t_hetty1758]

I feel like having Luke and Han would’ve allowed the show to have more staying power. And perhaps if Lucas was involved with the story or set parameters for things they could and couldn’t do it would’ve helped it get green lit.

[@FCStone1708]

You forgot the comic books 😢

[@theguybehindyou4762]

Atha Prime looks like he was ripped straight from the original Power Rangers.

[@wesleyclark2714]

I was like “alright… alright! I dig it…” then “Mongo Beefhead Tribesman” LOL

[@nealgrimes4382]

I would have preferred a whole series about them, instead of Acolyte.

[@wesleyclark2714]

@ the only Beefheads we have now are the writers of certain shows 😆

[@db9692]

Bro was thinking about lunch while coming up with characters, and named one after Mongolian Beef.

[@michaelnance8319]

Too bad Disney hasn’t took in this idea from Kenner yet! I bet in a parallel universe. This show would’ve been real popular if it had been animated.

[@HwoarangtheBoomerang]

0:36 Hey reporter. If you're reading this, nice suit. Super fly 😉.

[@chadwilkerson197]

"Somehow, Moff Tarkin returned."

[@kylevaughan3041]

Mongo Beefhead force pulling the lightsaber past Kylo Ren at the end absolutely slaid me.

[@justforfunflowers8001]

I have a book that talks about the new figures they were going to come up with. But I did not know about the Atha Prime character. It's funny that it's in the comics by Cam Kennedy.

[@philippeamon7271]

8:08 A teal lightsaber? Yeah, I can understand Kylo being a little bit spooked by that.

[@paulquantumblues3599]

I never knew anything about this (Although recently I did stumble onto a wookipedia page about Atha Prime) To be honest I like the ideas that these men had more than the ones that we got in the prequel trilogy. When I was a kid, I thought that the Clone Wars were more like this proposal. I wish they would have ran with this idea.

[@TheMinskyTerrorist]

It was more like this all the way up until 2002. The Jedi were better too.

[@paulquantumblues3599]

@@TheMinskyTerrorist yeah, George really $h@t the bed with the way that he portrayed the clone wars. Too many yes men/women were around him.

[@Jean-Paul-Lane-Valley]

I always find it intriguing whenever a Star Wars writer in another medium had to formulate vague Clone Wars backstories just because George Lucas added a throwaway line with name that sounded space-y. In retrospect, I always found the Clone Wars we ended up getting feels recherché and (like so many things in the prequels) a conciliation between "rules" stablished in the original trilogy and whatever stuff Lucas wanted to do at the time (two directives that almost always end up clashing). Fans today will disagree strongly, but both the seeds stablished in The New Republic Trilogy and the little flashbacks in the Marvel Comics felt more natural and sensical than what we ended up getting (despite me loving the Clone Wars era), but it is common in Star Wars for the movies to disregard it's own continuity and canon, whereas complimentary media tries to create within the parameters stablished by every single line and concepts mentioned.

[@PyramidPeak]

Smart take. I think Lucas didnt really hold his own established lore in high regard, which can be frustrating but also let the prequels go in more creative directions

[@Jean-Paul-Lane-Valley]

​@@PyramidPeak - I believe so, that debunks the idea that he "had it all planned". I'm fine with that, honestly, I may dislike the prequels but at least I can say they were George's.

[@tFighterPilot]

It would have made so much more sense if the Clones were the enemies. I would make perfect sense that the Republic would've started enlisting Stormtroopers en masse to fight them. We would also not have to explain why clones were suddenly replaced with real people, despite being the perfect soldiers.

[@Zan_Jayna]

You could always tell the stormtroopers were all clones because Leia says Luke is too short to be one. The writers of all the ancillary media get access to the series bible which is the element that vain modern activist 'writers' of the main films won't abide.

[@MichaelLauzon1976]

I'm surprised that while you mentioned the 2 animated shows -- "Droids" (1985 - 1986), "Ewoks" (1985 - 1986) -- but failed to mention the made-for-TV movies "Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure" (1984) & "Ewoks: The Battle for Endor" (1985)....

[@PyramidPeak]

I had a segment about the comics, novels, and those two films, but I felt like the video was taking too long to get to the point. Thanks for bringing up the Ewok movies, they're pretty different and maybe deserve their own video.

[@Skajlu.s]

"Somehow, Tarkin has returned"

[@daxbashir6232]

"Somehow, Athaboy Prime has returned" 😀 + 😞

[@markfields9368]

Could later be revealed as a clone

[@purefoldnz3070]

Somehow Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen arrived.

[@theenigmabegins]

George took one look at Luke with that red lightsaber and went "These guys don't even get it." He was done with it then and there, I'm almost certain xD

[@ActionFigureMagic]

Very cool😊🙏

[@tomculpepper4158]

Somehow Tarkin has returned.

[@Hello-bi1pm]

They should have pitched something like Droids or Ewoks instead of the sequel

[@trevturp6891]

They did.

[@wwdarth]

Disinterest didn't cause Star Wars to go away. Lucas intentionally put things on hold. He had every intention to revisit it one day himself, which he did.

[@jebstuart4004]

The Epic continues may had been waaaaaay better than those stupid épisode 7,8,9 from Disney.

[@steelionx9255]

I didn't even bother with the Disney sequels.

[@selfan2005]

ANYTHING would have been better than Disney sequels.

[@cesarmedina7080]

​@@steelionx9255A wise choice you made.

[@JaceBraaten-vb5du]

Disney Suck's

[@ricardor7578]

They should've went with the Timothy Zahn trilogy. 😡

[@nelsontan8178]

still not too late...they can still add these characters

[@thehursk1935]

Story line sounds amazing

[@jethrobradley7850]

Something about the friendly alien Mongo Beefhead Tribesman reminds of... Jar Jar Binks. I imagine it would have been just as divisive too. "Me's a beef head!"

[@scotthintze5901]

Yes, SW ended and Transformers, G.I Joe, and other lines took over. Droids and Ewoks were a flop. However, in 1993, George Lucas spread rumor about a new trilogy. At first it was Heir to the Empire based on Timothy Zahn's novel. However, George wanted to go back in time to Clone Wars and how a young Obi-Wan Kenobi first met Anakin Skywalker and trained him as a Jedi Knight, but later fallen to the dark side and become Darth Vader. Everybody went nuts and the merchandise started skyrocketing in value.

[@MikeHunt-rh1rp]

"The Apex Invader" is skirting adult sex toy territory...

[@GlGAPEPE]

Somehow, Moff Tarkin returned.

[@erikwebber6038]

Toy Store Managers: Somehow the Star Wars toys returned

[@darthvader575]

I still don't understand how disney kills one of the best franchises

[@David-yw2lv]

I would like to have Leia personally kill Tarkin.

[@David-yw2lv]

@Me-qp8vz She was good on the battlledielze.Plus she would have wanted to avenge the murders of her family and friends.

[@neatcool4770]

That beefhead bs is hilarious 😂, I swear, the people in control are often fruit loops

[@stehfreejesseah7893]

This is making my head spin

[@jordanwhite352]

It's kind of interesting to see this and then growing up as a kid in the mid to late '90s where they essentially tried this again with the whole shadows of the empire where essentially they made everything about a medqual Star Wars movie without actually making the movie. On another note, I don't know who has rights to what now, but I would totally love a Star Wars visions where instead of animator gets their own project if they did one animation studio for one season. But it was this idea actually animated and fleshed out.

[@MichaelAbney-w6t]

Mongo is just Squid head toy, upside down and backwards.

[@RetroActionUK]

That’s because he was a kitbashed prototype.

[@somarriba333]

Wow! I didn't know about any of this. I did watch Ewoks and Droids but I do remember hating NOT seeing Luke Skywalker in any of the adventures.

[@PJCVita92]

Cool info on a cancelled animated sequel show. However, Star Wars was popular again in the 90's thanks to books/novels and series of video games such as the Super Star Wars Trilogy and Shadows of the Empire. Also, movie theaters would have reshowings of the movies to revive the love, care, and interest in the franchise. They also released digitally remastered releases of the movies. And I believe they did bring back the toyline for a bit. But obviously the toyline wasn't officially revitalized until the Prequel Trilogy. Just an FYI from the perspective of someone who grew up with Star Wars since the 90's. I was practically born a Star Wars fan as my older brothers were into Star Wars. And so were my elders and a few of my cousins. I followed the series and it's history of releases since. Finally, there wouldn't have been a prequel trilogy from 1999 to 2005 if Star Wars didn't ever get big again beforehand. If we ignore the releases I mentioned, any prequel or sequel trilogy probably may not have ever happened. The only hope that Star Wars would've had of inevitably being revived in that scenario would anyone who was even still a fan by the time of Disney or some other big production inevitably claiming the rights to Star Wars. So in that scenario, we may not have had even the prequels until the 2010's at the earliest. However, I think we probably would've gotten a reboot instead. Which, evidently, from the Sequel trilogy's flop, would've actually been worse than the Prequel Trilogy and even the Sequel trilogy for a lot of people who were fans of the original. Especially if the reboot had been made in today's decade. That all said, I'm glad and very grateful that we got the Star Wars video games and novels that we did. And I'm grateful for the Prequels that we got and any more Star Wars content that has come to this day at all. The fate of the franchise could've been much worse, as much as I'm afraid of saying it due to the controversial sequels. I'm grateful that the series managed to remain strong for this long.

[@PyramidPeak]

For sure, thanks for giving your perspective. I would say Star Wars was reborn in 1991. Maybe another video is needed to explore that era.

[@Nasoj0Tnek]

masters of teras kasi 2 using these characters, get on it disney

[@Captureman]

The kid at 2:00 acted and sounded liked a young Johnny Ramone

[@MrEmeraldDragon13]

It made me uncomfy lmao

[@purefoldnz3070]

I guess the new hot IP after Star Wars was Transformers.