The Lucasfilm Story Group

One thing that recently hit waves within fandom was a series of tweets that Leland Chee sent talking about how canon would be handled as things move forward. He basically said that what is determined as canon will now be decided by a group known as the Lucasfilm Story Group of which Leland and Pablo Hidalgo are members of. Now that George is retired it will seek to eliminate the hierarchy that currently exists and give everything the same level of canonicity. 

Of course, many interpretations could be given to this, and many people have already given ridiculous reactions to this set of news. But their are a couple of things we can know from the new Lucasfilm Story Group: 

1. Their creating some sort of master story plan: At the end of the day, what this all bogs down to is that most of the future content that comes out of Star Wars will be created by them. This will obviously eliminate the possibility of EU writers going into whatever direction they want, and giving us sometimes disastrous decisions in return. It will create a more cohesive version of the universe and one that doesn't fall apart the way the previous one did with its contradictions and over saturation. 

2. Various Unknowns will now determine the future of Star Wars canon: Let's face it, the problem with this is that many are uncomfortable with the idea of someone new dealing with Star Wars canon, but it's somewhat safe to assume that guys like Dave Filoni and Simon Kinberg could be a part of the Story Group.  In that case, we can be sure that much of the integrity of Star Wars will be repsected far into the future. 

It's too early to tell how exactly this is going to impact everything but it's still safe to assume that a big chunk of the EU is going by the wayside (and some still are in denial about it). 

The End of Dark Horse

As was predicted since the acquisition of Star Wars by Disney, Marvel is now going to be the helm of all comic books Star Wars starting in 2015. Dark Horse will be allowed to end it's current wave of comic books this year, and as stated by Big Shiny Robot, it is currently unclear if Disney will purchase the rights to reprint the comics made by Dark Horse.

Many fans were seemingly upset about the whole thing, despite the fact that it was something almost everyone saw coming (including myself). Personally, it's something that doesn't really affect me as a fan.

For starters, I never grew up reading comic books, and I was never really around them. Part of it has to do with my lack of interest in superheroes, but it also stems from the fact that Dark Horse failed to impress me as far as Star Wars is concerned. Not only because of the crappy storylines that were utterly predictable, boring and a 100% ignorance of the mythology of Star Wars (I'm looking right at you, Dark Empire and Legacy!) but also because the artwork was largely devoid of any resemblance to the characters of the films.

Of course, I'm the first to admit that I haven't seen everything these guys made with Star Wars, so there might be a few gems I'm not really aware of. One of the few things that Dark Horse published and that I have to say they've done a magnificent job with is the adaptation of George Lucas's first rough draft of Star Wars. Mike Mayhew's artwork is absolutely fantastic, and I think that they've really captured the essential origins of Star Wars before it even turned into a film.

However, before Dark Horse steps away from producing comics for Lucasfilm, they will produce a 4 part adaptation of what would have been the final Darth Maul arc of the Clone Wars. The series will be titled Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir and will likely end the arc of the character, once and for all. I still think that the fans should petition to see this adapted to the screen someday. Let's revive the Save the Clone Wars campaign folks!

We can conclude the end of Dark Horse by saying that the future of Star Wars comics remains uncertain (I've heard many complain about Marvel but like I said, I have little knowledge into anything superhero-related). But we can also be optimistic because the stories that will be adapted into comics will likely come from the Lucasfilm Story Group (more on that in a later post), so it's possible that we won't see weak stories developed into comics in the future.

The Future of Indiana Jones

Jedi News reported in early December that Disney had managed to acquire the rights to the Indiana Jones franchise from Paramount, whom will still receive a financial participation from any Indy film that comes out in the future. 

This was accompanied later by a couple of statements from Alan Horn, Disney's Chairman, whom had the following to say about our favorite archaeologist. 

Disney's Alan Horn on Indiana Jones: "We need a story." Guesses it will be another two to three years before we see a fifth movie.

“There will surely be new Indiana Jones movies in the future, be they sequels or reboots, and when they do come to fruition, Lucasfilm will be producing.”

Around the same time, producer of the last 4 Indy films Frank Marshall gave an interested tweet saying that it was "A bit strange sitting in the Indiana Jones office in the Lucasfilm office on the Disney lot, but I'm sure I'll get used to it." 

Of course, it's anyone's guess what exactly this tweet means, but it's probably a safe bet to assume that Frank Marshall is back as producer of the next Indy film which is only a few years away. Having another adventure with Harrison Ford back in the hat would be a delight, but it also begs to question if Spielberg and Lucas will return as they are both essential to the franchise. 

Having a 5th Indy is honestly not surprising nor anything bad to be honest, since in the original contract with Paramount Pictures, we were meant to have 5 Indiana Jones films, so it would be nice for the dream to finally be fulfilled and have one final adventure with Harrison sporting the hat before he gets too old. 

What worries me though is the idea of a "reboot". A reboot in the James Bond style isn't desirable and is something that would have unimaginable fan backlash, given the hater culture that currently exists today. It would be almost impossible to accept another actor as Indy, given the fact that Harrison has been Indy for the best of 4 decades now, when each James Bond had only a decade to be Bond. So while James Bond is more open to interpretation, Indy is more tied to a particular time period and a particular actor.

The best way for a future for Indy under Disney would be to fill in the gaps between The Indiana Jones Chronicles and the films with different actor(s) and could be interpreted via animated series or films with younger actors. Even a series of Mutt Williams films would be possible, even if some folks may not like Shia LaBeouf. I know I do.