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Posted By Shaun K. about 7 months, 1 week ago
Thumb Wars: Episode 15: Star Wars, Disney, & LucasArts: From Here to Where?,
Episode 15: Star Wars, Disney, & Lucasarts: From Here to Where?
Welcome back to the show where we introduce the debate and you continue it. This week’s topic: Shaun & Oda look at Disney buying Star Wars and what impact it could have on the video game industry going forward.
Thumb Wars is a weekly show hosted/produced by Shaun Kronenfeld dedicated to starting and encouraging dialogue and debate on a wide variety of topics within the video game industry. Look for a new Thumbs Wars every Sunday. Comments, opinions, and thoughts are not only welcome, they are the entire point. Feel free to follow Shaun on Twitter @bigred_13 if you feel so inclined.
I fear that Disney is going to end up diluting their brand image. They like to come off as being Christian, or at least Christian-friendly, don’t they?
At one point, they’re going to end up pasting their name on movies with sex scenes in them, if they want to keep some of the stuff loyal to its source material. Well, either that, or they’ll keep their name off of it, or end up censoring it. Who knows?
It might be interesting if some of Lucas Arts’ old properties saw the light of day again, even as re-releases or HD remixes.
I’d rather speculate as to who Disney is going to buy out next.
I might say Square-Enix, because they certainly work with Disney on the Kingdom Hearts series, but Square-Enix really isn’t doing all that well these days, is it?
Not really. Especially when you consider that one of their most recent movies was about a Norse god, an alcoholic in a cyber suit, a potty-mouthed black man, a World War II supersoldier, a couple of government assassins, and a giant green man beating the crap out of each other and then teaming up to kill aliens.
Point is, Disney itself may strive to maintain a kid-friendly image, but that doesn’t mean it won’t respect the properties it owns.
Here’s an idea for a sequel: Hydra and the Serpent Society invade the SHIELD Helicarrier, giving Samuel L. Jackson a chance to make a remark about snakes on his plane.
I personally think that Disney should simply reboot the Star Wars prequels as a start. anyone with me?
I think the notion that Disney will not try to capitalize from Lucasarts is an unlikely one. The size of the video game market demands they explore all options with that property. There is too much money to be made from games right now. They will either make some major plans for Lucasarts for themselves or they will sell it/license it out to others.
By the way, no love for Full Throttle or The Dig?
Eh… There is certainly money to be made in video games but not necessarily in THESE games. Not when you are Disney and already have so many IPs to draw upon and are apparently seriously considering buying up Hasbro lock, stock, & barrel as well. Like I said, I am not even sure the brass at Disney know these characters exist.
As for Full Throttle and The Dig… Well I currently have them installed on my computer and have for pretty much every machine I have owned since they came out. So yeah lots of love but only so much time. Just assume I love all of the LucasArts properties (including things like Loom, Night Shift, and Outlaws) even if I didn’t mention them by name. Believe me, I am a fan of LucasArts going way, way, WAY back.
The Dig was kind of dumb. Not really a whole lot of material you can get from that story. And the ending was a straight-up Deus Ex Machina (the aliens bring your dead friends back to life and cure them of their crystal addiction?).
Full Throttle, though, I could imagine a series of Mad Max style games based on that property.
Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean was based on a failed Monkey Island movie script.
Thisithis is right; Telltale owns the rights to Sam & Max. Telltale also owns the Monkey Island licence.
Actually, as noted below, Stever Purcell owns the rights to Sam & Max not Telltale. As for Monkey Island, sorry, but incorrect again. LucasArts has always owed the rights to MI right up through to the sale to Disney, who now owns it lock, stock, & key.
As for Tales of Monkey Island, it was made as part of a deal with the company and was even published by LucasArts. Indeed, Dan Conners, the Ceo of Telltale, even said the following back in 2011: “I wish we had the rights to do more Monkey but we don’t. Right now what I gather is LA is focused on building AAA titles internally but honestly we don’t talk much these days.”
I was really hoping Telltale would buy the rights to Grimm Fandango.
For me, Disney is like a dark plague that destroys anything it touches. You could say they do to original stories & fairy tales what Care Bears do to villains; forcing them to be gooey sugar water against their will. “Screw the morals & lessons; we need happy endings.”
The funny thing about Sam & Max, LucasArts dose not own any rights to Sam & Max. In fact the Creator of Sam & Max still owns the video games rights to Sam & Max. So, Telltale will most likely not be losing them. It was Sam & Max Hit the Road that was made by LucasArts, nothing more. Thes reast where made by Telltale after that.
Disney can’t ruin Star Wars. Lucas has already done that. (BA-BOM-TSH!).
Frankly, I’d like to see another Dark Forces/Jedi Knight game. This time, one with Kyle Katarn as the main character again. IMO, JK I and JK II were both dang good games for their time.