Nerds everywhere felt a disturbance in the force yesterday.
George Lucas, whom some may call the supreme overlord of movie franchises and others may call a terrible person, sold his production company to The Walt Disney Co. for $4.05 billion.
This deal included his Lucasfilm Ltd. and the “Star Wars” film franchise. Yes, that means there is going to be a seventh “Star Wars” movie.
“It’s now time for me to pass ‘Star Wars’ on to a new generation of filmmakers,” Lucas said in a statement.
So, Disney is slowly acquiring everything we hold dear, apparently. As a reminder, they bought Pixar Animation Studios in 2006, as well as Marvel Entertainment in 2009.
Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive, announced that the company plans to release “Star Wars VII” in 2015.
“Lucasfilm reflects the extraordinary passion, vision and storytelling of its founder, George Lucas,” Iger said in a statement.
The business deal probably makes sense, because the film franchise already has a presence in Disney’s theme parks, but something about a large acquisition of wealth makes us uncomfortable.
Not all of us struggled through our college years living off a trust fund, so seeing numbers that large means very little.
What means more, though, is the thought process behind collecting companies like Pokemon.
Disney already owns everything. Well, almost everything — basically just the important things.
That company starts socializing and indoctrinating children at the beginning of their lives, so it’s important to us as a society. It creates its own TV programming, movies, music, radio programs, accessories, toys, games, decorations, marketing, food and commercial space for all of those — not to mention, multiple theme parks for the company to revel in its own glory.
The sad thing is that we all love Disney. It has created some wonderful memories for most of us (and some negative body images for others, but that’s for another day). So, why would it pay so much money for a franchise that should be dead and done? We’re not saying that “Star Wars” is terrible or bad, but Lucas had to have known he made it go downhill more quickly than it needed to.
There’s no need to create more movies simply for the sake of making more movies. Plus, was Disney the right choice to sell it to?
“Those acquisitions have given Disney more material as it seeks to appeal to a broader range of children and families, especially teenage boys, a notoriously hard-to-reach audience,” according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Too bad it seems like teenage boys are one of the most available audiences to reach. At least, it seems like so many products are already geared toward males of all ages, so it doesn’t seem like it should be that difficult to reach them with more advertising.
Let’s hope that Disney doesn’t end up making it all worse.
