Clone Wars The Petition to Disney: Save The Clone Wars

This here is a true story. Back after the 2008 football season Ron Prince was fired as the K-State football coach. Then soon after Gopowercat.com (which is the official rivals site for Kansas State football) issued a statement that it was official that TCU's head coach Gary Patterson had taken the K-State job. This caused a buzz all over the net. Gary Patterson caught wind of that and went on to a radio show criticizing the site and that Kansas State had never even contacted him. K-State quickly then hired Bill Snyder (the winningest coach they have had in school history) for a second term.

So that is just one example of what these fan sites can be like sometimes and how you can't really put a whole lot of stock in what they say because in many cases the people running the site are listening to rumors just like you are.

Canceling TCW is evil.
Taking a season or two to resolve the plot and lead into/possibly through RotS and coming to a conclusion would be fine, though.
I sense we disagree...

Even if the show has ended, we are still getting new material so they would still be in production until they are finished, as per Dave Filoni. That interview for IGN would have been done after the season finale aired. They may have been told the show is ending but I bet they are still working on it. If the crew had broken up and production stopped why would Filoni still be happy about sharing the good news with us? Again it makes no sense.

There seems to be quite a few rumours going around. Some are saying its outright cancellation, others are saying we are getting a shorter season and a direct-to-DVD movie to tie up all the ends. We'll know soon. But I would expect we've still got some clone wars to look forward to.

Yes, so this discussion might no nowhere then.

Unfortunately this look to indeed be the end, and I'm pretty ticked, not only as a Star Wars fan, but a Disney shareholder (more on that in a minute). As I had mentioned previously, through a friend of mine at Warners, I had heard the company had been lobbying to make a deal to keep the show on the air on Cartoon Network for the next year or two, as they wanted to take advantage of the build up to Episode VII. Apparently talks began on this almost two months ago which is why a lot of this was in limbo. But apparently Disney would not budge on certain issues and any hopes of a deal died a couple of weeks ago.

Now on to the Disney front. I've been a shareholder in Disney for almost 15 years now... not a lot of shares, but I have been a Disney fanatic for years and believed in the company Walt Disney built. I happily supported Bob Iger waaaay back in 2005 when Roy Disney was attempting to unseat Michael Eisner at the company with the SaveDisney.com campaign. At the time Disney had lost its way and the parks had become a bit of an issue. Roy specifically felt Iger had a grasp on what Walt was trying to accomplish both with the parks and through the Disney's entertainment division. He promised if Iger were to take over the reigns the company would be in great hands and would see a return to the "glory days" of Disney as the dominant family entertainment company.

Roy was right initially. Iger spent a great deal of time working on restoring the parks and fixing California Adventures in Anaheim... things looked great! We even were promised a return to 2D animated movies and the company delivered with "The Princess and the Frog," but unfortunately as with Eisner, Iger became more and more of a bottom line guy; less concerned with quality and more concerned with cost vs. profitability. Now, I'm a big time capitalist and there's certainly something to be said for profit, and under Iger our stocks have gone through the roof (although my dividend returns have yet to see those sorts of numbers) and the company is extremely profitable. However, the Disney brand is special, and frankly the company is becoming more identified with cheaply produced direct-to-DVD Tinkerbell sequels and Cars spinoffs like the craptastic "Planes". (yes a spinoff about planes in the Carsland world... you're welcome America), than quality family entertainment.

I had hoped our annual shareholders meeting, held here in my hometown of Phoenix this year, would allay my fears about the future of Star Wars, but it only filled me with a sense of dread. Bob Iger, who had promised to bring traditional 2-D animated features back to Disney basically declared them dead and said there were no plans for any 2-D features down the road. He also announced the continuing trend of sequels to Pixar films... as if the crap known as Cars 2 wasn't enough we will get Finding Nemo 2 (apparently he got lost again), and while it wasn't announced there were rumblings among the shareholders that a Toy Story 4 is in the works. There will also be more direct-to-DVD Cars spinoffs (oh boy!!!). There were other announcements too which frankly left me with the sense that Disney really cares more about "more cheap, more profit" than anything else... it's all about marketing synergy and getting more people to come to the Disney parks and other Disney owned resort locations where the real money for the company is at.

Disney is simply not interested in a computer animated show with its high production costs, despite the fact in the long run the show could more than recoup those costs in ad sales on a Disney cable station, DVD sales, and syndication. Disney is all about the short term profitability. I can tell you right now there were rumblings of a couple of possible 2-D animated Star Wars shows coming to Disney XD in 2014... why??? because they are cheap to produce. And there are a number of shareholders who are more than happy with this approach, they really are more interested in the revenue that the Star Wars brand can bring to them than whether it remains true to George's vision or whether it is of value to the fans.

I had really held out hope that with an internal machine of its own, that Disney would basically be pretty hands off when it came to Lucasfilm... boy was I wrong. I fully expect Lucasarts will essentially shutter its doors as the company does not fit with Disney's model Disney really has little interest in platform games now, they are more focused on web based games that drive traffic to their web sites where they can get more eyeballs to look at their advertisements. I also expect Lucas Animation to go away or be absorbed into Disney Animation. Unfortunately as far as direct answers as to what the future holds for Star Wars, there were very few answers to be found at the shareholders meeting as the stock reply seemed to be "we are gearing up for Episode VII in 2015."

I really wish George had never sold the company....


Yancy

Now you're a Disney stockholder?

I don't know man, I don't believe you since you do post unsourced information regarding TCW. I also scratched my head when you claimed that Blastr was superior to zap2it, even though both receive from the same source (not to mention zap2it posted correct information before Blastr)

I know that it's not really about making it quicker but I think that in a way, it sort of comes off as such (other than smothering SW-related media going on outside of Disney and their SW project and ideas).

Lol no disrespect to this site or other people who post here, but If he really was a Disney Stockholder do you really think he would be on posting on this board

I really don't care whether you believe me or not GGrevious. I've worked on and off in film and television since the 90s primarily locally here in Phoenix, however I know a few people in Hollywood who I either went to film school with or worked with in the past. Most of the people I do know work TV now... never claimed to have "inside" source into any Lucas operation as I don't, but I do know people at Warner, at Disney and at Sony Pictures, most of my other connections are people in media relations. I'm not seeing an issue here.

And frankly I never said anything of the sort regarding Blaster or tvbythenumbers. What I did say is that cable ratings are a bit of a crapshoot and it depends on your source for ratings numbers as there are three other firms which track cable numbers besides Neilsen. The 3 million number (specifically it was actually 2.8 million) that was bandied around was based on overnight ratings from one city, specifically Los Angeles. Overnights are usually extrapolated to get a baseline number for early returns. Based on the L.A. numbers execs at Cartoon Network were hearing 3 million viewers for the finale when the final number was closer to 2.2 million. That actually happens a lot.

BTW, your attitude toward people in this thread is pretty obnoxious.. people get it, you don't like the show.

Yancy

@Gallandro is there any way you could find out what's happening to TCW for us?

Shareholder my friend... there are a lot of us (actually thousands of us as Disney ownership is made up of almost 2 billion shares). You seem to be confusing a shareholder with someone who sits on the board at Disney. There are thousands of Disney shareholders and we are all eligible to make the annual pilgrimage to wherever the shareholders meeting takes place. This year it was in Phoenix... no brainer for me.

BTW, you can buy share online if you want.


Yancy

''Iger was seduced by the dark side of the force he betrayed and murder Star Wars''

Oh I know they aren't all that bad, my kids like them. As for 2-D, yes Iger was specifically asked (as he is every year) about the future of 2-D animated features, any 2-D features, not just Princess films. He made it very clear there are no plans for one. There seems to be a mindset among the powers that be that 2-D animation is dead, except for television, and that audiences are only will to watch CG features... it's pretty sad.

Yancy

At this juncture I have no clue. I doubt Disney would leave a few million on the table and not release completed episodes, so my guess would be cutting completed episodes together for direct-to-DVD releases... that seems to follow more of the current Disney business model. They could easily string out a couple of quarterly releases until Episode VII.

Yancy

I posted this up thread but looking around at all the rumours online there appears to be two circling from people in the 'know' with various sources.

You've got RFR saying 'outright cancellation, zilch, nothing more' and then you've got another person saying on another FB page altogether saying 'shorter season to air and a direct-to-DVD movie to tie up all the ends'. The second option would fit with Filoni's comments from a few days ago. Both people seem to hint that an announcement is due tomorrow, however. So we'll see who is right and who is wrong. If it was outright cancellation with nothing more to come, then I doubt Filoni would still be happy about what's coming. Even if the show has been cancelled, Filoni is still happy about something for the future that he's looking forward to sharing with us. In that I'm optimistic that there is still more to come.

@Gallandro As per your previous post, do you know what issues Disney wouldn't budge on for CN to be able to make a deal?

Too much clone wars been going on for years now. End it but end it good rather than cancel it. Let it tie into ROTS.
Then lets have all those who have been making the clone wars cartoons work on another Star Wars cartoon from a different era! While they are doing clone wars we probably won't get another SW cartoon. I love them but how many times can anakin and obi wan keep fighting dooku and maul etc?
There's got to be something else they can all come up with Star Wars cartoon wise

That's something I'm concerned about as well. Home video rights. How do we know TCW Season 5+ on DVD/BD won't face a fate similar to Transformers Animated where the run is never completed... or heck, even just the Micro series where the current production run stops and it is never fully released at all? Warner owns (or at least did own) home video rights for the show. That could make releasing S5 and beyond not only very complicated, but it might even result in the current sets being pulled from the market.

How do we know Disney will bother to even let s5 be put out if this is all true?

They just opened a huge can of worms with the Maul arc. Honestly, if it hadn't been for that arc, I wouldn't be nearly as upset as I am now (assuming this cancellation business is all true), because Ahsoka leaving the Order, with the final shot of the S5 finale, would actually be a superb way for the show to go out. But the end of the Maul arc proved that Filoni and co. have/had big plans for the future, a future which now seems shrouded in uncertainty.

As I've said before... the worst part is they opened a can of worms by changing a single line in the script. They even had Tim Curry re-record it after the change. Sidious' original final line was... "You belong to me. Your existence is now perfectly meaningless."

This would've been a much better way to end the arc, as it gave a potential close for the storyline without actually forcing it closed in the event that the show did continue.

No idea on that, but I'm sure it was money. If I were to make an educated guess it probably had to do with syndication and how money would get divvied up between Warner and Disney for future season.s

Yancy

What is the source of all this information regarding Disney's involvement in LFL's internal affairs?

Seriously Gallandro, any guess as to the home video rights and the future of the show in that respect? Will we get S5 on DVD/BD for sure, or is even that in danger now?

Well RFR facebook page said we were getting an anouncement on Monday. Looks like that is not going to happen. Fan sites.

lol