Disney to acquire Lucasfilm

[JLTucker]

Also, about the charity thing. Nice bit of class there on George Lucas's part.

Imagine if the government seized all of that cash.

At least it's going to a good cause.

[Soontir C'boath]

___
Anyway, a completely new direction with no ties to anything before will be good. Give something different to a new generation.

[Havok]

Ha!

[RogueIce]

EW has a good article where they discuss Episode VII with Timothy Zahn. And clearly, Mr. Zahn has more perspective than certain EU fanboys out there:

On the other hand, it’s George Lucas’ property and if he wants to ignore the books and comics, that’s his perfect right.

I can't say I disagree. Now I admit I have my own fanboyism about the EU: I'd love to see Thrawn up on the big screen owning the Rebel scum - at least for the first couple movies or whatever before they pull out the victory. But if the new movies totally ignore the EU and set things up so that it's utterly incompatible (like say Han and Leia's kids having different names or something) I won't cry. Mouse-earred stormtroopers won't be breaking into my home to take away the SW novels I have, after all.

Of course if LFL does ask Zahn to consult on the script of the new movie(s) I will totally squee with unrestrained fanboy glee.

[Elfdart]

Also, about the charity thing. Nice bit of class there on George Lucas's part.

Imagine if the government seized all of that cash.

At least it's going to a good cause.

If it's going to a non-profit educational org, the government will leave most if not all of it alone.

[Pelranius]

If the sequels involve Vader's grandchildren as adults, it's going to be pretty hard to shoehorn in most of the EU Imperials even if they wanted to (unless there was a 10, 15 year gap between VII and VIII).

[Elfdart]

I WANT Lucas to stick around, but I want his ideas to go through a stringent filtration process.

Just like Howard the Duck, Red Tails and the Holiday Special, right?

For example, it was just said in this thread that Lucas's ex-wife saved ANH with her editing, when George's cut was terrible. Who actually said that, or saw the previous cut? And it's not like Lucas's wife was dropped, and her position (or one similar to it) went completely unfilled afterwards. I could've sworn that tons of other people were named in the credits of the newer movies, including an editor. I seem to remember seeing actual video of one such editor sitting in a rough cut screening in some DVD extra. It seems pretty far fetched to me that Lucas made all of the newer movies COMPLETELY by himself.

Are people calling these almost faceless but credited names unprofessional or sycophantic, completely sight unseen? I'd settle for accusations of untalented, since that at least doesn't reach beyond the product that can be seen onscreen.

And who is Lucas's wife to anybody, exactly? Do they know anything more about her than any other name in the credits? I don't know, it seems to me like people are engaging in speculation, reaching to create new heroes with which to award the OT to. Lucas's past accomplishments are thus taken away from him, while his more recent perceived mistakes are attributed completely to him.

Just to touch on this, but Marcia Lucas was nominated for an AA for American Graffiti and was the lead editor on Taxi Driver. She actually won the AA for editing on Star Wars.
There is a book that talks about her and GL's relationship and how she balanced out his work and made it better. I mean, it may just be a coincidence that she edited what is considered his best work and that his producer at the time was able to tell him "no" and once those two were gone he made what most people consider to be substandard movies, but I think there was a fairly large influence there and that his creative vision suffered without them.

And IIRC, it was Spielberg that told GL that his edit of Star Wars sucked.

First off, Kurtz might have said "No" any number of times, but Lucas did things his way -to the point that he had to bring in Howard Kazanjian to ride herd on the production of TESB and get it finished.

The first editor was John Jympson, whom Lucas dismissed during shooting because their styles were at odds. Richard Chew, Marcia Lucas and Paul Hirsch assembled the rough cut that Brian DePalma and everyone except Spielberg heckled Lucas over. It had no music, no special effects and the only sound was from the set -so it must have looked like an interstate pileup. According to Paul Hirsch:

How did you get approached to work on Star Wars: A New Hope?

My brother Charles produced Greetings, a comedy directed by Brian De Palma, and came to me for the trailer. He and I hit it off, and he hired me (at my brother's urging), to cut the sequel, Hi, Mom!. I then cut his next four films, and came to the attention of Brian's friends, who included Marty Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Marcia Lucas was cutting Taxi Driver for Scorsese, and when they needed help, called me to work on it, but the studio nixed it. Then, the following year, they again needed help, this time on Star Wars, and called me in. The studio went along and the rest is history.

How did you approach the task of editing the first Star Wars movie?

I was given a scene to re-cut, the robot auction where Luke's uncle buys R2-D2 and C-3PO, and changed it to more closely match my sensibility. George liked my work, so I went on to the next. Richard Chew would be working on one reel, and I would leap-frog onto the next and so on. Marcia was buried in assembling the end battle.

You were one of the first people that saw Star Wars. What did you think of the movie back then? And could you have guessed it would become such a big success and you would be awarded an Oscar?

I loved it, but never dreamed it would go on to be the cultural phenomenon it grew into. Brian De Palma was the first person to suggest I would win an Oscar for it. Before that, it had never crossed my mind.

How did George Lucas and Gary Kurtz ‘direct’ you? Did they have specific requests or guidelines?

Gary was not involved in aesthetic editorial decisions. George basically let me do my thing with each scene, and then would give me notes. And he consulted very closely with Marcia of course. And then at a certain point, he decided he preferred working with just one editor, and chose me to finish the film. I was the only editor on the picture over the last 5 months, during which they re-shot the Cantina sequence; R2 in the canyon, captured by the Jawas; some of the land-speeder shots; as well as the gearing-up of the planet-destroying weapon on the Death Star. It was during this period that we completed the blue-screen shots and I watched the space sequences come to life as the backgrounds were filled in.

So Marcia Lucas was one of three editors on Star Wars, with Hirsch doing the final assembly. Hirsch was also the main editor for TESB. But because he never had a public split from George Lucas, the people who empty their bladders on Lucas haven't used him (or Richard Chew) as a cow pie to pelt the old man with. Interesting, no?

Aside from loss of novelty and lost potential for surprise inherent in prequels, the main area where the PT is truly inferior to the OT is editing (except ROTJ*). Hirsch, Chew and Marcia clearly did a better job than Ben Burtt and Paul Martin Smith. ROTS is much better edited, which is no surprise since Lucas borrowed Roger Barton from James Cameron to edit the film.

* What's funny is how Lucas is depicted as a total hands-on control freak who listens to no one, yet the editing and cinematography on ROTJ, which wasn't anywhere near as good as it was in ANH or TESB, were the direct result of deferring to the director and letting him bring in his own crew. He just can't win, can he?

[Havok]

I knew Spielberg was involved in there somewhere

[Tychu]

I wonder if any new Star Wars movie would avoid the continuation of a Sith/Jedi conflict. Hell, a movie that avoids depicting another war on a galactic scale would be nice.

The never ending wars and conflict in the EU is one of the most horrible aspect of the franchise. The desire too pump out more wars and conflict was one of the major reason why the New Republic became such a joke as a government.

A New War every 15-20 years isn't so laughable. Look at the history of the United States.
French and Indian War (Seven Years War) : 1754-1763
American Revolution : 1776-1783
War of 1812: 1812-1815
Mexican American War: 1846-1848
American Civil War: 1861-1865
Spanish American War: 1898
Philippine American War: 1899-1902
US involvement in Central America: 1910-1917
World War I : 1914-1918 (US involvement 1917-1918)
World War II: 1939-1945 (US involvement 1941-1945)
Korean War: 1950-1953
Vietnam War: 1955-1975 (various escalations and US involvements throughout)
US involvement in Central America: 1980's (Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala)
Operation Desert Storm: 1990-1991
Yugoslav Wars: 1991-1999 (US involvement through NATO 1995 and 1999)
War in Afghanistan: 2001-Present
Operation Iraqi Freedom: 2003-2011

Every generation of Americans have been involved in one or more wars or conflicts, so tell me how the EU makes a crazy amount of wars that the Skywalkers and friends have to fight in.

[jollyreaper]

History doesn't care about poetry and literary merits. But if WWII was a story, would you rather have the sequel be the Nazis coming out of the woodwork five years later or an unexpected war in Korea?

I think it is more interesting to have the Japanese and half of Germany as allies while the ussr goes back to being an enemy, china goes red, and we don't really hear from the nazis again. No Hitler clones, no secret armies coming out of Antarctic bases, none of that. At most you have old nazi super weapon projects adapted for use by the two superpowers.

It would be a different case if the homelands of the two warring powers were unassailable and so wars are fought beyond those borders and flare up from time to time.

[Zinegata]

Has anyone heard the rumor that Disney may buy Hasbro next? And thus add a toy company to its empire?

[Coyote]

Plus we have to remember not to commit the sin of minimalism ourselves. A Galaxy is big; we can have a major, balls-out vicious war going on that spans three or four sectors while the rest of the Galaxy is peaceful and content. A regional conflict that people don't pay attention to but has serious long-term stakes isn't impossible to imagine. The whole Galaxy/Universe/Known Reality/etc doesn't need to be saved every single week, a la Star Trek.

[Anacronian]

I gotta ask isn't the price kind of low compared to Disney paying 7.6 billion for Pixar back in 2006?

[Ralin]

Has anyone heard the rumor that Disney may buy Hasbro next? And thus add a toy company to its empire?

It has been denied.

[FedRebel]

I wonder if any new Star Wars movie would avoid the continuation of a Sith/Jedi conflict. Hell, a movie that avoids depicting another war on a galactic scale would be nice.

The never ending wars and conflict in the EU is one of the most horrible aspect of the franchise. The desire too pump out more wars and conflict was one of the major reason why the New Republic became such a joke as a government.

A New War every 15-20 years isn't so laughable. Look at the history of the United States.
French and Indian War (Seven Years War) : 1754-1763
American Revolution : 1776-1783
War of 1812: 1812-1815
Mexican American War: 1846-1848
American Civil War: 1861-1865
Spanish American War: 1898
Philippine American War: 1899-1902
US involvement in Central America: 1910-1917
World War I : 1914-1918 (US involvement 1917-1918)
World War II: 1939-1945 (US involvement 1941-1945)
Korean War: 1950-1953
Vietnam War: 1955-1975 (various escalations and US involvements throughout)
US involvement in Central America: 1980's (Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala)
Operation Desert Storm: 1990-1991
Yugoslav Wars: 1991-1999 (US involvement through NATO 1995 and 1999)
War in Afghanistan: 2001-Present
Operation Iraqi Freedom: 2003-2011

Every generation of Americans have been involved in one or more wars or conflicts, so tell me how the EU makes a crazy amount of wars that the Skywalkers and friends have to fight in.

You forgot the Barbary Wars: 1801-1805, and 1815

Also the US Army-Indian Wars: Which covers every gap in your list between 1790 and 1891

Didn't one of the founding father's say something along the lines of "A nation born in war must sustain itself through war"

Oh almost forgot...you didn't include the 1775 Canada campaign where the not even a country yet America attempted to conquer Canada, sh*t welcome to the United States of Qo'noS

[Jaepheth]

Does anyone think Disney might do something with any of the following IP rights?
Loom
Full Throttle
Zac McKraken and the Alien Mind benders
Maniac Mansion

[Batman]

Are they even part of the deal? I'm no lawyer but it wouldn't surprise me if Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts Entertainment were legally a completely seperate entity from Lucasfilm.

[Gaidin]

Didn't one of the founding father's say something along the lines of "A nation born in war must sustain itself through war"

Personally I'm shocked a galactic scale war only took three decades to resolve anyway. Pretty impressive when you get down to it.

[bilateralrope]

Are they even part of the deal? I'm no lawyer but it wouldn't surprise me if Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts Entertainment were legally a completely seperate entity from Lucasfilm.

From Wikipedia:

On October 30, 2012, LucasArts was acquired by The Walt Disney Company through the acquisition of its parent company Lucasfilm in a deal for $4.05 billion dollars. Disney stated that its present intent was for all employees at Lucasfilm and its subsidiaries to remain at their present positions. All projects are reported to still be on, as a LucasArts representative said that "for the time being, all projects are business as usual".[38]

So they are only slightly more separate from Disney than Lucasfilm.

[Batman]

Well, that settles that.

[Soontir C'boath]

Grim Fandango movie!

[Xon]

On the other hand, it’s George Lucas’ property and if he wants to ignore the books and comics, that’s his perfect right.

I can't say I disagree. Now I admit I have my own fanboyism about the EU: I'd love to see Thrawn up on the big screen owning the Rebel scum - at least for the first couple movies or whatever before they pull out the victory. But if the new movies totally ignore the EU and set things up so that it's utterly incompatible (like say Han and Leia's kids having different names or something) I won't cry. Mouse-earred stormtroopers won't be breaking into my home to take away the SW novels I have, after all.

Looks like Lucas just de-canonised virtually all of the SW:EU:

Interview link

In an interview explaining the deal, Lucas and Lucasfilm exec Kathleen Kennedy discuss the plan moving forward. Aside from reiterating that all those tie-in novels and comics are officially not continuity, Lucas explains what his role as "creative consultant" will be.
Essentially? He's going to have his fingerprints all over that script Michael Arndt (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Little Miss Sunshine, Phineas and Ferb) is putting together.

(Bolding mine)

[Darth Holbytlan]

Not that I wouldn't mind Disney/Lucasfilm burning the whole EU down to the ground, but I didn't see anything in the actual interview saying anything like that. I think that might be something from the fevered imagination of the article writer.

[Boeing 757]

I wouldn't be too shocked in the end if at the very least the whole post Endor EU is done away.

[Darksider]

So the current EU is officially dead then. I'm not surprised, though I honestly did think there were a few quality items worth keeping in it.

I wonder if they'll do another book or comic series to sort of "close the book" on the current era of SW and get ready for the new movies, kind of like that one ST comic that led in to the reboot.