Disney buying Lucasfilm

[Samwise]

I think Last Airbender is pretty much one of the best cartoons ever made, in terms of story and writing.  The first couple of episodes were a little weak, but once they start messing around in the Earth Kingdom you can start seeing all the character arcs getting set up and it just keeps building momentum from there on.  Everything ends up paying off, too.  The whole series was constructed really well.

The latest incarnation (Legend of Korra) was pretty disappointing to me, since it failed at most of what Last Airbender did well.  Shrug.  Luckily it was far enough removed from the original series that it didn't sully my memories of it, which is more than we can say for Lucas and his relentless drive to ruin things.

[Ruvaldt]

Thankfully I hear the new season was really bad and the fans are all heartbroken so at least it'll be donewith for good after this.

Ratings were through the roof, and they were pretty quickly signed on for a third season.

The only complaint I heard about the most recent season was that it ended too fast/abruptly.  That's not much of a complaint.

[Fabricated]

I heard complaints about it being poorly written and nonsensical and greatly disappointing compared to the first.

[Trippy]

You can read through our thread on The Legend of Korra. The first season definitely suffered from Nickelodeon's inexplicable decision only to buy only a 12 episode "miniseries" rather than a full 26 episode season despite the success of Avatar. Things were much more rushed in Korra compared to Avatar. Still was a good show, though. They've since purchased the other 14 episodes to make a complete 26 episode block and they purchased another 26 episode on top of that (52 episodes in total).

[Fordel]

I've heard it wasn't even supposed to be 12 episodes at first, just some direct to video thing.

[Shannow]

I've heard it wasn't even supposed to be 12 episodes at first, just some direct to video thing.

which is just fucking mind boggling. Considering how TV/movie execs love nothing more than cashing in on an existing brand wtf were they thinking? (Korra Season 1 definitely ended too quick)

[Khaldun]

Most of the fans I see bitching about Korra are the kind of obsessives who get hung up on Spock and Uhura being lovers in the new Star Trek or whatever--because it wasn't exactly the thing they've become intensely attached to and possessive of, they hate it. The show creators have had a marvelous history of poking fun at those fans both in the original show and in Legend of Korra (while also doing some clever, subtle fanservice of various kinds). I think the major issue was, as folks have said, the odd pacing, especially at the end. The worldbuilding was great, the character development excellent and the basic season arc was interesting.

[Ratman_tf]

I still rather like the G1 Transformers cartoon.   A lot of it was nonsense, but there's a few episodes that stuck with me as quite good. And the voice acting was top notch.

This one always bothered me.  Not because I know it was when Spike rescued Hound from being trapped under water and that it has nothing to do with Robot/Human Sodomy, but more because Hounds hands are small enough to massage Spikes back.

When, in fact, they could hold Spike in one hand and crush him like a grape.

Or Devastaor fitting inside Astrotrain's shuttle mode, when Devastaor towers over him in robot mode. Meh. It was a quirk of a quirky toy line where scale was really wonky because Transforming into a jet fighter and then an aircraft carrier is truly insane.

[Fordel]

Yea, trying to find any kind of consistency in a G1 Transformer cartoon is a lost cause.

[Samprimary]

Most of the fans I see bitching about Korra are the kind of obsessives who get hung up on Spock and Uhura being lovers in the new Star Trek or whatever--because it wasn't exactly the thing they've become intensely attached to and possessive of, they hate it.

I was just annoyed with how the thing was so spontaneously just *whoomp* holy shit guys we gotta wrap everything up with a bow on top and we have uhhh like half an episode SHIT GO

Kinda just a failing of the network pacing there, but we'll see where it goes now that they get a full season again.

[Evildrider]

So according to Collider, Matthew Vaughn is up for the Star Wars 7 director's seat.  It's believed this is why he dropped out of the next X-Men movie.

[Tannhauser]

I'm very OK with that.  Hope they get a good script.  Please no Zahn books, I tried to read them and it didn't feel like Star Wars.  The only SW book I completed was "The Courtship of Princess Leia"?  I think it's called.  Fairly good. 

No, has to be a new script, if they want to stick Mara Jade in I guess that's fine.  Luke could use a good kiss.

[Ratman_tf]

Rumor posted on MTV Geek is that Disney are now eyeing up Hasbro, which makes all the Trasnformers posts a little more on-topic!

http://geek-news.mtv.com/2012/11/05/disney-buying-hasbro/

[Merusk]

Disney will own ALL the childhoods!

[Sheepherder]

Looking forward to a Disney Dungeons & Dragons movie.

[Sir T]

Well lets face it, the only way to go is up.

Though I thought the second DND movie was ok for straight to video fare. At least it felt like a DND party quest.

[DraconianOne]

No, has to be a new script, if they want to stick Mara Jade in I guess that's fine.  Luke could use a good kiss.

Did we not cover the bit where Lucas said he'd outlined the events of Episode 7,8,9 and has already met with Hamill and Fisher about them? He's put his treatments in the safe hands of Kathy Kennedy - we can only hope she puts them in her nearest trash compactor.

[Margalis]

Random thoughts:

1. I saw ROTJ in the theater and thought it sucked. It's a bad movie - full stop. The individual plot points are stupid, the overall plot is stupid, the Ewoks are stupid, most of what it does is just more poorly executed versions of things that had been done previously. (For example the big space battle has zero emotional weight compared to the space battle in the original Star Wars.) It also set the unfortunate tone for all Star Wars related crap that followed.

2. New trilogy is all garbage and could not be saved without being totally redone from scratch - new approach to cinematography, new philosophy of shot composition and CGI integration, entirely new script, new direction, new plot. Nothing about the new movies was even halfway decent. Let me put it this way - the three movies are ostensibly about Anakin becoming evil, but the explanation for why he becomes evil is a 2-minute dream-sequence montage that makes zero sense.

3. Transformers G1 is good. A lot of cartoons around that time period were good, but a lot were also total crap. As a kid you probably weren't very discerning.

4. I hope for the new movie they just go off in a new direction barely related to the previous films. I mean what more is there to do that is in direct continuity - the Emperor comes back to life and builds a third death star? They really need to ditch the continuity porn that helped sink the prequels and focus on just making a good movie. Throw in some lightsabers and people will see it even if it's not all that connected to the previous 6 films. If anything people might welcome a break.

The story of how Anakin turned out to be Darth Vader was super boring and the further adventures of Luke and his annoying bratty children would be even more boring - no questions are begging to be answered, no mysteries to be unraveled. Introduce an entirely new threat or something - maybe pull an every-Blizzard-plot-ever and have Jedi and Sith team up to fight some external force and learn to complement each other and balance the force blah blah blah.

[Ironwood]

2. New trilogy is all garbage and could not be saved without being totally redone from scratch - new approach to cinematography, new philosophy of shot composition and CGI integration, entirely new script, new direction, new plot. Nothing about the new movies was even halfway decent. Let me put it this way - the three movies are ostensibly about Anakin becoming evil, but the explanation for why he becomes evil is a 2-minute dream-sequence montage that makes zero sense.

But they made money, so you're wrong.

*sigh*  I miss him.

[eldaec]

If we're being fussy it is actually two separate brief montages in different films neither of which make any sense or have any connection to the plot. I think you're forgetting the bizarre mom gets tortured for no reason scene in the second one.

[DraconianOne]

Of course it had a reason. It was to show Anakin's lack of control and anger and doing a non-jedi, dark side driven act of killing all the sandpeople like animals. The fact that it had nothing to do with the main storyline and the fact that Anakin only found out about it through a lazy, hamfisted plot-device of a dream is neither here nor there. As Lucas would no doubt tell you "I used exactly the same plot device in ESB when Luke left his training after having a vision about his friends so I wanted to mirror that here."

 

[Paelos]

There are ways to make a character turn evil that don't come off as just patently ridiculous. As it stands, Anakin turns to the Dark Side because he believes he can save his wife from death. It makes no sense at all.

A more organic way is to make a character face increasingly opposing pressure from the authority on the good. In this case, Anakin during the clone wars could be faced with making more and more decisions that run counter to the Jedi code in order to win battles. The Jedi Order's beliefs are in many ways completely obtuse. A logical General would have a hard time operating in a war the way that the Jedi would want. Eventually, anybody can lose faith in the system itself and fall into a pattern of anything to win.

Instead we get a hamfisted love story instead of a slow descent into the madness of war, orchestrated by the galaxy's best puppetmaster.

[Fabricated]

Of course it had a reason. It was to show Anakin's lack of control and anger and doing a non-jedi, dark side driven act of killing all the sandpeople like animals. The fact that it had nothing to do with the main storyline and the fact that Anakin only found out about it through a lazy, hamfisted plot-device of a dream is neither here nor there. As Lucas would no doubt tell you "I used exactly the same plot device in ESB when Luke left his training after having a vision about his friends so I wanted to mirror that here."

 

Lucas can't explain the motivations of his characters and he's the guy who created them, blergh

Luke had a good reason for leaving early; he didn't want his friends to die.

Anakin; "Hmm, some Sith lord from like a billion years ago could supposedly save people from death in some way? And you don't know how to do what he did but maybe together we could figure it out after a billion years of no one knowing how to do what he did? Sure, I'll kill some children for you!"

[Numtini]

There were all kinds of little bits of ideas in the prequels that would have made sense. The jedi were idiots and you could easily have done the corrupt and out of touch oligarchs thing. The Republic political system clearly was broken and you could have done a more sincere "we need some order" military coup sort of thing. Then you have Anakin slowly making choices that draw him in with the sith and oppose the Republic and Jedi. This is the kind of thing that draws real people into hate groups.

Instead you got adolescent angst and anger and BOOM SITHLORD, let's go kill the kiddos.

[Tannhauser]

HF is open to playing Solo again! Wow, unexpected.

[Sky]

If there is a new D&D movie and it doesn't star Falconhoof, it's a fail.

[HaemishM]

HF is open to playing Solo again! Wow, unexpected.

And so unnecessary. The idea that Luke, Leia and Han will have some significant part of the new trilogy is a disappointment.

[Lantyssa]

Hopefully it's not much more than cameos so there is a small tie to the Original Trilogy, but otherwise isn't about them.

Like Luke is headmaster at the school where our Jedi hero attends but isn't related to any of them.  We see Chewbacca caring for the old and frail Solo couple who chase kids off their lawn.  R2's dome is used as a candy dish.  Or latrine.  That sort of thing.

[Cyrrex]

Hopefully it's not much more than cameos so there is a small tie to the Original Trilogy, but otherwise isn't about them.

Like Luke is headmaster at the school where our Jedi hero attends but isn't related to any of them.  We see Chewbacca caring for the old and frail Solo couple who chase kids off their lawn.  R2's dome is used as a candy dish.  Or latrine.  That sort of thing.

I have a feeling that they would find a way to get the droids in.  As long as someone else is writing it, I would be fine with that.  Honestly, my kids cracked the fuck up over Threepio's antics in all the movies.  Hopefully they would also be able to get Anthony Daniels to stop overdoing it.

[schild]

I am so much more worried about Disney buying Hasbro right now.

I don't want my Magic cards to $0 overnight.

[Samwise]

As Lucas would no doubt tell you "I used exactly the same plot device in ESB when Luke left his training after having a vision about his friends so I wanted to mirror that here."

It's like poetry, it rhymes.  

[Ratman_tf]

Random thoughts:

1. I saw ROTJ in the theater and thought it sucked. It's a bad movie - full stop. The individual plot points are stupid, the overall plot is stupid, the Ewoks are stupid, most of what it does is just more poorly executed versions of things that had been done previously. (For example the big space battle has zero emotional weight compared to the space battle in the original Star Wars.) It also set the unfortunate tone for all Star Wars related crap that followed.

I liked the final confrontation between Vader, Luke and the Emperor. Han's rescue was pretty aweseome. The Ewoks... enh. I can take 'em or leave 'em.
I thought it was a fine way to wrap up the OT, but it did feel like the time when Lucas was starting to forget everything FF Coppola told him about making movies.

[ghost]

I am so much more worried about Disney buying Hasbro right now.

I don't want my Magic cards to $0 overnight.

Why would this happen?

[Fordel]

I suppose everything has it's price, but didn't Hasbro just make their own TV station for their cartoon properties? HUB or whatever?

[Trippy]

I am so much more worried about Disney buying Hasbro right now.

I don't want my Magic cards to $0 overnight.

Why would this happen?

Cause he thinks Disney will meddle with the game causing people to stop playing or change the format so the cards are no longer "collectible".