Saga Would you prefer Disney not own the Saga?

So far I'm not impressed with Disney's handling of Star Wars.

First, they stopped the Clone Wars, which I would have been fine with eventually, since after Ahsoka left it felt like the series was coming to about when ROTS starts anyway, and therefore the end of the show. It's just I wish they hadn't cut off the show so abruptly. Especially since they replaced it with Rebels, which so far I don't like all that much.

And while I could see making some of the books Legends, did it have to be all of them? I enjoyed reading many of the older novels, and they are much better than the books Disney has released so far.

And I don't actually have a problem with releasing another Sequel Trilogy, but I think Disney is going a little crazy with how many films they seem to want to release. We don't really need a Star Wars film to come out every year for the rest of our lives.

And I also bothered how powerful and wealthy Disney has become, what with owning franchises like Marvel and the Muppets, and now Star Wars.

"When people get that kind of money, the rules everyone else plays by...don't mean squat to them."
-Pops Racer, Speed Racer

 

I'm more of a "wait and see" kind of person, but I personally do not like the modern Disney, and don't think they've made a truly classic movie since 2004. Sure, Pirates of the Caribbean were good (the first one at least), but that was more a stroke of luck than anything. For the most part, their live action films tend to jump the shark by quite a few miles (in fact, I can count on my hand the number of live action Disney movies I actually like). We'll see, but so far I don't care for the fact that Disney cut Rebel's budget compared to the budget TCW had. In fact, I think it's noticeably affected the animation quality. SO far, I haven't been extremely thrilled with the choices Disney has made so far (disbanding the EU entirely instead of simply making live action movies with the material they had, making Han Solo into an adulterer, etc). I mean, I know Han Solo is a bit of a scoundrel, but I like to imagine him a loyal scoundrel.

 

For me, Disney always made excellent and wonderful movies. So I'm optimistic and I trust in Disney for new fantastic Star Wars movies

 

Wait and see. I tend to not like this buying as Disney will be milking the Stars Wars franchise for every dollar they can. Thought I am Sure they will have no shortage of villains to full their ranks.

 

It really will come down to how good the films are. I haven’t read any STAR WARS EU since the late 1970s/early 1980s, and the last STAR WARS TV production I saw was THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL, so I really don’t care about any of that junk. STAR WARS is and has always been about the movies as far as the overwhelming majority of people are concerned.

What remains to be seen is how the people making these movies approach them. Will they just do it as a quick and easy cash grab or as a labor of love? We know that Disney is perfectly capable of producing labor of love films, like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. They’re also just as capable of producing commercial diarrhea, such as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES or AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. In other words, they need to approach this the way that Peter Jackson approached THE LORD OF THE RINGS, rather than the way Peter Jackson approached THE HOBBIT. Although, to be fair, Warner Bros. approached CASABLANCA as if it were commercial diarrhea, so I guess anything is possible.

I’ll say this for J.J. Abrams, he seems to have a genuine love and passion for STAR WARS, and I hope that love translated into “Let’s make a really great film here.” Although, to be fair, it might also result in 2 hours of self-indulgent fanservice.

 

I'm actually shocked what acceptance there is for the Disney ownership to be honest. I guess it's good people are remaining open minded about it, but they certainly have a lot more faith than I do. I am confident this will not bode well for the franchise but only time will tell I guess.

 

Personally I would have preferred if Disney never owned the company and no more Star Wars movies were made. I like to leave a story that's finished nicely wrapped up, rather than continue with unnecessary continuations. But that's just me, and that's how I feel about virtually every Saga I like. I just don't think "more is better".

 

If no Disney means George Lucas' Sequel Trilogy then YES .

 

Yes. I'm another one who wishes more of these big series could just be allowed to end. Seeing the original cast again will be cool, but yearly Star Wars films sounds like a sure way for me to finally leave behind Star Wars for good. I stopped with the novels and games when it all started feeling like too much, so I see that happening with the films as well. Also agree that I feel this way about some other stuff as well, so in fairness to Disney it's not just them I'm highly skeptical of. I love the Alien films, but a new Alien movie that brings back Hicks and Newt sounds terribly pandering.

 

I think it was a fairly decent choose for Disney making Star Wars. I mean when it's all said and done Disney was probably the best choose when comes to studios as they have at least something of a quality control. My only worry really is my fear that yearly Star Wars movies might easily oversaturate us. But other then that I think it was a decent decision.

 

I agree. I believe you need a reason (a story) to want to make a movie. If the only reason to make a movie is "let's just make one more SW movie" that's wrong for me. And seeing that Disney has already decided they will release a SW movie per year makes it clear that there is no other reason to make those movies.

 

That's probably more a case of "Who else would own it?" than anything else

 

My answer is an absolute, unequivocal, YES.

 

So far, not very impressed with Disney. They cancelled TCW, 3D releases and are now going to oversaturate the market with Star Wars like they do with MCU. Star Wars was special because the movies were so rare. And that's because Lucas - despite the popular opinion - cared more about the story than profits. Lucas answered to himself, Disney answers to the shareholders. What was a deeply personal story for Lucas is just another product for them.

I guess it was inevitable at some point that Lucas or his heirs would sell the company but looking at everything I know about TFA I sure wish Lucas was still in charge (at least in terms of the story direction).

 

I’m glad Disney bought it and that Lucas decided to let it go. This franchise needs fresh blood at this point and to move beyond George Lucas. It reminds me of STAR TREK. Under the leadership of Gene Roddenberry, the franchise had started to grow stale. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE was a massive disappointment and the first two Roddenberry-controlled seasons of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION were positively dreadful. The movie series and THE NEXT GENERATION only became good when Roddenberry was no longer involved. Remember that Paramount Pictures forcibly removed Roddenberry from STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KHAN and brought in Nicholas Meyer to take over. Nearly everyone would agree that that resulted in the best STAR TREK film. Similarly, THE NEXT GENERATION only became good when Roddenberry got ill and Michael Piller took over during Season 3. Could you imagine Roddenberry signing off on CHAIN OF COMMAND? Hell, most people agree that Roddenberry would’ve despised STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, yet in many ways, it’s the best TREK series. The fact is that STAR TREK was bigger than Gene Roddenberry, and his tunnel vision was restricting the franchise.

Similarly, STAR WARS is bigger than George Lucas, and I think he was hurting the franchise towards the end. I actually have more respect for Lucas than I have for Roddenberry, precisely because of the sale to Disney. Unlike Roddenberry, Lucas realized that STAR WARS was bigger than him and that he needed to step aside and let new people do new and interesting things with it. I think the Disney sale could prove to be the best thing that happened to STAR WARS, and I applaud George Lucas for having the cognizance, wisdom and humility to move on and let it go…something Roddenberry could never do.

 

I guess we have different concepts of what Star Wars is. For most of you it's a franchise comprised by films, TV series, books, video games and whatnot. For me it's a story told in 6 movies. A story I happen to like very much, both for the story itself and because of the way it was told.

So why does Star Wars need new blood? Why does it need to move on? Why can't new filmmakers and creators (if they're so clever that they can "improve" Star Wars) create a new franchise, a new world to play with?


Clearly, Lucas agrees with your concept of the Star Wars franchise, but personally, I don't care about the Star Wars franchise. I will cling to "my" Star Wars story. And I will see the new movie for curiosity and hopefully will enjoy it as a new thing on its own -not because it's part of a franchise I'm supposed to like.

 

Or seven, depending on who's counting.

 

Lucas never had a problem allowing other people play in his sandbox. Look at all the EU, games, and even TCW.

In what way? What was the state of the franchise circa 1990, remind me? Just because the prequels were divisive among fans it doesn't mean it wasn't revived by the prequel era and brought back to the mass culture (that includes the OT, by the way).

I understand the sentiment and even agree with it somewhat but so far I don't see a lot "new and interesting things". Instead, there's a lot of rehashing of the old things (both the plot and the visuals). At least George was not afraid take significant risks. Even if they didn't work for everyone but it's the only way to move the franchise forward. Which is why I'm not too happy with Disney's over nostalgic approach.

I'm not sure the comparison with Roddenbery is valid since Star Wars is a far more eclectic saga that must be accessible to kids. And that all comes from the mind of George Lucas.

 

Truth be told, I’d already moved on to STAR TREK by the time THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came out. EMPIRE was a great movie, and I adored it, but my phase of passionate STAR WARS fandom was dissipating. For me, it ended around 1978 or 1979. It had fully vanished by the time RETURN OF THE JEDI came out. I still saw the films, and bought them on VHS and LaserDisc, but my days of collecting the comics, the EU novels (anyone else read SPLINTER OF THE MIND’S EYE at the time?), the trading cards and whatnot was forever gone. By 1990, I was already planning to let even my Trekkie license lapse and it had been years since I’d watched DOCTOR WHO (although I ran into Tom Baker in a hotel bar a few years earlier). I am NOT the person to ask about this.

But I do believe the brand was damaged by the Special Editions and the prequels. Oh, the prequels certainly lined George’s pocket quite nicely as did the 1997 Special Edition theatrical release, but it also created a bitterness and anger towards STAR WARS and its creator that’s unprecedented. What had once been a near-universally beloved space opera had now become a source of disappointment, frustration and anger. I know some people enjoy the prequels, but most people I’ve talked to outside of STAR WARS fan groups don’t like them. They don’t have the obsessive hatred of some fans, but they tend to say, “Yeah, the prequels we're disappointining/not that good”, “The prequels sucked”, or “I hated Jar Jar.”

And when talking about the new film, the common sentiment is, “I hope we finally get a good STAR WARS film again. I sat through three turds.” (That’s an actual quote from actual person I talked to, BTW.)

And who better to make film for children than Disney? They’ve only been doing it for 80 years.

 

I'm sure a lot of people didn't like them (although my personal experience is more diverse - a lot of people seem to accept them as part of a saga to some extent). But I also wonder if the Internet has exaggerated the hatred. They keep telling me everyone hates them, and yet I look at the actual numbers - box office, TV ratings, toy sales, DVD sales, games, other products - they don't look to shabby to me. Blu rays of the whole saga were a bestseller 12 years TPM's release. Even folks who hated the movies liked some stuff from the prequel era like games or TCW. Which suggests to me there's a weird disconnect between the perceived damaged reputation and an actual popularity of the franchise which has definitely grown in the last 16 years. I get a feeling that a lot of people just buy the saga to watch it with their kids and don't care that the geek media tells them to hate it.

And, really, why should anyone care what others are thinking? There're a lot of people who don't like Star Wars in general and think it ruined the serious cinema. Should we care about that? Why does the fandom gets all upset when there's even a mildest criticism of the first two movies (aka the only two great ones) from someone like Joss Whedon? Why do geeks always feel the need for their likes or dislikes to be validated by others? Is that some kind of insecurity or something?

If you don't like most of what George has done since 1983, that's fine. I don't have nostalgia for the dark times of 1985-1991 when the OT was universally beloved but no new significant content was coming out and it was fading away from the public memory. I know it's hard for the OT fans to admit, but without the prequels the OT would be just like Back to the Future - a classic trilogy from 1980s celebrated on special occasions but not very relevant to the new generations (actually, even less relevant since Star Wars relied on the special effects a lot more than BTTF). Maybe some folks would have been fine with that (especially if it was OOT) but I'm glad George went back to Star Wars and did the prequels and allowed other people add more content so that almost everyone could find something they liked.

But that's why I'm surprised why it seems to be so heavily targeted at the older die-hard demographics. It might be pretty and exciting, but there's not a lot of new as far as I can see.
On top of that, there're other dubious decisions like anthology movies - I'm not even sure I wanna see them, and I'm a die-hard fan.
The circumstances also look a tad shady - when the deal was announced, Iger said he liked the treatment but then they decided to mostly discard it and had to write a new script in 6 months. I hope Making of book will shed some light on what happened.

 

As for the whole saga selling well, I’d simply state that the original trilogy is still incredibly popular, despite the constant Lucas alterations. Most of the people who seem to really like the prequels are under the age of 12. Again, most people don’t OBSESS over the prequels the way some hardcore fanboys do (and I’ll concede that the constant fanboy whining about Lucas and the prequels can get incredibly annoying), but if they’re brought up in conversation, most people will just nod and say, “Yeah, they were disappointing” or “Yeah, they sucked”. Occasionally, someone will say, “They weren’t as good as the originals, but they’re not THAT bad”, but even that’s somewhat rare.

I should reiterate, most people I’ve met don’t obsess over them, constantly rant over them, or emphatically disavow them…but that doesn’t mean that most people liked them. Oh, and regarding the cartoon series, from my experience, anyone who watches that series falls into one of two groups:

a) Hardcore STAR WARS fans.

b) Children ages 12 and under (occasionally, their parents have seen a few episodes and know the names of 2 or 3 TV-only characters).

That’s never been the case with the movies. Not to mention that the box office success of the prequels is probably more of a testament to the power of branding than to the quality of the films. I mean, let me put it this way—name me a single post-STAR WARS hit that Lucas has had without the help of Steven Spielberg. Honestly, I’ve always considered that to be the primary reason for his return to STAR WARS.

This claim seems more applicable to prequel apologists than to prequel detractors. Prequel apologists seem very eager to “prove” that the prequels weren’t viewed as a massive disappointment. The truth is I don’t care if somebody likes the prequels, and I care even less about the opinions of a pretentious comedian like John Simon. Although I must admit that I love this video where Siskel & Ebert call Simon out on his BS snobbery:

Simple. It proves that Disney did their market research and discovered that most people didn’t like the prequels. They must’ve found out that Lucas did some significant damage to the brand, and they’re now trying to win back the goodwill that Lucas had lost. Again, to anyone claiming that prequel hatred is exaggerated, I would ask them to explain WHY Disney is trying so hard to distance themselves from the last 20 years of Lucas. Disney is a business. They care about making as much money as possible. Why would they put so much effort into appeasing a noisy minority? It makes no sense…unless you accept that most people disliked the prequels and Disney is trying to undo that damage.

 

anakinfan edit: Let's not do that.