For several years now we've heard talk of Lucasfilm putting a live-action Star Wars television series into production but it's been met with delay after delay while old fans lose interest and new fans are fed only the animated versions of what was something everyone loved. For now, they only have the successful Clone Wars series and the upcoming animated comedy series for which Seth Green will help write.

Many hoped that the more adult-focused, live-action series would appeal to the fans who cherished the original Star Wars trilogy but were left depressed by the prequels. According to the latest news on the project from George Lucas who reveals it's back on hold, it sounds like that was exactly the plan.

At a recent Chicago screening of The Empire Strikes Back, the Digital Spy had a chance to ask Lucas about the live-action series where he confirmed not much is happening with it still.

"The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don't know how to do them."

But why? They have a successful series out and are launching another animated series. With the profitability of each series, the tie-in merchandise and other media, what's the hold up?

"They literally are Star Wars, only we're going to have to try to do them [at] a tenth the cost... And it's a huge challenge, [a] lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be."

When he points out that they "literally are Star Wars" I expect he means that the production values were up there with that of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and that this was going to be a massive television project. With lower salaries for the cast and a hopefuly direction towards story telling over special effects, I hope there's a way to make this series a reality.

Lucas got pretty close with the series and ran auditions early last year which was followed last summer by inside sources claiming that the show would begin shooting "soon." Conflicting reports came out later revealing that they would just be starting the pre-production/writing process at the end of 2009. Now, with the story in place and scripts available, it looks like it's just down to figuring out how to budget and produce the project at a realistic price.

For me, with no Star Wars films in development, this may be the last chance for Lucasfilm to win me back as a fan. Star Wars was amazing for everyone, up until the special edition releases of the original trilogy followed by the prequels. We've seen some incredible video games in Knights of the Old Republic and Force Unleashed which lend themselves well to feature film adaptations - their cinematic animated scenes are better than the movies - but aren't getting any so we''ll just have to wait and see what happens with this show.

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Source: Digital Spy