Originally posted by: WaragainsttheCouncil

Here's where I disagree. This is one business model. Not the only one. Not even necessarily the best business model. It is purely one approach out of many.
Hold on, I didn't say that it is the only possible business model, and I didn't state without doubt that it's the best one either. I think what Lucasfilm is doing with Star Wars is reasonably sound if their motivation is to reap some good profit, though there are of course alternatives. I certainly don't support their business model though and would have done things very differently and would have brought quality releases to the market if I had the power to do so for sure, so that's another take on things right there.

LFL does have many other revenue generators. THX, LucasArts, LFL (who worked on the most successful film of the year, PIRATES) and then the merchandising wings including EU. There is a plethora of revenue streams into that company. So LFL isn't dependent upon releasing and re-releasing and re-releasing SW again and again to survive.

I wasn't aware that LucasArts was part of Lucasfilm (though Lucas obviously has control of both), and I didn't know Lucasfilm was involved much with contemporary movie productions. If this is true, then I'll have to slightly update my view on things. I have to wonder if Lucas own ego, personal matters (aside from the money-making side of things) and old contracts plays a bigger role with regards to the lackluster OOT releases than what I've been thinking up until now.
Enough with the fancy words though, it's Monday.

Crap sells. Quality sells. But which one lasts in the marketplace and which one, almost always, sells more. Quality. Which one is ultimately remembered? Quality. Eventually, and this is proved in the market time and time again, crap is punished in the marketplace. Crap loses. George found this out with his ATTACK OF THE CLONES release. For a SW franchise title, it performed miserably.

Yes, quality prevails in the long run, and a quality OOT release wouldn't be difficult for LFL to make at all. In general though, I'd say the reason we don't see more quality products than we do is that quality products in terms of original works of art are notoriously difficult to create, and there are so many examples of even experienced and talented artists and businessmen who let great opportunities slip by and go to waste simply because they didn't realize what they had on their hands until it was too late. In a competetive industry it's so much easier to just go with the run-of-the-mill way of things, since it's a much more predictable and proven way to do business. Quality on the other hand is often risky business, and as such it really has to bring the promise of paying off that much more than the average thing for investores to be bothered with it.

I do have to wonder though, whether Lucas found out anything much about quality in the last few years. Leading up to the release of TPM, I really got the impression that he thought he was on to something with The Slapstick Show starring Jar Jar Binks. He obviously wasn't but he still brought on Attack of the Clones, and even with all the nails solidly and thoroughly embedded in the coffin he kept on hammering with Revenge of the Sith.