Video: On second thought, maybe that Disney/Lucasfilm deal wasn’t such a hot idea
posted at 8:01 pm on October 31, 2012 by Allahpundit
To cleanse the palate. I spent a whole post yesterday encouraging you to be optimistic and not assume that Disney taking over “Star Wars” would mean they’ll double down on the kitsch. Then I saw the new video from Disney Parks. Consider this a formal retraction.
Actually, reading this AP story, it occurs to me that maybe we don’t want Disney to be hands off with the “Star Wars” franchise. People keep patting them on the back for not messing around much with Marvel, but “Star Wars” does need some messing with. Rule one: Read my lips — no new Jar Jars. Rule two: Story, story, story. Disney CEO Robert Iger told investors yesterday that they already have a “lengthy treatment that we feel really good about”; I sure hope he’s not referring to the treatment written by you know who.
Two clips for you, one the Disney Parks schlock, the other via Josh Trevino of something filmed at one of the theme parks last year that looks like the makings of a number for the now inevitable sequel to the “Star Wars Christmas Special.”
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They’re just treatments, not scripts. Give them to a talented enough writer and you can make anything a great story. And the writer can have his choice of what to include and what to take out.
ScoopPC11 on November 1, 2012 at 5:46 AM
I have faith that Disney can help make the Phantom Menace look like The Godfather.
CorporatePiggy on November 1, 2012 at 8:10 AM
Here is my take on this: What George Lucas is doing to Star Wars is like having Leonardo Di Vinci come back from the grave and repaint the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and then decide to repaint them again, and then again.
Lucas cannot leave his own masterpiece alone! He has to keep re-adding to it, mostly out of what I think is pure greed more than anything else!
The man should just rest comfortably on the billions of dollars he already has and just leave Star Wars alone. Besides, there is a plethora of Star Wars novels out there to keep fans entertained for eons to come. We don’t need another cinematic excursion into “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away!”
In other words………..give it a rest George. You want to redo your own classic, remake “American Graffiti”.
pilamaye on November 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM
You do realize, don’t you, that the plan has always been for 9 episodes? This was the case in 1978, and was the case when he made the “prequels”.
GWB on November 1, 2012 at 9:40 AM
This was one of Pixar’s main thrusts as well, though the direct correlation to Disney doesn’t really apply prior to the partnership by which Pixar essentially took over the animation department.
All of Pixar’s protagonists – Andy’s toys, Flick, Lighting and Mater, Nemo, Wall-E, the Incredibles, and on and on, are all male and/or characters appealing to boys (superheroes, robots, monsters, race cars). Brave was Pixar’s first “princess” movie of sorts.
While you are correct that Marvel and Star Wars will give Disney “boy-appeal”, it’s worth noting that they were pulling boys in by proxy via Pixar as well.
The Schaef on November 1, 2012 at 9:48 AM
Sorry, BZZZT wrong.
In my pristine copy of Starlog Magazine #7, featuring the New Movie Star Wars, there is absolutely no mention of more movies. GL just makes this crap up as he goes along.
And no, you can’t borrow it.
orbitalair on November 1, 2012 at 9:51 AM
Relative to the story…
Lucas owned 100% of Lucasfilm, Ltd.:
Lourdes on November 1, 2012 at 10:23 AM
I really hope there’s a sarc tag missing on your comment. It’s been 9 episodes for at least 30 years. When it took so long after Episode 6 to get Episode 1 going, my father worried he wouldn’t live long enough to see Episode 9.
GWB on November 1, 2012 at 10:28 AM
As I wrote on that other, earlier post in comments, consider the inevitable with this purchase: DISNEY CREATES AND RUNS **THEME PARKS**. The original STAR WARS characters were laden with drama, even the sillier ones like C3PO: still of a dramatic nature, what with his remarkable engineering alone.
The two aspects don’t mesh well. A theme park needs to be *ENTERTAINING TO FAMILIES* and particularly, that means to young children and children altogether. That means that any one-note-dramatic-character isn’t going to remain so once it’s transited into “theme park fun”.
The STAR WARS characters will now be presented to and enjoyed by younger generations as more of the “Make Believe, Have Fun, Take a Plush Toy Home” kind. Which ruins the dramatic natures of the original characters but will be “fun” and memorable to the newer audience.
So Disney as has Lucas will make more billions but the STAR WARS “legacy” won’t be what the original audiences have valued. Lucas said he wanted STAR WARS to continue after he was gone and so it will. It will just continue as something that it hasn’t been before.
I agree it’s a sad thing to see but it’s, well, it is what it is.
Lourdes on November 1, 2012 at 10:31 AM
And today’s Disney, Iger included and specifically, is not the Disney that Walt created. Today’s Disney is a Progressive mess of fantasy. It’s a movement. Snow White would never be created today if for the simple reason that her identity alone would be deemed “offensive” to just about everyone who fancies him, her or itself a Progressive.
Lourdes on November 1, 2012 at 10:35 AM
If STAR WARS becomes now a label instead of a specific, developing story, then that’ll work for Disney. Just stamp STAR WARS on ongoing issues without any specific literary relationship with the original Episodes beginning with IV, and there ya’ go.
It could work well for Disney but people ought to cease expecting, in my estimation, that they’ll see some ongoing story that reflects Ep.IV origins or relationships.
Lourdes on November 1, 2012 at 10:41 AM
Maybe we should get our mortar rounds ready, just in case we need to spontaneously review some offensive movies or something.
Lily on November 1, 2012 at 12:05 PM
No, it’s more like Leonardo diVinci using a Paint By The Numbers kit to touch up the Mona Lisa.
When I first saw Star Wars — and saw it again and again — it did not hit me at all that there were going to be 9 episodes. It stood alone — unlike any of the sequels which followed. It didn’t need more. It didn’t need a room full of storm troopers. It didn’t need better graphics — which still don’t hide the masking.
It was a ripping good yarn.
Doing a sequel was sort of like Toshio Mifune doing a sequel to The Hidden Fortress.
None that came after were nearly as good as the original. Ditto for Indiana Jones.
unclesmrgol on November 1, 2012 at 2:13 PM
Walt Disney is spinning at hyper-speed in his grave…
Big John on November 1, 2012 at 7:36 PM
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