MUMBAI: Even as the concluding part of the Star Wars saga - Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith - is set to release internationally on 19 May, its creator George Lucas has announced plans to make two television series based on his blockbuster movies.

The first would be a live-action show featuring some of the minor Star Wars characters, which Lucas would direct himself. The second show will be a 3-D animated series, which follows the success of the existing animated series Clone Wars series (that airs on Cartoon Network).

The live-action series will cover the period between the end of Episode III and the beginning of Episode IV (which was released in 1977). On the other hand, while presently, Clone Wars is seen in brief, five minute episodes; Lucas said that he intended to make them into 30- minute shows which would make the show a "3-D animated version full-series."

He announced this at the Star Wars convention in Indiana held last Saturday that was attended by more than 30,000 science-fiction fans from around the world.

However, he also said that the series were not likely to arrive for at least a year and that the story would not focus on the characters in the movies, but would pick up on other stories from the Star Wars universe.

Lucas told fans that the TV series would pick up the story following Revenge of the Sith, which deals with the destruction of the Jedi Knights and the emergence of Darth Vader, and fill in the gap between that and the first Star Wars movie that takes place 20 years later.

Lucas had already announced that he would not be making any more movies.