pilamaye on November 1, 2012 at 8:57 AM

No, it’s more like Leonardo diVinci using a Paint By The Numbers kit to touch up the Mona Lisa.

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

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.

Basically, it sounds like they realize they cannot run the series into the ground the way Lucas has. They want new films every 3-4 years, and that won’t work if each new film is a disaster like the prequels.

That doesn’t mean the new films will be good, but thats somewhat promising at least.

WolvenOne on October 31, 2012 at 8:16 PM

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.

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”;

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.

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.

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.

orbitalair on November 1, 2012 at 9:51 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.

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Lucas owned 100% of Lucasfilm, Ltd.:

Disney is buying (has now purchased) Lucasfilm for $4 billion, adding the legendary Star Wars franchise to the entertainment giant’s stable of characters. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by founder George Lucas.

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

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.

expanding their character/franchise stable to include the STAR WARS and Indiana Jones franchises is another step like they took when they added MARVEL- attractes boys over 8 y/o.

It is boys >8 that Disney loses to other franchises, They have girls sewn up. Now with MARVEL Star Wars and Indy they can lock that adolescent boy audince

ginaswo on October 31, 2012 at 9:45 PM

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.

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!

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”.

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”.

Yep, it’s Lucas’ script/treatment. Get ready for another stinker!

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.

What the hell is wrong with you? Seriously.

1) Natalie Portman was 18 when Teh Phantom Menass was released.

2) Every non-gay dude I know thought she was really hot, especially in the 2nd and 3rd movies, (when she was in her 20′s).

3. You might find Downton Abbey more your style.

weirdo

Daikokuco on October 31, 2012 at 9:07 PM

What the hell is wrong with me???

No, what the hell is wrong with YOU??

She was 16 when PM was FILMED, and that’s just nasty – you perverts drooling over a little kid are nasty.

Also, she’s built like a scrawny 12 year old, even by hollyweird standards she’s frickin scrawny. He about putting a real women, preferably one is who old enough to order a beer for herself, and is through with school so she can stay out past 10???? Is that really too much to ask for you and all your “non gay” ( but totally into 16 year olds) dudes??

Seriously.

And maybe his politics aren’t really what people agree with on this site but Joss Whedon couldn’t certainly direct and probably write a decent one. Heck, I think it might be awesome to go back to what their original gameplan was and give David Lynch a go – might not be comprehensible but sure would be a ride :D

Lucas… I mean this is the guy who has made revisionism mainstream for movies – the ‘let’s re-release the same movie fifteen different times so I can buy a new yacht’ gameplan. This is a man who supposedly destroyed the unaltered original copies of the original trilogy – you’ve got movies from the beginning of movie history yet he taped over his original print… or is that he had to destroy it so the next generation wouldn’t know there was life before Jar-Jar?

Disney getting ahold of that franchise is not the end of the world – in fact, I trust them to do a better job of keeping consistency and not throwing in junk like the Force being an intelligent virus over Lucas getting the whim to revisit and revise everything on a moment’s notice because there aren’t enough Ewoks scampering around.

So cheers to you Disney, you may mess things up but you probably won’t mess them up worse than the main man Lucas himself has and probably would again.

But, I have to say, that video of Darth Vader at the park was just silly. They should have kept him more in-character instead of turning him into a cartoony, buffoonish costumed actor at the park.

bluegill on October 31, 2012 at 8:22 PM

Ugh, yeah, the music in that Darth Vader ad is just not right.

bluegill on October 31, 2012 at 8:25 PM

Did you even watch the second video? I found the first one funny. It was supposed to be silly. I mean, a Sith Lord at Disneyland?!
The second “performance” was just pathetic, and disturbing.

There should be a basic cinema rule:

Never applaud your own characters at the end, within your own movie.

Lucas’s “American Graffiti” was his best film.

He got the pompous bug after that, and the result was Binks. Jar-Jar- Binks.

Rasta racist stereotyped cartoonish drivelfest.

Lucas own dark side speaking.

Yass, meethinkeeso.

Feeling a great disturbance in the Magic Kingdom.

22044 on October 31, 2012 at 8:03 PM

BANG! – right out of the gate. LOL.

Heading for the post-new-movie fiscal year’s annual report for Disney -

“These are not the profits you were looking for”.