Why George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney ?

Hey, I'm just going by the way I've always seen, heard and read Hollywood being used. I dunno, maybe there's just a disconnect between the way peaple in Hollywood view what consitutes Hollywood and what the average joe considers Hollywood to be.

Um...

Okay, I'm very confused now. Pre-Disney Lucasfilm is on that list you just linked to as "mini-major"*, yet your saying its not part of Hollywood?

*(and the definition given for what consitutes that - "Mini-major studios (or "mini-majors") are the larger film production companies that are smaller than the major studios and attempt to compete directly with them" is pretty much what I've been saying the whole time LFL was. A smaller-tier studio that had enough clout and wealth to more or less do its own thing but was still part of the broader Hollywood "extended family.")

Fair enough, but he still sold Star Wars to Disney of all peaple, still allowed other studios to distribute his films, still rubbed elbows with the peaple he apparently hated and LFL still owned a special effects firm that was regularly and intimatly involved with Hollywood. Maybe he did'nt have to work with Hollywood as a filmaker, but he had zero issue doing it as a buisnessman and he did that all the time, so he was definantly a part of the system in that sense, even if it was as "George Lucas the seasoned CEO of Lucasfilms who is all too happy to make distribution deals and let peaple outsource their special effects to him" rather then "George Lucas the young, up and coming filmmaker begrudingly looking a way to get money to finance his films."

I do see your point and if this is your field I'll concede that your probobly far more likely to be right about all this then I am, I just. I dunno, I guess I just don't see how a man can be considered to not be a part of something when he so often works within/makes deals with that thing in one way or anouther and maintains firm connections to both the thing and other peaple who work more regularly within said thing; does this make sense?

The wikipedia link you yourself posted disagrees with that assesment though, as I noted above; it apparently considers LFL pre-Disney to have been just one step below those five/six (which is basically what I've been arguing it was anyway - a lesser, but still well-known - Hollywood studio)

And agian, this thread is literally the only place were I've ever seen the defination of Hollywood that I use not treated as "the" definition. I'm not saying your wrong, but as I said perhaps there's a disconnect between insiders and joe everybody that leads to these differing opinions on what is and is not Hollywood, becuase that's all I can think of for our differing definitions.

 

Once again, forget about trying to arrive at a definition of "Hollywood" that everyone in the whole wide world will agree on, that's not what I'm trying to do here.

We're talking about the Hollywood majors, not the mini-majors, because the mini-majors definitely don't have the same kind of clout.

Lucas wanted to not be a passive player in an industry that's always been dominated by the Hollywood majors.

Even if you're going by some other definition of what constitutes "Hollywood" in the larger sense, there is no doubt whatsoever about what constitutes a Hollywood major, and Lucas wanted not be a part of that, so that's what matters.

And wanting to have his own filmmaking company doesn't mean never doing business with the majors.

There's a difference between doing business with a company you'd rather not work for and being an employee of that company. As a businessman, Lucas could negotiate and either he came to a deal he liked or he didn't make a deal. Either way, the business side of things didn't determine what he could do as an artist.

 

I think I understand now. Yes, if that's what your saying I agree with you 100 percent.

The problem with that analogy is Hollywood is not a company; if a guy works at Hannafords until he gets enough money to start his own little corner grocer he does'nt stop being part of the American supermarket industry, he just gains independence within that industry.

I think you might be focusing on "just" the artist part, while I'm factoring everything in when making the judgment I'm making. IMO this list alone is enough to make me consider Lucas a "part" of Hollywood, even if it's only as a businessman who can afford to pick and chose what projects he contributes his studio's assests and talents too.

 

I'm not the one here who is "focusing" on anything, lol.

Once again, let's just put completely aside the element of whether or not someone is a part of something, because ultimately that has nothing at all to do with what I am saying here, it really doesn't.

The whole basis for this argument is the fact that Lucas wanted to be in control of his own artistic output, and it's really just as easy as that. Because obviously he wasn't going to do that if he was just a hired hand for someone else, or if he needed to get someone else to give him an OK when he wanted to do something a certain way.

That's it, it's just as simple.

And although you keep bringing up some of his other companies, again, that has absolutely nothing at all to do with his own personal creative freedom.

If you think about it a little less in terms of the labels that you insist on using, you see how simple it really is. He didn't want other people telling him what he could or couldn't do with his own movies; also to a lesser extent he wanted to be able to help out some of his friends in the industry when he could.

If you reply at all to this post, try doing so without using the "H word," because when you do that you keep missing the boat completely about what creative and artistic freedom really means, when you just look at it individually, and not as part of labeling an ecosystem, or an industry.

 

In that case it seems we've been arguing two different things*, as from were I've been coming from the basis of the argument was'nt that Lucas wanted to be in control of his own artistic output (I never denied that). I was never trying to argue anything to do with his creative freedom, just whether or not he fit the critera of someone who was involved with "the H word" (hence why I kept bring up ILM and questioning if Walt Disney circa the 1960s would also be considered "not a part" of it).

*and I would conceed, now that I understand what your actual argument is (I actually thought that said argument was that he was/was'nt part of something, so my bad), that I agree.

I think some peaple around here would be pretty quick to tell you that I put a lot of stock in creative and artistic freedom and fully support Lucas's choices therein (even though I strongly disagree with many of them). But the argument that I was making here was never based around creative and artistic freedom, but rather whether Lucas, on virtue of his deeds, actions and business deals, would classify as being "part" of the system.

 

But don't you see that depends entirely on how you define the "system"?

Was he a part of the "system" in the same way a Steven Spielberg or a Chris Columbus have been? Definitely not.

He always was a maverick in the entertainment industry.

In some cases, a filmmaker's relationship with the industry can be in a state of flux. Look at foreign-born directors like Paul Verhoeven, John Woo, Alfonso Cuarón, but who never cease to be world-class filmmakers even though they come and go, sometimes they made movies in Hollywood, sometimes in their home countries. They could do Hollywood assignments when they want, but their careers also weren't defined exclusively by their Hollywood work.

But anyway, we digress.

Hope we've finally cleared those things up.

 

This debate is going to go on until the end of time isn't it?

 

Well, it depends....

 

Only until Tina will admit that she (he?) is wrong

Just kidding, Tina's actually right - as I said yesterday we were just arguing two different things from two different prespectives and talking past each other.

Yes, George Lucas was always a maverick (or at least he always tried to be - I disagree with a lot of what he did with the PT, but like RJ I appreciate that he at least stayed true to his personal vision and tried to do new things), and yes he was a director who could afford to more or less do his own thing outside of the system (which by his own admission he had a fair amount of contempt from and wanted to exercise seperation from). However he was also no stranger to that system and how it worked, clearly had no issue working within (or at least with) it quite often as a buisnessman who owned a film studio that contained one of the industries leading SFX firms, was not considered some fringy indie filmaker who Hollywood looked down upon and considered an outsider and made films (Star Wars, the Indy films) that many (I'd dare say the majority) of peaple would consider "Hollywood blockbusters," and this second point is the perspective I was arguing from - that he has strong personal and professional ties to Hollywood and regularly works with it at least in a buisness sense, ergo he is "a part" of it.

So, what your saying is...

First time I've ever heard Verhoeven called "world-class," lol. I mean, I like him (a lot), but I would'nt exactly call him classy or sophisticated (though I would argue that's part of his charm).

Though comparing Lucas to a foreign director like Verhoevan, Woo and Cuarón makes a lot of sense; all three (like Lucas) have made films that I would classify as "Hollywood films," but their not Hollywood "regulars" and don't need to work in Hollywood to make films, so I guess in that sense I can see how one might classify Lucas as being "not Hollywood"* (similerly, I would not consider Christoph Waltz or Stellan Skarsgård "Hollywood actors" even though both have appeared in what I would classify as Hollywood films, as they have no need to do so regularly and the fact that they do on occasion has not/does not define their careers.

*though personally I still would in the business sense, if only in the special effects field.

 

People can wear more than one hat.

 

Like the pod racer announcer.

 

Well that would be an extreme example

 

Can anyone here that has that book share some of it's info ?

Since this book isn't available at the place where I live.

 

The book wont be released until October 28th. So no one can share anything yet.

 

The Quote from @Huncrweo is correct. It was quoted in a Magazine where the whole Transition to Disney was a Major Topic with interviews including Lucas, Kennedy and some others. I think it was the Hollywood Reporter back in 2013. Lucas very openly expressed his unhappyness with the sheer hatred he received from the Internet since 1999 and he surely was tired of it.

Though I wouldnt say he was unhappy with working with STAR WARS. He spent so much time working with Filoni on TCW that I wouldnt say he was unhappy with it. Far from it he had so much fun with his work on TCW that he started to think about the ST and write down ideas and strated developing it. His plan was to at least make Ep VII himself and then handing the movies over to someone else to complete the ST but Igers proposals to buy LFL came before and so he took the oppurtunity.

Saying that the People would have hated his ST is surely true. But in the end you can see with the finished ST that People hate it no matter what. The expectations and personal ideas of how the movies should have been made and what stroy should have been told is so fixed some peoples minds that there isnt any wiggle room for the stuff we got. Same happend with the Prequels. Did I had other ideas of how the ST would develop and what it would tell? 100 percent? Can I take my personal ideas and go with what we get? Certainly thats only fair and reasonable.

 

George should have acted like Michael Bay imo.

Make the movies that he wants to make, don't give a damn that what the internet thinks about his movies.

 

iam glad he did with the PT. Still Iam happy that we got the ST in any way shape and form.

 

In my opinion caring about fans opinions too much is what that made the sequel trilogy feel messy. Due to the backlash of TLJ they decided to retcon some of it's stuff which made TROS a worse movie than the previous 2 movies.

No movie can please every fan. So, it's better to just stop listening to the loudest opinion on the internet and just make the decisions based on the money that the movies make.

Because fans just want copy pasted stories than new stories.(For sequel trilogy, internet fans just wanted a copy of EU stories that were after ROTJ.)

 

Yes I agree on that part of listening to the Internet mob. Honestly I dont get the rage about it at all. We're talking about a movie franchise, no politics or laws which would change or endanger lives. 2020 shows what is way more important than wether some space movies are made like I'd want them to be made: health, safety, a good job. Raging about something like a movie shows that people dont have real problems and so they create their own problems. Its stupid and way over the top.

Iam happy with what we got. Would I'd have loved to get the LUCAS ST? Of Course. But hey. until 2012 I didnt even dream of getting more SW movies. The Live Footage Show was shelved. we only had TCW, Books and Comics. Now in 2020 we have 2 more animated shows, 1 live footage Show, 5 movies, more shows planned and in production and many many more books and Comics telling new stories. STAR WARS is may escape from the real world Problems and stuff and Iam thankfull for what we got and what we are about to get. Live is to short and grim to rage over some Entertainment Franchise, no matter how passionate you are about it.

 

Yeah. At least Star Wars is still getting movies unlike other franchises that deserve to get more movies.(Witchblade, Dune which is just getting a tv series.)

 

Due to Corona and the Internet mob movies have been postponed. I think we're about to have a time of about 5 years without any movie release before us...maybe more.

 

Isn't there a Dune movie coming out?

 

Yes but it's been postponed and who knows when it will actually open.

 

I thought Dune is getting a TV series.