Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm; New Star Wars Episodes Beginning 2015

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by Tiassa, Oct 30, 2012.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Disney: New Star Wars in 2015

    Disney will buy Lucasfilm for somewhere around four billion dollars, according to a press release issued today:

    Continuing its strategy of delivering exceptional creative content to audiences around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by Lucasfilm Chairman and Founder, George Lucas.

    Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney stock on October 26, 2012, the transaction value is $4.05 billion, with Disney paying approximately half of the consideration in cash and issuing approximately 40 million shares at closing. The final consideration will be subject to customary post-closing balance sheet adjustments ....

    .... Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Lucasfilm, a leader in entertainment, innovation and technology, including its massively popular and "evergreen" Star Wars franchise and its operating businesses in live action film production, consumer products, animation, visual effects, and audio post production. Disney will also acquire the substantial portfolio of cutting-edge entertainment technologies that have kept audiences enthralled for many years. Lucasfilm, headquartered in San Francisco, operates under the names Lucasfilm Ltd., LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, and Skywalker Sound, and the present intent is for Lucasfilm employees to remain in their current locations.

    The release also notes that Kathleen Kennedy, co-chair of Lucasfilm, will assume its presidency under Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn. Furthermore, she will head the branding effort for the Star Wars franchise, namely the seventh episode of the sci-fi adventure saga, which is slated for a 2015 release, "with more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga and grow the franchise well into the future".

    An investor conference call is currently underway, explaining the details of the deal.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    The Walt Disney Company. "Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd." Press Release. October 30, 2012. TheWaltDisneyCompany.com. October 30, 2012. http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-news/press-releases/2012/10/disney-acquire-lucasfilm-ltd
     
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  3. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Isn't C&Ping news stories without starting some sort of discussion simply spam?
     
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  5. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    I wouldn't call it spam, but more of an FYI of interest to many members of this forum. That people can express themselves about as they see fit.

    I personally find it hard to believe anyone would pay 4B for a studio and some movie rights. But what do I know about that business?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
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  7. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I think this may be a sign Lucus is humble, somewhere deep deep down! He sold it all off explicitly saying it was time for a new generation of film makers to take over [where he failed]. This after decades of him saying Star Wars was all his, after making himself writer, director, producer, and surrounding him self with yes men bobble heads while making the Star War prequels, he suddenly gives it all up, everything! Maybe he relies that he had become what he first rebelled against, the money crazed executive producers that always thinks they know best, that he has lost all his original ideologies, that he had become so obsessed with special effects that he forgot his own words that it was simply for conveying a story and that the story is paramount, maybe he will now hid back in his mansion/ranch, curl up in his bed and whisper: "rosebud"
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2012
  8. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    The issue is that other threads that merely C&P stories without discussion have been closed immediately by mods. Here we have a mod starting a thread completely devoid of any invitation for discussion. It's yet another SF double standard.
     
  9. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    3,090
    Yay! I had all but given up on a 7th Star Wars movie. I can wait 3 years.

    Do you think George Lucas made enough money on the deal?
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR OF A&C:

    No. Most spam is commercial and obvious. Other types of spam are imaginable but I've never seen any. It might fail for two other reasons:
    • 1. Copyright violation. We're not very diligent about this; it would take a much longer quote from published text that is not based on a press-release from one of America's largest corporations before we'd worry about it.
    • 2. Trolling. That's deliberate or casual derailing of a discussion. This post has already generated on-topic discussion so it's not trolling.

    Each moderator is responsible for keeping his own board working smoothly. Since they all get different levels of use and different kinds of problems, we are each allowed considerable leeway in the way we choose to do our jobs.

    This post is clearly appropriate for this subforum. This is, after all, Arts & Culture, which includes film and television, not to mention YouTube, tattoos and chainsaw sculpture.

    And as I already mentioned, other members have seen in it an invitation to discussion. It needn't be explicit.
     
  11. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    I wonder what this will mean for the authors who have been writing novels and games like the new bounty hunter game, will Disney keep going "unicorns and rainbows" over everything like it usually does with anything it touches or will it alow starwars games to exist and pick up M ratings if appropriate
     
  12. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    They'll do okay on the rainbows and unicorns front

    Well, I think they can go in the necessary directions. That is to say, Pretty Woman, technically, is a Disney flick. They just released it through a subsidiary. I doubt they're going to go Ewok-crazy under the Lucasfilm banner.

    But "Disney" films include Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, and Armageddon, to name a few; technically, the Marvel super heroes are now "Disney" films. Look through the titles for Touchstone Pictures. Jerky Boys: The Movie? Die Hard With a Vengeance? Daylight, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Air Force One, Starship Troopers, Enemy of the State, Rushmore, Summer of Sam, Gone in 60 Seconds, Coyote Ugly, Unbreakable, The Royal Tenenbaums, Signs, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Apocalypto ... the forthcoming Need for Speed, Lincoln, and The Fall Guy. Sam Raimi is directing Earp: Saints for Sinners, expected to hit screens next summer. All of 'em, Touchstone.

    And with Lucasfilm? I don't expect they'll have any problem dodging unicorns and rainbows. They would wreck the franchise with an Ewok parade.
     
  13. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    23,049
    That gives me some hope, I herd a rumour that they were going to turn episode 7 into a story about anikan's childhood which suggests either one of those silly kids movies or a deep drama on the horrors of slavery, neither of which is appealing as a Star Wars movie
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    R2's Story

    Well, what they owe us in terms of chapters seven through nine is the development of the New Republic. May the Force be with them, that they do not bring us the twisted offspring of Han and Leia as the new Sith Lord who opens the new story by killing Luke Skywalker, or some dumb shit like that.

    What strikes me about episodes one through three is that Star Wars is actually the story of R2-D2, who is the only character present through the entire saga, except of course for C-3PO, whose memory, it seems has been erased at least once.

    I'm wondering if the new episodes will follow that model.
     
  15. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    One of the top ten most popular stories in human history? [exaggeration]In the USA it outdraws the Bible and Shakespeare combined. It could generate enough income to solve the national debt problem.[/exaggeration]

    Or at least make us stop worrying about it.
     
  17. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    10,342
    Yet in this thread:

    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?118782-Eperts-please-explain

    Despite the OP spawning some discussion, the thread was locked by JamesR:

    "There appears to be no topic of discussion in the opening post - just a link.

    So, thread closed."

    So there is appears it was deemed to require an explicit invitation for discussion.
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Look dude, I already explained that we are all empowered to moderate our own boards in the way we feel is best for the forum and for the members. If you don't like the way James R moderates, then I most cordially invite you to discuss that with James R.

    This is not the legal code of the United States. It's not a zillion pages thick. There are no micro-rules for every conceivable situation. We're expected to do our jobs the best we can and if somebody complains we'll take it under advisement. Your complaint seems to be that I was too generous with Tiassa's post. I disagree, and since Tiassa is a moderator I can count on at least one colleague who agrees with me. If you don't want to read this thread because you don't like its underlying logical structure, then feel free to browse another subforum. No one is demanding that you read threads you don't approve of. Obviously there are members who find this topic worth commenting on, and that is the ultimate measure of its worth.

    If your complaint is merely that there is not a computer-like consistency in the moderation of SciForums, then please note that none of the moderators is a computer.

    Arts & Culture has far too many vanity threads, "Hey look at what I'm reading/watching/listening to/looking at," which means that more people write posts than read them. How many of those people actually bother to check out someone else's recommendation once in a while?

    So when I get a thread in which people actually carry on a discussion, I'm thrilled. I'm not going to shut it down because you don't approve of the OP's rhetoric.
     
  19. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    It's nothing whatsoever to do with whether I approve, is it? It's that a precedent was set by JamesR, and you have set a different one. My question, is without clear guidelines, how are members supposed to know? Throw us a bone eh? Bear in mind that JamesR closed down the thread I linked to, _after_ a discussion had started, so clearly he thinks starting a thread without implicit invitation to discuss some aspect of the OP is a heinous SF crime. Hey, YOU had participated in that one, and he closed it. JamesR is a site admin, I would expect him to set an example for moderators to follow?
     
  20. Promo Registered Senior Member

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    237
    LucasFilms also includes Indiania Jones, I wonder if they will make a couple more of those aswell?
     
  21. Balerion Banned Banned

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    The video games have long since usurped the films in terms of narrative quality, so my only concern is that Star Wars: 1313 stays on track.
     
  22. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Whats most important for the next episode is that it should not be written for children under 12...nor should it contain much in the way of politics.

    I saw the original in 1977 and it was not a children's film...nor did characters stand around in long discussions about diplomacy.


    It was a human drama about a young man stuck in the middle of nowhere, apparently going nowhere...except theres a strange mystery about his deceased father hovering in the background.

    Eventually he meets an old man in the desert who claims to have known his father, and who opens the door to a mystical dimension in Luke's imagination.

    Suddenly, theres a beautiful girl to be rescued and a chance to get off this barren rock...but also the opportunity to avenge his father's murder.

    As the plot unfolds there is a sudden reversal of motivation, and Luke now seeks to redeem his father, who lives on as the man he thought was the killer.


    They need to find a writer who can conjure up something THAT brilliant without making a copy. The plot must revolve around the quest of an individual, with the wider political world playing a secondary role.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2012
  23. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    3,576
    Well put. I think they'd be hard pressed to pull it off. Lucas' original version was both very simplistic and deep at the same time. It was about any one of us, really, only with light sabers.
     

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