Disney Buys Star Wars

Some pretty surprising news out of the entertainment industry today. Disney has bought LucasFilm, which includes Star Wars. That was completely unexpected. We all expected Star Wars to remain in Lucas’ firm grasp until he died.  Part of the announcement includes a mention that Disney plans a seventh film in 2015. Wow, they’re not wasting any time.

First off, they paid 4.05 BILLION dollars. Way to go Mr. Lucas. When you can make something that is nothing but entertainment that eventually sells for billions of dollars you’ve done something special. Good job there.

Second, I’m both excited and fearful. Star Wars without Lucas will be odd. But he’s also worst thing to happen to Star Wars. Without him having veto power over things maybe we’ll see a film that lives up to the originals. Disney has the Marvel movies. Maybe they’ll give this project to Joss Whedon. That would be interesting.

Of course, Lucas was also one of the stabilizing features. What will come out of a seventh movie? There’s a lot of Expanded Universe material that will likely get wiped out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but that’s a lot of books and comics laying out a very full universe.

Will this seventh movie be the start of the mythical third trilogy? Will it follow take place 30yrs+ after Return of the Jedi and still follow Luke and company? The actors are still alive and there’s a lot of books with stories to take from. They could also go years into the future and trample on existing canon not at all.

This could be a train wreck if they start milking Star Wars even more than Lucas did. Though, this deal has to have been in the works for awhile. With things like Edge of the Empire focusing on the original trilogy and Star Wars 1313 game focusing on a darker non-Jedi side of the universe, maybe that’s  sign of what’s to come.

We’ll find out. Either way, it’s interesting that more Star Wars movies are on the horizon.