It's a small empire after all

By some Internet law, all bloggers must make a comment about the Disney/Lucasfilm merger. So it's my turn.

If it were done during the Eisner era it would have been disastrous because Eisner wouldn't have spent any money on new Star Wars films. He always took the cheap way out, while turning people against each other. This is one of the reasons the Muppet merger never went through until he was gone. (Read James Stewart's "Disney War," about the Eisner years at Disney).

Now, looking at how they've handled the Marvel properties, the Muppets and Pixar, it's obvious they're willing to spend all kinds of money to make something good. (Even "John Carter," you can call it many things, but at no point did they skimp.)

And after looking at the last three Star Wars movies it's apparent they really can't do worse than Lucas himself.

Here's an idea they will never do: Instead of proceeding with episodes VII, VIII and IX, remake I, II and III.

They were terrible! ( I know it's spitting in the wind to point out shortcomings of films that made a skillion dollars, but, see my first paragraph, it's some Internet law I must obey)

I was in the theaters for the trailers of Episode I, it ended with Darth Vader's breathing. The audience went crazy, a new Darth Vader movie, this would be amazing.

Here's what we get instead
Episode I: A cousin Oliver.
Episode II: Whiny teenager, still no Darth Vader
Episode III: Whiny teenager, Darth Vader shows up for the last 5 minutes, doesn't destroy anything, audience is horribly disappointed, except for rabid fanboys who didn't know they were cheated by subpar writing.

What they should have done was... make the last 15 minutes of Episode III the last 15 minutes of Episode II, then make Episode III two hours of Darth Vader kicking ass and taking names and blowing up planets and being the biggest badass in the galaxy.

We didn't get that. Not even close.

So it's probably a good thing.

There's an interview out there of Gary Kurtz, Lucas' producer for Star Wars and Empire. They parted ways for Return of the Jedi because Kurtz saw it for what it was, a cynical ploy to sell toys by making a best-of of the first two films.

Now, if Disney hired that guy to produce the sequels, we might get something good.