@@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 💩💥💩
@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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
@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.
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.
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!
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.
I lived this time. NO.... Kenner's idea would've failed miserably. Those of us who had the original 78 kenner Star Wars toys were essentially done with Star Wars after Empire. I was already hanging out in the Arcades. That kid that was interviewed was exactly right, Kenner Star Wars was dead. Their were far too many other options for kids and even more exciting ones.
idk. it might have been just what the next generation needed to even CARE about star wars. i was born in '78, i remember scooby doo, super friends and he-man. i didn't encounter star wars until i was quite a bit older; the movies and toys were done by the time i was old enough to pay attention. MY childhood cartoons were Thundercats, Ghostbusters, GI Joe and Transformers. If there was a Star Wars show on during that time period you better believe i would have watched it.
@@feenix219 My younger brother was born in 78' as well. He was really into the EWOKS. Another Star Wars would've been swimming in a deluge of cartoons, toys and properties for kids and would've seriously been drowned out. The 80's were also the decade of excess and "out with the old and in with the new." Star Wars was cool, but thought of as "old."
For what it's worth I was born in 91 and pretty much everyone I knew was into the revamped tenner figures where everyone was jacked, then the shadows of the empire range was pretty popular too until the prequel merch started coming out, which again right the way through those movies releasing most of the other kids I knew got the figures and stuff. It could possibly have worked since Shadows of the Empire sorta bridged the gap between the new range of star wars toys and the prequel stuff, that said the videogames definitely kept people interested as well, not so much the books and comics with people my age back then though
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Force Awakens was fine, even if it was ANH all over again. 8 and 9 was where the sequel trilogy fell apart. They needed to map out a clear story arc before they even started filming. That being said, I'd have preferred something more in line with the EU.
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)....
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.
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.
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!”?
@@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
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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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?
This is old news. Several articles have been written on this. Kenner pitched a new toy line to replace the power of the force era and LFL declined as George still had the prequels in his pocket and didn’t want anything that may contradict his plans.
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".
Atha Prime (I prefer this backstory to The Clone Wars over Lucas' idea...it would've been cool, if Prime had created an army of evil Clones, leaving The Republic to have to create The Clones from Kamino...that way, We'd truly have a war between opposing clones). The Apex Invader. The Annihilator. The Mongo Beefhead Tribesman (I want him to be an ally to Luke, Mando, and Boba Fett's gotra). The Remnant Empire. The Imperial Attack Droids. Good God...ALL OF THIS NEEDS TO BE BROUGHT INTO ACTUAL STAR WARS CANON. This could either take place during The Mandoverse, OR, 100 or more years AFTER The Disney ST (which I don't consider canon). Thank you. I never heard about this before, to my knowledge. P.S. What's truly interesting about this concept: Atha Prime seems almost like a much earlier, alternate version of Marchion Ro, from The High Republic. Ro's followers include scientists who employ unethical concepts in to their genetic creations, including, The Nameless, The Children Of The Storm, and The Blight. Thus, this could easily be another tale for The High Republic, too. This inspired and intrigued me totally. May The Force Be With You...
Glad to say I never lost my interest in STAR WARS back in the mid to late 80's. From 1977 on, it was my lifeblood. When the EU Thrawn Trilogy came out in the early 90's, I was on top of it all and dove into the EU novels once again full-on. Fast forward to Oct. 30, 2012 and my interest in STAR WARS suffered a fatal death blow, when it was revealed that Di$ney had bought Lucasfilm and all that came with it, including SW. My interest finally died permanently on April 25, 2014, when Di$ney finally killed the last living remnant of the original Lucasverse - The SW Expanded Universe (EU). It pains me to see how Di$ney have utterly DESTROYED SW in the short time they've owned it. I'm just glad I got to enjoy it back in it's heyday, right up to the end in 2012. It really was a glorious time to be a kid... Long live the *TRUE* STAR WARS: OT, PT & EU - 1976 - 2014...
I can’t help thinking of the documentary for episode 1 called The Beginning, which ends with Lucas with his yellow pad saying “Now all I need is an idea”… then reaching into his draw and pulling this treatment out
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.
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
@@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.
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.
I think they could revive it as part of a Epilogue Trilogy or set during or after the Mandoverse with some differences such as Tarken being a clone or thr other villain being one of the cultists and an acolyte of Palpatine.
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.
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.
Some of the concepts seemed like a decent pitch but most of it just didn’t fit with the Star Wars vision. It’s possible that instead of focusing on the main hero’s again they might’ve had a chance. George definitely doesn’t like people telling his story.
Kenner had the Power of the Force toy line as well as the Droids and Ewoks toy lines, and introduced playsets/ships from Return of the Jedi, like the A-Wing, B-wing and Imperial Shuttle in 1985, but it wasn't holding anybody's interest for a couple of reasons. The excitement was over because the story was done at the end of Return of the Jedi, and everybody who grew up on it was moving on and/or growing up themselves. (Star Wars would have been best left in that era, since Disney has proven incapable of doing anything but turning it into a boring franchise churn, telling the same story over and over.) The Droids and Ewoks cartoons were bad not only because they were cheap, but because they had no connection to the original story. It wasn't even clear where they fit in relation to the events of the original Trilogy. While Kenner should be applauded for starting the action figure market, they fell behind on innovation and stayed there. The GI Joe toy line that supplanted Star Wars in popularity in that age bracket had more thought put into it. The toys were more advanced, detailed, and proportionate compared to the star wars figures and vehicles. It was like comparing Duplo to Lego Technics. Introducing more of the same for Star Wars figures was a losing strategy. The GI Joe figures all had working joints, the accessories were all interchangeable between figures and didn't require that it be held only one way, and all of the figures fit into all of the vehicle play-sets. Not to mention they were constantly introducing new and unique figures, vehicles and playsets that actually featured in the comic book and TV show. All the Kenner SW figures had stiff plastic arms that could only move one way, the blaster accessories only went into the hands one way and you couldn't even really pose them, the Lightsabers extended out of a straight stiff arm in a really unnatural pose, heads were disproportionate, helmets didn't come off, capes and cloaks were made from stiff plastic and not cloth, and worst of all, many of the figures didn't fit properly into the vehicles. You could put two figures into the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon but if you put Chewbacca in the right seat you couldn't even close the cockpit because his arm was in the way. That's not even to mention all of the small/bargain vehicle and playsets that just had star wars labels slapped on them but never appeared on screen. The movies were very detailed and original and interesting and told a complete story. The villains were utterly defeated. Everything "Star Wars" that followed in the 1980s just screamed cheap, cynical cash-grab so nobody was interested.
To build on this thought of cheap, cynical cash grabs, it's evident even from the treatment for The Epic Continues that the executives weren't interested or invested in the story. Atha Prime is going to fight The Rebel Alliance? With the Emperor dead and the Empire destroyed and the civil war over, who are the Rebel Alliance rebelling against? Why do they even still exist? The Rebels brought everything they had to Endor, including their leadership.Why do the Rebels have outposts "on the Galactic Frontier"? Did he even watch the movies?
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?
The Tarkin figure would have been cool and the new lead villain of the Clone Wars...but the other figures and toy designs were either too ugly, to "slapped together from other action figure parts" or just too silly, like At-At gun platforms and triple decker star ships. - I mean "Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen"...REALLY? Also, as an '80's kid, there were 2 cartoon trends I didn't like - Popular shows that ended up with a "Babies" version of the characters, and unnecessary costume changes, like when they gave He-Man and Skeletor all those goofy power armor suits and such. I did like the triple transforming Transformer characters though.
It could have worked all they needed to do was find a different network. From what I understand the problem with Droids and Ewoks was the network that aired them had an issue with them being too “Star Wars”.
That sounds awful, and the design looked terrible. Lucas made the right decision. That said, since I was a child, I always expected a Luke Skywalker's Adventures series to come up sometime during the late 80s or 90s, when Mark Hamill was still young enough to continue the epic adventures in a galaxy far, far away, with new characters, new worlds, and new challenges. It's a shame that Lucas got tired of it all by then.
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I’m a big Star Wars guy and this is my first time hearing about this. Well done.
Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen would make a great band name
Big Bad Wolf Spider Would Make A Great Band Name would be a great band name..
😂
I'd wear a MBT shirt.
@@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 💩💥💩
The opening band for Alice in Chains, bitd…
You may produce a toy of Tarkin when ready.
I find your lack of action figures disturbing.
@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.
@@Me-qp8vz Don't worry, I know Tarkin died, and I'm not a fake fan. I was just making a silly little joke.
You may retire, when ready!
@@crazyfrogextended🤣
"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?
Wasn't that the premise for He-Man (and probably a ton of other cartoons)?
@@MichaelBradley1967 Transformers go brrrr
@@MichaelBradley1967 MASK
Now imagine Poe saying "Somehow Tarkin has returned."
That's why i said it like that haha
I caught that too and let out an audible "D'OH!!"
Who?
"Somehow Athaboy Prime has returned". 🙂 + 😞
Yea.... no way Tarkin made it off the death star.
Atha Prime looks like one of those guards in Veitch and Kennedy's Dark Empire
Nice catch, both are based on the same concept art from Return of the Jedi
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.
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
Atha Prime is a cooler name, though. Interestingly enough, both Zeta Magnus and Atha Prime sound like possible names for planets in The SWU.
@@anthonyyoutubefan7567 Or Transformer names.
@@LewisChristisonVids Absolutely. Optimus Prime's Brother, Cousin, or Uncle? 🤖😊
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.
This is how I also remember things going. Your timeline and the things you wanted back then is very similar to my own.
Same but the story could have been interesting but with how 80s cartoons were I don't think it would've done much.
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.
Exactly, Starwars was still fresh in kids minds in the mid 80s.
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.
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
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.
star wars is dead
Asajj Ventress wasn't an unused concept
@@crazyfrogextended NOT as long as the Mongo Beefhead Tribe still exists!!!!
That is an action figure we all need!
@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.
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.
wow this Is super informational! I really loved this video great job man
I was also impressed. Not only by the production, but its new information! Just when you think you know everything about the OT era ..!
Flaws and all, this is hundreds of times more creative than the Force Awakens or perhaps anything created by Disney.
I'd never heard of this before. Thank you for sharing!
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!
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.
I lived this time. NO.... Kenner's idea would've failed miserably. Those of us who had the original 78 kenner Star Wars toys were essentially done with Star Wars after Empire. I was already hanging out in the Arcades. That kid that was interviewed was exactly right, Kenner Star Wars was dead. Their were far too many other options for kids and even more exciting ones.
idk. it might have been just what the next generation needed to even CARE about star wars. i was born in '78, i remember scooby doo, super friends and he-man. i didn't encounter star wars until i was quite a bit older; the movies and toys were done by the time i was old enough to pay attention. MY childhood cartoons were Thundercats, Ghostbusters, GI Joe and Transformers. If there was a Star Wars show on during that time period you better believe i would have watched it.
@@feenix219 My younger brother was born in 78' as well. He was really into the EWOKS.
Another Star Wars would've been swimming in a deluge of cartoons, toys and properties for kids and would've seriously been drowned out. The 80's were also the decade of excess and "out with the old and in with the new." Star Wars was cool, but thought of as "old."
For what it's worth I was born in 91 and pretty much everyone I knew was into the revamped tenner figures where everyone was jacked, then the shadows of the empire range was pretty popular too until the prequel merch started coming out, which again right the way through those movies releasing most of the other kids I knew got the figures and stuff.
It could possibly have worked since Shadows of the Empire sorta bridged the gap between the new range of star wars toys and the prequel stuff, that said the videogames definitely kept people interested as well, not so much the books and comics with people my age back then though
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.
🙂
The Epic continues may had been waaaaaay better than those stupid épisode 7,8,9 from Disney.
I didn't even bother with the Disney sequels.
ANYTHING would have been better than Disney sequels.
@@steelionx9255A wise choice you made.
Disney Suck's
They should've went with the Timothy Zahn trilogy. 😡
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.
Great vid. Super entertaining & good research!
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.
Henceforth, I shall be known asMongo Beefhead
Great content! kudos
I appreciate it!
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.
Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen at the end was too good!
1:04 i had that remote controlled R2 as a kind and now i can see why mom hated it
Thanks for getting to the point instead of making the video 40 minutes
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.
Agreed, I would have been into it. Especially the toys.
Instead we got The Force Awakens...
The Force Awakens was fine, even if it was ANH all over again. 8 and 9 was where the sequel trilogy fell apart. They needed to map out a clear story arc before they even started filming. That being said, I'd have preferred something more in line with the EU.
Mongo Beefheads could have been the greatest Beefheads ever! A true missed opportunity.
thing i'm maddest about is we never got the two-seater X-wing
The Tandem X-Wing would’ve been awesome, same for the Imperial Outpost.
Sounds better than Disney Star Wars.
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)....
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.
Atha Prime looks like Toy Story’s Zurg !
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.
You forgot the comic books 😢
I was like “alright… alright! I dig it…” then “Mongo Beefhead Tribesman” LOL
I would have preferred a whole series about them, instead of Acolyte.
@ the only Beefheads we have now are the writers of certain shows 😆
Then, we got Rey....
.... on a Blu-ray. 😀
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!”?
That Kenner pitch was primitive......
8:08 *"Hamburger Helper" tribesman.*
Sounds like they were trying to get some tie in food with Macdonalds.
Atha Prime is coming back in the new Jedi Knights comic next year!
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
@@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
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.
It was more like this all the way up until 2002. The Jedi were better too.
@@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.
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 ...
♥ ♥ ♥
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.
So it’s just fan made, even if done by a Kenner designer. It doesn’t mean it came from Lucas or that he agreed with the ideas.
That's literally spelled out in the video.
They should have pitched something like Droids or Ewoks instead of the sequel
They did.
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.
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?
This is old news. Several articles have been written on this. Kenner pitched a new toy line to replace the power of the force era and LFL declined as George still had the prequels in his pocket and didn’t want anything that may contradict his plans.
0:36
Hey reporter. If you're reading this, nice suit. Super fly 😉.
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".
Totally agree!
The kid at 2:00 acted and sounded liked a young Johnny Ramone
It made me uncomfy lmao
Atha Prime (I prefer this backstory to The Clone Wars over Lucas' idea...it would've been cool, if Prime had created an army of evil Clones, leaving The Republic to have to create The Clones from Kamino...that way, We'd truly have a war between opposing clones). The Apex Invader. The Annihilator. The Mongo Beefhead Tribesman (I want him to be an ally to Luke, Mando, and Boba Fett's gotra). The Remnant Empire. The Imperial Attack Droids. Good God...ALL OF THIS NEEDS TO BE BROUGHT INTO ACTUAL STAR WARS CANON. This could either take place during The Mandoverse, OR, 100 or more years AFTER The Disney ST (which I don't consider canon). Thank you. I never heard about this before, to my knowledge.
P.S. What's truly interesting about this concept: Atha Prime seems almost like a much earlier, alternate version of Marchion Ro, from The High Republic. Ro's followers include scientists who employ unethical concepts in to their genetic creations, including, The Nameless, The Children Of The Storm, and The Blight. Thus, this could easily be another tale for The High Republic, too. This inspired and intrigued me totally. May The Force Be With You...
With the emphasis on clones maybe Tarkin was going to be a clone.
Glad to say I never lost my interest in STAR WARS back in the mid to late 80's. From 1977 on, it was my lifeblood. When the EU Thrawn Trilogy came out in the early 90's, I was on top of it all and dove into the EU novels once again full-on.
Fast forward to Oct. 30, 2012 and my interest in STAR WARS suffered a fatal death blow, when it was revealed that Di$ney had bought Lucasfilm and all that came with it, including SW.
My interest finally died permanently on April 25, 2014, when Di$ney finally killed the last living remnant of the original Lucasverse - The SW Expanded Universe (EU). It pains me to see how Di$ney have utterly DESTROYED SW in the short time they've owned it.
I'm just glad I got to enjoy it back in it's heyday, right up to the end in 2012. It really was a glorious time to be a kid...
Long live the *TRUE* STAR WARS: OT, PT & EU - 1976 - 2014...
This is making my head spin
I am glad of the prequels we eventually got
Mongo Beefhead actually sounds like a name Lucas could have come up with. Although maybe it would have been Mongo Boffhead.
"Somehow, Tarkin has returned"
"Somehow, Athaboy Prime has returned" 😀 + 😞
Could later be revealed as a clone
Somehow Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen arrived.
Where did you get the concept book.
The site is old, but this is it: theswca.com/images-speci/85LineExt/index.html
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.
I can’t help thinking of the documentary for episode 1 called The Beginning, which ends with Lucas with his yellow pad saying “Now all I need is an idea”… then reaching into his draw and pulling this treatment out
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.
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
@@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.
Very cool😊🙏
worth it for that last shot 😂
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.
Toy Store Managers: Somehow the Star Wars toys returned
I think they could revive it as part of a Epilogue Trilogy or set during or after the Mandoverse with some differences such as Tarken being a clone or thr other villain being one of the cultists and an acolyte of Palpatine.
It would appear that the prequels indeed took a que from the Epic Continues with regards to Clone and droid armies
cool vid!
Sounds like a better arc for Luke and Han
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.
That is actually crazy. Sounds like I made this video a few months too early. Might have to make a follow up!
@@PyramidPeak It has a variant cover in the Legacy of Vader comic, look for it (I'm not putting a link because RUclips deleted it 🗿)
Appreciate you bro! I’ll look into it
Mongo is just Squid head toy, upside down and backwards.
8:08 A teal lightsaber? Yeah, I can understand Kylo being a little bit spooked by that.
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.
I would like to have Leia personally kill Tarkin.
@Me-qp8vz She was good on the battlledielze.Plus she would have wanted to avenge the murders of her family and friends.
This sounds like the holiday special. No thank you. I’m glad it never came to be.
What? This sounds to be far superior than even the original 1977 Star Wars. Why on earth would you even think this? 😮
@ to much to talk about here. It’s a good topic for my podcast though.
Disagree.
Some of the concepts seemed like a decent pitch but most of it just didn’t fit with the Star Wars vision. It’s possible that instead of focusing on the main hero’s again they might’ve had a chance. George definitely doesn’t like people telling his story.
"Triple decker space ship." No way! They made a Sega Genesis into a spaceship!
Atha Prime looks like one of the Imperial Sentinels from the Emperor’s Citadel in Dark Empire. 🤔
Both come from the same concept art from Return of the Jedi
Still a better star wars story than Disney...
Kenner had the Power of the Force toy line as well as the Droids and Ewoks toy lines, and introduced playsets/ships from Return of the Jedi, like the A-Wing, B-wing and Imperial Shuttle in 1985, but it wasn't holding anybody's interest for a couple of reasons.
The excitement was over because the story was done at the end of Return of the Jedi, and everybody who grew up on it was moving on and/or growing up themselves. (Star Wars would have been best left in that era, since Disney has proven incapable of doing anything but turning it into a boring franchise churn, telling the same story over and over.) The Droids and Ewoks cartoons were bad not only because they were cheap, but because they had no connection to the original story. It wasn't even clear where they fit in relation to the events of the original Trilogy.
While Kenner should be applauded for starting the action figure market, they fell behind on innovation and stayed there. The GI Joe toy line that supplanted Star Wars in popularity in that age bracket had more thought put into it. The toys were more advanced, detailed, and proportionate compared to the star wars figures and vehicles. It was like comparing Duplo to Lego Technics. Introducing more of the same for Star Wars figures was a losing strategy.
The GI Joe figures all had working joints, the accessories were all interchangeable between figures and didn't require that it be held only one way, and all of the figures fit into all of the vehicle play-sets. Not to mention they were constantly introducing new and unique figures, vehicles and playsets that actually featured in the comic book and TV show.
All the Kenner SW figures had stiff plastic arms that could only move one way, the blaster accessories only went into the hands one way and you couldn't even really pose them, the Lightsabers extended out of a straight stiff arm in a really unnatural pose, heads were disproportionate, helmets didn't come off, capes and cloaks were made from stiff plastic and not cloth, and worst of all, many of the figures didn't fit properly into the vehicles. You could put two figures into the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon but if you put Chewbacca in the right seat you couldn't even close the cockpit because his arm was in the way. That's not even to mention all of the small/bargain vehicle and playsets that just had star wars labels slapped on them but never appeared on screen.
The movies were very detailed and original and interesting and told a complete story. The villains were utterly defeated. Everything "Star Wars" that followed in the 1980s just screamed cheap, cynical cash-grab so nobody was interested.
To build on this thought of cheap, cynical cash grabs, it's evident even from the treatment for The Epic Continues that the executives weren't interested or invested in the story. Atha Prime is going to fight The Rebel Alliance? With the Emperor dead and the Empire destroyed and the civil war over, who are the Rebel Alliance rebelling against? Why do they even still exist? The Rebels brought everything they had to Endor, including their leadership.Why do the Rebels have outposts "on the Galactic Frontier"? Did he even watch the movies?
"Somehow, Moff Tarkin returned."
Red 5 standing by
"somehow Tarkin survived..."
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?
The Tarkin figure would have been cool and the new lead villain of the Clone Wars...but the other figures and toy designs were either too ugly, to "slapped together from other action figure parts" or just too silly, like At-At gun platforms and triple decker star ships. - I mean "Mongo Beefhead Tribesmen"...REALLY?
Also, as an '80's kid, there were 2 cartoon trends I didn't like - Popular shows that ended up with a "Babies" version of the characters, and unnecessary costume changes, like when they gave He-Man and Skeletor all those goofy power armor suits and such.
I did like the triple transforming Transformer characters though.
Mongo beef man?🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪
It could have worked all they needed to do was find a different network. From what I understand the problem with Droids and Ewoks was the network that aired them had an issue with them being too “Star Wars”.
Why they never made a movie series about how the Jedi got started is beyond me.
Atha Prime looks like he was ripped straight from the original Power Rangers.
The Death Star didn't have a transporter room, so sorry Tarkie, you're dead.
That sounds awful, and the design looked terrible. Lucas made the right decision. That said, since I was a child, I always expected a Luke Skywalker's Adventures series to come up sometime during the late 80s or 90s, when Mark Hamill was still young enough to continue the epic adventures in a galaxy far, far away, with new characters, new worlds, and new challenges. It's a shame that Lucas got tired of it all by then.
SOMEHOW!
this and the alien cartoon based on kenner toys
Operation: Aliens. There was also going to be a Jurassic Park Chaos Effect animated series.
Somehow Tarkin has returned.
Mongo Beefhead...like bro
I guess the new hot IP after Star Wars was Transformers.