Disney buys Lucasfilms for 4.05 billion

SoVi3t · February 6, 2013, 7:52pm

BRING ON THE IG-88 MOVIE!!!

Dragonfave723 · February 6, 2013, 11:38pm

Young Hans Solo and Boba Fett: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/02/06/star-wars-spin-offs-young-han-solo-movie-boba-fett/

SoVi3t · February 7, 2013, 12:00am

Michael Cena

goodm0urning · February 7, 2013, 12:14am

There weren’t any black people in the galaxy until Lando magicked himself into existence three years after Yavin.

Dragonfave723 · February 15, 2013, 8:35pm

Ford is returning!

latino-review.com/2013/02/15/exclusive-harrison-ford-return-han-solo-star-wars-episode-vii/

Axl_m4ster · March 18, 2013, 6:10am

Axl_m4ster · March 18, 2013, 6:13am

i lmao at yoda’s reaction upon hearing lucas’s misguided nonsense at exactly 6:20

Axl_m4ster · March 19, 2013, 12:06am

Axl_m4ster · March 19, 2013, 12:21pm

i’m glad lucas is no longer is attached and has a say over star wars.
and i’m gonna say this.

i think,
i think disney after doing episodes 7, 8, and 9…
should actually go back and re-do eps 1-3, and i mean completely redo them, a totally new script, story, actors, ie, negate the eps 1-3 that lucas bungled through…and this time make a great star wars prequel trilogy.

god i wish that lucas had sold star wars to disney years ago. specifically before phantom menance.

goodm0urning · March 19, 2013, 9:15pm

That would be no different from Lucas going back and messing with the existing movies himself… except Disney has even less of a right to do that, since Disney had nothing to do with making them in the first place.

Also, Lucas is on board with these production as a creative consultant, which is a pretty flexible credit.

Axl_m4ster · March 20, 2013, 12:18am

lucas did go back and messed with the original trilogy, to everyone’s dismay.
why wouldn’t disney be able to go back and redo the prequels?
i mean they own star wars so whats to stop them?
lucas cant stop them, no one can.
am i wrong here?

maxx · March 20, 2013, 12:19am

more or less makes it sound like lucas is there to make sure the films go in line with the rest of the sw universe…ie.books and games

goodm0urning · March 20, 2013, 2:04am

I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a say in the stories, a la Empire and Jedi. “Creative consultant” gets used sometimes to avoid union trouble, like when someone’s role in the production doesn’t fit predominantly into any one category and isn’t quite involved enough to be eligible for multiple credits. It’s cleaner, especially in a big production with lots of people involved, to give one catch-all credit to someone in this situation. Example: there were already four screenwriters on Superman by the time Tom Mankiewicz and Richard Donner rewrote the screenplay from the outline up, so Mankiewicz opted for a creative consultant credit and Donner opted to have his contribution to the writing uncredited.

The issue is not whether or not they can. Any company that owns anything can legally mess with that thing left and right. It’s an issue of whether or not it’s ethical. Many Star Wars fans originally raised this point when George Lucas first announced his intention to make the revised editions the “official” versions in the marketplace.

SirMixahLot · April 3, 2013, 9:36pm

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/03/disney-closes-lucasarts/?a_dgi=aolshare_twitter via
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/04/03/disney-closes-game-publisher-lucasarts.aspx
Well fuck.

Game Informer has learned that Disney is closing its LucasArts game publishing subsidiary. We received an email from a LucasArts representative confirming the news.

The official statement reads as follows:

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”

In some ways, the news is not a surprise. LucasArts had seemed directionless in recent years. The company’s core business of games based on the Star Wars license have been largely disappointing in both quality and sales. While the company had some success with games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the Battlefront series, both of those franchises seemed to have died on the vine. The cancellation of Star Wars Battlefront III was particularly ugly, which led to nasty public fingerpointing between LucasArts and developer Free Radical. The BioWare developed MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic (which was co-published with EA) won strong reviews but failed to maintain subscribers, and was eventually forced into instituting a free-to-play business model.

LucasArt’s other big franchise, Indiana Jones, has failed to make much of a dent in games in recent years, with the exception of Traveller’s Tales LEGO Indiana Jones series that, once again, was not developed by LucasArts. Meanwhile, series like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, which are both heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones films, have thrived.

More recently, LucasArts caused a stir at E3 2012 with an impressive looking demo for a new Star Wars project entitled Star Wars 1313. However, in the months that followed, the project seemed to lose steam, and rumors circulated that the game had ceased production.

The company seemed to have a revolving door of management. In 2004, LucasArts president Jim Ward led a massive restructuring of the company, laying off many development staffers in the process. Ward left in 2008, to be replaced by EA’s Darrell Rodriguez, who lasted only two years at the head of the company. Rodriguez’s position was ultimately filled by Epic Games’ Paul Meegan, who then stepped down in 2012. The company was co-led by Kevin Parker and Gio Corsi until it was acquired by Disney.

During that time, LucasArts attempted to inject new life into its in-house development by bringing in respected industry vet Clint Hocking (who helped lead the Far Cry and Splinter Cell franchises at Ubisoft) in as its new creative director. Sadly, Hocking lasted only two years in the position and left without completing the game he had been working on.

The last game published by LucasArts as a company is the sub-par Kinect Star Wars.

Ironically, many of the games for which LucasArts is best remembered for are not Star Wars games. Its genre-defining '90s adventure games created by Ron Gilbert and DoubleFine’s Tim Schafer like The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Grim Fandango are all still celebrated by fans to this day.

Our sympathies go out to those who have lost their jobs today.

Axl_m4ster · April 3, 2013, 10:18pm

i just care about one thing.
STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT 3 finally dropping.
and that shit BETTER have the Death Star canyon X wing run…what SWB2 shoulda had which didn’t which mystified everyone.
we need to blow up dat death star!!!
no targeting cpu help, just obi wan whispering in my ear to use the force, and my torpedoes hittin their mark.

I_am_Ah · April 3, 2013, 10:33pm

Yay, now we are going have Satanic symbolism in Star Wars.

goodm0urning · April 3, 2013, 10:35pm

I came across this on YouTube the other day and figured I’d post it here: Seth MacFarlane interviews George Lucas.

SoVi3t · April 3, 2013, 11:15pm

Shutting down Lucasarts makes sense. Disney already has Disney Interactive for doing in house stuff, and it’s a much better idea to start licensing out their IPs to other companies to make them. It makes much more financial sense to let EA waste $200 million on a Star Wars MMO, in case it fails, than have Disney do that instead (especially with SO MUCH fucking money currently invested in Marvel and Star Wars movies).

I am a little upset that first Clone Wars got the ax, and now this though…

At least they’re still going to get people to finish up Star Wars 1313

highlulu · April 3, 2013, 11:35pm

rip lucasarts… so many fun games…

toddler316 · April 4, 2013, 1:00am

Lol i hate you for being right.