"But given the choice between rooting for an old guy doing shit the way he wants and a multinational corporation doing things the way that'll be most profitable, I'll always root for the old guy."

What a phenomenally ignorant statement. The fact of the matter is greed is always more trustworthy than good intentions. Good intentions gave us Jar-Jar Binks. Good intentions gave us shoehorning Boba Fett into the Clone Wars. Good intentions resulted in the guns in ET being replaced by walkie talkies (thank God Spielberg came to his senses).

The reason the prequels sucked so badly is because Lucas, as writer, director, producer and source of funding, had complete creative control over the films. None of his other producers had the nerve to tell him the story was lousy or suggest changes, least of all that douchebag yes-man Rick McCallum.

When Lucas made the original Star Wars, the film was partially funded by Fox, which meant he had to answer to Fox executives. The subsequent OT films were written and directed by more competent hands, with Lucas producing. Lucas is the type of creative mind that works best when restrained, either by the studio system or by budget. That's why the Special Editions are so offensive. Because they represent what Lucas would have done if he had complete control over the films at the time. Star Wars wasn't great because of George Lucas, it was great IN SPITE of George Lucas.

Now Lucas is out of the equation, and the franchise is under the ownership of a company run by and employing people who eat, breathe and live story. But more importantly, they care about long-term profit. And if nothing else, Disney recognizes that this franchise is simply too lucrative to be allowed to be defined by the prequels. So we'll have a new series of movies with mind-blowing effects, but made by people who genuinely love the property and want to make great pieces of cinema. It worked wonders with the Marvel movies and it can absolutely work here.

Required viewing: http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wa…

How about we just watch the first two movies once in a while, forget the rest exist, and stop waving Boners of Preciousness at each other about literally everything else concerning this particular film franchise?

I'm sure we can all agree to do that.

My favorite part of Erik's counterpoint was when he said, "Alex is probably right." HOW COULD I BE LOSING?

Has anyone here been to Disneyland since 1986? That was when Star Tours, the Disney Star Wars ride, opened. Last year they unveiled the updated version of this ride, which incorporates updated footage and crap. It's a super fun ride! When you exit the ride, there's an enormous gift shop filled with hundreds of Star Wars / Disney merchandise. Once you exit the gift shop, it's not uncommon to see Stormtroopers walking around Tomorrowland.

Basically what I'm saying is, Disney seems to have been good stewards of the Star Wars brand over the last few decades. I don't see this acquisition as particularly radical. And they're certainly better at producing things than Lucas was (remember when - in 2005 - Lucas announced a live action Star Wars movie, and ever since then all we've heard is that it's "just around the corner"? I can now imagine that show actually seeing the light of day!). And not every decision Lucas makes stinks - as Alex so wisely stated, it's when he's given too much control of the details that things go to crap. The Clone Wars is a great TV show. Let's see more like it.

I'm with Alex. Get it out of George's hands. C'mon, the Star Wars as a creative franchise has already drawn it's last breath – so I don't care about the loss of independent venue for filmmakers. And by loss of independent venue – this is George flipping Lucas. He's a damned multi-national corporation unto himself; it's not like he's been in independent outlet for unknown future superstars to get their big break (Harrison Ford excepted). Star Wars is nothing more than Lucas's sacred cash cow with cracked, leathery teets from too much to-the-last-penny fondling. I'm convinced Lucas could still make Star Wars worse. It's his secret super power.

You guys are persons?

Arguably, "Empire" is the best of the franchise and this is the one that Lucas had the least control over. Best acting of all the movies, best dialogue, best writing. If the question is "what will happen when someone else has control?", the answer is "The Empire Strikes Back". Everything that happened in the Star Wars universe after that was garbage.

I'd hope for a Whedon-directed SW7. Serenity was better than any of the Star Wars prequels.

Agreed with Alex - but with one correction.

George Lucas didn't create Star Wars from scrap. He stole the entire thing from Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa made the Star Wars story under the title "Hidden Fortress" back in 1958. Lucas struggled for years to come up with the additional elements, things that were stolen from Eastern cultures (jedi, "force", ect), translating it into a space saga, and developing to a comprehensive story. Just read about the development of the storyline via the Wikipedia page, it took years of re-writes, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas murdered some nerd along the way and just took his work.

The reason the other Lucas films sucked so much is because Lucas created them, his creative process is shit. Lucas seems to be a half-decent director, maybe a decent producer, but a horrible writer.

So, for me, this is all more reason to take it away from him.

Can we just vote on this being a Worst Night Ever right now? Someone's going to have to go to the VII's midnight showing fueled on nothing but Mountain Dew and $17 Twizzlers. The Worst Night Ever gets ratcheted up with each trailer released that makes us ill/excited, via adding layers of cosplay. Or we can go balls-out & make the reviewer go dressed as Spock.

Alex, I have to say that I agree with you. Lucas had a great concept, but the man cannot write and can barely direct. The Empire Strikes Back, perhaps the most technically perfect (and certainly the best written) of the Star Wars saga was great because Lucas was so divorced from the project. Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Leigh Brackett, and Lawrence Kasdan are who made that film great. Lucas' insistence on using crap actors (namely Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen) and an over reliance on full CGI sequences and characters are what ruined the prequels. Disney is smart, they do the market research, and hopefully they will make the right decisions. Episodes VII, VIII, and IX have already been written for them, by Timothy Zahn, with the Thrawn Trilogy.

Joneser: That's my fault. Doubly my fault, now that it turns out the previous post was debunked speculation, fun as it might have been.

Anyway, apologies.

Mark: Zahn trilogy (quintology? There's like 7 Star Wars stories he's written) won't get made for a couple reasons. 1) The actors are all way too old 2) the stories are all way too long/convoluted to boil down into 3 movies 3) There's no way Disney starts their Star Wars trilogy with "From a story by Timothy Zahn" in the credits.

It'll be something original. But I'm willing to bet the television shows/animated features will inevitably dip into the expanded universe for source material.