Two pieces of news for the Star Wars geeks among us (like yours truly).
First, as you may or may not know, the White House was petitioned to “secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016” through the We The People site. The petition gathered enough signatures to require a response and earlier this week Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, wrote the most amazing response…ever.
The awesomeness begins with the response’s title: This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For. And it just gets better. You should read the whole thing, but the top reasons Shawcross gives are:
- The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
- The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
- Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
And then there is the rumor, according to Entertainment Weekly, that:
ABC entertainment president Paul Lee says he’s going to take a look at the long-gestating Star Wars live-action TV series now that the Disney deal to acquire Lucasfilm is complete.
“We’d love to do something with Lucasfilm, we’re not sure what yet,” Lee exclusively told EW. “We haven’t even sat down with them. We’re going to look at [the live-action series], we’re going to look at all of them, and see what’s right. We weren’t able to discuss this with them until [the acquisition] closed and it just closed. It’s definitely going to be part of the conversation.”
As usual, the thought of such a thing is both marvelous and terrible. I mean, the first three movies were so great and the second were so…not. The EW article sounds promising—series to be set in the seedy underworld of the Empire between the two series with a bounty hunter as the lead character. Lots of potential. But we’ve seen both Disney and Lucasfilm squander potential in the past.
So it’s been a fun week for Star Wars fans all the way around!