Sansweet's leaving Lucasfilm.... — Page 2

If there's any justice, Rancho Del Obi-Wan will burn to the ground, or even better, end up going to charity.

Neither is telling people to be happy with the 2006 "bonus discs."

Here's some funny reading material from RebelScum.com:

Shane Turgeon wrote:
The plight of the self-loathing Star Wars fan never ceases to amaze me. Always finding a way to moan and complain about the very subject they're sitting on an internet message board to talk about. Typical of people who really have no idea what they're talking about or even know the person the thread is dedicated to.

For the record, i hate the SEs, the prequels, the fact the originals will never be offered on DVD and i don't collect any new product...but to try to turn a thread dedicated to a guy who did so much work for the fans and collecting community is just asinine.

The bottom line is, even before Steve started working for LFL, he was putting out great books and articles on the subject, helping keep it alive for those of us who were collecting back then and opening our eyes to new collecting opportunities. People seem to forget that before Steve and others started working for LFL, they were NOT a fan friendly organization and incredibly litigious, sending out C&Ds and suing fans for even doing half of what so many of us take for granted these days.

When Steve started he helped open so many doors that allowed many people to start working with the company and doing some great stuff that i'm sure most here simply take for granted as having always been that way. It was Steve who made LFL start really caring about the fans and gave many fans and companies the opportunities to to bring us their products or their enthusiasm. Without Steve, there would be no acceptance of the 501st or the Rebel Legion, no Celebrations, no amazing books such From Concept to Screen, the Action Figure Archive, The Poster Book, 1000 Collectibles, the SW Scrapbooks and more. Insider probably would have ceased publication years ago. Star Wars dot com would not exist as it does today. Hundreds of items that you have in your collections would not have seen the light of day.

To say that once Steve started working for the man, he no longer had any relevance or say is the biggest load of plop i've ever seen spilled on these boards. Anyone who has ever worked for a huge corporation has to tow the party line in public. Period. Tell you what, those of you with your mouths to run, how about you hold a press conference in your town and spout off how you really feel about your company and the decisions they make. Let's see how long you keep getting paycheques for. Sure, Steve and many other great people working for LFL such as Mary Franklin, Pete Vilmur, Bonnie Burton, Pablo Hidalgo, etc, etc tow the company line - but we ALL do in our jobs. These people are all, first and foremost, fans of Star Wars who put in some seriously LONG hours to make things a lot more fun for all of us who share that love. Try not to take that for granted the next time you're enjoying any of the things i mentioned above. On a personal level, he may not have agreed with some of the decisions being made, but he worked tirelessly to make up for those decisions to bring us a helluva lot of other cool stuff.

I've had the pleasure of calling Steve a good friend for many years. I've been to his house on several occasions, seen him up until 2 or 3 in the morning working on stuff for the fans, answering emails, etc and then up again at 6 to begin his drive into SF to start his work day with LFL. I've been on toy runs with him (contrary to popular opinion, Steve does NOT get one of everything for free), i've seen him sit cross legged on the floor of his museum, so stoked to open packs of the newest trading cards reminding me of that youthful enthusiasm i once had for Star Wars, that somehow, despite his work and all of the challenges he's endured from working with LFL, he still manages to maintain. And believe me, there have been challenges. Steve has fought hard for many of us.

Without talking out of turn about stuff i'm not sure is public knowledge at this point, it's sad for me to say that people really have no idea how dark a day this is for fans and the Star Wars community as a whole. That wonderful, supportive access so many of had to LFL will be leaving and that's going to leave us with that big scary corporation, who just doesn't get what it means to be a fan, to deal with once again.

And my reply:

LOL. Good speech, coming from an admin of a site that is in bed with Hasbro and LFL.

The fact remains that Sansweet is part of the machine, especially once he started getting paid. He should NEVER have told us to be grateful for those crappy 2006 "bonus discs." If he really cared, he would have stood up. That, plus the fact that I tried to contact him for THREE YEARS about the Original Unaltered Trilogy, makes me say, yet again, good riddance.

Its ridiculous to say all those things (Celebration, Insider) would not have happened without Sansweet. What a bunch of propaganda. Its also asinine to say LFL was anti-fan until Sansweet came onboard--the fan club was actually a much better place and SW Insider was a magnificent mag under the guidance of fan club president Dan Madison.

Although I will say that Sansweet basically put out a focal point for the burgeoning collecting community in the early and mid 1990s, before it got huge, before the internet as well. Hats off to him I guess. Unfortunately, in hindsight this was the beginning of the end, as it made LFL realize the possibilities of milking the franchise, and his close relations starting in the later 1990s kicked off a new and unprecidented era of SW shit merchandising and total oversaturation of product placement.

But again--any of this stuff would have happened without him anyway. SW was too big for it not to.

It'd be great if all the rats desert the sinking ship, especially before the 3D fiasco, but I'm sure everyone involved wants to squeeze some more.

It could be that Sansweet is partly like everyone around here, a fan of SW in the theaters and maybe more importantly to the presrevation issue, the way he first saw them; which gathered his appreciation.  He could have been getting bored with the new wave SW clone wars culture, and wants to do something else.  But return to LFL's production facility when an OT project comes along.  But who knows until he starts talking.  He might become an ally in the preservation issue, he's been there since day one, and he understands (on some level, might take some scratching to get it out) the significance of the original film.

Thanks, Mielr.  :)

My comment at SW.com was removed, LOL.

Great reading material.  Comedy and tragedy all at once:

http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=4372817&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=93&fpart=2#Post4374767#4372817

My take on this. 

Mr. Sansweet has done alot for all the SW collectors in the way of turning the hobby in to something far greater.  If, during his tenure, he has indeed dipped in to the dark side.....only he can rectify those mistakes.  Bashing him won't make it happen any sooner nor will it make him any more amicable or empathetic to the fans...he is only human.

I wish him well and hope that his departure can only help strengthen the fans position in the near future when it comes to all that we speculate.  

I remember when Ben Burtt started working with Pixar....it was and still is my hope that he made a stand in defense of the OT and stuck with it even though at this point he may not be able or willing to discuss it publicly. 

I have always hoped that Dennis Muren would make a stand as well opposing Lucas in defense of all the HARD work that people did to actually make Star Wars and start the journey through the changes to film-making and history.

I am STILL hoping to see this happen in my lifetime.

:)

Mr. Sandsweet. has done a lot of good things for star wars and the fan community over the years and the books he has written on star wars collecting are good too. So bashing him it not going to do any good. Now has he made some mistakes sure he has but lets be respectfull of what he has done for the star wars  fan community.

Ain't gonna happen.  Unfortunately.

First interview after announcement: (starts around 8:15)

http://www.forcecast.net/story/topstory/Weekly_ForceCast_October_29_2010_134680.asp

The first topic seems to be launched at this community.  And yes you'll all want to bitch and moan, but realize you've got his attention, now it's time to focus on how do you convince him/others of the importance of the original films as seen back then.

A sign that he most likely appreciates the original's impact is when later in the interview (~23:50) he explains how the coolest thing he was able to show off was the Biggs cutscene footage.

none said:

First interview after announcement: (starts around 8:15)

http://www.forcecast.net/story/topstory/Weekly_ForceCast_October_29_2010_134680.asp

 

The first topic seems to be launched at this community.  And yes you'll all want to bitch and moan, but realize you've got his attention, now it's time to focus on how do you convince him/others of the importance of the original films as seen back then.

A sign that he most likely appreciates the original's impact is when later in the interview (~23:50) he explains how the coolest thing he was able to show off was the Biggs cutscene footage.

 

 

Wow, what an interview.  He puts some of the basics into a simple perspective.  It certainly shows how splinters of the same cause can create  a bigger wall which may be harder to climb.

Thanks for the listen....it was very enlightening.

The guy with the separate house for his doll collection wants us to grow up.

He basically sounds like a Lucasfilm employee in that interview, at least as it pertains to us here. One who like most people wouldn't mind a restored original version, but ultimately doesn't care that much, and finds that people passionate about it are a nuissance to his job.

"Your complaints have been noted, but sorry no, now stop asking because it is clogging up my inbox." That is paraphrasing how the experience of the OOT issue was like from his end of things. Which is essentially the viewpoint of a Lucasfilm lackey. It's a nuissance that people like the original versions so much because his job is ultimately to defend, or at least tolerate and rationalise, their suppression. Which is why I don't believe the man has much integrity. He's a guy like many of the sort you find at a place like TFN--they would like to see the original versions treated properly, but ultimately are just fine watching the SE (and all of its home video glitches) and will find themselves compelled to defend this or rationalise it. Which is why he fit in so well with the role he played at Lucasfilm. He has a good point in that the company runs the way it runs and they are well aware of the demand, etc., but it really does seem like he ultimately doesn't actually care. Being on the company payroll probably made him hold back some criticisms or hype things a little bit more than he otherwise would have, but in the end I do believe that his behaviour at Lucasfilm is a fairly accurate representation of him as a person. Like Baronlando so eloquently put it, this is a man so loony that he had to build a second home to house all the merchandise he was addicted to buying and then he turns around and tells fans to grow up because they want to actually watch the movies.

Lackeys talking to lackeys.  Lame.

Sansweet was complicit in the drowning of the OOT. Him leaving Lucasfilm changes nothing. The destruction of the OOT is still going on and he did nothing to stop it. Don't people at Lucasfilm realize these are not just a certain version of a movie that is being suppressed, it's the essence of everything that is at stake? Do they even know how monstrous they really, really are? 

The answer to that is $$$ NO $$$.