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| Thursday, November 1, 2012 09:50 AM |
| (Last updated on Thursday, November 1, 2012 09:53 AM) | | A New Hope |
 by Fëanor |
So it's been a few days since the news broke that Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion. I wasn't sure how to feel about it at first. I think even as few as 5 years ago I probably would have hated the idea. But as time has gone on and I've thought more about this deal, I've become more and more excited about it.
I used to really despise Disney and everything it stood for. I felt like it was responsible for lowering the quality of American entertainment; making everything bland and happy and small-world-after-all-ish. Maybe because I've since had a kid, softened up, and had positive experiences with a lot of Disney products, I've changed my tune quite a bit. I prefer a happy ending these days. Two of my favorite current TV shows, Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls, are Disney creations, and even though Pixar has a rocky history with the Mouse, and is in some ways a rather uneasy partner, it is a Disney company, and it's responsible for some truly great films that I personally cherish. Not to mention, Disney now owns Marvel, the creators not only of my favorite comic book universe, but also of some of my favorite recent movies.
Swallowing up Lucasfilm as well is a brilliant move for Disney, and a wise one for Lucas himself. He gets the satisfaction of knowing his baby will be well cared for, by a gigantic company that's in line with his sensibilities and has all the necessary resources, and Disney gets some of the most valuable properties in the entertainment universe.
But beyond that, I think it's a healthy thing for my beloved Star Wars. Lucas had already said he wasn't planning on making any more movies, and frankly, after the prequels, nobody wanted him to. It was pretty clear that even if he did have more movies in him, they weren't going to be good movies. A lot of talent and good ideas went into the prequels, and there was a tremendous amount of potential for great things, which is what makes their ultimate failure all the more disappointing and painful. In my memory I keep reconstructing them as better than they really are, wanting them to live up to my hopes, and each time I return to them, they just seem to get worse and worse. Lucas has great story ideas, and great attention to detail as far as sounds and effects and visuals go, but his abilities as a writer of human dialog and a director of human actors are deeply lacking. The best thing that could happen to Star Wars is that it get handed off to fresh talent with the resources and the ability to do something new and wonderful with it, and I think that might be what just happened.
Of course, Star Wars: Episode VII (and the other sequels that Disney has already promised) could easily be a tremendous failure. It's amazing any movie of that magnitude, with all those moving parts, ever turns out even halfway decent. But I always like to remain cautiously optimistic about things like this, and I feel like with Disney in charge, I have good reason to feel that way. |
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