Arts & Culture
Star Wars - Safe in Disney's hands?

Those lot at Disney seem to know what they’re doing don’t they?

Over the last few years Mickey Mouse has been making a land-grab for some of the most successful franchises in the world.

Take the Marvel films for instance. They’ve been delving into those comics giving us quality after quality with hardly any misfires to speak of.

A 3269They give their directors enough creative control to make it their own but without ever letting them take anything away from the main masterplan.

And now they’ve got their mousey mitts on Star Wars.

When it was first announced that Disney was taking over Star Wars there was more gnashing of teeth from fanboys than a whole army of Gnashers from The Beano.

Fanboys were worried that the whole franchise would go down the road of Disnefyication and be, you know, for kids.

The fanboys failed to grasp that George Lucas, in his infinite wisdom, had already done this. Badly. He had introduced us to Jar Jar Binks - the Frank Spencer of the Star Wars universe - as well as a young and very annoying Anakin Skywalker jumping for joy. The future Darth Vader jumping for joy. What. The. Flip. Was. George. Lucas. Thinking?

Disney, being the canny operator that it is, had learnt from this smorgasbord of mistakes and immediately got one of the genre’s best directors involved to give his own creative vision - JJ Abrams.Jake Lloyd

The Force Awakens did everything right. It was a reboot and not a reboot at the same time. And although some fanboys (do they ever shut up!) complained that the story was a bit similar to A New Hope, no-one can deny that it worked as a movie.

For the moment the dreaded fanboys have shut up and their worries of Disneyfication had failed to materialise.

And so we come to the second film in Disney’s masterplan - Rogue One. It’s a standalone film and not part of the main series. In fact, we’re going to get one of these every two years. Next year it’s Episode VIII’s turn and the year after that in 2018 it will be the Han Solo standalone movie.

Anyway, back to Rogue One.

This one looks interesting and is essentially a heist movie telling the tale of how the Death Star plans were stolen that led to the events in a New Hope.

star-wars-theme-park

We’re getting a whole host of new characters plus the return of the best baddie of them all - Darth Vader - who has promised to be on his best behaviour and won’t be jumping for joy or accidentally destroying an entire trade blockade after pushing autopilot or surfing on the back of an alien cow.

It’s released on December 16, which is just in time for Christmas and has got Godzilla director Gareth Edwards at the helm. The main character is Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso who ends up as part of the rebels and risks everything with a disparate crew to steal the plans.

We’ve got high hopes for this film and are certain that Disney will be working its magic once again.

  • Star Wars - Safe in Disney's hands?
  • Star Wars - Safe in Disney's hands?
  • Star Wars - Safe in Disney's hands?