There are few things on this planet that I care about as deeply as the rich historical documents referred to simply as "Star Wars." Six episodes have been released in theatrical form, getting Earth up to speed on the events a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
The first three episodes -- IV, V, VI -- were easily the best movies I have ever seen. They told the story of a young farm boy, Luke Skywalker who started out on the remote desert planet of Tatooine with...
Alright, look, I'll cut to the chase, here. On Tuesday, George Lucas, every fan boy's idol and the creator of Star Wars, has agreed to sell Lucasfilm, and all other umbrella businesses, to Walt Disney. I'll let that sink in.
Lucasfilm, Lucasarts, Industrial Light & Magic as well as Skywalker Sound now belong to Disney after they forked over $4.05 billion to Lucas in the form of half cash and half Disney shares -- which adds up to about 40 million of those bad boys.
Now the tough part to stomach. Disney has already said that a new Star Wars movie, which they referred to as "Episode VII" will be in theaters some time in 2015. I've seen every Star Wars movie in theaters. I saw the re-releases of the sequels, saw the prequels -- Episode III three times -- and I even sat through "The (god-awful) Clone Wars." Given the recent trend in the Star Wars universe, on screen anyhow, things are headed south, and I'm already nervous.
The silver lining here is that, no matter what, it's going to be another Star Wars movie. I don't think Lucas will make that same mistake again in going with an animated feature, as he will still be involved in the production as a creative consultant. So another live-action Star Wars epic will be hitting the screen at some point in the year 2015. I gotta put the odds of it being a success at about 250 to 1, to be honest.
But hey, Disney knows how to market themselves, meaning Star Wars will live on even longer, and hopefully they put in some sweet new themed rides at Disney soon, I haven't been in a while.
Note: the last hyperlink -- "things are headed south" -- had to find its way into this article to bridge the gap between Disney and Star Wars in your minds, but for the life of me, I could not bring myself to make it the main picture. It still hurts me to look at.
I am not excited about this. Admittedly, it's going to be great for kids but think about how much Star Wars merchandise there is in the world, then think about all of Disney's merchandise and quadruple that amount exponentially for years to come. We're going to end up living in a plastic wasteland of Goofy figurines dressed in Jedi robes and lightsabers.
ReplyDeleteAlso with this creative shift from Lucasfilms to Disney, Star Wars fans can expect a gimmicky, watered-down, turd of a movie that will make hundreds of millions of dollars. "A New Hope" was a risky move when it was first made, combining the already fringe genres of spaghetti western and space opera, which enthralled audiences at what they saw. Star Wars 7 is not going to be risky and will not be motivated by anything other than the guaranteed mountains of cash the Star Wars franchise has proven time and time again is just waiting to be spent on a new product.
I love Star Wars and have since the first time I saw Han Solo sniping Tie-Fighters from the Millenium Falcon's twin gun turrets. However, as much I love the trilogy and the extended universe I can't help but feel that this brand has taken another huge step down the path of the dark side.