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Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

thewaltdisneycompany.com

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Re: Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

#41

Star Wars Episode 7 will come out in 2015. They also acquired all of the assets including Indiana Jones, Star Wars, ILM, LucasArts and Skywalker Sound

I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if... Sigh. I can't even make the joke. I fear the Jarjification of all I held dear as a child. Sad panda.

You need to get excited. The creative folk at Pixar and Disney have been killing it in comparison to what's come out of Lucasfilm lately.

Watch The Pixar Story (streaming on Netflix: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Pixar_Story/70083532?l...), and tell me you're not more comfortable with Star Wars in their hands then in Lucas'.

Re: Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

#42
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeps Apple out, too.

How does it do that? Disney has had a reasonably friendly relationship with Apple due to Steve's presence on both boards. Now that he's gone that might weaken, but he had a long time to win hearts and minds over there.

Simple: Because the strategy is to keep Apple out of the content biz, as owners. It keeps Apple as a customer, while the TV/Cable's themselves vertically integrate. This sets up the Tv/Cable-co's to to extract rents. Now Disney a Pixar, Lucas ESPN, et al; Comcast Universal & NBC. This Apple TV?...etc.

Re: Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

#46

This means that Disney now controls Marvel, Pixar, LucasArts, ABC, ESPN, A+E, Disney Channel plus all their own original content and of course the parks and merchandising rights for everything stated above. Those businesses most likely control the top 10 film franchises of the last few years. This is a pretty insane acquisition.

Therefore, it should be noted that they directly, or via tacit gatekeeping, have a huge amount of influence on our public dialog and cultural messaging.

Fortunately, corporations are pretty shitty at deliberately pushing a cultural agenda. I dare you to find a consistent agenda in any media conglomerate's output.

Re: Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

#47
post #13

> I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. This is effectively Lucas' slow decent into retirement; he's not actively directing Episode 7 but instead consulting. Say what you want about the movies and franchises, ILM and Skywalker Sound are gold standards created by a tech visionary.

I didn't know there was an episode 7 in the works...

Supposedly Lucas himself at one time thought about eps 7-9 as another trilogy.

There is also the extended universe (which has traditionally been recognized as canon) that is quite clear about what happened after Return of the Jedi, so there's plenty of material, assuming they don't toss away the entirety of the extended universe...

Re: Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

#48
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therefore, it should be noted that they directly, or via tacit gatekeeping, have a huge amount of influence on our public dialog and cultural messaging.

Marvel, Pixar, LucasArts, ABC, ESPN, A+E, Disney Channel, and associated merchandising. I'm not sure how much "control" over our "public dialog" this really implies. I'm the parent of two very normal middle aged children and, while they're certainly exposed to some of this IP, I'd contest that it has much "influence" over them. Google has much more control over our public dialog than Disney does.

Yet it would seem that Disney has a lot more to lose if IP laws are not kept in their favor, as evidenced by the Life+70 copyright extension they were able to successfully lobby into existence.

Google and Disney clearly have two very different set of influences, but to imply that Disney has little control is simply wrong. Ultimately the buck stops with our various representatives, but Disney has some serious skin in the game of keeping the status quo intact.

Suffice to say, their "Disney Vault" promotional tactic couldn't exist in a world where (what most people consider) sane copyright laws existed, and I've yet to see an argument that reasonably suggests that kind of behavior is good for our culture.

Re: Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.

#49
post #5

Star Wars Episode 7 will come out in 2015. They also acquired all of the assets including Indiana Jones, Star Wars, ILM, LucasArts and Skywalker Sound

I'm no media/film expert, but this sounds like a great acquisition for Disney. The current library/brands and Disney's distribution can squeeze any cash left from past movies/brands. Going forward this can be a true money-printing machine. Lets just hope they acknowledge the internet is the retail distribution channel of today. Also, funny how life works. Pixar, a spin-off of Lucasfilm back in the 90's "acquires" Luc…

No, Alan Horn's in charge of Disney Studios, which includes Pixar, Disney's regular animation division, and live-action movies.

Check out the image on their corporate site, it looks like Lucas is worried about his cat being held hostage to force him to sign: http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/

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