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Disney Acquires LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, Episode 7 in 2015, 8 and 9 to Follow, New Film Every 2-3 Years — Page 11

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SilverWook said:

Lucas specifically mentioned having written treatments for nine films in interviews given for the original making of ESB book.

I'm sure he did, but the man has changed his story so many times before and after that his credibility is questionable. I mean, look, I'm sure zombie pressed his case kind of hard, but it was still a compelling case. Or do you have an issue with his book/arguments?

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

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Chilmayka said:

I must admit that looks a lot like one of the droids the Jawas were selling.

Btw, Chilmayka, image only posts are usually frowned upon. You're new here, so we'll let it slide this time. :)

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Where were you in '77?

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This is a screenshot from the Making of ESB. This is the vintage papers for his treatment for the sequels, circa 1977 or 1978.

And yes, I'm serious. I took that image from Rinzler's sw.com blog.

It's the same as the prequels. He said he had full treatments for 1,2 and 3 since the 70s. His company even said on some occassions he had scripts. But then ten years ago he admitted all his 'treatments' were was some pages of unordered notes.

He no doubt has these for the sequels as well, because he was considering them in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But his actual "treatments" to both seem to just have been him writing "episodes 1,2 3" and "episodes 7,8,9" (and also at one point 10,11,12 as the above shows), on a pad of paper and going to bed. These are the closest to prequel and sequel treatments that have been unearthed so far.

However, given that the first new film is a mere three years away, I am sure Lucas has by now ACTUALLY created treatments, which probably incorporate some of his original notes. However, I don't believe he ever had at any point full, proper story treatments prior to this, especially since he seemed to genuinely believe that there wasn't much story material beyond Episode VI only a few years ago.

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bilditup1 said:

zombie84 said:

My own feeling is that this could be the best thing, because Disney has always been kind to its classics, has always marketed itself based on its legacy, and with Lucas out of the way--he's a creative consultant on the sequels, not on the companies business dealings--there's really nothing holding them back.

But Lucas will become Disney's second largest individual shareholder, after the family of Steve Jobs. (One thing nobody I've read seems to have pointed out is that this deal in some way reunites Lucasfilm with its' former computer graphics department, which ended up selling to Disney several years earlier for much more than Lucasfilm itself.)

Lucas' having such a large stake still carries a whole lot of weight, even if it isn't an outright veto (it's still just a small percentage of the company). Now, maybe there are elements within Lucasfilm who have wanted to get the OoT out that Lucas has thusfar vetoed, who will now have some breathing room. I doubt that these people could have gotten promoted in the organization if they felt that way openly though, considering Lucas' attitude though...so we'd have to hope that many there are people in the shadows who want this, or that the suits are willing to override Lucas' wishes. Otherwise...I dunno, I just don't see much of a reason to be hopeful.

The 2011 Blu-ray collection, btw, is billed as 'The Complete Saga'. I sincerely doubt that these talks have been in the works for more than a year, or that Lucas had any kind of story treatment for the third trilogy until very recently (you would have mentioned it in your book!)

Disney has already stated they plan to buy back the shares within two years, as per the investors conference call that they posted on their site today.

 

 

“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas

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Cobra Kai said:

Disney has already stated they plan to buy back the shares within two years, as per the investors conference call that they posted on their site today.

 

 

Never mind then. I knew I should have watched that conference call, heh. Thanks for setting me straight.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

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bilditup1 said:

SilverWook said:

Lucas specifically mentioned having written treatments for nine films in interviews given for the original making of ESB book.

I'm sure he did, but the man has changed his story so many times before and after that his credibility is questionable. I mean, look, I'm sure zombie pressed his case kind of hard, but it was still a compelling case. Or do you have an issue with his book/arguments?

I think the George Lucas of 1979/80 was a bit more unfiltered and less guarded than he is now. The whole book is an largely unvarnished look at ESB's production and where Lucas thought the saga was going. Even Carrie Fisher's drug problems are hinted at. For those reasons, I think it will remain forever out of print.

The only point I wanted to make is that Lucas isn't suddenly pulling a sequel out of his thermal exhaust port. There's a lot a material that has never seen the light of day.

I haven't read Zombie's book.

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Where were you in '77?

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rpvee said:

The way Disney has been phrasing this... "there will be more films"... it's not like they're even trying to convince us they care about the story.  The story ended at the end of Jedi, simple as that, but they say "more films" as if they'll keep making them until people stop paying to see them.  They didn't say "another trilogy".  "More films".  However many that means.  Star Wars will lose its identity.  But at least the original six will maintain their status, since they'll always be seen as officially Lucas' vision/ideas.

Honestly, I'm really worried about the scores.  A Star Wars feature, live-action film without John Williams?  Unthinkable.

There you go again.

The story only ends with Jedi if you think it's about the living flesh of Anakin Skywalker (something that would never have crossed anyone's mind until 1999.

If you think it's about wars in the stars of a distant galaxy a long time ago you can have hundreds of legitimate episodes.

I suspect that there will be suckage but there is the potential with billions of clones, former Imperial generals and the like to try and unsteady the new republic, not to mention Leia going off the rails and Anakin existing as a ghost to keep some of that continuity going (just not the the EU one).

It sucks space balls if the saga ends with Jedi anyway, it's a really bad film and almost as bad as the PT.

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SilverWook said:

bilditup1 said:

SilverWook said:

Lucas specifically mentioned having written treatments for nine films in interviews given for the original making of ESB book.

I'm sure he did, but the man has changed his story so many times before and after that his credibility is questionable. I mean, look, I'm sure zombie pressed his case kind of hard, but it was still a compelling case. Or do you have an issue with his book/arguments?

I think the George Lucas of 1979/80 was a bit more unfiltered and less guarded than he is now. The whole book is an largely unvarnished look at ESB's production and where Lucas thought the saga was going. Even Carrie Fisher's drug problems are hinted at. For those reasons, I think it will remain forever out of print.

The only point I wanted to make is that Lucas isn't suddenly pulling a sequel out of his thermal exhaust port. There's a lot a material that has never seen the light of day.

I haven't read Zombie's book.

Hmm...even back then though, he was changing his story interview-to-interview, regardless of how unguarded he was. 

I suspect that if you did read zombie's book, you'd become far more skeptical of just how much content was out there. ( I did not read it critically because of how long it was; hopefully he cut it down to size and made it less redundant with the latest version.) It's only $10 for the ebook, though unfortunately it's only available from amazon. Much of the basic argument is available at his site, too. I would make it but I really need to go to sleep, and zombie is anyway reading the thread.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying where you're coming from.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

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bilditup1 said:

Anchorhead said:

Alexrd said:

To me, anything Star Wars related...has to come from his mind

Considering I'm the polar opposite - I only follow\own\care about Star Wars that is non-Lucas - this has the potential to be positive.

Abrams got Star Trek back to it's roots, so maybe Disney can give the world something Star Wars other than the twirling colors, small galaxy, children's films that Lucas turned them into in 1983.

Side point - Abrams made Star Trek fun and interesting again, but brought it back to it's roots? Nah. He made it more like Star Wars (many parallels between the two films.)

Exactly what I was going to say. Making Star Wars with a new skin is not bringing ST to its roots.

1990osu said:

I am glad that Episode 7 is going to be based on George Lucas' story treatment.  That makes it all right somehow; we know it will be authentic.

Also, how much do you want to bet it turns out like "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi"- i.e. George is the creative consultant but as he watches the movies getting made, he can't help but start getting his hands in it again.

One can only hope. He needs to give as much input on the story as on the design.

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RATLSNAKE said:

SpilkaBilka said:

Alexrd said:

Here.

Scroll down to the comments section and look who posted first (and so far, is the only one who has posted).  ROFL.

I picture this guy as being the character in those 70 and 80s American high school comedy films where he's the annoying dween in the class that gets bashed by all, but no one feels sorry for him, because well...he just really deserves it for being a parasite of society.

 

bloody hell, they don't like mild criticism much there do they?-

 

 

" Ceiranharmony says:

Star Wars has risen again? well… if your head is upside down!

this is a sad day, Star Wars died today for many fans! look at boards and discussions everywhere!

THIS IS HOW STAR WARS DIES… WITH THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE!

Most of all I pity the authors and officials who by contract can’t voice their own concern and worries but have to applaud this news.

  • Mattijs G. says:

    Ceiranharmony,

    If you and so many others have so many problems with this news then please refrain from being a fan. A great many people share my optimistic views of this news and are looking forward to what the future will bring. And we’d like to do that without people like yourself spoiling it for us. "

 

 

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bilditup1 said:

SilverWook said:

bilditup1 said:

SilverWook said:

Lucas specifically mentioned having written treatments for nine films in interviews given for the original making of ESB book.

I'm sure he did, but the man has changed his story so many times before and after that his credibility is questionable. I mean, look, I'm sure zombie pressed his case kind of hard, but it was still a compelling case. Or do you have an issue with his book/arguments?

I think the George Lucas of 1979/80 was a bit more unfiltered and less guarded than he is now. The whole book is an largely unvarnished look at ESB's production and where Lucas thought the saga was going. Even Carrie Fisher's drug problems are hinted at. For those reasons, I think it will remain forever out of print.

The only point I wanted to make is that Lucas isn't suddenly pulling a sequel out of his thermal exhaust port. There's a lot a material that has never seen the light of day.

I haven't read Zombie's book.

Hmm...even back then though, he was changing his story interview-to-interview, regardless of how unguarded he was. 

I suspect that if you did read zombie's book, you'd become far more skeptical of just how much content was out there. ( I did not read it critically because of how long it was; hopefully he cut it down to size and made it less redundant with the latest version.) It's only $10 for the ebook, though unfortunately it's only available from amazon. Much of the basic argument is available at his site, too. I would make it but I really need to go to sleep, and zombie is anyway reading the thread.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying where you're coming from.

Would have been a lot harder to catch someone changing their story unless you had a subscription to several different magazines though. Dave Prowse let slip a major plot spoiler, but it never got beyond the local paper it was printed in.

Starlog was my primary news source for SW back then. Kids have it so easy now. ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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who's to say episode 7 8 9  will necessarily follow the events of Return of the Jedi? aside from the sequential episode numbers, surely the 20 years between episodes 3 & 4 would be a much more interesting era to mine than watching middle-aged Luke, Leia and Han (or even worse re-cast Luke, Leia & Han) running around the galaxy with their annoying offspring.

The rise of the Empire, Jedi purge and the birth of the rebellion definitely is a much richer time-frame to explore, and if they required actors from the prequels they'd still be the right age for the role, and importantly all 9 films would chronicle Vader's rise and fall.

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That was the time period the live action tv show is supposed to be set in. If it's not dead in the water now...

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

That was the time period the live action tv show is supposed to be set in. If it's not dead in the water now...

well cost has been the big factor in stalling the TV series, even McCallum recently  conceded there was no money to be made from TV , let alone covering production costs, seems logical for Disney to step in pursuing the idea as theatrical movies.

According to Lucas they already have hundreds of hours already written(take with grain of salt) , and with 3 years to turn around a new movie you would hope that the story was already pretty much set in stone. It's a good chance that George even been pitched the film to  Disney to seal the deal.

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zombie84 said:

This is a screenshot from the Making of ESB. This is the vintage papers for his treatment for the sequels, circa 1977 or 1978.

And yes, I'm serious. I took that image from Rinzler's sw.com blog.

It's the same as the prequels. He said he had full treatments for 1,2 and 3 since the 70s. His company even said on some occassions he had scripts. But then ten years ago he admitted all his 'treatments' were was some pages of unordered notes.

He no doubt has these for the sequels as well, because he was considering them in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But his actual "treatments" to both seem to just have been him writing "episodes 1,2 3" and "episodes 7,8,9" (and also at one point 10,11,12 as the above shows), on a pad of paper and going to bed. These are the closest to prequel and sequel treatments that have been unearthed so far.

 

Exactly. If you ask me, it always seems that about 50-70% of the material across ALL SIX of the existing Star Wars films stems from just one extended period of creativity from Lucas during the 70s.

Sure, he may have sat down to go through the whole "writing process" when he realised he actually needed scripts to make the prequels happen, but it is clear the "treatments" were nothing more than a bunch of left over ideas/names/locations that he never got to use in the first movie or its sequels, and the actual writing of the prequels involved ustilising these old ideas, recycling ones which had already been used (... it's like poetry, they rhyme... ) and extrapolating the rest from the existing narrative.

A little harsh maybe, but essentially that's what (it appears) he's been faced with since the success of the SW 1977 - one body of ideas relating to what was initially a single story; nine (or 12, or whatever) little headings on a piece of paper and the task of filling the gaps beneath those headings.

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Can no-one see he made the stories up as he went along, thats why they conflict

J

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ricarleite said:

I am an OLD time user here, almost a decade, but I HAD to come back here and say.... HOLY S***T!!!

OMG!!! You're back!!!(I'm more surprised with this then anything else in this thread.)

 

Also, I really couldn't care what they do. My childhood memories are untouched and intact. I'll just be skeptical and if anything cool comes out I'll be happy.

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Hah, yeah - that's kind of what I am saying.

He seems to have had a surplas of names, characters, locations and - at best - situations and scenarios, knocking around pretty much since day one. But the actual story that all these things hang on... it's almost as if Lucas thought that the narrative was also in there buried among his notes, and if he just went back and kept mining these concepts the story would work.

While this worked for episodes five and six, where the characters were always moving somewhere new, the flaws of this way of working were exposed when trying to deal with a backstory we already know the outcome of.

I mean, I'm in the camp that loves ROTJ, but I can see its flaws. How all it boils down to is, first act: Nonsensical recue plot simply to return one of our heroes to the fray and, remainder of the film: Rehash of the Death Star attack from the first movie with the unused primitive hairy tribe idea grafted back in - all seasoned with a bit of "certain point of view" backtracking.

It is clear the ideas were being spread thin by that point, but in this case the character arcs could be brought to some kind of satisfying resolution, because he had the freedom to make it up as he went along. The saving grace was that the first two films were good enough to make us care about these characters and what happened to them in ROTJ.

With the prequels, we knew where everything was headed, so that freedom was gone.

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Fox is retaining the rights to the earlier films, so nothing new except new stuff not to buy. Unless this'll get the OOT out, which it won't, let's move along. Basically it means we'll be seeing more SW stuff than ever, but who cares? The OOT is still doomed.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Some news....

Disney does NOT NOT NOT own the previous 6 films. They only have the rights to future films and to the characters themselves. They cannot do anything with the older films.

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ricarleite said:

I am an OLD time user here, almost a decade, but I HAD to come back here and say.... HOLY S***T!!!

Me too dude.  HOLY S***T.

Not sure how I feel about this to be honest - could be cool to see Star Wars in non-Lucas hands in my lifetime.  Or could be terrible.

Now, a HBO, Band of Brothers style 10-part series about Luke (played by Mark Hamill) training new Jedi, that I'd watch. 

War does not make one great.

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Yoda Is Your Father said:

Now, a HBO, Band of Brothers style 10-part series about Luke (played by Mark Hamill) training new Jedi, that I'd watch. 

That would be awesome. 

Mark Hamill's reaction on Twitter: "Congratulations to George for today's mega-deal! Can't comment on Ep 7 before I have all the facts which are short supply right now-Patience"

Doesn't sound like he's shooting it down!

Ewan McGregor: "Wonder if they will need any Obi-Wan Hologram action??!”

 

Sounds like now that it's going to be a new director, there is some renewed enthusiasm...

 

I wish that I could just wish my feelings away...but I can't.  Wishful wishing can only lead to wishes wished for in futile wishfulness, which is not what I wish to wish for. 

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Ewan McGregor: "Wonder if they will need any Obi-Wan Hologram action??!”

What does he mean? I'm confused...

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Bingowings said:

rpvee said:

The way Disney has been phrasing this... "there will be more films"... it's not like they're even trying to convince us they care about the story.  The story ended at the end of Jedi, simple as that, but they say "more films" as if they'll keep making them until people stop paying to see them.  They didn't say "another trilogy".  "More films".  However many that means.  Star Wars will lose its identity.  But at least the original six will maintain their status, since they'll always be seen as officially Lucas' vision/ideas.

Honestly, I'm really worried about the scores.  A Star Wars feature, live-action film without John Williams?  Unthinkable.

There you go again.

The story only ends with Jedi if you think it's about the living flesh of Anakin Skywalker (something that would never have crossed anyone's mind until 1999.

If you think it's about wars in the stars of a distant galaxy a long time ago you can have hundreds of legitimate episodes.

I suspect that there will be suckage but there is the potential with billions of clones, former Imperial generals and the like to try and unsteady the new republic, not to mention Leia going off the rails and Anakin existing as a ghost to keep some of that continuity going (just not the the EU one).

It sucks space balls if the saga ends with Jedi anyway, it's a really bad film and almost as bad as the PT.

The story ends with Jedi even in terms of just the OT.  The bad guys we've encountered since Star Wars are dead, the good guys we've loved since Star Wars are happy, their arcs are complete, story over.  Even if Jedi isn't the best of the trilogy, no one has outright called it a bad or incomplete ending to the saga, so why should it be now?

I'd be fine with more Star Wars movies if they just didn't use the "Episode" thing.  The "Episodes" should be left be, done and over with, the tale of Luke Skywalker and his father (or Anakin Skywalker and his son, whichever) made by George Lucas and respected as that.  And from there, we can have "Star Wars: The New Jedi" or "Star Wars: Boba Fett" or "Star Wars: Winds Forming Sand Dunes on Tatooine"... just not "Episodes".