Disney buys Lucasfilm

[Zeldafan2]

The problem is George Lucas isn't about to let Star Wars ago. EVER. I mean, it'd be fine if he handed the reins of his baby to Disney 100%. BUT NO! He has to make sure it follows his vision. Good night.

But if Star Wars hadn't followed his vision, there wouldn't be a Star Wars. Like I said, the prequel trilogy did a pretty good job of tieing all the movies together.

Its better than him selling the right to Syfy, and having them do three TV movies as sequels.

[battletech]

Its better than him selling the right to Syfy, and having them do three TV movies as sequels.

Oh please no. I did not need that image of Star Wars being in the hands of SyFy. One word. Mansquito -shudder-

[Neane]

I feel this was as well. Do all of us forget that George Lucas is the guy who created the Star Wars films in the first place? He created the original trilogy that started the space epic that is Star Wars, after all. And now, most of you are jumping down his throat just because he's going to be creative consultant for these next movies.

I will give Lucas credit for a few things...
1. Lucas had some artistic vision, stories to tell, did what he wanted to do against all odds and it paid off for him.
2. He enhanced the way people could experience films with projects like ILM, THX, what later became Pixar, among other things.
Now where Lucas falls short IMO:
1. Lucas really should have stuck closer to the conceptual and the technical side of film making. His directing talents, especially for dialogue, leave so much to be desired.
2. He is the epicure of "mainstream", and a far better businessman than a filmmaker. Of course he deserves recognition for the trials he had to go through during the first Star Wars movie, but since then? I don't think a filmmaker who possesses billions of dollars, and yet has failed to make a film better than "Crystal Skull" since the 80s can be called a "legendary director", at least not in terms of quality. His cinematic swan song, "Red Tails", looks embarrassingly bad, and it's a shame his career ends with such a whimper instead of a bang. Unlike Spielberg, he's failed to adapt, he's failed to evolve. I mean, Spielberg has done plenty of bad-stuff (again, "Crystal Skull"), but he got serious in the 90s and made a dark, cerebral, and historical film for grown-ups with "Schindler's List". I have never seen that kind of filmmaking from Lucas; from what I've seen of him in documentaries and DVD extras, it seems he's most comfortable when he's sitting in front of his monitors with a cup of hot coffee. I even remember him in an interview admitting that he's really more of an editor than a director. At his core he is a very limited filmmaker, and the Star Wars prequels only demonstrates his lack of vision and insight into the ways of constructing a story. You could definitely see sparks of potential in his early work ("American Grafitti"), but the tragedy is that once he got sucked into the very studio system he was trying to rebel against, he ended up becoming the system (interesting parallels to the ST storyline there), and he's been greedily taking advantage of that position ever since and won't let go and will continue the same old stuff.


Also, I guess this makes Leia a Disney Princess.

[Yuki-Anne]

That sucks in the extreme. It'll probably be loaded with some sort of "follow your heart" Disney crap.

Because that's totally what they did with Pirates of the Caribbean and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Disney is a multi-studio corporation already by now. It's seriously not like all they've ever done is animated kiddie stuff. And it's not as if every other studio only turns out gems. I really don't see what's so outrageous about this merger. It's a shame they're doing an original story for their trilogy, though. It would be safer to go with something the fans already know and love.

[ClosetOtaku]

I will give Lucas credit for a few things...
1. Lucas had some artistic vision, stories to tell, did what he wanted to do against all odds and it paid off for him.

I will give Lucas credit for just a little bit more.

More than any other single person on this planet, Lucas is responsible for the current thriving 'Geek' culture.

Sure, it had always been there, geeks passionately pursuing the objects of their obsession, whether it had been anime, or Tolkien, or Star Trek, or comics, or whatnot.

But the communities were small and local. There wasn't much interaction or intersection.

Star Wars was a catalyst on a number of fronts. First and foremost, no one in the entertainment industry had seen a single movie with quite as much staying power since Gone With the Wind. It opened in May, 1977. People waited in long lines to see it. Many fans, myself included, went back to see it several times. In August, it was still filling smaller theaters. (How many films today can say that? To be fair, it was in the days before you could say, "I'll wait for the DVD", so the dynamic was different. Still...)

Studio executives noticed. When Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released a few months later, the verdict was in: science fiction films resonated with audiences. Projects that would have had no chance to be greenlit were now hot properties (with the usual representative share of failures, of course). Suddenly, almost overnight, Special Effects became the new guest star. Industrial Light and Magic would become the most sought-after entertainment specialty company.

But that's not where it stopped. Star Wars served as the template for geeks to both self-identify, and by extension, identify each other. I was amazed at how many of my friends were fans. We talked about the movie, the pre-history of the Star Wars universe, the technologies. When The Empire Strikes Back came out three years later, we speculated as to Yoda's cryptic comments, Han Solo's fate, the father-son relationship. And, yes, three years later still, we hated the Ewoks.

Star Wars became a gateway drug. It opened people up to new ways of thinking, not just about entertainment, but about their passions, and other passions they hadn't been introduced to but now had a chance to explore.

It didn't hurt that, at this same time, the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons emerged on the scene]Star Wars[/i], at least for a small segment of the society that, collectively, had felt isolated.

And, when this stew had simmered, and the ARPANET evolved into the Internet, the whole thing grew exponentially to where it is today. I'm not saying it couldn't have happened without it. But take it away, and I think you have a much different culture that might have developed.

All this from one man who had some dreams about a movie, and how it could be conceived and carried out. I agree he's not a great director, maybe not even a 'good' director. His screenwriting is lackadaisical. He is a marketing genius. But all of that's irrelevant. He had a dream, carried it out, and changed history.

[Michael Lance]

after reading the entire report on the new Star Wars movie, this is all I have to say:

*while banging head on desk* idiots. idiots, idiots, idiots...

^ That is me being optimistic.

[mechana2015]

I'm surprised that everyone is looking at this and ENTIRELY missing the big picture.
Disney didn't buy Lucasfilm to make more Star Wars, or even for the movies that already exist. They bought ILM and Skywalker Sound. ILM is one of the bedrock special effects companies in the business, Lucasarts carries a massive portfolio of games that are legendary to this day. Skywalker Sound is one of the best foley and audio post production companies out there. 4.5B was for the technology side of the Lucasfilm family.

Other than that, this closes the money flowing out from the Disney licenses of Indiana Jones and Star Wars that Disney already had access to, and in my opinion have handled VERY well.

Lucas as a creative consultant is... well I think everyone here is severely overestimating the power implied by that. Creative consultants can effectively be ignored, given that the primary powers in a film are the writer, producer(s) and director. Lucas will probably be kept on a very tight leash and will have about as much influince on a movie made in this manner as he has had over the books, which is to say, not much at all.

[Yuki-Anne]

Good point... those are incredibly lucrative companies.

Yeah, I'm not sure why this surprises anyone, to be honest. I mean, there was already a ton of Star Wars stuff at Disneyland. It was only a matter of time.

[Neane]

Excellent Post ClosetOtaku.

Also:

7, 8, 9 confirmed.

[armeck]

am I the only one who is happy they are making more star wars movies? even if they are terrible I'm still going to see them

[rocklobster]

YES! Thank you Armeck.

[Neane]

am I the only one who is happy they are making more star wars movies? even if they are terrible I'm still going to see them

I admire your optimism.

[Rocketshipper]

I'm one of those people who isn't really excited of this turn of events. I'm a huge fan of Timothy Zahn's EU material; I think the Thrawn trilogy is probably the best thing about the whole Star Wars franchise, even compared to the original trilogy, and I like some of the other books/authors too. I would really hate it if a new Star Wars trilogy came along and retconned all the old books out of existence, especially Zahn's. And even if I wasn't an EU fan, I think I'd still dislike it if they made new movies that ignored established canon. I don't want the fanchise to suddenly turn into something like american comic books, with a million continuities and contradicting origin stories and reboots and etc. etc.

[MangaRocks!]

[quote="Rocketshipper (post: 1595749)"]I'm one of those people who isn't really excited of this turn of events. I'm a huge fan of Timothy Zahn's EU material] ^ Exactly.

[Zeldafan2]

am I the only one who is happy they are making more star wars movies? even if they are terrible I'm still going to see them

You are definitley not alone. I am definitley one of thos people (as you may have already guessed from posts on this thread.)

But honestly, my opinon on most of the EU is rather low. Its a bunch of contrived, very hard to connect ideas. I've heard good things about the Thrawn trilogy (although if I heard correctly, the ending was done poorly) but its no skin of my back if they get retconned.

At least, its not what they've done to Marvel in comics lately.

[Neane]

Edited

[Nate]

I remember when Disney bought Marvel and everyone was going "OMG MARVEL WILL SUCK NOW MICKEY AND GOOFY FIGHTING ALONGSIDE IRON MAN AND CAPTAIN AMERICA."

Boy that Avengers movie that Marvel made after Disney bought them sure was terrible wasn't it? I don't think I heard a single good thing about it.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Well to tell you the honest truth, Timothy Zahn is a very mediocre writer in general and the Thrawn Trilogy helped to codify most of the bad tendencies that ruined post-Endor EU. He's only hailed by nerds because nearly every other book in EU is total drivel. Objectively speaking his stuff is not particularly mindblowing writing...just far superior to everything else that got made after Empire Strikes Back with the possible exception of Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords. (and that is only with a good amount of fan-made material)

I seem to know someone who will disagree with you on the Thrawn Trilogy.

[INDENT]If they plan on adapting the Thrawn Trilogy, these movies are already better than even the first Star Wars movie.

Seriously. Not even Disney can mess up that plot.
[/INDENT]

[MomentOfInertia]

I think Neane may in fact be the pseudonym for a cabal of hipsters.

In this instance we see that while similar they are not all identical.

[Davidizer13]

Ever see that one episode of The Twilight Zone, "It's A Good Life?" It was about this family who had a psychic kid; basically he could do whatever he wanted, but since he was a kid, he had zero impulse control or ability to think about the consequences of what he was doing. He got what he wanted, when he wanted, and if he didn't, people got sent to "the corn field," and all the family could do was mildly tolerate it and fake compliments to him for fear of what might happen.

I think the same thing happened with George Lucas - the guy prints money for everyone involved, and because they want to keep that coming, so when they looked over his shoulder at his scripts, and saw the prequels' flaws, they just patted him om the back and said "That's a good thing you did, George." Now that he's mostly out of the way, well... We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

Also, if LucasArts was part of the deal, awesome stuff could happen. I know that Disney's gaming branches have mostly been focused on casual gaming and tie-ins, and that LucasArts has pretty much been all Star Wars lately, but maybe they'll be able to dig up a bit of LucasArts' old spark from back when they did stuff like Day of the Tentacle or Sam and Max. 1313 looks promising, as likely the last game LA will do before the buyout, and Epic Mickey had some things going for it, so one can hope...

[Rocketshipper]

I wonder if this means we might see Star Wars characters or worlds showing up in Kingdom Hearts now ^^;;. I could just see them making a world based on the Clone Wars TV show or something in KH3.

[Bobtheduck]

I seem to know someone who will disagree with you on the Thrawn Trilogy.

Boy, if I ever entered politics, the members of CAA would have a field day telling my constituents all the crazy flip-flopping decisions I've made and all of the opinions I've changed (I remember when I thought the Goblet of Fire movie was good, for instance)

Evidence from this forum would be enough to keep me from getting elected.

I loved the Thawn trilogy, and I do, indeed, hope that's what the new movies will be based on. I also hoped, a few years back, that Halo 3 would at least have a wink and a nod to I Love Bees in it (the radio drama portion moreso than the actual ARG) I mean, how difficult would it have been to include, say, Janissary James as a minor NPC on a battlefield somewhere.

I was disappointed. It's usually pretty rare for big money making companies to remember things like "expanded universe."

[AnimeGirl]

I have mixed feelings about this.

I love all six Star Wars movies. I am excited about a 7th (woot, woot, finally!) but...hard to imagine Disney with it. But we shall see!

(Not sure why people didn't like 1-3, I loved them as much as the classics, but hey, to each their own).