Lucas and Disney will Gross 100 Billion Dollars on the endlessness of Star Wars.
I say this as a Star Wars Fan.
Posted on 10/30/2012 6:40:23 PM PDT by Nachum
BREAKING…. Disney has just confirmed that it has agreed to acquire George Lucas‘ Lucasfilm Ltd, and that includes rights to the Star Wars franchise that will now continue on. The companies have targeted a 2015 release for Star Wars: Episode 7, with Episode 8 and Episode 9 to follow as the the long-term plan is to release a new feature every two or three years. “The last Star Wars movie release was 2005’s Revenge Of The Sith – and we believe there’s substantial pent-up demand”, Disney said. The deal also includes rights to the Indiana Jones franchise.
The stock and cash transaction is worth an estimated $4.05 billion, and the companies have scheduled a conference call in a half-hour to discuss the deal, which was approved by the Disney board and Lucas, the sole Lucasfilm shareholder. (UPDATE: Disney’s Iger: Three New ‘Star Wars’ Movies Mapped Out; TV Plans Too)
(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...
This is the really important news of the day.
Lucas and Disney will Gross 100 Billion Dollars on the endlessness of Star Wars.
I say this as a Star Wars Fan.
Wonder what it will be? “Heir to the Empire”, “New Republic” or something a 1000 years in the future?
Here are some ideas...
This IS big news. I’m as dedicated a Star Wars fan as anyone, yet fully understand how Lucas screwed up the series with dreadful Episodes 1, 2 and 6 (the other 3 were actually quite good). But the universe he created is so engaging and alluring, and the sale of the franchise should be viewed as a great chance for Disney to develop further that universe without the clumsy directorial hand of Lucas at the wheel.
After the first three, they got to be terrible!
I’m numb with anticipation.
aftere the first two they started to go from bad to worse.
do not forget the comic-relief ewoks - the pre gungans - episode 6 brought us.
ep’s 1, 2 and 3 has some of the dryest, monotonic, robotic acting and crappy dialog i have ever heard. half the time it looked like the actors were just killing time. and it’s not entirely their fault, lucas’ storylines and dialog were awful and much of the time they were acting in bare studios in front of green screens.
Star Trek and got progressively worse with each new series. I haven’t seen Star Wars episode 3, but since 1 and 2 were awful, I can’t imagine it being that much better.
I wish executives would stop trying to squeeze the last drop out of franchises. There are plenty of great series that actually need fleshed out! How about Firefly?
No,thanks...I have no use for any of them but the first three.
I was really excited about this news until I saw this line. More of the same sequel crap, more Jar Jar, more whinycrybaby Darth Vaders, more gay protocol droids... Ugh!
George Lucas started to take the franchise too seriously. Part of that was deciding he was going to use it to lecture the public on liberal politics. He lost the vision, the pure storytelling idealism of traditional Western mythos, got caught up in Eastern/Buddist style sermonizing.
He made a mess. Maybe Disney will do better. They are pretty good storytellers, even if they do often go crazy.
I waited through massive crowds to see Star Wars I in 1977, and the wait was worth it. However, there should never have been any sequels or antecedents.
I didn’t care for Star Wars II (1980). The third episode was better, but didn’t approach the quality Star Wars I. I only saw the first of the antecedents that started coming out in the 1990’s, and it was so disappointing that I refused to see any of the others.
Lucas was never a great director — and unfortunately, the writing decision to have Jedi and galactic nobility speak very formally combined with not getting phenomenally talented actors made a great director a necessity if his scripts for Eps. 1-3 were to come off at all well. (Portman and the twit he got to play the nascent Darth Vader showed at times they could credibly convey emotion appropriate to the circumstance, but they needed a great director to push them to do it throughout the movie, and they had Lucas instead.)
The biggest problem with Eps. 1-3 is that they were conceived of as one work, and the overall story-arcs (which were actually quite good — the rise of the Empire and the fall of Anakin Skywalker) were cut into three pieces without any satisfying endings for the first two. Add the absurd visual clutter (incl. Jar-Jar Binks) and short arcs which were put in only to make video-game spin-offs (the pod race, the Jedi-as-detectives flying car sequences), and you could barely see the original conception.
Actually the problem with the ewoks was not the concept, but the failure to execute: the whole forest should have been moving with the little teddy-bears giving the impression of tens of thousands of them (or more), and there should have been a lot more casualties.
I’m excited, too. Our family really likes the Star Wars Universe. We just think it deserves better movies. With Disney, it could go either way, but I’ll take that chance, as it’s better than nothing.
ROTJ and the prequels killed the Star Wars franchise for me. Yeah, I know, I’m an idiot, I went and saw every one. That being said, I don’ think Disney could screw it up any worse, but from here on out, I won’t see the new film until I’ve heard good enough word-of-mouth or it goes to video.
Truthfully, I am sucker for these movies. Can’t get enough.
Many Star Wars fans would disagree...
I think the best of the episodes was the second - Empire Strikes Back.
At the time, it disappointed many, but when viewed in context with the others, many consider it to be the best episode.
After episodes 1,2,3 didn't do as well as expected, and some of the fans absolutely hated them, I thought Lucas had given up on it. But maybe Disney sees a profitable opportunity. I don't know whether to expect it to be better or worse than under the direction of Lucas.
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