Cancelled 'Star Wars: Underworld' TV Series Would Have Featured Young Versions Of Han, Chewie & Lando

nullWe’re about to hit an era of non-stop "Star Wars"—next year will bring J.J. Abrams‘ "Episode VII," with Gareth Edwards‘ spin-off a year later, and "Episode VIII" and "Episode IX" following, with the Josh Trank stand-alone picture coming down somewhere in between. But the new phase of "Star Wars" could have looked very different back in the days before Disney snapped up the rights to George Lucas‘ universe.

After "Revenge Of The Sith" was released in 2005, plans started to come together for a live-action "Star Wars" series that would bridge the gap between the 70s original and the 00s prequels, said to be called "Star Wars: Underworld." Writers were hired, including "Battlestar Galactica"’s Ronald D. Moore and "Camelot"’s Louise Fox, and reportedly as many as fifty scripts were completed, but plans were put on hold due to the prohibitive expense of the show, and the show’s status is now unclear after the announcement of the new movies (and animated series "Star Wars: Rebels," which covers the same time period as "Underworld" would have.

Details never really slipped out, but one of the writers has broken cover and let loose some of the plans. Stephen Scaia, whose credits include "Jericho," "Warehouse 13" and never-filmed adaptations of "Ghost Recon" and "Y The Last Man," is currently raising funds to make an Indiana Jones fan film called "Army Of The Lost Horizon," which would focus on Indy’s daughter and her search for her father. You’d think there were better ways to spend your time, but whatever.

In order to prove his Lucasfilm bona fides, Scaia has put a video on the Kickstarter page for his project in which he spills some of the beans on "Star Wars: Underworld," on which he was a writer. In it, he reveals that the show would have directly featured classic original trilogy characters, with plotlines including "how Han met Chewie," how "Lando lost the Millennium Falcon," and featured a "Boba Fett action scene with his rocket pack."

Until now, it’s generally been assumed that the TV show would have featured new characters, so it’s interesting to note that younger versions of Han, Chewie and Lando (among, we’re sure, many others), would have been central to the series. Whether this material ever sees the light of day, in script form or as the originally planned series, remains to be seen, but it’s quite possible that the spin-offs (which are heavily rumored to include one centering on Han Solo, possibly the one directed by Trank) might well tread the same territory. For now, we’ll have to think of "Star Wars: Underworld" and wonder what might have been. [via Slashfilm]