Author's note: this is an article I'm writing for the Hillsdale Collegian. Certain names have been changed for privacy purposes.
Luke, George is no longer your father.
Last Tuesday, George Lucas announced that he was retiring, and selling Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion to the Walt Disney Company. The corporate giant, riding on the success of its acquisition of Marvel and The Avengers film, now controls LucasArts, ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), Skywalker Sound, most of Indiana Jones…and all of Star Wars.
The controversy among the fans is almost as bad as “who-shot-first.”
“George Lucas was the worst thing to ever happen to Star Wars,” said sophomore Ewan Crighton. His words reflect the opinion of many a Star Wars veteran who believes (somewhat paradoxically) that the Star Wars universe will be better off without the creator who chopped the Ewok song and hired a furless frog-rabbit to stand next to Liam Neeson.
Others consider Star Wars’s new owner to be a wretched hive of sap and insipidity, and, remembering the “Disney treatment” given to cherished traditional folklore, shudder at the thought of what may happen to one of cinema’s greatest fairytales.
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Disney’s announcement that they will be releasing a project billed as “Episode VII” in 2015, with a new sequel to be released every few years after that, hardly makes matters any better. The epidemic of sequel-itis has spread to almost every film Disney has made, and when the nineteenth Star Wars episode they reach, look so good, they will not.
Not all of Disney’s previous purchases have turned sour in their hands. Pixar, minus a few sequel hiccups, has been delighting and inspiring audiences and artists alike since Day 1. Marvel’s first film under Disney has become the third highest grossing film of all time.
Of course, many attribute the success of The Avengers to the directorial talent of Joss Whedon, just as many of the best lines of Star Wars were improvised by Harrison Ford. It is the skill of the individuals involved, not the company, that makes the movie great, and Disney has a particular talent for bringing in strong talent, particularly for its partnered projects. For the English dubs of Hayao Miyazaki’s films alone, Disney has hired the voices of Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Billy Crystal, Josh Hutcherson, and the obligatory Jonas brother.
Stars also bring in money with their talent, and it is money that forms the ground philosophy of Disney.
Disney CEO Bob Iger’s said, concerning the Lucasfilm acquisition, “This transaction combines a world-class portfolio of content including ‘Star Wars,’ one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time, with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses, and markets to generate sustained growth and drive significant long-term value.”
If that’s all he has to say, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. But if following the money means not disappointing fans, Disney will take Star Wars along the path that those who know it best have already created - the “Extended Universe” of books, graphic novels, and an entire subset of Wikipedia (known as Wookieepedia) that will keep Disney busy, and fans happy, for a long, long time. But if Disney wants to force Star Wars into their trite-but-child-pleasing mold, Leia just might become the next Disney Princess…and Mickey will witness the firepower of a fully armed and operational fan coalition.