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Nonetheless, here is a fascinating and comprehensive guide to all of the changes from the original release, 1997, 2004, and 2011 editions. Some are so subtle, I hardly noticed.

A New Hope
Empire
Jedi
Prequels

They should call this new set "The Pig's Ear Edition".

The packaging for the 9 BD set is quite lovely. I've only watched The Phantom Menace so far, and the transfer and audio was quite nice. And yes, Jar Jar Binks is still annoying as ever.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:May the 4th be with you

Very funny...Vadar shound have brought his lunch...

The unholiest of marriages...

hearthesilence wrote:The unholiest of marriages...

That couldn't be any more true... One thing's for certain: Lucas and Disney will not see a single penny of my money.

Has Lucas himself relinquished any creative control? If not, this is just signalling further crap from the garbage factory, but if he did that could be pretty great news.

reporting into Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn

Christ... so that's where he is now. This really is an unholy marriage!

matrixschmatrix wrote:Has Lucas himself relinquished any creative control? If not, this is just signalling further crap from the garbage factory, but if he did that could be pretty great news.

George Lucas wrote:It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I've always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I'm confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come.

Well that sounds like good news to me, the 3rd party stuff has been better than Lucas's at least since The Phantom Menace. I wonder if this could signal decent releases of the original trilogy at any point.

Lucas relinquished formal control. He's being retained as a "creative consultant." This can only be good news. Whatever fondness I had for Lucasfilm was based on nostalgia for the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies of my childhood, and was destroyed long ago by Jar Jar and Company. Pretty much everything they've touched has been an unmitigated disaster for the last 15 years. No place to go but up.

Jeff wrote:No place to go but up.

I think it'd be really interesting if Lucas handed over the franchise to a writer/director for a new trilogy. Give that writer/director free reign with a few minor caveats (i.e. maximum PG-13 is obvious; must include at least one lightsaber fight; etc.)

It'd be fascinating to see what a new auteur would do in the universe. Then after that trilogy expires, do the process over again. The mythology is there to support a number of different visions.

That's not what will happen though. I expect a visionless hopscotch jumping from director to director with hired hand writers cranking these movies out, much like the Bond films.

hearthesilence wrote:

Jeff wrote:No place to go but up.

Well, that was for the re-opening to Star Tours at Hollywood Studios and seeing Disney-Star Wars stuff is pretty common over there. I wonder if this deal means that the Star Wars cartoon that is currently on Cartoon Network is going to be end or switch over to Disney XD.

I find this news a positive one for the Star Wars fans. If they treat this property the same way the have done with the Marvel Comics films, I can envision Disney being faithful to the original trilogy and the source material Dark Empire for the new films. By the way, Lucas should have done Episode 7,8 and 9 long time ago, when Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fischer were at least younger than they are now. That is what fans truly wanted to see, not more crap like Jar Jar.

dx23 wrote: I wonder if this deal means that the Star Wars cartoon that is currently on Cartoon Network is going to be end or switch over to Disney XD.

Considering how they treated that one Spiderman cartoon it will probably get cancelled.

I'll take Darth Goofy over Hayden Christensen any day.

So.... Star Wars Episode 7 (and 8, 9, 10, 11...)

Does that mean that Disney have also got the distribution rights from Fox? Perhaps the original trilogy will get a decent release.

knives wrote:

dx23 wrote: I wonder if this deal means that the Star Wars cartoon that is currently on Cartoon Network is going to be end or switch over to Disney XD.

Considering how they treated that one Spiderman cartoon it will probably get cancelled.

That's what I probably think too, which also begs the question about the very successful comic licensing deal that Lucasfilm has with Dark Horse. Will this be the end for that too? Will Marvel start doing Star Wars comics again? Remember that they lost the licensing deal back in the 80's because Lucas got pissed at them for releasing the comic for Empire Strike Back before the film was released. If Dark Horse loses this license, it will be a huge, probably fatal blow for the company and a huge boost for Marvel.

Edit: Dark Horse has acknowledge that they could lose the license due to the changing nature of the business. Disney pulled their license from Boom Studios after they purchased Marvel and the company hasn't recovered at all.

Oh, Lord, I just had a vision of the larger Marvel movie universe getting folded in with Star Wars

Disney have flat out said the Dark Horse deal is dead with those comics going to Marvel. Dark Horse is more or less dead via this deal. I wonder where this will leave Hellboy?

Calvin wrote:Does that mean that Disney have also got the distribution rights from Fox? Perhaps the original trilogy will get a decent release.

No. Fox still has distribution rights to SW 1-6.

"There are some encumbrances with the first Stars Wars films with Fox and some encumbrances with Indiana Jones with Paramount,” said Rasulo. Iger said that, while he “loves the franchise,” the Indiana Jones films were not a big factor in the deal because of Paramount’s rights to the franchise. Fox has no future distribution rights to any further Star Wars films, the execs said.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/10/star-wa ... s-planned/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now, Fox's distribution deal is likely to expire at some point, but it could be decades for all we know.

It's also possible that Disney and Fox collaborate on releases down the road, but those are always tricky (see: Warner/DC and Fox for Batman 60s TV show).

Disney bought Lucasfilm for future Star Wars properties. Films 7-9; films 10-?; the upcoming live action TV show, theme parks, merchandise, and so on.