Star Wars: Underworld was a planned live-action Star Wars Legends series by George Lucas and Lucasfilm. It was announced at Celebration III in 2004.
Taking place primarily in the Coruscant Underworld between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, focusing on the slimy underbelly of the Galaxy while the Empire's iron fist tightens and becomes rule.
Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, the show was unable to bear fruit on its own, leading to the show being shelved. Lucas selling the Star Wars franchise to Disney and the subsequent Continuity Reboot of the Legends Expanded Universe into a new Expanded Universe hammered the nail into the coffin. However, Underworld still serves a very important role in new Star Wars content, due to scripts and ideas made for the show being retooled for numerous pieces in the new Expanded Universe. As a result, many of the plans for Underworld are still unknown.
Test footage from Stargate Studios' Vimeo, along with a behind-the-scenes look at making it, can be seen here.
Tropes in this show would have contained:
- The Bus Came Back: Saw from The Clone Wars would've returned as a rebel. This was reused for his character arc in the new Expanded Universe.
- Retcon: At the time that Underworld was being conceived, the old Expanded Universe was still in place. According to Karen Traviss, Underworld, like The Clone Wars, retconned what she did or wanted to do with the Mandalorians and Boba Fett.
- Retool: Numerous concepts from the show were reused for new Expanded Universe content:
- The Church of the Force, introduced in The Force Awakens, originated from Underworld.
- The basis of Rogue One originated from a script of an Underworld episode.
- Saw's arc as the rebel before the Rebel Alliance and the most brutal of them originated from Underworld. This might have tied into what would become Rogue One.
- Solo reuses concepts from Underworld, including how Han and Chewbacca met, as well as showing how Han and Chewbacca won the Millennium Falcon from Lando.
- According to author A.C. Crispin, there were going to be episodes focused on a young Princess Leia. Young Leia would eventually appear in Obi-Wan Kenobi and Rebels.
