STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS - Blu-Ray Thoughts

[Monterey Jack]

Never trust an actor who "confirms" that they'll be appearing in a movie (or that a movie is going to be made), especially one who hasn't appeared in a movie since...what, Scream 3?

[AndyDursin]

Looks like she wasn't bluffing. lol. This lengthy Bloomberg article on Disney's Bob Eiger and how the Lucasfilm deal came together confirms the involvement of the original cast members.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... ar-wars#p1

Asked whether members of the original Star Wars cast will appear in Episode VII and if he called them before the deal closed to keep them informed, Lucas says, “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’ ” He pauses. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.” Then he adds: “I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.”

[Eric W.]

http://www.dailytech.com/New+Star+Wars+ ... e30081.htm

Confirmed. Ford, Fisher, Hamill all set to return.


I wish this were 20 years ago.

[John Johnson]

Bang goes Star Wars 1313...

UPDATED: Disney has canned all work on two in-house projects, effectively shuttering the video-game studio.
Disney has canceled all in-house work on the only two projects at LucasArts and has laid off about 150 people, effectively killing the entity as a working video-game studio.

“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," LucasArts said in a statement issued to The Hollywood Reporter. "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.”

LucasArts, founded in 1982 by George Lucas, published several games based on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises in its 31-year-history. Its current projects were Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313, which could survive as licensed or outsourced games or be shuttered completely.

The news was fist reported by several video-game outlets, such as Kotaku, Joystiq and Cubed3.

"Disney Interactive looks forward to working with Lucasfilm on new games opportunities that leverage their incredible IP and brings it to life across gaming platforms," Disney Interactive said in a statement Wednesday.

One insider says that LucasArts had spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the years developing, releasing and marketing console games but lately it has been difficult to justify such expenditures given the trend toward online mobile games.

Disney gained control of LucasArts when it purchased Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in December.

Disney, too, hasn't had too much luck turning a profit with video games. In September, it reorganized Disney Interactive and laid off 50 people, and 18 months prior to that it laid off 200 people from the same division. In January, Disney shut down Junction Point Studios, which was behind the Epic Mickey video game.

The next big bet at Disney Interactive, the unit in charge of video games, is Disney Infinity, which is a console game but also a toy that will include mobile and online components. The game was due in June but Disney recently pushed its release to August 18.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/d ... ees-432710

[BobaMike]

Very sad news. I grew up loving LucasArts games, they had such a high standard of quality....put that was over a decade ago now I guess. They haven't made a good game since Republic Commando

Still, they made more games that I still love to this day than any other company:

Maniac Mansion/ Day of the Tentacle
X-wing/ Tie Fighter
Dark Forces/ Jedi Knight
Outlaws
Grim Fandango
Monkey Island series
Indiana Jones and Fate of Atlantis
Sam N Max
Full Throttle
Loom

I remember having to figure out how to create a boot disk so our 486 could play X-wing, I remember my mom being against me getting Tie Fighter since you play a bad guy, and I remember getting a soundblaster card so I could hear Fate of Atlantis. Good memories!

[AndyDursin]

Not shocked. I figured Star Wars 1313 would never happen and that Disney would shut it down once they acquired the Lucasfilm brand. The downside of George's big buyout is a lot of folks losing their jobs, regrettably. Disney is only interested in making cheap, simple games for mobile devices -- this also does not bode well for the Star Wars license.

I wonder if ILM itself eventually is going to be dismantled...even though they're working on every other big movie today, you just wonder with Disney now running the show, that it won't shut that down too.

[Eric W.]

Sad day for gamers. Like Andy said: A number of things here potentially don't bode well at all given the Disney m.o.

[jkholm]

This isn't exactly "new" but this is the first time I've seen Summer 2015 as a release date (instead of 2015 in general).

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/04/17/s ... vies-2015/

[AndyDursin]

2015 looks very doable at this point. I mean, JURASSIC PARK 4 is coming out in 2014 and doesn't even have a cast announced yet...and then there's FAST & THE FURIOUS 7 which already has a date of July 2014 and doesn't start shooting until August! Granted STAR WARS has loads of effects work, but I'd expect 2015 to be the time since I assume the script is finished. For all we know they're working on effects set pieces already since they're all done on the computer.

[John Johnson]

Every year??

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/star-wars-se ... 00475.html

[AndyDursin]

Yeah that EW article broke the news above -- I think it's too much too fast...but this is Disney we're talking about. They're going to milk the Marvel and Star Wars brands now to the Nth degree. Just look at Pixar. 80% of everything they produce now is a prequel/sequel.

[mkaroly]

Yeah that EW article broke the news above -- I think it's too much too fast...but this is Disney we're talking about. They're going to milk the Marvel and Star Wars brands now to the Nth degree. Just look at Pixar. 80% of everything they produce now is a prequel/sequel.

This is not good news - over-saturation will lead to burn-out and diminished returns. I don't believe it will happen. I think in the excitement of it all people in studios say stuff but it rarely comes to pass. It would be hard for someone to screw up Star Wars, but in Disney's hands the possibility is always there.

[Paul MacLean]

For me the prospect of more Star Wars movies without John Williams just isn't appealing, just as Superman and Jaws sequels without John Williams weren't appealing (though admittedly those sequels had other problems too!). But he's such an integral part of the Star Wars experience, that bereft of his distinctive artistry, these SW sequels will never be anywhere near as immersive or dramatically satisfying.

[DavidBanner]

I strongly doubt you will actually see Fast 7 next summer. At the very least, they'll move the release date back to the end of the year, and more likely, it will have to be moved back to 2015. The same will wind up applying to Jurassic Park 4. These dates are always moveable, as we saw with Star Trek when it was bumped from 2008 to 2009. (Granted, that was also a situation where they had the movie done, not where there was no way to get the movie done on time.)

I seem to recall that the original Star Wars was supposed to come out in 1976 and got bumped back to May 1977 since it couldn't be ready in time.

As for the new Star Wars movie, I strongly suspect it will get bumped back to 2016 - Kathleen Kennedy has already admitted publicly that 2015 is a goal but not a requirement.

I too regret that Lucasfilm is pretty much being dismantled as anything other than a production shingle within Disney. I wonder if the work done on 1313 will show up in future Star Wars games, or if they are prepared to walk away from the time and money already spent developing the material. The only real use for the Lucasfilm label within Disney now will be to promote Star Wars or Indiana Jones product, including future movies. (I tend to doubt you'll see Disney doing a revisitation of American Grafitti...)

I think ILM will likely be split off as a separate company. I can't imagine Disney using it as an in-house FX company, although that could happen. It's more likely to me that they'd sell the company to a third party, which could relabel it, or they'd establish it as its own separate entity.

[tjguitar85]

Has Disney mentioned anything about future Indy films? What is Paramount's role in that?