Discussion The Disney - Lucasfilm Relationship & EpVII Decision Making

They wanted the treatments, and Lucas knew that the treatments made the property worth more.

 

I want to know how old the treatments are.

 

Lucas did a lot of work on them during recently. I would say that what he presented to Disney was recent work. He did it to prepare for the sale.

 

Source?

 

Lucas himself. I don't feel like digging around for it.

 

I read an article where he talked about writing it over the last few years (or at least working on it, he didn't specifically say how much of it was old ideas), I can't find it. There was this one though.

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-star-wars-trilogy-was-already-in-the-works-2013-3

 

thank you!

 

However, the article it links to implies (to me) that KK suggested writing the treatments AFTER GL decided to sell LFL.

 

That's the point. The treatments make the property more attractive.

 

The source is the same article that you are getting the "unfettered control" side of the debate.

 

The article doesn't have a "side".

It also makes it clear that Disney has that control.

 

OK, but the language does NOT in any way imply or state that they are required to use the treatments and use them as they are, they simply are put in as part of the deal (their presence made the deal more enticing, but that is far different than any sort of contractual agreement to use them). When you have explicit language that makes a strong assertion, and nothing to counter the assertion besides some seat of the pants hunch, you would tend to go with the obvious, right? It would have been pretty bizarre to state in no uncertain terms that Disney has full control, and then to go back and contradict that; I didn't catch any definitive statements or implication to the contrary, unless you saw an addendum that I didn't to that article.

That is correct. The other article I read actually gave a better explanation. Lucas is very deliberate, despite how erratic he seems.

 

BTW - Lucas does state in the video that the treatments are fairly basic/sparse and there is a lot of the story details that need to be written (you know how GL LOVES to write). Therefore I conclude, a good deal of balls and strikes for the umpire to call. The McSweeny article recently suggested there are many different writers (aside from Arndt, Kasdan and Kinberg) throwing around ideas, attempting to enlarge the universe. I imagine that Lucas is one of them.

 

The business insider one?

 

at the end of all this i think its a safe bet that if GL say does not want Luke to die, Disney wont kill him off, i think the basic story framework will remain GL's everything in the middle Arndt, Kennedy, JJ etc... they will go to GL for advise on major plot plans, Disney own star wars but I think GL is still seen as the holding a non legal,intellectual copyright, I think unfairly he felt battered by some of the reaction to PT and could not face doing ST himself but still wants that origiinal 1-9 idea he came up with in early 80's told

 

No, I was talking about the one I couldn't find.

 

As Businessweek explains: "Once Lucas got assurances from Disney in writing about the broad outlines of the deal, he agreed to turn over the treatments—but insisted they could only be read by [Disney CEO Robert] Iger, [Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan] Horn, and Kevin Mayer, Disney’s executive vice president for corporate strategy. 'We promised,' says Iger. 'We had to sign an agreement.' When Iger finally got a look at the treatments, he was elated. 'We thought from a storytelling perspective they had a lot of potential,' he says."

The article adds that Lucas has "attended story meetings for the new film, adjudicating the physical laws and attributes of the Star Wars universe. 'I mostly say, ‘You can’t do this. You can do that,’' Lucas says. 'You know, ‘The cars don’t have wheels. They fly with antigravity.’ There’s a million little pieces. Or I can say, ‘He doesn’t have the power to do that, or he has to do this.’ I know all that stuff.'"

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/07/lucas-began-new-star-wars-trilogy-before-selling-to-disney

Gives an idea of the sort of consulting GL does/will do. We also see that Iger was excited about the treatments.

 

This is promising IMO. It looks like Lucas came up with something good on the storylines.

 

Although Iger might also be excited about something that will make money.

 

I think it is both. I don't think he would be excited if the story sucked, but would make money. I think it is a quality story that will appeal to a mass audience, and is fitting to what Disney would like to release.

Funny, I was going to say something along the lines of it being a story that was commercially viable when I made that last post. This will be in line with the All-American tale; I think Iger's happiness means that this is story fit for a Disney adventure. I also think Iger's approval really knocks down a lot of the storylines many people speculate to happen on this site (for example, the idea that the ST will be the story of Luke Skywalker, they will develop young heroes and a youthful love story).

 

I hope it's just hyperbole that disney execs need to be told "no wheels" in star wars.

 

I think that's more of a witticism from George rather than any indication of what the Disney executives etc. were asking him. In any case, sightings of the Juggernaut tank/vehicle in ROTS and the last season of TCW pretty much definitively proved that some vehicles DO have wheels. So much for the creator's expertise...

 

It's very easy and very understandable to think that, but it's always the wording of Iger's statement that gives me pause. The way any statement meant for the press and public consumption is worded is pregnant with implications. Simply put, Iger said they thought that "from a storytelling perspective, they had a lot of potential." Not that they were great or outstanding or anything definitive and commital like that; just that they "had potential." That's fairly evident to me as being a rather kind method of diplo-speak; in all likelihood there may have been rough areas that still needed some smoothing over. Sure, the treatments had potential, but we don't know particularly in what ways they had potential, and in what ways the things still needed some work (if we did, we'd be talking spoilers already, LOL). Potential means just that; this story idea has the potential to be good, but it's not concretely good yet. That means that a hell of a lot rides on Michael Arndt to bring to the fore all those qualities that Iger and the Disney suits thought had potential, to make all those potentialities into definites.

Still, from where I stand, this by no means indicates that the ST is going to be badly written; lots of story treatments for a lot of movies have "potential," and that's why film studios buy them in the first place and develop them into full scripts. I'm just a realist who's been burned already by this saga - THREE TIMES - so naturally I tend to get a little gun-shy when G-Walt goes around waving story treatments anymore. But Michael Arndt is a proven hand and well chosen, and it was Lucas himself who chose him (a wise and inspired choice, coming from him), and we still haven't seen what he's done with all that potential. I'll withhold final judgment until I see or hear more from THAT corner.

 

I would have a somewhat different take on that. The way it is described, he was very excited about them, meaning he thought they were very good. Who knows though.

In any case, I think his minimal language was more around them being so far from fully developed movies. As I understand it, they were very minimal (rough outlines of the story basically), so he is saying that they have potential to be developed into something great when all of the details are there, i.e. what is there is great, it just needs a lot of detail added to complete the movie.

 

That's because there wasn't any money being proffered, and/or he hadn't put the pieces in place to make the sale.