• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

World News Center

Everything you want to know about anything that's meaningful

  • News
  • Reviews
  • About
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / May the Mouse Be With You

May the Mouse Be With You

November 1, 2012 by

Minnie is just going to love this!
Back on January 8, 2011 I did a little article comparing Star Wars fans to Star Trek fans. It all came down to SW fans like toys and ST fans like ideas. Yesterday, in what will go down in history as one of the biggest dick moves any human has ever done, George Lucas sold everything he owns and all the rights thereto to Disney for $4 billion. Why is it a dick move? Because for the last 40 years Twentieth Century Fox has marketed every single Star wars film and they weren’t even sent a Post It Note ™ letting them know that he was looking to sell. In fact they didn’t find out until reporters showed up and asked them what they thought of the whole thing. That, folks, is known as incredibly rude. I mean, seriously, the “Hey thanks for making me a billionaire, now go away” bit should serve as a warning sign to others. If that doesn’t do it we can always point them to Jar Jar Binks.

Okay, so he tossed the whole kit and kaboodle to Disney. I guess people should be thanking their personal deities that Disney doesn’t seem inclined to make it into a cartoon. Although, oddly enough, the Star Wars animated series,The Clone Wars is actually a pretty good series. However, they have a minor problem. The series features a couple of very popular female characters. But those characters don’t exist, and aren’t even mentioned, in “A New Hope” which is where the series is supposed to lead. In other words, they’ve got all these little girls invested in the story (my nieces are) and they are going to have to kill their favorite characters.

I’m sure that will go well.

Richard Roeper notes, today, that nothing will be the same as the original memories Star Wars created if you saw it at a certain age. He’s 100% right and it doesn’t matter.

George Lucas, for all his talk about the “integrity of the franchise” hasn’t given a damn in decades. He is now, and always has been, all about the toys.

If you don’t believe me, ask Gary Kurtz, the dude who produced the first two (4th & 5th???) films.

“I could see where things were headed,” Kurtz said. “The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It’s a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It’s natural to make decisions that protect the toy business, but that’s not the best thing for making quality films.”

He added: “The first film and ‘Empire’ were about story and character, but I could see that George’s priorities were changing.”

So Disney is planning on releasing more films. One very couple of years. Which means they are going to treat the franchise as a commodity. They did that with Chicken Little.

They asked kids what they liked and they found out that kids like chicken, baseball and space aliens. They also found out that kids don’t like mean dads.

I could have come up with that list after a hard night of drinking.

So what did they do? They issued press release after press release about the triumphant return of Disney animation and released a movie that had chicken, baseball and space aliens. And that made no sense whatsoever. It was a horrible film.

And when Lucas announced this sale he talked about the amusement park, the marketing and so on. The 7th film, whatever it may be, was last on his list. And, I assure you, it will be last on Disney’s list too. The film will be a marketing tool.

Some people are already saying it will be just like Pirates of the Caribbean. But for whatever specious ties those films had to the ride, those were some very dark films. And, let’s be honest, except for the Lego set, the toys for these films are purely for adults and collectors. The Queen Anne’s Revenge model, for example, is selling for $140.00. Not exactly “toy” material.

That’s not going to happen to Star Wars.

I saw the first Star Wars when I was 17. I thought it was a lot of fun. It was grimy and violent (Han still shot first) and seemed to brim with possibilities. Then I saw Empire and thought this was going to be the bee’s knees of film franchises. Then I saw Return of the Jedi and wasn’t so sure. Then came Phantom Menace and all bets were off. That was bad on an epic scale.

Who knows? Since Disney won’t really be caring all that much they may outsource the films to someone with talent and vision. Or they could find out that kids these days like video games and tacos and God knows where that will lead.

Star Wars Burlesque from Tenderloins on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

Archives

  • October 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • December 2021
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • November 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in