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Top 10 Pros and Cons of Disney Buying Lucasfilm and ‘Star Wars’
by Paul Young
(11 of 10)
Disney Chairman and CEO Robert Iger, along with Star Wars creator George Lucas, set the financial world and nerd-iverse on their ear when they announced that Disney was purchasing Lucasfilm for the out-of-this-world sum of $4 billion (the same amount they paid for Marvel).
Along with the obvious enormous financial windfall the Disney corporation stands to gain from this purchase, they'll also acquire the rights to all the Star Wars characters. There's no way to know for sure how this will ultimately affect the Star Wars universe - it could be really good or really, REALLY bad.
To help us determine if we should be excited for this transaction, we created a list of Pros and Cons of Disney Buying Lucasfilm. Let's go through them one by one, then weigh the results.
Along with the obvious enormous financial windfall the Disney corporation stands to gain from this purchase, they'll also acquire the rights to all the Star Wars characters. There's no way to know for sure how this will ultimately affect the Star Wars universe - it could be really good or really, REALLY bad.
To help us determine if we should be excited for this transaction, we created a list of Pros and Cons of Disney Buying Lucasfilm. Let's go through them one by one, then weigh the results.
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Now we’ll see Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto, Goofy, Clarabell Cow and Horace Horsecollar fighting the Evil Empire. Morty, Huey, Dewey, and Louie will have parts as Ewoks. Can’t wait to see who Brer rabbit and the Tar Baby play!
the tie-fighter and x-wing roller coasters could be way cool!
Space Mountain will be refurbished into a Star Wars ride
it needs to be refurbished its junk
I was kind of disappointed that this article turned silly half way through but oh well. For the record, Slave Leia is already at Disney’s Hollywood Studios during Star wars Weekends (no Jar Jar), and there has been talks for a while of a Star Wars themed land going to Disneyland Paris. The one serious sounding thing I disagree with is Lucas’ involvement in the films. If the George Lucas that made the original trilogy and the original Indiana Jones movies came back then this movie would be pure amazingness
That George Lucas is dead
[Removed by Moderator]
George Lucas away from creative control has already given me a ray of hope.
My bad, Lucas will be an Executive Producer…
Indy 4 aside, George Lucas is a Great Producer and Idea/Concept man, He is a terrible Director, and Dialogue Writer.
This is going to suck to high-heaven…on the bright side, maybe Darth Vader can kill all those anoying Disney characters…wow what a thought!
Oh, wait, Exec. have creative control? DAMMIT!!!!!!!
This was a hilarious journey through every fan’s hopes
and fears of Star Wars past, present, and now future.
The laughs built upon one another and by the time I got
to the conversion of Spaceship Earth into the Death Star
I was laughing out loud and then lost it with the inevitable
consequences of Dwarfs and Ewoks being the same size
This was classic, Paul, a piece of great humor, and precisely
the attitude to view what everyone knew might happen some day.
And a reminder that whatever happens should not be taken too seriously.
@Robert – Thanks bud. I’m glad you enjoyed it
On a serious note, I would be STOKED if they really did build the Death Star.
Thanks,
Paul Young
It’s become way to easy to bash Lucas, It’s like the cool thing to do. Can’t we give it a rest now? He did do some pretty incredible things.
Thank you. I still respect him no matter the crazy things he did. I even saw Red Tails because he made it
You still respect him despite all the crazy, terrible things that he has done? You seem to have very low standards or blind devotion, as if Lucas is some politician tied to your political party or a god you believe in and pray to every day.
He did more terrible things than “incredible” things.
With all do respect…WRONG!
He created Star Wars.That trumps everything else.Period. Any argument that you or anyone else tries to make against that simple fact is invalid.
I was super excited when I first saw the news on twitter and I still am. If they continue where the first trilogy left odd it would be awesome! Also Han shot first.
Probably more appropriate for the original thread but, how does this acquisition and the new SW7 affect all the re-releases of the the prequels and original trilogies? Not that I’m crying any tears for not getting to see them in the theater again, just wonder if they’ll still put them out even with the focus being on the new film.
I’ve read that FOX still has distribution rights for the first six, and owns episode IV in perpetuity.
Can’t wait for Johhny Depp to be cast in a quirky role.
Oh man, that made me laugh.
I actually have mixed feelings about George Lucas. It was his vision and creativity that gave the first trilogy its’ soul. His vision of modern samurai (the Jedi) combined with swashbuckling space rebels was a brilliant one, and the soap opera of the Family Skywalker gave it human depth.
So a Star Wars without his input might be just another soulless special-effects extravaganza like the second awful trilogy that assumed more special effects and Hollywood stars and light sabre fights could make up for the lack of a soul.
Then again, he was the one responsible for that. So who knows? I just hope if this has to happen that they use unknown actors (fat chance). Samuel L. Jackson and the rest just ruined the prequels. It’s hard to believe the chraacters when they are allfamous Hollywood faces.
They already tried an unknown with Hayden Christiansen and he was an abortion while Ewan Mcgregor was the best thing about the prequels. I hope they get real actors in the main roles just please no Johnny Depp as the star.
Just wanna point out that Leia will not be an “official” Disney princess, she’ll be a princess and be in the parks (like Dark Vader and Indiana Jones already are) but she will not be added to the list of Official Princesses. That list doesnt include live action characters, which is why Giselle isnt on that list either
You know way too much about Disney princesses
And very little about Dark Vader.
Just ribbing.
@nowhereman136 – Don’t squash my dreams brother
These are jokes.
Thanks,
Paul Young
Spaceship Earth will not turn into the Death Star, just like Cinderella castle is not Thor’s Palace. And Ewoks replacing dwarfs, where do you see that happening? it’ll be a fun mash-up for some artists but Disney will never go that extreme with messing with their oldest film property.
Also, there already is a, AT-AT at the Disney parks. When was the last time your were actually there. Disney has be a partner and distributor of Lucas films for a long time. This is just like back when Disney bought Pixar. Disney used the characters in the parks, owned the merchandising, and distributed the films, but until 2006 they didn’t own the studio making the movies. Now they do. Now they can force the movie to be made. This doesnt change Disney as much as it changes LucasFilms, now they have to make another movie.
Heres a fun clip of the Star Wars attraction at Disneyworld.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5mK7dzyUkM
Marvel & Star Wars X-over!
Marvel & Star Wars crossover!
rachel weiz as snow white would be good
This list started out very serious, but it got pretty silly near the middle… I like it!
It was a very fun read and I believe Disney can do some good with this franchise. I don’t really care about theme parks, but as far as movies and tv shows go, I have a feeling things will work out…
My only skepticism lies with Disney getting LucasArts too… I can’t think of one good Disney game I’ve ever played and most LucasArts games are incredible.
@The Avenger – I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was fun to write (except for the whole staying up late part heh).
Agree with you about LucasArts vs. Disney games though.
Thanks,
Paul Young
Good point about the games, hadn’t actually thought of that.
Disney should adopt Lucasarts’ approach for their existing properties if they are smart.
Kingdom Hearts is a great Disney game. I would love to see some Star Wars lands and characters scattered throughout that.
Imagine a Jon Favreau directed Star Wars movie.
This movie has to start small, develop a new story and end BIG!
A rebel s*** gets shot down and crash on a jungleterrained-planet, leaving only a Jedi and a team of a male and female gunner alive. With no communication, all they have to follow is a distant encrypted communication center deep inside the jungle.
They embark on this adventure, fighting wild creatures and discovering old wreckages from the war, as well as a mysterious cave with a strong connection to the force.
As they reach the communication center by the end of the movie, they find out it’s a huge battlestation, and as they sneak in on the inside they find an old hologram of the deceased Emperor giving orders to wake up the dead, but resurrectable corpse of Sith Lord Darth Plageous whose body lays within the cave they earlier surpassed on their journey… Unfortunately, they find out that the corpse talked about in the hologram is already put back to life, and they see the revelation of a new army, just about to unfold…
I’m wondering where star wars 7 will take place.
Will it be right after Jedi, and follow the novel Truce at Bakura? Will Zorba the Hutt be the next big villain? Will it jump to a few years later and maybe follow Wedge Antilles and the Rogue squadron, again… from the novels? Will they follow the novels at all? It would be a shame not to. What about five years after Jedi, and Heir to the empire, grand admiral thrawn anyone?
This might actually be a good thing, maybe we’ll get some more decent star wars movies. That can only be a good thing. The star wars universe is vast, lots of room to explore all modern mediums.
I would love to see a movie series based off of the X-Wing series. The only problem that I can forsee is that characters like Luke, Leia, and Han make appearences in those novels. That can be worked around however. Wedge reports directly to Ackbar most of the time so he could replace some of those cameos by the other actors. The possibility of seeing Corran Horn on the big screen has me really excited.
I’d think they should go with the Solo twins for the next movies, such a complimentary way forward, in exploring the same themes. Would be cool to see an older Han and Leia, with Ford and Fisher reprising.
And maybe Luke training students on Yavin 4?
I just want to point out that George Lucas DID NOT DIRECT Empire Strikes Back, which is (very strongly) arguably the GREATEST of the 6 films period.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/
Arguably yes but I prefer a new hope. Lucas can direct but he sucks at writing.
lol, and right when I thought George Lucases head couldnt get any bigger lol
http://www.ok-anon.tk
I see Diney being the owners as a huge pro. Now we doesn’t have to worry about a Star Wars X-Men crossover by FOX.
It’s a trap!
Stylistically and from a certain business point of view I think they wouldn’t touch The Zahn material and any of the other extensions into other media. No matter how popular, none of it came with this deal and spending even more money on them after they’ve been on the market for better than 22 years doesn’t make sense. The better strategy is to use the in-house talent you already have and create something new out of that.
However!.. having pumped out so much money can Disney afford to let that slide by? Maybe Zahn or someone else would cut a deal for a small percentage? If his stories were really that successful monetarily then the temptation might be to do that rather than let the door of opportunity slam shut. He would be betting on his own work, that it has enough power to transcend any problems and make him even more money than 20 more years of shrinking bookshelf sales on the same stuff, as Disney goes off in a different direction, in which everyone else would be writing about. He’d be in a better position then to write more works that would make even more money and sooner than anyone else by having an inside track. Who knows they may have already optioned the works!
Still.. Lucas had better than 20 years to do that material. Really if any of the other media works content in the Star Wars universe was all that good, Lucas would’ve used it in movies years ago. The truth of the matter is that all this stuff represents is at best a repeat of what has come before. Lucas researched and borrowed from the best mature philosophies out there to tell the stories he told in the first three Star Wars films he made. Look it up. He borrowed from the best westerns, the best international myths. Giants like Joe Campbell advised him. H*ll it’s even been written that he stole from some of the best Science Fiction of the past as well. He mined it all threw it up on the screen before anyone else could and then everyone else followed suit. Now you quite literally have heroes with a thousand faces portrayed in the media everyday. Nobody can surpass that success because there’s nothing left to offer! Even Lucas couldn’t do it and is quite possibly why he sold it. This way he escapes it and can absolve himself of any future failure.
All this could still be just smoke if the governments Anti-Trust arm nixes the deal anyway…
AWESOME piece. I thought it was gonna be some serious list about the big news but I’m glad it went the funny route instead – think it’s too early to really be able to map out what all the pros/cons are.
That Death Star at Epcot idea MUST be done.
Creative consultant not Executive producer, there is a difference. Kathleen Kennedy is producing. So breathe easy.