I've Got a Bad Feeling About This

Why did Disney reformat the Star Wars canon? For newer more amazing stories with a more cohesive narrative, like Abrams and Kennedy and all those fools went around telling the press?

Fuck No! Think dollar signs. Star Wars is all about merchandising.

Lucas had basically let anybody and his Uncle Buck jump onboard the Star Wars franchise over the years with the Expanded Universe. Done at your average royalty negotiation rate, usually about 3-7%, going to Lucasfilm. All those authors, video game creators, and merchandise manufacturers were going to continue to make money off the now Disney owned intellectual property.

But they didn't know Disney was a subsidiary of the Third Reich. And Nazis don't do business that way.

So Disney creates a "Story Group" and what do they do with the tens of thousands of EU stories and characters? BURN IT. Down to the 6 feature films and two of the Clone Wars films.

Then Disney goes to work franchising new books, and comics, and video games, and merchandise and all the other crap you'd have found at Hastings were it still in existence... at DOUBLE the royalty rate. And what has happened to the Expanded Universe products now that they are no longer canon? Sales have plummeted. And all those content creators and artists' royalty cut is blown away as well. They are fucked. The books and comics and video games are largely worthless. Meanwhile Disney has already surpassed $30 Billion in profit off the franchise since 2012.

But why would Lucas allow this to happen? Doesn't he care about all the deals he made with people during his career? Isn't he an honorable man? ...You mean "Darth Petty" Lucas? FUCK HONOR! Especially when you can be the second largest non-corporate shareholder in Disney with a 2% stake.

That means that Lucas will still make money off of his previous (now dwindling) deals, and make even more off of Disney's new ones. And it has already more than paid off. After The Force Awakens was released, Disney saw its biggest quarterly profit report ever.

So Lucas and Disney essentially pulled a Michael Corleone on the Barzini family, only the ones getting shot up in this case were the hundreds of thousands of artists who contributed towards Lucas' "child" for 40 years.

Because fuck you that's why.

R.I.P. Roger Ebert (1942 - 1913)

At The Movies With Siskel & Ebert, and later Ebert & Roeper, fanned my fire for the medium of cinema as a youth. Later his solo writings did the same. His output of quality literate film reviews is stunning in its number. I imagine he was able to do this because he was so passionate about film that the words simply flowed like butter. The man was a humorous and brilliant critic, well versed in film and a cadre of other subjects. And he was a person generous of heart. Without any restraint or falsehood, I can say the man was a real american treasure. God bless Roger Ebert.

"Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer" - Chicago Sun-Times

"NOOOOO"

‎"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians" - George Lucas 1988