And Another Thing: The LucasFilm “Sale”
Doomcock hasn’t stopped beating this dead horse, so I won’t either.
The biggest argument against the sale of LucasFilm is simply from a business standpoint.
As a fan, I would love to see Star Wars get away from Disney.
But as a businessman, if someone came to me with a proposal to buy LucasFilm, I’d kick him out of the office.
It really isn’t worth that much anymore.
Star Wars is significantly brand damaged. And LucasFilm is now stuffed with people who HATE Star Wars, which means they would all have to be fired. Okay, sure, easy to shitcan useless mouths to feed. But now you have to replace them with people that do love Star Wars and… This is the important part… They have to be talented. The talented part is always the hardest part. Believe me, I get that trying to get a job is incredibly frustrating, I’ve been through it, but the guy on the other side of the table is equally frustrated. When I’ve been hiring, I assure you I was rooting for every single person on the other side of the table.
Restaffing an entire company will cost a mint and you are going to have to pay them for two years with no income while you are trying get something new made. This is a huge expenditure of capital, and at the end of the day, can you be certain that the fans will come back?
The truth about Star Wars is that it is very limited in the stories you can tell. When George Lucas made the Prequel Trilogy there was an elaborate theory making the rounds on the internet about how George was a genius who had utilized Ring Cycle storytelling. Basically, it’s an old German folklore method of storytelling, wherein the narrative ends up back where it started. The reply to this is, no, Lucas isn’t a genius, it’s just the fundamental limitation with Star Wars. This is about the only kind of story the fans will allow you to tell. In short, the same damn story over and over again with different characters.
For all the shit I give Dave Filoni, he at least tries to bring something new to the table and it always gets rejected.
Star Wars is a World War II story with Space Nazis, Space fighters (that are only armed with guns and no missiles), robots but no internet, and samurai wizards with very, very limited magic powers. Try to do anything to expand on any of this and the fans will scream themselves inside out.
Bottom line: Disney can’t sell Star Wars because no one will buy it.
