Did Lucas take the easy way out of a potential disaster?

M

mluca

Lucas knows the sequels will never live up to the original 3, especially after trying himself with episodes 1, 2 and 3. Although he still remains a legend, he put a dent in his name by not living up to expectations with the prequels. He doesn't want to ruin his name for ever by screwing up another 3.

But Disney sees dollar signs!! And this might have been a good move for them, even though the movies will most likely suck and anger millions of hard core Star Wars fans, they know these fans will still go watch the movie 2 or 3 times at the theatre. Heck, I'm not a huge fan and I'll still be curious as hell to see what they do with it!

What do you think?


Marco
FilmShortage.com
 
I haven't heard the details about the deal yet, but it seems very likely to me that the deal was made on initiative by Disney. Disney is expanding rapidly, moving from a traditional company into a global entertainment group: they seem to have a strategy of expanding by acquisitions.

Personally I think Disney is making the right call here: film budgets are still getting bigger and bigger and if you want your shareholders to be happy, you need to guarantee steady returns. You can't do that if you can't spread your risk, so the more movies they make, the better.

Its not like Disney doesn't have the money lying around to make these movies, they just need good IP's and teams dedicated to making those movies. Disney doesn't seem to be particularly good at creating cash cow IP's themselves (John Carter and it's 200+million dollar loss anyone?).
With Star Wars, they just bought one of the, if not the biggest IP ever.

I'm not a Star Wars fan myself (please don't kill me), but I can see why it worries people that the franchise is no longer owned by its creator, but is now in the hands of Disney's shareholders. And they are in it for the money, not the franchise. Expect a whole lot more Star Wars junk to come out:

Coming soon in theaters near you.
 
I totally agree Disney will definitely make their money back with this. But will they make a good movie? probably not.
 
So disappointing.. I used to admire lucas but I guess that was just my love of the star wars movies and now the more I learn about him the less I respect. Honestly feels like he is just a straight up sellout and that it was pretty much that way from the beginning. No denying that he started some great things but it's just disappointing.
 
does anyone still think about how "star wars" actually means wars in space? war being a strong word??
when i hear "star wars" together, i think of storm troopers with a laser gun.
 
An alternative for the OP:

Imagine you are 68 years old, you made your first feature film 41 years ago, invented one of the most beloved Sci-Fi Franchises of all time, and then spent the last 15 years being told what a dick you were for making changes to it and even bothering to try and tell a prequel story to them as well. Also being told you were the worst of all time in your craft as a result of your recent work. Regardless of how you feel about the work, I'm sure you can agree it had to completely suck for the man.

Then someone comes along and offers you 4 billion dollars to take the whole thing off your hands.


Would you really say no? Would you think you're taking the "easy" way out? The man's had a full career, even with his later failures, imo, he deserves to opportunity to cash out.
 
Failures? If you want to put it that way... his failures are bigger than all our successes on this site.... combined.

If that's what it means to have failed, count me in!
 
David.rhsc said:
An alternative for the OP:

Imagine you are 68 years old, you made your first feature film 41 years ago, invented one of the most beloved Sci-Fi Franchises of all time, and then spent the last 15 years being told what a dick you were for making changes to it and even bothering to try and tell a prequel story to them as well. Also being told you were the worst of all time in your craft as a result of your recent work. Regardless of how you feel about the work, I'm sure you can agree it had to completely suck for the man.

Then someone comes along and offers you 4 billion dollars to take the whole thing off your hands.


Would you really say no? Would you think you're taking the "easy" way out? The man's had a full career, even with his later failures, imo, he deserves to opportunity to cash out.
Click to expand...

+1

He's been talking about retiring, for what seems like an eternity. Now he's finally doing it. More power to him. And instead of hording his rights to the Star Wars universe, he's allowing someone else to take the reigns. Which, in all honest is probably a good thing. In his opinion, he's leaving it in good hands. I definitely would've taken the cash, if in his shoes.
 
I wonder what he'll do with the cash...

He's been making millions (and potentially billions) from Star Wars ever since it's inception.

Now there's an extra $4bil in the bank account, what the hell do you do with all that money? Haha.
 
I dont really care if Lucas sold out. But to sell the the evil empire is sacrilege! I actually was in hope FOX woulda steped in....it sucks..the evil empire had a hostle takeover in marvel and also has the muppets, now star wars.....I will never be able to relive any of my childhood memories. Disney sucks! i now go mourn!
 
Psychosis Media said:
I dont really care if Lucas sold out. But to sell the the evil empire is sacrilege! I actually was in hope FOX woulda steped in....it sucks..the evil empire had a hostle takeover in marvel and also has the muppets, now star wars.....I will never be able to relive any of my childhood memories. Disney sucks! i now go mourn!
Click to expand...

I dunno, I enjoyed The Avengers and The Muppet Movie a hell of a lot..

If they can make Star Wars on a similar level, I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy that too
 
Sweetie said:
Failures? If you want to put it that way... his failures are bigger than all our successes on this site.... combined.

If that's what it means to have failed, count me in!
Click to expand...

Speaking in a strictly artistic sense - which, imo had more of an impact on Lucas himself than the money that the films made - the later Episodes were pretty much failures. Paraphrasing a good friend of mine: It'd be pretty much impossible to make a worse movie than "The Phantom Menace," even for the guy that made "The Room." Between the reception of those films, and the way we all (myself included) reacted to the "updates" to the originals I'm sort of surprised we still have him around at all.

At that point in his career the revenue from the films might as well have been moot. He was already swimming in money just from the work his studios would do on other films. Fast forward to the present, where's he's already been talking about retiring forever and this transaction is a no-brainer.

Probably repeating myself here, but this "easy way out" came after over 40 years of dedication to a craft. Nothing easy about that.
 
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By 'easy way out' I mean his disassociation with a new trilogy. He won't have the blame and pressure of creating better films.
 
The first 3 episodes were all of the character development and back story to the franchise and had almost no shot at being great stories on their own. They were further handicapped by the success and later alteration of the original trilogy. I agree with some of the changes that Lucas made to the original trilogy (not many). Some alterations were to add parts to the movies that were always intended but couldn't be done with the technology available at the time ("walking" Jabba and ambulatory creatures in Mos Eisley). Other changes were so that the older films would be more stylistically compatible with the newer ones. Then there are the changes that really piss off just about everyone, the changes made to be more politically correct (Greedo shooting first etc.). As Lucas wrote Episodes 7-9 originally they would not hold up without Episodes 4-6 coming before them. Lucas also felt that the audience would have to have seen Episodes 1-3 before being able to fully understand Episodes 7-9. I'm in favor of Episodes 7-9 being made, I just don't want Lucas to make them because I think that he will "PC" them up and rewrite them to be more pussified instead of the hard edged full circle story line that they were originally intended to be.

Lucas made "Red Tails" as a personal love project to show that "black films" could be commercially successful. He has obviously never been to a theater on the opening weekend of a Madea flick. The film takes historically significant times and acts and wraps them into a pretzel to make them fit the story he wanted to tell instead of the story that actually happened. I mention this as an example of why I think that Lucas will give short shrift to the original story.
 
well there are both good and bad things with the sale...

BAD
it's no longer one mans vision
it's gone over to disney, a family friendly company

GOOD
it's no longer one mans vision
it's gone over to disney, a huge company with creativity

So i have no idea what's going to come of it... but one good thing is, we are finally going to see the last parts of the story... :D

as to what an old man should do with the money? well insure his kids and their kids future for like, forever.... that's why i would take those money. Invest in huge funds for all of them, and insure they get housing and education for the future.
 
I don't like Lucas anymore. All he wants to do is make a buck. He was a great filmmaker in the 70s, but now he takes all his old movies, such as the Star Wars movies, and THX-1138. He takes out the original effects and puts in new ones, and re-releases the movies, just to make money. I wonder if he'll do it all over again or re-release in 3D. But now he sold it to Disney, who is also pretty much always interested in money.
 
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