These are not the dwarves you are looking for.

Me so happy to see you, Space Marine Donald Duck!

Mark Hammill is available, probably.

I'm guessing they'll be treating Lucasfilm the way they treat Pixar or Marvel Studios - that is, with way more care and thought than how Lucasfilm has been handled since Return of the Jedi came out. Like, John Carter was Disney's biggest misstep recently, and it was still light years ahead of any of the prequels or Clone Wars stuff in terms of quality.

So, worst case scenario, we only get something about as frustrating as John Carter. Best case scenario, Brad Bird or Joss Whedon directs an adaptation of Heir to the Empire.

@4: oh my god, you're going to make me cry. What a beautiful dream.

Disney bought Marvel, and few years later, we got the Avengers out of it. I haven't been this excited about a Star Wars movie in almost 15 years.

There is no reason to make an episode 7. The only way I would see this is if they actually get the original cast.

I'd be interested in seeing if they're planning to work off the expanded universe, because a lot of the 90's books were pretty rich in quality material for decades of films.

Unfortunately though, I'm guessing due to licensing costs, they'll probably totally rewrite the expanded universe, despite Lucas signing off on most of the original books which would be a waste.

Okay, immediate shortlist to direct Ep 7: Brad Bird, obviously, and hopefully John Lasseter himself. Maybe Andrew Staunton, although after the debacle of John Carter I kinda doubt it.

My dream shortlist: Rian Johnson, Duncan Jones, Alphonse Cuaron.

Who we'll probably get: Michael Bay, Brett Ratner, McG.

Star Wars was a time and a place 30 years ago. It's over. Move on. If Disney wants to run it into the ground for the kiddies, so be it. People forget that the SW brand is still the biggest selling toy line in the world. That's what Disney wants.

And @1 What in the fuck are you talking about? Space Marine?

@4 Stop it. Heir to the Empire sucked balls.

It was fun to see Mark Hamill on The Young Turks the other day (talking politics), but also a reminder that this franchise is well into its fourth decade. Egads. Ermahgerd. Or something.

The second trilogy (I, II and III) may not have sucked as bad if Lucas wasn't involved to the level he was. Seriously, after what passed for dialogue in those films, anything is a step up. Anything.

Along the same lines as @4, the Mouse's handling of Marvel and Pixar have at least earned them a "wait and see with cautious optimism" on this, rather than the feeling of utter dread I would experience if they announced that George Lucas was putting out another one on his own.

Can't be any worse than Episodes 1-3.

The best comment I've heard about this came from Zach Weinersmith of SMBC comics:

Worrying that Disney will ruin Star Wars is like worrying that a second iceberg will dive down to hit the Titanic.

I think financially it's all but guaranteed we get at a minimum a Joss Whedon script for Star Wars Episode 7 with him as production overseer, if not him outright directing and creating it in the lull after Avengers. They could either go with a new concept or adapt the Timothy Zahn book trilogy about Admitral Thrawn and have it in production and filming in a year or less.

They would have NO trouble getting any number of people lining up for those iconic roles, aged +5 years after their Jedi ages. Or, they just use Hamill, Ford, Fisher, et al, and set it around their grand kids, which works too. They telegraphed the Yuuzhan Vong story in Episode 2 when they brough up the outward bound flight stuff. Just set it decades later, instead of a decade later.

Hell, they can just take the best bits of the post-Return of the Jedi books and mush them together under the guidance of people like Whedon for a really, really awesome film series that propels Star Wars back to the levels of awesome it had in 1983:

* Set it at the actual ages of the actors: 35 years after Jedi. So Han Solo is actually 70 years old and retired. Luke is now basically Yoda on the Jedi Council. Leia is the former Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. They all have grandkids.

* Use book characters: Jacen Solo and Anakin Solo, Han and Leia's kids. That right there, those two characters: the heart of your film trilogy. Thrawn is a perfect, ready packaged villain. So what if the years/timing are wrong? Fix it in the story.

* What happens: Jacen & Anakin's story. Thrawn and the return and rise of the Empire (basically it's reversed--the Imperials are now the Rebels). All of this getting invaded by an even more powerful force (the Yuuzhan Vong).

There are a hundred ways they can do this right and with Lucas no longer in control very few ways they can do it wrong.

And, trust me--this deal has been in the works for months if not a year. IF Whedon or a given person has been tapped, for all we know Joss or someone has been penning a script and has it ready to rock already for casting or pre-production. We'll hear about casting in 6-10 months tops.

Short version: HOLY SHITBALLS JOSS WHEDON STAR WARS

They could hardlydo worse than Lucas.

So perhaps there is a New Hope

I saw star wars in New yORK city on a giant screen the day it opened 11 am. Pre reviews or much advance notice.

It was so extraoridinary that I believed it had been shot in 3D, until I sat through it a second time. That day.

Fun, funny, exciting, touching: I disagree that the Empire was the better film of the trilogy.

Also saw that opening day (in London), not nearly the same exhileration.

And I was an adult watching both.

The first prequel was a sad, sad evening.

Disney: do your damndest to repeat the experience of the first.

How about Eli Roth to direct Episode 7?

It could be two hours of Jar Jar Binks being tortured to death.

@12 and @13

Yup.

It cannot possibly be as bad as the second trilogy, and any given 8th grader can probably write a better script than George Lucas. Really, it has nowhere to go but up.

Still, I wish they'd just leave it alone. I have very little hope for this project.

Disney Re-write:

No, Luke.

Darth was just a very, very angry man.

But he was your father!

Let the anger out of your heart, so that you might become...a warrior!

George Lucas is probably wiping his butthole with $100 bills as we speak.

I'm not expecting anything good out of this, but I also don't see how Disney could really do anything worse than what Lucas has been doing already. If nothing else, maybe Disney won't be so hell-bent on preventing people from seeing the original versions of the movies. If they realize they can make money selling a fancy "Classic Edition" of the original movies (with decent-quality transfers and no CGI Jabba nonsense) and actually do it, well, I don't care what else they do.

So...some Zahn novel adaptations? And maybe a sub-series set in the Old Republic era? Maybe even a Revan movie?
I'm very cautiously optimistic about this, but I still hold a grudge against Disney.

I have to say, I'm really surprised at the optimism, but I'm glad to see it. Optimism never happens on the internet.

I would be thrilled if they would completely scrap the prequels and start over, but I won't hold my breath.

The best part will be the moment when, during the 7th episode, they suddenly break into song.

That plus 3D floating fairies. So very cool.

@20, don't kid yourself. The guy who does the actual wiping gets over $100K a year.

@ 23 yeah, but the Pixar and Marvel comments are valid, and the vast majority of the problems with the sequels were attributable to Lucas himself (visionary idea guy, hack writer and director). Moving him into a consulting role might actually result in a substantially better product. Might.

@27,

visionary idea guy

That was still part of the problem. Lucas comes up with at least as many terrible ideas as good ones, and, if he holds all the power, no one is going to downvote a virgin birth* or a character dying of grief**.

*In defiance of established lore in the original trilogy.
**When I watched the final installment, the audience booed Padme's funeral. No joke.

I must be the only person on earth who never, ever liked any of the movies. I just don't get why this is even a thing. Maybe I'm a socialist, or something.

On the one hand, this means Dark Horse will lose their Star Wars license to Marvel, and with it 20 years of awesome. On the other hand, no one really cares about comics.

@ 28 that's why the "consulting" role is so important. Say what you will about Disney, they are going to protect their $4.05 billion investment, and that means making well and truly sure that Lucas's stinkers are strenuously filtered out before another movie is allowed to collapse from the weight of leaden dialogue.

After the awful bloat and stilted dialog of most of Lucas' versions, there should be no direction to go but up. Is Ridley Scott dead yet?

I'd like to think that when the deal was officially inked, one of George Lucas' stipulations was that Robert Iger had to attend the meeting wearing a black cloak, so Lucas could show up wearing a white tunic, khaki pants, and knee-high leather boots.

Return of the Jedi 2: Ewok Boogaloo

Cautiously hopeful. Whedon for Episode VII or GTFO.

My hoary recollection is that Lucas said way back before "Empire Strikes Back" that his vision was a trilogy of trilogies, one set before the 1970's-80's movies, and one after it....and that the only characters to appear in all 9 movies would be R2D2 and C3P0. Sounds like he realized that he is not the person to direct the last trilogy.

Whatever new Star Wars movies they make should be in the far future and serve as a quasi-reboot.

Otherwise it's just gonna be the prequels or Crystal Skull all over again. Which it will be. I'm done with the battered nerd syndrome, I'm not getting excited about Star Wars anymore. They're not getting any more of my money.

A new star wars every 2-3 years? Looks like star wars is going down the same road as "Land Before Time." We'll see "Star Wars XXII: The Lost Secret of Cave Island or Some Shit" going straight to DVD in a decade or so.

Which is fine by me; nobody's forcing me to watch anything other than the orig. trilogy; meanwhile some newbie scriptwriters looking for their niche in Hollywood can get some practice and pocket change.

I think a lot of "outraged" nerds are just hopping on a bandwagon for nerd cred; you can't belong to the nerd club if your appreciation for star wars falls anywhere short of absolute reverence.