Disney Acquires Lucasfilm, Announces Plans to Release Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII, IX

UPDATE: Disney announces in an investor conference call after today's announcement that they intend to make more than one new Star Wars movie, beginning with Episode VII in 2015 followed by Episodes VIII and IX "every other year" and then "we'll go from there."

Holy crap, fanboys!

Not only did the news break today that the Walt Disney Company has acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion, but the studio press release also announces that a Star Wars Episode VII feature film is targeted for a 2015 release! Yes, 2015 will give us The Avengers 2, Justice League of America and now a new Star Wars movie!

This deal means Disney also now owns the Indiana Jones franchise as well as effects firm Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound. 

Review: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

     Star Wars is perhaps the most iconic film in the history of cinema. In 1977 it was nominated for Best Picture and lost (in my opinion rightfully) to Woody Allen's Annie Hall. However to this day it is a cultural touchstone that is referenced almost constantly. It spawned two excellent sequels and IT DID NOT SPAWN THREE SEQUELS. THEY NEVER HAPPENED. DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES. The original Star Wars is such a well crafted piece of art that it remains to this day one of the best science fiction films ever made. However, this is not the film I watched. The movie I saw was the 1997 rerelease that George Lucas decided to make some slight changes to because now he had the money and technology to fulfill his original vision. What in fact happened was that Lucas tarnished an other wise near perfect film. While the 1997 version is still very good, because Lucas couldn't change that much (in fact there is at least one change that I prefer to the original film), it just isn't as good as the original movie.

Topher Grace Fixed the Star Wars Prequels

You may know Topher Grace as Eric Foreman from That 70's Show, or as Venom from Spiderman 3, but apparently he's also a pretty big film nerd. Seeing the myriad of problems with the Star Wars prequels, Grace took it upon himself to fix them. Using the footage from those three films, a couple scenes from the original trilogy, as well as some dialog from some Star Wars audiobooks and episodes of Cartoon Network's The Clone Wars, he created a single, 85 minute feature which tells the story of Anakin Skywalker's rise and fall, and according to film critic Peter Sciretta, it's actually pretty good. Titled Star Wars Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back leaves out almost everything we hated about the prequels. There's no talk about blockades or taxes, no scenes of debates in the galactic senate, no cloning subplot, no midichlorians, no "NOOOOOO!", none of Jake Lloyd's scenes and only one line of dialog from Jar-Jar. Sciretta calls it "probably the best possible edit of the Star Wars prequels given the footage that was available. Unfortunately, we will probably never see this because George Lucas is a mean old man bent on destroying our childhoods.

A thorough description of Grace's edit can be found here.

Story via The AV Club