The end for Star Wars?

In case you haven’t already heard, Disney has announced that they are taking over ‘Lucasfilm’, for $4.05 billion, and are making plans to create a new Star Wars movie by 2015 – with a new addition to the franchise arriving every 2 or 3 years. For the full press release, go to this link, and click ‘Show press release’ under the article.

Now, I know what you are thinking. It was every Star Wars fan’s reaction when they read this, myself included, and it went something along the theme of the end of the Mayan calendar. But don’t worry; there is a New Hope!

Disney bought out Marvel back in August 2009, for a very similar price of $4 billion, and what have we seen since then? Arguably, some of the best Marvel films yet. There have also been some less entertaining titles, such as Captain America, and Thor, however these films were put in place to make sure Avengers Assemble was as epic as possible. And it was.

Now, this goes to show that Disney can essentially do great things with this. They could take Star Wars to even more epic battles than we saw in Revenge of the Sith, or maybe they will write a story line that is more exciting and new than Empire Strikes Back. Who knows? The one thing we do know is that they aren't very likely to mess this up. Uncertain how I came to that conclusion? Well, as you will see in the press statement, LucasFilm will be staying how it always was, just under the control of Disney, and I presume that means they will be behind the upcoming films (why keep them around if not?).

At the back of my mind, there is the worry that Disney will see the success of ‘Clone Wars’ (the animated film, not to be confused with the second film ‘Attack of the clones’), and aim the new films towards a younger market. If this happens, the effects could be anywhere between a linear, flat story line, all the way to the future films being animated.

The other issue that could occur is that (if they take a big role in the story line Disney don’t pay any attention to the lore that the ‘die hard’ Star Wars fans worship, which would essentially ruin the Star Wars universe. The tiniest detail that doesn't match up with the six films, the books, or even games like Knights of the old republic 1 + 2 will mean that all the lore, and especially the games that include it, will just lose its immersion. What’s the point in a fantasy world that doesn’t make sense?

Another point worthy of noting is that LucasArts is within LucasFilm, meaning it was involved in this deal. Because of this, Disney has all the rights to create/license new games for the franchise, which could (fingers crossed) include Knights of the old republic 3, or even Battlefront 3, which appears to be the most requested sequel to a game I have ever seen.

The main thing you should take from this is that, after your first reaction, you should realize that this isn't the end for Star Wars. And in fact, it could be a new beginning…