Discussion Disney Chief Alan Horn: Lucas "very, very involved on a consulting basis".

Please nothing as bad as those battle droids! Consultancy does actually only mean guidance he will have no real power, and if he pushes to hard Disney will have the right to freeze him out. Disney are only being respectful , I mean would you allow the guy who sold you a car to dictate how you look after it?

 

If I kept him on as my mechanic, sure.

 

Well if you buy all of your cars from a mechanic!

 

Well, your avatar suggests you thought at least one PT idea was cool.

 

To continue your metaphor then...
George designed the "car".
George has spent years tinkering with the "car".
The "car" is considered a classic - a one of a kind.
Disney buys the "car" for a considerable amount of money.
Disney says George will stay as a consultant to guide the "car" into the future in it's new home.
This doesn't sound like mere lip service to me.

 

As long as his more lame ideas are filtered out!

 

If by nothing more, you mean "pitching almost every episode's story since halfway through season one," then that's completely accurate.

 

Hey man, you sold out the car analogy! No, wait, cars have filters. Well played.

 

Oh yeah, yeah! I totally meant that, kudos on the spot!

 

What we fans of SW have here is the best situation ever.We have KK who is a super producer and has produced incredible films and she's fully aware of the backlash the prequels have.Then we have GL whos taking a backseat and handing over his ideas,not writing,not dictating,but handing over.Then so far we got an academy award winning writer and I'm sure a Superfan Director with experience coming on board to make great SW movies.Oh yeah and on top of that we have the most powerful company who needs to make there 4billion investment back and the only way to do that is to make SW geektastic.

 

I am very excited about this. Lucas is doing exactly what he should: helping to write a great story. As long as he doesn't write dialogue, I'm happy.

 

There are Superfans and then there are Superfans. I need more than a Superfan director.

 

At times, over the last 10 years or so, I've been a lurker, I meant to sign up sooner, but life and other interests always got in the way. I've been seeing the fan-boy/girl label for years, and its used in multiple ways, most often with negative conotations. I'm just a fanatic about SW, if that makes me a fanboy, then so be it. I'm a fan of both trilogies, the Del Rey novels, many of the console games, etc. Just as I had with the PT, I have in my mind's eye what the ST will be and look like. But I also understand that in whatever fashion TPTB make the ST, it will still be SW. It is up to us to adapt our view of the SWU to whatever the ST ends up looking like, it was that way with the PT too, many SW fans seemed to disagree on this point.

 

I'm all for free speech, but this constant bashing of GL is ridiculous. George wrote AND directed the phenomenon A New Hope, some people like to forget. He also co-wrote Eps V & VI AND the ST is based on his own treatments.

Does the PT have some flaws? Yes. But compared to the perpetual crapfest that Hollywoood churns out on a yearly basis his mistakes are mild and tolerable. People need to get over their hate of the PT and move on!

 

Lucas is a good storyteller in the visual sense. Just don't let him get carried away or Episode VII will have 40 Gungans. As long as he's not writing the dialogue I'm fine with the decision.

 

I think what a lot of people are missing is Disney didn't buy a billion dollar brand just to change it. That wouldn't make sense. Whether you are a fan of the PT or a hater of it, you can not argue that it brought SW back into the mainstream. You can't even say "brought it back in a negative way", because SW now is more prevalent then it was in the early 80s! More games, more books, more comics, more toys, more clothing. Just in clothing retailers alone there are more OT Star Wars shirts than in the early 80s!

So long story short, why would Disney change that model? That model is perfect the way it is. Even if those who believe the PT was a failure, if the ST was exactly a clone of the PT in design and execution, the math shows it would be hugely successful LOL!!

So many people want some non-mainstream pop culture film out of Star Wars with artsy directors to take it in a "new direction".. That was done already, in 1977, by Lucas. SW is WAY too big now to become some deep thought, academy award winning film. Also I'm proud to say that. I'm a common joe. I don't care about some actor and how they felt about the progression of the character, blah blah blah. This is SW!! I want a simple fairytale, with laser guns and laser swords. I don't need deep dialogue that leaves me tearing up in the theater because Han Solo died of space cancer with Chewy by his side. Give me a break.

Lucas made this formula, and even with the PT haters, he's proved that even being hated he can progress the brand! I don't know anywhere in business where a guy can do something that so many call a failure and make MORE money and be MORE successful! With the exception of Bill Gates, everyone seems to think Windows sucks, but Microsoft is a very profitable company.

Lucas will be very involved, because he made SW successful. Even if you don't believe it, Disney does, that's why he got 4 billion in cash and stock.

 

Here's one way we could look at this that's positive: this really is a restoration of the creative dynamic that led to The Empire Strikes Back with none of the weaknesses of that dynamic. The concepts, the general arc of the story, the characters, the philosophical underpinnings, these all came from Lucas; the concepts were then placed in the care of writers who were strong in all the areas in which he himself conceded were weak, and with some back-and-forth with him those writers (Kasdan in particular) hammered that into a script he could be happy with; the script was then placed in the care of a producer-director team with the vision to give the script and the concepts proper justice; that led to the film that is commonly considered the highest point in the saga, even now.

But whereas Kurtz and Kershner came in for some flak from Lucas during the making of that film over certain extravanges with the budget, prompting Lucas to feel the need to take more and more control back from the producer-director team for subsequent films, none of those need be too much of a concern for the new films - the reason that became an issue at all was because Lucas was financing the film himself, with his own money, and every last thing he had was riding on the success of something that he believed was already iffy. These sort of budget issues happen all the time in big-budget motion pictures, and are often what has to be done to make the best film possible, but those have studio money behind them, something Lucas never had, and so those things become bigger issues than they otherwise would. His self-financing issue ultimately hamstrung him from being able to devote his exceptional creative energies to their best use, and for that matter they have consistently held LFL back from flourishing to its fullest potential.

But that weakness in the dynamic is automatically erased by the fact that Disney now owns LFL; there surely must be an understanding that Disney would be there to provide financial security for a project of this magnitude if it should be needed, and while LFL has historically self-financed films, and might indeed continue to do so, this time there would always be the guarantee of a cushion to fall back on in case such issues ever arise this time; so he may have meant when in his recent YouTube interview he referred to placing the company within a larger entity "which would protect it;" it now has the financial freedom of action that Lucas alone never had.

Add to that the fact that this time Lucas has carefully considered who to fill Kurtz's shoes with, and Kennedy enters the role with the confidence of Lucas and (I presume) most fans. He now has no reason whatsoever to allow fear to drive him into roles for which he isn't best suited; he can remain a pure idea man, bouncing back and forth with the current production staff, and we can take heart that in this case the ideas would then be delegated to those whom we now can assume will be the best interpreters of that materials. And at the same time I have to assume that Disney would give higher regard to Lucas than, say, Paramount did to Roddenberry after he backed away from Star Trek; all the early indicators seem to lean this way.

So really, this is the ideal level of engagement for Lucas at this stage; the same level that produced some of the saga's best work. This is a win-win for everyone, and for the filmgoer especially.

 

Amen! I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. "everyone hates the PT and Lucas" but for some reason it's more popular today then when it was released!

 

I read Heir to the Empire and a couple other of the early things, the problem I had with it and really it's exactly like you describe they follow established guidelines, a lot of it tends to paint within the lines already established by Lucas. Left over Imperials, Emperor clones, it more expands (hence the name I guess) on an established framework. It's just giving us more of what we already like, and that's really my worry for the movies. They try to tap into some nostalgia and give us more and more of what we already know. I think there are certain big series changing things only Lucas can do, frankly things that others might be afraid to do for fear of ruining it or going against the spirit of it. I love that Lucas can introduce come crazy concept that is so far out there that people are resistant to and eventually we all come around to it.

What makes me curious is at this level of involvement what the movies will look and feel like, will they be as richly textured, will we get the small goofy moments like the scared mouse droid, the rancor keeper crying, the pit droids, would anyone other than Lucas be crazy enough to put something that looked like Sebulba or a Muun in it as opposed to Star Trek aliens? It seems like the big things are going to be followed but I wonder about the small things.

 

You make a lot of fair points. I think since GL is consulting and Kennedy is producing that all the small things will be accounte for. As to your concern that we're just going to get more of what we already know, I think that Episode VII will be the bridge to the past but that new heroes will carry the film and perhaps the rest of the series as far as it goes.

 

You misunderstand, I have no problem with the general direction of the prequels (the story was a little flawed but decent), but the dialogue in the PT (especially in I and II) at times was really bad. The "perpetual crapfest" that Hollywood churns out is way too general (so many movies come out every year at varying levels of quality) and has brought fans quality franchises (granted most are based off books and comics) in this generation such as the Lord of the Rings and Dark Knight trilogies. I'm not bashing GL, I think he is a brilliant storyteller, innovator, and world developer, but he deserves some criticism. I see this situation as the best possible scenario so far with GL providing the story, Arndt writing the script, and hopefully a strong director being hired

 

TPM:$1,007,044,677 BILLION
AOTC: $656,695,615 MILLION
ROTS: $848,998,877MILLION

I'm sure Disney execs are losing sleep, sweating cold bullets, rushing some kind of "George Lucas Damage Control Unit" together! They wouldn't want to rake in billions of dollars, or spawn millions of fans, that's for sure. What with all those "lame ideas"...good thing the fans've got our backs covered, whew!

 

The real trick, if someone can pull it off, is to give us something new that still feels like it was conceived in the 1970s.

 

TCW does it frequently.

 

Right on. Iger himself estimates the PT movies would average 1.5 bil in today's money. They're not perfect and have been divisive for the fanbase, but their commercial success is undeniable.