“What we’re buying along with the overall company is a pretty extensive and detailed treatment for what would be the next three movies,” Disney CFO Jay Rasulo announced in the fall of 2012 when the mouse house purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion and some change. For awhile, the notion was that George Lucas‘ vision for the next three chapters of his universe would form the foundation that the team assembled for the new movies would work from. But as time has passed, there has been fewer references to those treatments, as well as rumors of fallout over the direction of the new trilogy. Slashfilm notes chatter suggesting original ‘The Force Awakens’ scribe Michael Arndt was more in line with Lucas, who wanted the new movie to focus on the newer characters, while Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams were eager to put Luke, Han and Leia upfront. And whether or not that’s true, Lucas’ latest comments seem to aim in that direction.
In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, Lucas reveals that his ideas for the new trilogy are no more. "The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn’t really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it’s not the ones that I originally wrote ," he said.
Certainly, the prequel films were not the best example of Lucas doing the right thing narratively by his series, and we’re sure $4 billion will cushion some of the creative wounds he’s sustained. That said, he’s godfather of the franchise, and there is some value in Disney keeping him happy. Was there a compromised reached? Are we still going to get an idea of what Lucas wanted? Or has "Star Wars" been Abrams-ed?
Guess we’ll find out when ‘The Force Awakens’ on December 18th.
If people want to see to George Lucas vision. Go watch the the prequels again.
Good. Lucas used to be a good ideas-man, but his recent stuff has been dreadful. The prequels didn\’t have any relatable characters with personality. The plots were overly complicated, yet childish and stupid.
Indiana Jones 4 wasn\’t as bad, but had tons of problems (aliens, John Hurt\’s non-character, Ray Winstone\’s dumb double-agent-shtick etc).
While I\’m not the biggest Abrams fan, I think that he\’s better at writing likable characters and good action adventure plot (Super 8, the first Star Trek).
how many awful, pointless, "george lucas said something" posts can you possibly put up?
It would be cool if Disney/Marvel turned Lucas\’ original treatment for the sequel trilogy into a graphic novel, something radically different from The Force Awakens. That way we\’d at least get to see some version of what Lucas had in mind.
Seems like a good thing to me, assuming there\’s more Kasdan and less Abrams in the final draft of the script.
Lucas was a luck schmuck who managed to fleece American teenagers for three decades by updating old fairy tales. He was on the forefront of cinematic technology but mostly he\’s been getting fat off other peoples achievements. It\’s the American dream personified-it\’s all about who you know. The guy has been DOA since the late-80s in the idea department so it\’s no wonder Disney ditched his treatments. The prequels while amassing great merchandise sales were not the memorable bonanzas either McCullum or Fox had envisioned when jumping onboard. So there\’s a frayed history in those camps in letting the emperor pose with no clothes. And it widely known Lucas almost brought his relationship with Speilberg to the brink by watering down the fourth Indy picture; the film speaks for itself as to how bad Lucas\’ mind has dwindled. So it\’s actually a good sign Disney has the notion to push little Georgie to the side and use basically just characters upon which his empire of dust was built.
Probably not a good thing. Lucas has always been good at the macro storytelling level he just isn\’t able to execute it well. And I agree with focusing on the younger characters is the better direction.