$4 billion +

[jason1977]

I want to see the bank teller's face when he hands her that check.....

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/disney-st ... 30937.html

[s_o_r_r_o_w]

I couldn't be happier--Georges Lucas no longer has creative control over Star Wars. There is a God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs8D6zwQhxs

[MagickalMemories]

I was MORTIFIED to see this picture:


This is my worst nightmare about Disney buying out Lucas.


Eric

[THEFAN]

As much as I loved the Star Wars ride at disney. Please tell me this is not so.

[oaflord]

Sorry, but true. At least now I can tell my daughter she can be Leia next year for Halloween and still be a Disney Princess.

oAF

[kturock]

the evil empire bought out the cruel overlord.

go figure.

[disney is refered to as the horned rat or evil empire for those who work with or near it.]

[rokassan]

These last three films were horrid anyhow. The acting was bad and Darth Vaders fall was pathetic. He was a spoiled brat and self serving. I imagined his fall much more tragic...doing the wrong thing for the right reason or something to that effect.All he was trying to do is figure out how to ressurect his girlfriend IF she died. I dont think Disney could do worse, unless they did it on purpose.

[griffrat]

Here is my two cents, for what its worth.

Everyone knows the last three films were something most proportion would try not to step in at a dog park. That being said, Disney wants to make money and only a good product will return this type of expenditure of cash. Looking at how much cash The Avengers brought in (a good product IMHO). I feel that a good product is on the horizon for the Star Wars movies.....

[travis_b7]

These last three films were horrid anyhow. The acting was bad and Darth Vaders fall was pathetic. He was a spoiled brat and self serving. I imagined his fall much more tragic...doing the wrong thing for the right reason or something to that effect.All he was trying to do is figure out how to ressurect his girlfriend IF she died. I dont think Disney could do worse, unless they did it on purpose.

You hit the nail on the head here. Not that the films were terrible, but "I imagined his fall much more tragic." Lucas has said over and over that nothing he could have produced or had produced by other teams would ever have lived up to his fan's expectations. Lucas didn't ruin Star Wars. We did. We expected the magic of the first films, which most of us first saw as children, to carry on into adulthood with new films.

In an interview in January, Lucas basically said he didn't see a reason to make any more movies because people would hate them and hate him no matter what came out of it. He never wanted to run a corporation and has always wanted to go back to making films just for fun rather than to fill the wanton needs of a fan base. He's tired of Star Wars, and he wants to be a fan rather than a creator which is something he's never been able to do with Star Wars (last time he handed full control over for a project, we got Life Day and Wookie adult movies... sure you want this again?). Either way, Lucas IS still going to be involved - no way Disney would shut him out of the process, even if it was just to throw a "I like that idea" around now and again.

If you step back and look at the prequel trilogy objectively, you can see they aren't terrible movies. They aren't the best ever, no, but their target audience loves them. Kids find the worlds, characters, aliens, technology, and other aspects of the film fascinating. I love each and every movie for its own merits, even though Hayden Christensen's acting has a lot to be desired in Episode II.

As for Anankin's fall to Vader, the films simply don't have enough time to cover the deep personal relationship Anakin develops with Palpatine between the second and third film. Anakin feared losing Padme as he had lost his mother, so Palpatine played off those fears and encouraged them while also making Anakin think the Jedi were attempting to take over the Republic. It wasn't JUST because he thought his WIFE (not his girlfriend) was going to die. And all this information comes just from the films, not the extended universe.

Don't watch Star Wars like an adult. Watch it like a kid. The films were awe inspiring, and the world that spawned from the films is more than any of us could have ever hoped for through toys, video games, cartoon spin-offs (have you SEEN the Clone Wars?!?). Lucas created this, and we shouldn't crucify him for mistakes that were made. We could all play Monday quarterback and say how we would have done things differently in the films, but it won't change the films as they are, and it won't change Lucas's artistic decisions whether we agree with them or not.

Will Disney ruin Star Wars? Only if we let them. Star Wars is a space opera - its not supposed to attempt to solve social problems or make a statement against a political idea. Its about good monks with laser swords fighting bad monks with laser swords while space ships shoot at other space ships while a smuggler gets a girl (spoiler?), green guys surprise us with their abilities, planets are made entirely of ice, desert, lava, and forest, aliens of many species are all over all the time, the good guys are the underdogs and the bad guys are faceless, and its simply a bunch of fun thrown around the hero's quest.

Finally, if you don't like a movie, don't watch it. Enjoy the ones you do. Same reason I'll let my wife see the Matrix but not the sequels. I didn't like them, they aren't that great, so I won't watch them. However, someone somewhere likes them enough to purchase them on DVD/BluRay/Laserdisc.

Speaking of Laserdisc, if you want a copy of the original theatrical release trilogy, I have an extra set of LaserDiscs for the trilogy

[kturock]

the books of other storues fill in alot of the back story like travis talks about.
on their own, movies 1,2,3 are missing alot. but they'd have to be about 6+ to cover what he books and the movies did.

the books between ep 4,5,6 fill in alot, and make things more understandable.

eps 1,2,3 had to cover 16 years. ep 4,5,6 only had to cover 5ish?
i couldn't stand ep 1. the pod race went onfar too long. I felt it was lucas' love of racing and his own personal guilty pleasure. after hearing the audio book, of the movie, it filled in alot of parts missing and showed why that was needed in thestory.

yeah they're sort of like the matrix, you needed to read the inbetween books for it all to make sense, and then read the book version of each movie to explain more.

[MagickalMemories]

I did not like the "Darth Vader is Jesus" comparison, what with him being an immaculate conception and all.
:eye roll:

I liked the movies and, as Travis said, I watched them like a kid and took them for what they were, not for what I wanted them to be. That said, I LIKE Star Wars but am by NO means a fanboy. It's just a large and happy part of my childhood memories.

Eric

[kturock]

did you read the books MM?

he was created by the sith. palpatine's mentor did it. he new how to give life.. all the rest only knew how to take it.

self-fulling profecey. the sith created who/what was supposed to destroy the jedi. he almost succedded.

[BITZJUNKIE]

@ kturock:

I have another Disney moniker - from personal experience: Mauschwitz.

[mardaddy601]

Smart move, doing it now before the end of the year... saved himself $240M in taxes that way.

Course, he'll still have to pay $680M.

[rokassan]

I see what your saying about watching as a kid and not an adult, but I can watch the three originals as an adult and enjoy them. That should have been the case for the three newer ones. The only thing I didnt care for in the originals were the Ewoks. Three foot teddy bears using stone age technology beating Elite shock troops using advanced technology. My favorite was Empire Strikes back. Vader was sinister and you started seeing the conflict within him. I was born in 1974 so I grew up on Star Wars. I had all of the toys. The 80's were the best decade to grow up in. We had the best movies,toys and real arcades. Loved it.