Disney buys out Lucasfilm

[leoparder]

A quick look at the future of StarWars movies :P

A really funny video/parody of StarWars vs. Disney.

Star Wars VII - Return of the Empire :

[Fuppylodders]

Sorry about yesterday elrond, I was having a really crappy day. I wasnt thinking clearly and I understand your opinions on the matter and of course you are allowed to think that. Cant believe also how obvious that irony is to see now yet i blatantly missed it yesterday. Completely my bad and I apologise. Personally Im looking forward to the new disnology attempt. Im hoping TCW will come back later on as it is a good thing that didnt deserve the chop, but who knows what they really have instore for that.

On another note, Im quite happy looking at the screengrab of that video :p

[Elrond]

Sorry about yesterday elrond, I was having a really crappy day. I wasnt thinking clearly and I understand your opinions on the matter and of course you are allowed to think that. Cant believe also how obvious that irony is to see now yet i blatantly missed it yesterday. Completely my bad and I apologise. Personally Im looking forward to the new disnology attempt. Im hoping TCW will come back later on as it is a good thing that didnt deserve the chop, but who knows what they really have instore for that.

On another note, Im quite happy looking at the screengrab of that video :p

Don't worry, I understand. I just hope everything is going better for you today. Let's just forget about it.

And I'll try to be less passionate when I'm talking about SW.

[Faefrost]

Oh god. They're going to make the Young Jedi Knights series into a TV show.

Close your eyes, and picture the sound of Selena Gomez's voice as Jaina. You know it's gonna happen.

[AndyC]

I think the one thing the Marvel films show, regardless of whether you like them or not (personally I love some like Iron Man and thought others, like Captain America, were dreadful) is that there are better ways of dealing with a wide reaching universe than had traditionally been the case. Before they came along you'd have seen either a bunch of entirely disconnected films or a very specific sequence with a continuing storyline, neither of which really allows the writers to get creative in the way the separate-yet-connected Marvel movie universe has done (whilst not faithful to the comics per-se, it's probably more faithful to the idea of the comics and the ability to do crossovers than anything else has been).

I think the same could work with the Star Wars universe too. And it avoids the issue you see in things like the PT, whereby the need to keep everyone's story so tightly connected starts to stretch the credibility of things somewhat (I mean, Anakin building C3PO for example?) The potential to give strong characters the ability to have their own storyline and yet intertwine them where it makes sense might well be a big improvement in many ways.

On the whole I'm hoping good things come from Disney taking over the reins of Star Wars, I think they're well aware of the potential it has and will treat it with the respect it deserves. Obviously the loss of some things so far is a bit disappointing, Lucasarts has a special place in my memory (even if, in truth, they haven't done much great in recent years) and The Clone Wars is another disappointment. In fairness though, nobody really knows what led to that decision, it possible CN had a contract allowing first refusal of any new series, which would have made it very awkward for Disney to continue. I guess we just have to wait and see how the movies go, hopefully they will at least be better than Phantom Menace anyway!

Edited April 20, 2013 by AndyC

[OBI-WAN37]

I don't think Disney will screw this up, they didn't screw up the avengers, so it's doubtful they'll want to screw up Star Wars.

[Honorable]

Things Disney need to do to win my support (No real order):

Original Original Trilogy on Blu-ray.

New X-Wing/Tie-Fighter Game

Battlefront III

Jedi Knight 3 (A proper one, none of this kinnect motion control shite)

If you do do 7/8/9 Make it the Thrawn Trilogy

Put Tim Zahn in charge of the EU.

Ignore 90% of the current EU

Make a proper KotOR 3

Part of me isn't that bothered. George has managed to ruin my enjoyment of Star Wars piece by piece. I see It more as a bloated cash cow now.

Shame.

LucasArts was actually in the process of making a game called Star Wars: First Assault, and was sceduled to be released in the earlier part of this year. It would have been a predecessor to Battlefront III, if it sold well. However now that Disney has bought out LucasArts, and all the projects the company was currently working on, the chances of a Battlefront III being released are now near next to none.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Honorable

[Flipz]

Close your eyes, and picture the sound of Selena Gomez's voice as Jaina. You know it's gonna happen.

Hey, Selena Gomez can act when she wants to. I can't picture her as Jaina, but there are worse choices that Disney has access to. Far, far worse choices. *cough*MileyCyrus*cough* *shudders*

Edited April 21, 2013 by Flipz

[Rogue Angel]

OK, I'm not sure this is the right place to post it but I see nothing about it anywhere else, so here goes...

(And please be aware that even though I despise the prequels and CW, I am not trying to pick a fight with the Prequel fans out there, I am just pointing out that there is EU material that is much better written than the prequels and CW. I apologize in advance.)

Lucasfilm just announced that through a meticulous and careful selection process, the Expanded Universe they have decided to keep is....none of it. The only things they view as canon are Star Wars, Empire, Return, the Prequels, and... the Clone Wars.

This is such a slap in the face to all the Star Wars fans that have read the books, played the RPGs, read the comics, played the Video Games... Disney is saying "we don't want to bother with making the effort. We just want to make it easy for us to make our new movies/games/books without having to concern ourselves with anything in the past." This is definitely strike 1 against Disney for me.

Mara Jade, Thrawn, the X-Wing series, the twins and Anakin, all gone. KOTOR and the Old Republic - gone. The REAL Clone Wars series (the series of 6 minute shorts) - gone. Dark Empire, Legacy - gone. Not to mention the fact that I own every card from the Decipher CCG and the majority of the WEG, and both Wizards series RPG books, and these contain a literal ton of information - all gone. Thanks Disney.

We are left with 3 amazing movies, 1 mediocre movie, 2 bad movies and 1 bad cartoon series. And they've taken the wealth of credible, logical information provided in the EU, and traded it in for midi-chlorians, weak jedi (Ep II) and idiotic races and planets altered to fit poorly written CW episodes.

If they can't be bothered to match into ANY of the existing lore of the Star Wars universe, can we really expect them to make a movie that matches the spirit and quality of the original trilogy? (Matching the caliber of the prequels is a failure in my book). The Expanded Universe embodies the Star Wars universe outside the movies. Yes, there is quite a bit of bad material, but there is a lot of good material, there are great characters, races, planets, storylines... so much to choose from.

I view this is a major failure by Disney. If you're not willing to put in any effort here, how much effort are you going to put into the movies?

[Jason C. Hand]

Good grief. I'm still skeptical of what they will be releasing in the near future...

[rollermonkey]

Um, I quoted the whole article in the rumors thread, and that isn't exactly what they said...

Yes, the 6 movies and TCW are canon, but that's all that ever was officially canon before. Only the projects that Lucas was directly involved in were ever canon.

As for all the EU stuff, they haven't said that it is thrown into the garbage, but rather that they reserve the right to incorporate whatever they want from it into future projects. They already said that Seinar Fleet Systems, the Imperial Security Bureau and The Executor will all be incorporated into SW Rebels.

We already have heard hints that the sequel trilogy will involve the Solo and Skywalker kids, so they could very well be the same characters, just having different adventures. With Lawrence Kasdan heavily involved in this script, I'm not terribly worried that things will go as poorly as some things did in the prequel trilogy.

[Rogue Angel]

I am behind on the rumors thread, so I apologize for reposting this separately. Mods please feel free to merge/delete this post if you feel it is appropriate.

Lawrence Kasdan was the one thing that made me comfortable with the creative team for the new movies, so I'm also hoping that these are far superior to the prequels.

I realize they are planning to use the twins, but I don't expect them to really match the personality of the EU twins now. I'm worried we're going to get completely new characters that are the same in name only. And the use of Seinar, the ISB and the Inquisitor are a drop in the bucket compared to what's out there. The use of Seniar Fleet Systems is somewhat promising since may mean they use KDY, Incom, Sorosuub, etc, but this may also just be an adjective - Seinar Fleet Systems might turn out to be some flashy new ship manufacturer that produces luxury yachts instead of the Imperial starfighter workhorse.

I also realize that they haven't said that EU is not included, but it looks like they are just going to pick and choose some things that happen to go along with what they've already written, instead of the other way around. It would have been very easy to use this approach:

"Hey, we need a ship for this smuggler"

"What would an appropriate manufacturer"

"Well, the Falcon is from Corellian Engineering, and they make a lot of different freighters, although KDY also makes a wide range of ships, including freighters. If it's a more obscure or less common ship, how about Sorosuub or Rendili"

And this is what I would have expected if they really wanted to put forth the effort. There is a whole catalog of characters, planets, races, corporations, ships, etc, that they could be using, but it really sounds more like they will only add in things here or there just for flavor.

[Apollo VI]

First of all, you are missing out on a TON of great Star Wars stories by not watching The Clone Wars. Did you not watch past the movie? What makes you think it's bad? The Clone Wars was a fantastic effort, and many Prequel haters even begrudgingly acknowledge that there's a lot of quality stuff there.

Second, we really did need some sort of reboot for the post-ROTJ EU. It's convoluted, inconsistent (quality-wise), and at this point it's extremely hard for new fans to jump in. Luke, Han & Leia are old in the books and their legacy in was nearing its end. They were about to hit a dead end in the EU. Now is as good of a time as any to "cut the cord" and let their EU incarnations rest in peace.

I will say that I'm slightly disappointed that they decided not to incorporate everything pre-New Jedi Order, because that would have been a really good place to diverge the stories, and there are basically only a few characters that they would be forced to carry over into Episode VII. Plus, keeping that era canon would preserve a lot of fan-favorite books like the Timothy Zahn books and the X-Wing series. But, I also understand the desire for a "clean break" as to not complicate things going forward.

I think we will see a lot of borrowed EU elements still. There's a whole treasure trove of great ideas custom made for Star Wars ready for the future authors. The EU basically gave us a roadmap of what works well and what doesn't work well in a post-ROTJ timeline. My hope is that they pick out some of the better characters, locations, and possibly even stories and re-integrate them into the new continuity. In the end, we might even end up with a better canon than the one we had before. Especially since there will be more oversight now in delivering quality and consistency across all mediums.

Finally, remember that just because it isn't canon doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. It still exists in your mind and on paper. Who cares if some corporation tells you that it "didn't really happen"? It's all fiction anyway, you can believe in what you want regarding the canon. Heck, they're still going to produce a lot of the EU books so they even still exist in their own universe.

I just don't see this announcement as a cause for disgust, but rather a cause for excitement because the franchise is getting re-energized and there's an effort behind the scenes to deliver something great.

[Godtshep]

This is very sad news indeed. My son always talked about what elements of the EU would be in Episode 7 but now...

[Brickdoctor]

Well, we all knew it was going to happen, especially after the announcement a couple weeks ago in which toymakers were told to stop making EU products. Like everything else Disney's doing, I'm not really a supporter, but I'm also not entirely against it. If they do something I don't like, I'll just do my best to ignore it as much as I can, just like I do with TCW and parts of the PT.

They can call whatever they want canon or non-canon and replace things if they want to; honestly, at this point I've stopped caring. I have my own view of what the ideal SW canon is, and Disney can't make me take things like Heir to the Empire out of it.

I am behind on the rumors thread, so I apologize for reposting this separately. Mods please feel free to merge/delete this post if you feel it is appropriate.

Normally discussion like this would go into Culture and Multimedia, but in this case, I think it's appropriate for the big "Disney Buys Lucasfilm" topic. I'll merge it into there...

...and done.

[Mr Man]

Good.

Maybe that will mean those ridicules overblown figures that come out of the EU for everything from Clone Numbers, to firepower will finally be revised in a proper manner.

It won't make a difference to me as I ignored everything that wasn't a film or TV show, and now that's not going to change.

The only single piece of the EU I'm sad about is the KoTOR games, but I can still play them, even if they are not canon.

[wesker]

I can't say I'm bothered by this. I've enjoyed plenty of EU work but have never been under the illusion it was anything more than tie in material. The whole idea behind the EU being C-canon reflects this (i.e. this story is canon except its not really canon in the movies and cartoons)

Previous EU work is still going to be available under the "Legends" banner. Just because its not canon doesn't mean people can't enjoy a good story.

[Darth Punk]

I think it makes perfect sense to do away with he EU entirely. This was going to happen regardless of who made the next trilogy since Lucas already has story lines for them. What other options were there otherwise? Keep everything, including the very badly written stories? Or pick and choose some of the highlights and hope it works with your intended direction? While the second option is doable it really boxes you in and limits the creative process. Plus any deviation will only result from people complaining that it doesn't match up exactly, even when that may not be possible. This way they can still pick and choice what they like but are not tied down by absolutes.

Ever do any remodeling? Sometimes you save things, other times you,rip everything out and start fresh so you can have a better foundation for the direction you want to go. You can keep some elements but you then can shape them to fit your process rather than having to fit everything the few items you want to keep.

Like many others have said the EU isn't being erased from the planet, it's just not being used to define the next trilogy. You can still enjoy it and if you have some patience you may find parts you enjoy on the big screen.

For me I really look toward to seeing the continuation of OT, something I didn't think would ever happen. I get to relive my childhood memories and I don't think that would be entirely possible if the EU was the defining factor for the next trilogy.

[punkkid364]

The only single piece of the EU I'm sad about is the KoTOR games, but I can still play them, even if they are not canon.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think KOTOR is a bit ambiguous at this point. It's not "G-level" canon, and never was, but this announcement is very specific about dealing with post-ROTJ EU, most of which was also not "G-level" canon, being "moved down" a peg to free up the films' post-ROTJ timeline. Or am I reading the press release incorrectly?

[Mr Man]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think KOTOR is a bit ambiguous at this point. It's not "G-level" canon, and never was, but this announcement is very specific about dealing with post-ROTJ EU, most of which was also not "G-level" canon, being "moved down" a peg to free up the films' post-ROTJ timeline. Or am I reading the press release incorrectly?

IS it just post ROTJ? I didn't read it, I couldn't care less either way, but if KOTR isn't included it still doesn't change it for me.

[punkkid364]

My understanding of the way Star Wars' canon is that it has different levels: what Disney is saying is that they consider canon to be the former(?) G- and T-level canon. Post-ROTJ EU stories are being "downgraded" from C-Level to S- or N-Level, and the new stuff coming out will be replacing it as C-Level canon. At least, as far as I can make out. In truth, KOTOR and TOR take place far enough away from any continuity issues arising from VII-IX that I don't think it matters if Disney considers them canon or not; their canonicity was already questionable to begin with. Are they great stories in the Star Wars universe? I think so. So does it matter if some committee says that these fictional events never happened in a fictional universe? Not to me. I'll still love that game, because it's good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_canon#The_Holocron as a reference

Edited April 26, 2014 by punkkid364

[legolandia]

I think it makes perfect sense to do away with he EU entirely.

Like many others have said the EU isn't being erased from the planet, it's just not being used to define the next trilogy. You can still enjoy it and if you have some patience you may find parts you enjoy on the big screen.

I own the entire collection of the SW books written for the EU so far. Personally I can say that this news has caused both sadness and joy.

It's sad because 150 books are being disregarded and Disney will have "history re-written". Whilst the EU had its fair share of badly written books, it also included a lot if excellently written books (Darth Bane trilogy, Yuuzhan Vong, X-wing series, Karen Traviss books and many more). Whilst I agree that the EU was starting to lose its focus and inspiration at the same time it doesnt deserve to be thrown out completely. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water as they say.

What is even more ironic is the fact that despite the EU being re-written the old stuff is being labelled as Legends-a clear attempt to milk more money out of the readers.

On the other hand it is joyous news because finally measures are put in place in order to co-ordinate everything (films, books, comics) into canon. And the EU will have artistic direction for the future. And i suppose neither Disney nor any potential future owners fo the franchise will be able to throw away books written from now on.

I think I'll hold on to the books for the sake of nostalgia but the comic collection will have to go.

[Just The Doctor]

Wasn't there an old republic/knights of the... Sith in the clone wars season 5 (Darth Bane I think) so this must somehow keep those games/books canon.

In my point of view, all EU i like is still there, so Fordo and Mara Jade are still canon

Edited April 27, 2014 by Just The Doctor

[Faefrost]

This is very sad news indeed. My son always talked about what elements of the EU would be in Episode 7 but now...

But that's exactly what we will get. We will get elements of the EU in Episode VII. We will get elements of the EU in Rebels. Just as for the past 20 years they have snuck elements of the EU into the PT, into the OT Special Editions and with extreme frequency, into TCW.

This had to happen. As soon as they announced that there would be a 7th movie everything written had to burn. There was no way around it. The new movies and TV shows could not be constrained by the timelines, histories and stories of the books. Many of the characters and Ships and planets will be saved and reintroduced in the new stuff. It's happened before. Remember Coruscant was from the books before it was formalized, as written, in the movies. Many EU ships and characters were formalized with cameos. Their exact back stories and histories will change to match the new timelines, but they are not completely off the table. We may yet see Thrawn or Talon Carde or Mara Jade, etc. but if we see them it will be in a different story than what we have read.

As far as we know right now there is really only one key EU event that is absolutely positively 100% undone with no real hope of returning, at least not in anything close to its EU manner. And it is generally the most hated moment from all of the books. The moment the EU jumped the shark and the majority of fans walked away and stopped reading. We know Peter Mayhew is on set for episode VII. Chewbaca Lives!

Among the things that probably triggered this were the rather horrific arms race that went on between the EU writers. How each new story seemed to go for bigger and more absurd galaxy destroying super weapons. (Granted JJ Abrahms is involved and he does have some of his own issues along these lines. See: USS Vengeance). And let's not forget the Yuzhan Vong (or however you spell it) star War's answer to all of the really lousy Star Trek villain races introduced in Voyager. With a dash of Stargate Atlantis and Earth Final Conflict thrown in. At the end of the day the new movies have to look and feel like classic Star Wars to succeed. The EU had written itself to far away from that to be preserved as it was.

I think I'll hold on to the books for the sake of nostalgia but the comic collection will have to go.

Are you insane? Dark Horse has lost the license. The root IP is now outright owned by Marvel. Those comics will not be reprinted or republished in any form unless or until Marvel buys out Dark horse. Whatever you do, DO NOT THROW OUT THE COMICS!!!!!

[Mr Man]

Wasn't there an old republic/knights of the... Sith in the clone wars season 5 (Darth Bane I think) so this must somehow keep those games/books canon.

In my point of view, all EU i like is still there, so Fordo and Mara Jade are still canon

No, all that means is that Darth Bane is a canon Sith, not that everything Dart Bane appears in must also be canon.

Also Fordo is isn't he, has CW been removed, it's a TV series and not contradicted or replaced by TCW.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Mr Man