In his memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger opened up about the dealings with the creator of “Star Wars” around the time Disney purchased Lucasfilm.
When Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, they also purchased the outlines for three new movies. However, the purchase of these outlines was done more out of obligation and not as a sense of desire to actually use said outlines. Lucas himself learned that Disney did not plan to follow his outlines when Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Michael Arndt met to discuss the new trilogy.
Iger says in his book, “George felt betrayed, and while this whole process would never have been easy for him, we’d gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start.” After a private screening of Episode 7, Lucas told Iger “There’s nothing new”, adding that there weren’t enough technological improvements in the new trilogy.
Lucas seems to have a similar thought process of fans as of late, with there being an increasing sentiment that “Star Wars” is becoming a stale product. Iger himself seemed to agree with a piece published with The New York Times over the weekend saying, “I just think we might’ve put a little bit too much in the marketplace too fast”.
Iger is 1000% correct on his statement about putting too much in the marketplace too fast. By doing that, they took away the excitement of the new movies. Well, that, and of course that Rian Johnson murdered The Last Jedi. Yikes!
Rian Johnson didn’t murder The Last Jedi, I think like a few of us, that it turned out just fine. Minus the Cantobite casino scene, the pitiful fight between Fin and Captain Phasma, the demise of Admiral Ackbar… ok maybe it was bad.
Well Bob, neither does anyone else, Bob Iger and Kathleen Kennedy, killed the old story, fill it full of characters no one cared about, Hell Ray doesn’t even have a backstory, filled it with SJW, PC culture and Girl power, and wonder why everyone doesnt like it, you have 40 years of Back story on the movie, the Man, the Myth the Legend himself gave you a out line and you flushed it, then you create a land on a planet that no one has herd of full of stores, with some Chick with blue hair that know one knows about, 1 ride and 2 build-A-bear workshops..(Yes i have a saber and the Wife has a Droid) take all the Cast Member from Star Wars show in the front of Hollywood studios and have them rome around in SWGE just a idea. Then you apply the same thinking to the parks, Focus on fringe Specialty groups of people, Raise the price of everything through the roof and wonder why attendance is down, why you didn’t win any awards this year, First time since 2007 and Universel is beating you like a drum right now, Bob needs to go and take all his yes men with him, he may be the first CEO to put Disney in Chapter 11 protection
I challenge everyone to read this comment and not laugh out loud every 8th word.
Whatever else you can say for it, it’s better than the direction *George Lucas* took the prequels.
Saying that star wars is stale is just blaming the product for a bad movie. Make a good one and people will eat it up, the characters are great the story not so much.
To be fair, no one liked the direction George Lucas took “Star Wars,” either. And if his main concern was that there wasn’t enough new tech in Episode Seven, those who didn’t know why before now do.
Lucas made 3 of the worst movies of all time. Half of Jedi was crap as well, so if makes sense that what he doesn’t like is actually GOOD.
TFA & TLJ are great films, along with RO
“I just think we might’ve put a little bit too much in the marketplace too fast”, said literally almost everyone except for the people making millions of dollars to make these decisions immediately following announcement of the plans.
That’s ok George.
Most people didn’t either.
Maybe Disney should stop looking at starwars for the reason for low park attendance or rather the lack of what they call lack of matketing … i do hate what they’ve done to hollywood studios…that is true… it used to feel like a dream factory……it was really “disney”. But StarWars maynot be the reason for low park attendance…. perhaps Disney should be looking at the horrific smoking policy it enforced this year…. i smoke… you think its a “choice” but its not…i used to go to disney with my family 3 times a year we always stayed on property…we’ve done it all from club level at the floridian to the cabins at ft wilderness…and would spend thousands on merch every trip…..ask me how many times i went this year….the answer is 0. I REFUSE TO PAY RIDICULOUS MONEY TO BE MADE TO FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE OR TO WALK EXTRA MILES A SEVERAL TIMES A DAY DAY TO THE EXIT OF THE PARK AND LEAVE MY FAMILY TO SMOKE… WILL THAT STOP ME FROM SMOKING?
No! … look, i get it…i dont want to pallute anyone elses air…least of all, a childs…but with all the land that Disney has, couldnt they, for the comfort of their smoking guests, have a sequestered place at the furthest reaches of each park so that their smoking guests dont have to leave the park everytime they want to smoke? No? Ok……ill just go to universal… thanks disney… for truly showing you “care” about all of your guests…. except the smoking ones…..HEY DISNEY EXECS….STOP SCRATCHING YOUR HEADS AND BLAMING STARWARS AND POOR MARKETING FOR THE FALLING ATTENDANCE OF YOUR PARKS…AND STOP PERSECUTING YOUR GUESTS THAT SMOKE.
This comment is pure, unadulterated lunacy and I love it.
Smokers are like maybe 10% of the US population, so Disney loses almost nothing by making smokers walk to the front of the park to prevent their poison from entering some poor kid’s lungs.
And yes, I smoked for years, but quit cold turkey as soon as my wife became pregnant, because it is indeed a choice and slowly killing myself was not a choice I intended to continue. It’s hard, but it can be done.
Relatedly, I purposely put money aside each week that I normally would have spent on cigarettes, and after a year had more than enough to pay for a vacation to Disney. And instead of wandering off to a smoking area I simply spent all the time with my family.
I applaud you, truly. However, While you say 10% In 2017, 14 of every 100 U.S. adults aged 18 years or older (14.0%) currently* smoked cigarettes. This means an estimated 34.3 million adults in the United States currently smoke cigarettes…. and while this may be an over all… i can tell you, being from NYC… THAT A VAST MAJORITY OF THEM LIVE IN THE NORTH EAST. walk down a. NY,NJ street…you will see a lot more than 10% smoking..and im Not sure if your a WDW or Disneyland fan, but the majority of wdw visitors do come from the north east…check it out… its true…im not saying you should be able to walk aou d the park smoking…but provide the facility…it may have been a choice for you…but it is not for me
PS… if there are so few smokers…..why not keep the smoking sections? According to your figures, very few, if any use them anyway…( we all know that, that is not true)….unless, until now…WDW is a US anomaly… afavorite vacation spot for all the smokers in the US.:-)
Vaping… Smokers were fine in the park for years in the smoking section, no one cared for years. Vaping ruined that for anyone who smokes. I saw people vaping in the middle of rides, in the middle of restaurants, large crowds, you name it. Selfish people didn’t treat it like smoking and did it anywhere they wanted. Disney did not do this because of cigarettes because they knew when not to smoke, blame vapers. I don’t smoke, I’m okay smoking is gone, it’s not the reason park attendance is down. Blame the correct people.
Geez perhaps they should have listened to and respected him more, he was the creator, after all.