A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Marvel Special Edition #3 Featuring Star Wars  collected issues 1-6 of the official Star Wars comics adaptation. Cover art by Ernie Chan. © 1977 Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation Is Star Wars part of the Marvel Universe? No. The  Star Wars  franchise (including films, animated and live-action TV series, and novels) properly belongs to Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company founded in 1971 by George Lucas, who ran it until October 2012. That’s when he sold Lucasfilm and all of its intellectual property to The Walt Disney Company for $2.2 billion in cash and $1.855 billion in stock. Marvel Comics, which itself is now also owned by The Walt Disney Company, has had a long relationship with  Star Wars,  starting as early as 1976. Back then, the comics publisher was one of the first companies to show interest in Lucas’s space-fantasy film set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Marvel artist Howard Chaykin created the very first  Star Wars  teaser poster

On Quora, member Saif Ramiz asks: Will Luke Skywalker have a cameo in The Mandalorian ? My reply: Contrary to rumors or speculation to the contrary, it is not likely that Mark Hamill will make a cameo on  The Mandalorian  as the galaxy’s sole post-Battle of Endor Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker. The Mandalorian  is set between  Return of the Jedi  and  The Force Awakens,  which would   not necessarily preclude an appearance by Hamill as Luke if the story really called for it. But the setting is closer to the immediate post-Endor era (five years after the destruction of the second Death Star) than it is to the Sequel Trilogy), which makes any cameos by Hamill problematic at best. There’s also the fact that the show has already been shot and is no longer in principal photography; the premiere is less than two months from this writing, and the 10-episode series’ cast list, which includes Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed from  Rocky ) and Nick Nolte ( 48 HRS., The Deep, The Prince of

The Blu-ray packaging for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. © 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. and Buena Vista Home Entertainment No. First of all, (and I’m tired of explaining this over and over),  The Walt Disney Company  does not, nor did it ever have, a plan “to have the audience focus on a new set of characters.” If anyone had such a plan, it would have been  Lucasfilm,  the Disney-owned subsidiary that is responsible for actually making  Indiana Jones  and  Star Wars. Second of all, creating a new set of characters for the Sequel Trilogy was always going to be in the cards, as the window for making a post- Return of the Jedi  trilogy closed sometime between 1983 and 1994, partly because of George Lucas’s divorce from Marcia Lucas and  Star Wars  burnout, and partly because when Lucas decided to go back to big-budget filmmaking, he chose to make the Prequel Trilogy instead. Meanwhile, as Steve Perry noted in his foreword to the  Shadows of the Empire  graphic novel based on his 1996 boo

Why is Kathleen Kennedy still president of Lucasfilm despite the rumors that she was going to be replaced? Because “rumors” are usually not facts. Let’s first define the word “rumor” so that there is no misunderstanding, okay? Per Merriam-Webster’s  Definition of RUMOR Definition of  rumor (Entry 1 of 2) 1 :  talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source 2 :  a statement or report current without known authority for its truth 3 archaic:  talk or report of a notable person or event Now that we’ve defined  rumor,  let’s get to the heart of the matter. It seems that the Original Poster of this prime example of an insincere question does not care at all for the new  Star Wars Sequel Trilogy,  which is Lucasfilm’s second post-George Lucas Era  Star Wars  project (the first being, of course,  Star Wars Rebels,  which aired for four seasons on Disney XD between 2014 and 2018). He offers a bit of faint praise for the company’s animated series in one of h

© 2018 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Six years ago, Pawtucket, RI-based Hasbro introduced its ongoing Black Series of licensed Star Wars- related action figures, vehicles, games, and other toys and collectibles that celebrate the characters and situations from Lucasfilm's space-fantasy saga set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Although the Black Series has followed Kenner and Hasbro's 41-year-old tradition of producing the 3.75-inch action figures that revolutionized movie-based merchandise for kids and adult collectors alike back in 1978, it also introduced larger and more detailed 6-inch scale action figures that feature more articulation points, accurate detailing, and photorealistic sculpts that make them resemble their onscreen counterparts more closely than ever. Since 2017, I've acquired a modest number of these larger figures. I don't plan to go out and collect them all; I don't have unlimited amounts of either display/s

On Quora, inquiring member Anthony Perez asks: Other than money, why did George Lucas sell the Star Wars franchise to Disney and make Kathleen Kennedy in charge of the franchise going forward? My reply: First of all, Lucas did not simply sell the  Star Wars  franchise, as your question erroneously states. He sold  Lucasfilm Ltd.,  the production company he founded in 1971 after leaving Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope, which he also helped to create back in ‘69. This means that Lucas not only sold Lucasfilm and its various subsidiaries, including Skywalker Sound, THX Labs, and Industrial Light & Magic; he also sold Lucasfilm’s intellectual properties, including  Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Red Tails  and  Willow. Before the sale to The Walt Disney Company (TWDC), Lucas had pretty much decided to retire anyway, but he didn’t want Lucasfilm to die off or be purchased by just anyone. He was 68 years old and did not want to spend any more time making blockbusters, bu

Is Star Wars: Episode IX just an excuse for Disney to make a bunch of money? All things being equal, all movies (except those small movies made solely by independent “artsy” production companies that hardly anyone sees), are made with the goal of making someone - usually a studio and its stockholders - “a bunch of money.” That’s why  movie studios  exist: they invest (read “risk”) millions of dollars in a movie - in this case,  Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker -  with a certain expectation of making a profit. The Walt Disney Company and its film division, Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios, are of course also making  Star Wars - Episode IX  to fulfill George Lucas’s on-again, off-again aspiration of creating a three-Trilogy Skywalker Saga, plus they have to finish the story that Lucasfilm began with 2015’s  The Force Awakens  and continued in  The Last Jedi.  Everyone involved in the creation of  Star Wars  (or any movie, for that matter),  hopes  that many peop

© 1978 Ballantine Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (as The Star Wars Corporation) Should the Star Wars Expanded Universe (Legends) be continued even though Disney made it non-Canon? No. Contrary to the belief held by many  Star Wars  fans who really dig the Expanded Universe (EU) novels, comic books, roleplaying game supplements, and even video game backstories, Lucasfilm Ltd. always considered them apocryphal. In other words, as far as the company and its founder, George Lucas, were concerned, the EU that began with the publication of Marvel Comics’  Star Wars #7  in October of 1977 and Alan Dean Foster’s  Splinter of the Mind’s Eye  several months later was  never  canon. Marvel Comics' Star Wars #7 was arguably the first Expanded Universe publication. © 1977 Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm Ltd. As I wrote in my answer to  What exactly did Disney add and remove from the Star Wars universe/story? The main issue behind  What exactly did Disney add and remove from the Star

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know (or should know) that one of my pet peeves is cognitive dissonance. It doesn't matter if it involves politics, interpersonal relationships, or pop culture, but I am easily annoyed when people willfully ignore facts and publicly express notions that are based on personal opinion or political dogma. For instance, in the Star Wars fandom, there is a subgroup of fans that continually ascribe decisions made by Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company that creates content for both the Indiana Jones and the Star Wars franchises to its parent company, The Walt Disney Company. No matter what it is - whether it's the announcement that a new film or TV series is being considered or that a new book is going to be published, it's never Lucasfilm that gets credit (or the criticism) for the decision, it's Disney.  Allow me to illustrate by sharing yet another Star Wars- related item from Quora. In the Star Wars category, Jensen

The current edition of Heir to the Empire, which was originally published in 1991 by Bantam Spectra. Cover art by Tom Jung. © 1991, 2014 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  On Quora, Matt Swanson asks: Why do you think Lucasfilm decided not to adapt Timothy Zahn's Trilogy into movies? My response: There are  several  reasons why Lucasfilm never had any intention of adapting  Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising,  and  The Last Command  from novels to movies. The main reason, and the only one that truly matters, is that George Lucas clearly did not want to do so. In the late 1980s, which is when Lucasfilm Licensing was given his go-ahead to revive the moribund  Star Wars  franchise after being in a post- Return of the Jedi  coma, the creator of the saga was emerging from his post-divorce funk and thinking about making the long-awaited Prequel Trilogy. From  his  perspective, allowing Lucasfilm Licensing to hire a diverse group of writers that would create a series of interconnec

Dan Perri's classic logo for Star Wars. ™ Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) If there's one current trend that I hate on social media is the myth that "Disney" makes editorial decisions re Star Wars and Indiana Jones.    What exactly did Disney add and remove from the Star Wars universe/story? What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. -  The Captain,  Cool Hand Luke One of the most persistent myths about  Star Wars,  the franchise, and especially the business end of how the films and other media products are made is that The Walt Disney Company “adds and removes” elements of the  Star Wars  story. Not a day passes in which I don’t see any mention on social media - usually derisive and hateful - about how “Disney” did this, that, or the other thing to  Star Wars. Lucasfilm, which was founded in 1971 by George Lucas, did not magically disappear in 2012 after The Walt Disney Company acquired it. The company still exists.