Tuesday, October 30, 2012

New Disney Princess, Princess Leia

Seriously now…

The breaking news this afternoon (other than election and hurricane news) is that Disney is buying Lucasfilm, George Lucas' company that owns Star Wars, for about $4 billion.  Lucasfilm includes Lucas Arts, Industrial Light & Magic, and Skywalker Sound, i.e. movie-making, video game-making, special effects-making groups that help make several films every year including many of the biggest, special effects-laden blockbusters you see each summer.

The Lucas companies are very large and busy, so in the short term they'll stay where they are, doing what they have been doing.  But the executives have already started planning new Lucasfilm projects under Disney's umbrella, including…

…wait for it…

A seventh Star Wars film, already scheduled for release in 2015.  Seriously.

At first such news is met with gasps and probably groans.  The last three films didn't impress most folks who loved the first three.  But part of this merger is that George Lucas won't be controlling the films anymore; he'll be handing off the franchise to a new generation of filmmakers.  Perhaps less of Lucas' influence would be good.  I'd love to see the guys who write stories for Pixar handling the Star Wars plots and dialogue. 

My boys love "the Clone Wars" cartoon on The Cartoon Network, a show that I think is better than the last three movies.  This cartoon, to me, seems to prove that the Star Wars universe is not exhausted.  In fact, Disney might be just the right thing to breathe new life into franchise.

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