Disney buying Lucasfilm, Star Wars Episode VII coming in 2015

Only three pages, seriously? This is the absolute biggest geek news story of the year.
At first I thought the headline was a joke.

Now ten years ago, I would have not been happy about this. While I hated Phantom Menace, was not too into Attack of the Clones, yet LOVED Revenge of the Sith...I was not too keen on Disney. Too many Cheapquels, too many blunders by Eisner.

But not a single geek or SW fan should be dismayed by this news. Lucas was destroying Star Wars. Destroying the original films with each release. Destroying his own legacy. Trolling the fans. Saying you can forget there ever being a new SW film, period. I pretty much gave up being a fan.

But what has Disney proven in recent years?

Tron Legacy. An amazing new relaunch with the Muppets and the Muppets film.
Pixar continuing to dominate(even tho I have no intention of seeing Cars 2 or Brave)
Letting Marvel do its thing. People are kidding themselves if they think Disney will muck with this.

I mean we're getting a new Star Wars film. Episode 7. 2015. Which means they go into pre production soon. I mean, wow. Since I was 5 years old in 1983 Ive been dreaming of a sequel to Jedi or Episode 7. Also thank Thrawn it WONT be based on those books.
Ugh, yeah those first two books I feel would not be too compelling. Glad it will be an all new story arc.

That said...I have to echo the sentiments of IS THERE ANYTHING DISNEY DOESNT OWN? My two biggest loves as a kid, Muppets and Star Wars are now under Disney. As is Marvel. And Pixar. And Miyazaki distribution. And Indiana Jones.

Btw is it me or was 4 billion a fire sale ala Disneys buying of the Muppets in 2004?
Star Wars ALONE is worth way more than that. They got ILM, Skywalker sound, Lucasfilm, Lucas Arts, Indiana Jones, everything Star Wars past and future. I mean, wow. The new film alone will make a couple billion, and thats not including the merchandise.

Youre kidding right? SW has been a disaster for real fans in the post Episode 3 era. Clone wars, ugh. And if Lego Star Wars is all we had to be excited about, I find that hard to justify being excited for.

Has Disney NOT proven themselves with Pixar, Marvel AND The Muppets...in spades?
Did they not prove themselves with Tron Legacy? Sure JCOM was a failure, but that also had to do with marketing.

Trust me, when you see the teaser one sheet in 2014 of Episode 7, youll forget all about the distrust of Disney as will everyone else. The Muppets had NO future under JHC, and same with SW under Lucas. /fact

Clone Wars has steadily gotten better, getting far deeper than the first season, redeeming the worst characters, and even bringing back the biggest lost oppertunity in the prequel trilogy, Darth Maul. So yeah, a 5 season cartoon series that pulls in good ratings and makes money is a real thing to be upset about. I'm sure Disney can make a good movie or TV show, but what do people born in the 80's expect out of a cartoon series that isn't Batman TAS, Animaniacs, or Invader Zim? I love those shows, but there's much more to animation than that.

And as for the franchise being "kiddified", the most we can expect is Winnie the Pooh dressed as an Ewok.

Pixar has been trying to get out from Disney's micromanagement for years, I don't know about Marvel, and they haven't exactly done the best job in the world managing the Muppets (yes, we did get a TV special and a theatrical movie, but other than that).

Just curious how George Lucas did the original Star Wars deal with Fox. So did Fox for awhile own the movies but George Lucas own the characters? In other words, Fox owned the copyright but Lucas owned the Trademarks for awhile?

Pixar could not have released films on its own, and would be under the boot heal of another production company no matter what. However, when Disney bought Pixar, not only did they leave them alone, they put them in charge of their entire theatrical animated movies division. After the dual disasters of Brother Bear and Home on the Range (I swear they planned on having those tank so they could move on to their own CGI studio), once the studio head changed, they decided that people that actually get animated films should do them from now on.

Heck, if Disney didn't buy Pixar, we'd have crappy sequels to Toy Story and the rest. Disney still owned the rights. Not to mention more terrible DTV projects. It was mutually beneficial for Pixar and Disney.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned that some Star Wars characters have already been on Ant Farm...

That doesn't change the concept that they still have been trying to get out from under Disney's control though.

You seem to have this idea that no one company can survive unless they're completely owned and controlled by a larger, conglomerate company... there is such a thing as independence.

I, for one, am VERY glad Eisner's TS3 didn't happen!

Pixar pulls more weight at Disney now than the other way around. To have they own in control of their theatrical animation input. And to completely stop the DTV cheapquels... that's letting them alone and doing what's right. All Disney does is collect their share of merchandising and box office gross. Pixar is making sequels on its own accord. That really accounts for something.

Tell that to Aardman. Even Dreamworks needs a distributor. For the longest time, that was Paramount. There are like, what... 5 or six big companies that own or partner with all the little ones? I highly doubt Pixar would have been able to distribute their own stuff. Fox or Sony would have partnered up with them for distribution, and they still would be at the mercy of another company. Disney buying Pixar was mutually beneficial. Otherwise, we'd have a lot of meh animated films released by Disney. Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little were alright, I guess. But I doubt they would have had anything half as good as Tangled or Wreck it Ralph. Only thing that changed? American Dog became Bolt and was almost a completely different movie.

Well, distribution and ownership are two different things (though I know in a lot of case, the distributors like to think that they own the content, *cough*Lionsgate*cough*WarnerBros*cough*).

They are, but Disney still owned characters Pixar created when they were distributing the movies. They were partners, and not owned by them the other at the time, but Disney still owned every movie that was made under them. Had Eisner not left, Pixar would be making movies for Fox or Sony or something... THOSE studios would own those characters, even though it would have been a partnership under them. Blue Sky doesn't own Ice Age or Robots, just look at the copyrights. And meanwhile, Disney could be free to make all the bad sequels of Pixar films it wanted to with inferior animation. Cars 2 under Pixar would have been Oscar worthy compared to some of the stuff that was floating around.

I'd agree if Disney had a tight leash on Pixar, but they know they're capable of making great animated films all by themselves, and they've left that entire branch to Pixar. What other company that buys another company would give them that much freedom to the point of the owned company having some control over the owners?

All I see out of Dreamworks's ownership of Classic Media so far is the Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie.

At the moment, I have no problem with this decision. Lucas failed miserably with the prequels. He was mutilating the original movies (and yes I mean mutilating!) with no end in sight. Someone else deserves the opportunity to return the franchise to the quality it deserves. Disney is a conglomerate but it does put out good products.

I didn't realize just how bad the prequels were until viewing them again on Blu-Ray. They're not very compelling and almost unwatchable compared to the originals. And Lucas is giving the profits from the sale to education! How wonderful and unexpected. The 99% appreciate this very much. I wish more rich people would behave this way.

Someone on Cracked pointed out the problem with the prequels. Other than having them, they should have cut right to Anakin as a Jedi Knight, with Obi Wan as his partner. The first movie does nothing but establish the scene, and the action between episode 2 and 3 could have fit into one movie. If anything, and this is being generous, there should only have been 2 prequels. I think Phantom Menace ruined the potential. Not only going too far back, but the whole long and drawn out pod race bit just establishes that he can fly.

Seems like the events of the first movie, if absolutely necessary, should have been told in flashback form. The fact that everything is in real time ruins the flow. And what's more, Darth Maul should have had more screen time. The Greg Proops voiced two headed announcer probably got more time. I found the second one to be an improvement, and the third to almost be there. But the first just set the stage for clumsiness. I can't even blame the story, just the story teller. If these were expanded universe comic books or novels or video games or something, the execution would have been better.

As I recall I gradually started noticing the problems with Phantom Menace once I had it on VHS. Mainly it was how they had directed the child actor and I still feel very bad for him. But it certainly wasn't all his fault. The dialogue given to ALL the characters was just plain painful to listen to (same goes for the other two films) and the characters were bland and unlikeable. Frankly it made me question how much help Lucas had the first time around back in the '70s.

But that's great that the money is going to education. Something good should come out of all this, lol.

Absolutely, that's where the story was. A good man (not child) being seduced by evil. I'm convinced the only reason he started with Anakin as a child was out of some misguided notion that children go to the movies to see other children. It's simply not that simple.

I forgot the entire article, but it sold me. I think George started it with a child because he thought he wanted to go that far back into Anakin's history. There's a lot of that which would have been interesting if it was some expanded universe stuff or told in flashback. But in real time, it was grass growing. The thing is, there's clunky dialogue and some awkward stuff in the original movies too, but we don't notice them because those movies were fun and they balanced plot expo and action. We notice the dialogue in these films because there's more of it, and there's too much exposition to explain things that could have been mentioned in passing. I think the third film fared much better, but that's because there's less talky talky time than the first 2.

Can't believe the cartoon series does a better job of that.

And yes, Lucas did have a lot of bouncing around ideas and excepting collaboration for the original three. We almost had Stan Freiberg as annoying Jewish C3-PO. Now, I LOVE Stan and I love Mel Blanc (also considered, supposedly), but established comedic voice actors? Even a nostalgia filler couldn't have gotten that to work. Not to mention ESB wasn't even directed by Lucas. And while everyone says "wooden acting," I say "wooden directing." Why is it that everyone thinks serious means deadpan?

Exactly, unnecessary dialogue in the wrong places. Like for instance even back then as a kid I cringed at "You and the Naboo form a symbiont circle." That's a PowerPoint presentation, not dialogue.

God, seriously, what the heck is wrong with Lucas, is he just totally insane? Probably the same thing that's wrong with Michael Bay, lol.

Well I will say that's not just the prequels. That's sadly the style right now which is why Hollywood is in big trouble.