Stoo said:
I don't hate Disney! I have over 50 Disney titles in my video collection and own a few books & magazines about their art & imagineering.
I hate the merge of Lucasfilm & Disney!
It's a bitter thing to swallow.
♫♪♫
"Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."
But why do you so hate the merge of Lucasfilm and Disney?
Let me give you my argument:
I think the sale of Lucasfilm is actually better for Lucasfilm--and it's fans--than it is for Disney.
Lucasfilm, before the sale, was dead. George Lucas had affirmed and reaffirmed his decision to retire from filmmaking. He was tired of being hated, in his own words. He talked, pretty vaguely and not often, about the idea of a fifth Indiana Jones, but didn't seem really passionate or overly invested in the idea. Outside of that, the long awaited Clone Wars series had floundered and didn't seem like it was going to actually be.
Lucasfilm had no major projects going on, nor did LucasArts.
George Lucas, over and over, reaffirmed his position that the original theatrical editions of the original Star Wars trilogy, would never see a re-release or be remastered. They would cease to be.
Indy 5 as I said, was pretty much a vaguely, barely discussed item. Not really of importance to Lucas or anyone at his company.
Disney on the other hand is an incredibly active company which does not simply depend on the whimsy of one man; It has pretty creatively autonomous subsidiaries; All of it's branches--Touchstone, Pixar, Marvel--are always busy with some project or another, and all of those divisions offer up very different creative products. Disney is not some monolith dominated by family friendly films.
I mean films such as
Pretty Woman,
The Dead Poets Society,
The Royal Tennenbaums,
Con Air,
Armageddon, andd
Good Morning Vietnam were created by Disney and released under their Touchstone Pictures banner. Not exactly goofy childish fare there.
The merger could breathe new life into Lucasfilm. As with Marvel and Pixar, Lucasfilm will probably be allowed to do it's own thing, for the most part--no executive meddling. The company won't have to rely on a weary old man whose ego is stubbed, to continue. The Star Wars franchaise and it's future no longer rely solely on a man who is impossibly stubborn and refuses creative counsel or help. It is now passed to new, younger, more open minded hands--And perhaps from those hands, we will get fine products.
Indy's future is in doubt, but then again, it was also in doubt prior to the merger. And given Harrison's increasing age, and Spielberg'sl list of projects down the pipeline, along with Lucas' lack of passion in getting a story down for them, a fifth film starring Harrison probably would not have happened even if the sale hadn't happened.
Lucas' involvement in his Star Wars and Indy is now relegated to that of a creative adviser, basically--a role he served when he made great films. He wasn't directly responsible for 2/3rds of the original Star Wars trilogy (He neither wrote the scripts of nor directed Empire and Jedi) and didn't put his hand heavily onto Indiana Jones outside of offering up a basic storyline until KOTCs.
As evidenced by the prequels and KOTCS, when given more creative control, Lucas' films aren't as good.
We'll get a Star Wars sequel trilogy--Something a segment of fans have wanted since the '80s, and in new, perhaps better hands.
We'll probably get the Clone Wars television series.
We'll likely at some point get an Indy reboot series, which may be good or poor, but can be ignored if one pleases.
We might even get new Star Wars and perhaps even Indiana Jones based games in the coming years.
And perhaps, we might get to finally see the original Star Wars trilogy cleaned up on Blu Ray, at some point--whether after Fox's legal ownership of those films ends in 2020 or perhaps sooner if Disney and Fox can work out a deal. It is too profitable a proposition to pass up.
I don't see any of the above ever happening if Lucasfilm hadn't been sold. Things were stagnant, and were probably going to remain so given Lucas' exhaustion, self pity and victim complex.
Now, will these projects pan out, will they be good? Yet to be seen, but I'd hedge my bets on them being good since Lucas' role is only that of an consultant or adviser.
I don't see it being anything of a downside for Lucasfilm fans. Where was the company going post Red Tails with Lucas at the helm?