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Disney buys Lucasfilm for $4b, Episode VII due Dec. 18 2015 *Cast Announced 29/04/14*


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Disney buys Lucasfilm - Good or Bad  

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  1. 1. Disney buys Lucasfilm - Good or Bad

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I honestly don't know how to feel about this..... I kinda feel like my big brother took away my toy or something..... Lucasfilms has always been independent its just weird to think of it as being owned by someone else. This thing as a whole could either be really good or really bad. And what's episode vii gonna be about anyway? A 80 year old Han Solo and a smoker cough Leia? I guess we'll just hafta wait and see.

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That's an awfully nice euphamism for "mercilessly retcons and exploits existing EU."

 

Not denying some moves by the canon committee have left me scratching my head in the past. I beg to differ from Dak Drexl's opinion, though, that "it's just stuff that somebody makes up" because some EU actually gives the proper respect to the rest of Star Wars that it deserves.

 

Some stuff people enjoyed that was canon before, now suddenly isn't canon, sort of ruins it, on one extreme. The other extreme is no contradiction but it bastardizes past works.

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On the upside, think of the number of talented directors who would line up to direct a new Star Wars film. :emodanc:

 

On the downside, Michael Bay would be in line with them. :swear:

Edit: On a side note, I take great comfort in the fact that whenever I take a long hiatus, even if it's for years as it has been in the past, many of the same faces are still around here.

Good to see you're still around, too. :)

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Oh god this is going to go all kinds of wrong and Disney now owns Star Wars and this is going to be the prequels all over- wait, hold on, 12 year old Sabre, who's just joined LucasForums has something he wants to say:

 

OMGOMGOMG****INGAWESOMESAUCEBBQHAXX0RTHISISBESTNEWSEVER

 

Ahem.

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"Episode VII expected to be an entirely "original story", i.e. the plot will not be based on the various novels, graphic novels and other materials that have continued the story of previously considered Star Wars canon."

 

 

http://uk.eonline.com/news/358685/star-wars-7-plot-will-be-an-original-story-says-lucasfilm-source

 

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00055091.html

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The Long, Winding, and Shapeshifting Trail to Episodes VII, VIII & IX

 

J.W. Rinzler | October 30, 2012

 

The long conjectured third Star Wars trilogy has kept fans guessing for decades, and may even have a few numerologists working on their mysteries. George Lucas’s shifting feelings about future Star Wars trilogies have consistently clouded the picture. Given the difficulties associated with the birth of Star Wars in 1977, it’s no wonder that Lucas’s ideas kaleidoscoped. When trying to get such a big undertaking up and running and out the door, visions of the future are understandably hazy. But, as of October 30, 2012, Episodes VII, VIII & IX have been announced as real and soon to be tangible – but they’ve existed as gossamer spirits for nearly 40 years.

 

On December 29, 1975, in conversation with Alan Dean Foster per the novelization of Star Wars, Lucas mentioned the prequel trilogy along with what would become Episodes V and VI: “I want to have Luke kiss the Princess in the second book. In the third book, I want the story just about the soap opera of the Skywalker family, which ends with the destruction of the Empire. Then someday I want to do the back story of Kenobi as a young man – a story of the Jedi and how the Emperor eventually takes over and turns the whole thing from a Republic into an Empire, and tricks all the Jedi and kills them. The whole battle where Luke’s father gets killed. That would be impossible to do, but it’s great to dream about.”

 

As Lucas came to terms with Twentieth Century-Fox during the making of Star Wars, he secured the legal rights to his sequels, though they remained undefined at the time. On location for the first phase of principal photography in Tunisia in March 1976, Lucas began a long tradition of talking with close collaborators, voicing his ideas for these other episodes and trilogies, much as Walt Disney would do of his projects.

 

“You know, when I first did this, it was four trilogies,” Mark Hamill recalled in 2004, speaking of their conversation in 1976. “Twelve movies! Out on the desert, any time between setups… lots of free time. And George was talking about this whole thing… ‘Um, how’d you like to be in Episode IX?’ ‘When is that going to be?’ ‘2011.’ […] I said, ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ He said, ‘You’ll just be like a cameo. You’ll be like Obi-Wan handing the lightsaber down to the next new hope.’

 

In 1978, a Time magazine article reported that the Star Wars Corporation (a subsidiary Lucas had formed for Star Wars) would be producing “Star Wars II [Empire], and then, count them, 10 other planned sequels.” At that time Lucas consistently mentioned 12 films and even created a barebones outline to that effect.

 

jwr_img01.jpg

 

jwr_img02.jpg

 

In it, the original trilogy occupied Episodes VI, VII, and VIII; a Clone Wars trilogy took up Episodes II, III, and IV, while Episode I was a “prelude,” Episodes IX through XI were simply left blank – and Episode XII was the “conclusion.”

 

In 1979, however, Lucas said in an interview on the set of Empire, “The first script was one of six original stories I had written in the form of two trilogies. After the success of Star Wars, I added another trilogy. So now there are nine stories. The original two trilogies were conceived of as six films of which the first film was number four.”

 

While in postproduction in early 1980, Lucas used to kick back from time to time with ILM manager Jim Bloom and muse about the bigger story. “The first trilogy is about the young Ben Kenobi and the early life of Luke’s father when Luke is a little boy,” Lucas said. “This trilogy takes place some 20 years before the second trilogy, which includes Star Wars and Empire. About a year or two passes between each story of the trilogy and about 20 years between the trilogies. The entire saga spans about 55 years. I’m still left with three trilogies of nine films. At two hours each, that’s about eighteen hours of film!”

 

While Empire was originally part of a 12-film plan, by the time it was released, the number had clearly been reduced to nine. “The prequel stories exist – where Darth Vader came from, the whole story about Darth and Ben Kenobi – and it all takes place before Luke was born,” Lucas explained at the time. “The other one – what happens to Luke afterward – is much more ethereal. I have a tiny notebook full of notes on that. If I’m really ambitious, I could proceed to figure out what would have happened to Luke.”

 

Lucas mentioned these notebooks – or one big book – to me, a few years ago. I asked if I could see it, but he declined. My feeling is that this big book or these notebooks are private, though Lucas has occasionally sent me via an assistant miscellaneous handwritten notes from the period 1976-1983 to help in the writing of the making-of books.

 

But two years later while filming Jedi, for many reasons, Lucas was burning out, tired of the whole enterprise: “I’m only doing this because I started it and now I have to finish it,” he adds. “The next trilogy will be all someone else’s vision.”

 

As of today, Lucas has given his new co-chairman Kathleen Kennedy several ideas and is really going into semi-retirement. Now, in a relatively short time, compared to the decades of speculation, fans will learn the secrets of Episodes VII, VIII & IX. Star Wars has risen again!

 

And forget LucasArts:

 

Disney CEO Robert Iger briefly discussed Disney's plans for game development using the intellectual properties acquired in the acquisition, saying, "We're likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console. We'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing, but we think that given the nature of these characters and how well known they are, and the storytelling, that they lend themselves quite nicely, as they've already demonstrated to the other platforms."
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"Episode VII expected to be an entirely "original story", i.e. the plot will not be based on the various novels, graphic novels and other materials that have continued the story of previously considered Star Wars canon."
Yeah, that was to be expected. As much as LF has milked the EU for every cent they could, I never got the impression it was ever considered as anything other than a marketing ploy. The stories will likely derive from Lucas's aforementioned treatments. *shudder*
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"Episode VII expected to be an entirely "original story", i.e. the plot will not be based on the various novels, graphic novels and other materials that have continued the story of previously considered Star Wars canon."

 

 

http://uk.eonline.com/news/358685/star-wars-7-plot-will-be-an-original-story-says-lucasfilm-source

 

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00055091.html

Good, then at least it has a chance.

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And what's episode vii gonna be about anyway? A 80 year old Han Solo and a smoker cough Leia? I guess we'll just hafta wait and see.
A lot of people must be wondering this. Episode VII implies it's set after RotJ. I don't see them leaping too far into the future, but an older Luke teaching a new generation seems plausible. Or they're gonna recast the OT gang. I know the latter would feel pretty weird, but Star Trek did it and it turned out fine. And if that's possible, then Thrawn Trilogy, for sure. :)
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I'm pretty sure they'll have no choice but to recast regardless. Mark Hamill has said repeatedly that he isn't interested in having much to do with Star Wars, and Harrison Ford has little regard for it either. Besides, if you were going to have your central plot revolve around the OT-era Skywalker clan, you can't have a bunch of 50/60/70 years olds playing the parts.

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One upside of retcons - maybe now Chewy won't end up getting a moon dropped on his head.

 

Another upside - Maybe we can now forget about Karen Traviss' god-like Mandalorians.

 

Also, I don't know how to react to this news. I found out yesterday as I was coming home from school, and didn't know how to react then. I guess I'll take a neutral, though more positive, stance on this until we get further details about the future.

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Really, as long as they don't completely overwrite the EU or at least the Thrawn trilogy, I won't be too annoyed. What will annoy me is finding out that half the Star Wars books I own are no longer canon.

Why does it matter whether or not they're canon? It doesn't mean that you can't still enjoy the books. :)

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Its as if a million EU fans cried out and were suddenly silenced...

 

 

I think once the shock wears off there is potential for some good stuff. At worse I ignore everything new and stick with the OT. I think Angry Joe is pretty accurate.

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Unlikely, at least in the short term. EA will certainly have signed a multi-year licensing deal with LA/LF, which I would expect to still be legally binding under the Disney buyout. I think it is far more likely for EA to pull the pin than Disney.

 

Far more troubling is the focus on mobile/social games. Seems like there's even less chance now for a revival of the classics like the X-Wing and Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series.

Agreed. I didn't really elaborate what I did after that initial reaction. Upon first hearing the news I immediately thought that SWTOR would be squashed asap by Disney since Disney has it's own video game division and SWTOR is not performing well enough financially to merit standing on its own. However I then read Disney CEO Bob Iger's response about the video game aspect of this deal and also found out that while Disney does have its own video game development/publishing arm in Disney Interactive, it isn't performing well either. After that I pretty much went back to the view that EA will be the one who determines SWTOR's fate in the near-term.

 

Yay for more Star Wars movies! Hopefully they turn out well and mostly live up to the high expectations Star Wars fans will have for them.

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