ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT DISNEY BUYING LUCASFILM

[defrog]

You know by now about that, I presume.

As you can imagine, blogosphere commentary has been spirited, much of it along the lines of OMG DISNEY WILL RUIN STAR WARS.

And as you can also imagine, I have my own opinions. I will type them for you now.

1. IT’S WALT DISNEY’S WORLD – YOU JUST LIVE IN IT

Sooner or later, this was going to happen. Lucas has made it clear he’s done with Star Wars, and we always knew that one day, Lucas was going to either die or retire, at which time he’d pass the baton to someone else – in which case a buyout was always an option, because what media company WOULDN’T want to own a moneymaking machine like the Star Wars brand? Especially one that specializes in moneymaking brands? So it’s always been a question of who was going to take over the helm and when.

Besides, Disney is initially leaving everything at LucasFilm untouched, management-wise. LucasFilm will exist as a subsidiary, and Kathleen Kennedy (who has been co-chair of LucasFilm for ages) will take over as president. So it’s not like they’re stripping out management and installing their own bean counters to muck around with the decision making.

But even if they did –

2. DISNEY RUINS EVERYTHING

Old-school fans may dither over how Star Wars will fare creatively in Disney’s Big Corporate Mickey Mouse Gloves (as if LucasFilm is some tiny non-profit indie outfit). Well, last time I looked, a lot of the same people weren’t all that happy with what LucasFilm was doing with it, from the prequels to Lucas’ obsessive re-edits of the originals. I’d love to know how they think Disney will make it worse.

Mind you, I’m one of the few people on Earth besides George Lucas who liked the prequels, flawed as they were, and as inferior as they were to the original trilogy. But the constant revision of his own work – entitled as he might be to do so from an auteur POV – was definitely a sign that maybe Lucas was no longer the most suitable person to mind the store, creativity-wise.

In fact, if Disney wants get into the good graces of Star Wars fans who know for a goddamn fact that Han shot first and Vader never screamed "NOOOOOO!" when Palpatine was torturing Luke, here’s what I’d love to see it do:

Restore the original versions of Episodes 4-6 (to include stripping out the added footage), give them a theatrical release (on the 40th anniversary, say) and then release them on Blu-Ray (or whatever the new format is in 2017) as a viewing option with the “expanded/revisionist history” versions.

3. EPISODE VII: JEDI KNIGHTS OF THE CARRIBEAN

As for Episode VII and future Star Wars films … why not? The Star Wars Universe is big enough to accommodate all kinds of new characters and story directions (as all the various novels and comics and video games have proven). Sure, it might suck. Or it might be what Casino Royale was to the James Bond franchise (which wasn’t Disney’s doing, I know, but you see what I’m saying). Either way, I’ll be interested to see what they come up with.

4. INDIANA JONES AND THE EPCOT CENTER OF DOOM

As for LucasFilm’s other intellectual property … the same applies, really. Indiana Jones is a great film character, but the most recent installment illustrated too clearly that it wouldn’t hurt to let someone else take over that helm, either. 

5. CONCLUSION

I’m not that worked up about it, no. Disney is just as likely to do great things as terrible things to the franchise. They'll probably do both. But at this stage, Star Wars fans have little lose from letting them take a crack at it.

Control yr anger,

This is dF