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Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
It's insane that Lucas has done nothing other than those two franchises to his name, and he was still able to sell his production company for $4 BILLION FREAKING DOLLARS.
Lucas has been the sell-out to end all sell-outs since Return of the Jedi, with a high-powered backing team to keep the motors humming. Artistically, the best films of his career are THX-1138, American Graffiti and Star Wars. For some odd reason, he felt he needed to direct some more, with the dedication of any journeyman filmmaker.
Lucas does get a bad rep for running a toy universe at times, but he's also contributing to the nonsense by tinkering with the re-releases and whatnot. In some ways, his Hughesian seclusion and at-odds attitudes with the fans do remind me of GNR fanbases at times. Go figure.
I do grant him that, with Lucasfilm, he did build a house his peer Francis Ford Coppola wanted to have with American Zoetrope. For a long time, Skywalker Sound, ILM, etc have been essentially independent go-to places for soundwork, effects, et al with a technical quality comparabale to any other suite in the country. Now, the facilities are down on Disney.
This may end up as the closing note for the enduring legacy of the 1960s rebel filmmakers. Make a big business, go indie, survive as a specialized R&D unit for decades, sell toys, reinforce brand value with a new trilogy, sell everything to the Mouse and call it a day.
Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
Lucas has been the sell-out to end all sell-outs since Return of the Jedi
To be fair, 1986-1996 were pretty dead as far as starwars is concerned
But 1997 til now. Yeah, starwars has been.pretty pimped out
Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
During the interim, Lucasfilm produced Ewok animations, Star Wars toys, board games, literature... and particulary computer games.
'93 saw the advent of X-Wing and Rebel Assault, the first being a simulator of the legendary assault fighter and the second a flim-flam arcade game which pushed the cinematic envelope of CD-ROM. After that, it was all about TIE Fighter, Dark Forces, DF2: Jedi Knight, etc, I recall even a Real-Time Strategy until we get around to Knights of the Old Republic.
Lucas was smart enough reroute the brand through separate mediums, instead of cranking up a new trilogy. But to suggest Star Wars ever went away, not really. It just went out of fad for a while, but their fanbase is very, ahem, dedicated.
Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
Even so, gaming was getting to be a big industry (mid 95) by the time Star Wars already had a firm footing within the market. This helped to expand the fan base to a new generation, that would discover the original films through the games, and vice versa.
They did fumble in the mid-80's, when the animated series format didn't pick up at all. But there was already a relatively a fair amount of games attached to the license.
My point simply being, the brand found one comfortable medium after the other and finally routed back to the big screen. Star Wars has always been profitable, because it's been milked wherever the money has happened to be. On the bright side, as games fit Lucas' marketing strategy on a grand scale, LucasArts Games was a very good company for gamers.
Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
I work with quite a few guys born in the mid-late 80's and none of them like SW and a couple of them haven't even seen them in their entirety ... even the prequels ... The saga didn't translate to the youth for about a 10 year span until the redone orig trilogy imo...was big in my generation....like kids born in 70s to early 80s but then there was a definate lull...even though merch kept being released it wad geared more towards fans of the orig movies who got caught up in the orig craze
Anyway not denying that lucas has pimped the franchise like a cheap hooker,
I don't mid it anyway. I think its great that kids of today still find magic in something that I was fascinated with 30yrs ago...so he's a genius for giving this world to us and he's a genius to keep it relevant for decades and he's a genius to sell it for 4 billion
And kudos to him for keeping such a large world somewhat cohesive by retaining creative control and final say for everything released
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
Lucas has always been a proudly independent filmmaker so it's somewhat surprising to sell to Disney.
Then again it's also way smart at this point. If he's told his stories and feels "done" he might as well open up the universe for others to play now as it's pretty much going to happen when he dies anyway.
My views on Star Wars are cliche in that I deeply loved the original saga, however, the prequel trillogy - other than occasional glimpse of something sort of cool - just never quite worked for me the same way.
Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
There is one thing about Star Wars that really makes this a sacrilegious move. They are more or less the only independent big budget movies out there. What's special about them is that the story hasn't been neutered to pieces with corporate sensitivities like demographics, emotional psychology charts, subliminal imagining and political agendas. It's basically the vision of one man. He got more than a little bit lost with his technical focus on the prequels, but like The Spaghetti Incident is still Guns N' Roses, they are still Star Wars.
Disney is not just a corporation, they are a "five families" level corporation. When's the last time they made something that wasn't just a ploy to sell tickets and implant children with covert sexual undertones? There is no vision, no respect, no risk. Just calculations, surveys and ultimately, profits.
Sure they are not dumb enough to rock any major boats too soon, and as long as Lucas is involved this next trilogy could be quite good, but the signs of things to come will be there, believe that. You can say what you will about Lucas but he's created a truly vivid universe, the guy is raw talent. Ultimately it really is going to be akin to replacing Axl Rose or making a new Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Re: Disney Buys Lucasfilm (Lucas giving $4bil to charity)
I work with quite a few guys born in the mid-late 80's and none of them like SW and a couple of them haven't even seen them in their entirety ... even the prequels ... The saga didn't translate to the youth for about a 10 year span until the redone orig trilogy imo...was big in my generation....like kids born in 70s to early 80s but then there was a definate lull...even though merch kept being released it wad geared more towards fans of the orig movies who got caught up in the orig craze
I'm one of these. I actually didn't get what the big damn deal was about the series. Maybe it was because I was literally born into the Back To The Future generation, and that kinda set the benchmark for me as to what a sci-fi trilogy was. But as a small kid post-Part III in the early-90's, we were just little kids convinced with all the merchandising and animated Saturday morning cartoons and Universal ride that it would go on and on and on with Parts IV-XII.
It took me years to kinda "feel" Star Wars. I as a kid thought Jedi was the best. Loved it. In hind sight I knew why, because it was tailored to Lucas being able to sell toys with it.
Years later I kinda got the more Chris Nolan-feel of the nihilism in Empire Strikes Back, and I started to get it.
I didn't get reintroduced to it, until the SE releases in theaters around 1997.
