I know that in our day and age, the idea of massive corporations buying things up to make lots more money is generally regarded with cynicism. And there's usually good cause for that. But honestly, when it was first announced that the House of Mouse was buying Star Wars, I was actually pretty optimistic. They'd been hitting it out of the park with their Marvel movies, and the reason they'd been doing so well was that they'd been handing the projects off to people not just to make money, but because the people involved genuinely loved the material and would treat it well.

I've always loved Star Wars. But as an adult, that enjoyment almost always tended to sit on the back burner at a very low simmer. I rarely had a reason to get excited like I did when I was younger, if ever. But then X-Wing gave me a reason to. And now with yearly movies released, plus what seems to be a new strategy since Disney came into the works in the form of these little mid-december half waves that coincide with the movies. I find myself regularly having a reason to come back to my long-cultivated love of Star Wars. But even beyond that, it's an excuse to see more Star Wars stuff in everyday life. There's always new Lego sets to buy for my 5 year old nephew (and my 35 year old Brother-in-Law, to be honest!) along with new toys and games and other neat merchandise... it's just nice to see it back in the center of the cultural spotlight again.

Anyway, cheers to the New Year, the New Wave, the New Movie, and New Hope for the franchise we all know and love. (Things were looking a bit grim for a while there...) And of course, cheers to all of you wonderful people.

Disney seems to understand that they can make more money by getting me to spend $5 twice than to get me to spend $7 once, feel ripped off, and never come back.

It is a great time to love STAR WARS... for real for reals Brahs!

They spent 4 billion for the Star Wars franchise, and they are going to milk it for everything they can. I would do the same.

But they make good stuff. A year or so ago, I read someone's comment that Disney had just made a movie about a talking raccoon and a tree, and it was great. If they could do that, what would they do with Star Wars?

LOVE!!!

Disney seems to understand that they can make more money by getting me to spend $5 twice than to get me to spend $7 once, feel ripped off, and never come back.

Plus, they seem to have learned from managing the Marvel Cinema team, that if you buy a good IP, get good managers (and particularly a superb casting team), good directors, give them a massive bag of cash and get the hell out of the way and let them do their job, you get really impressive, reliable results.

As long as they continue to apply the same logic, I have a fair amount of faith.

To be honest, I've been happy since Rebels started.

It's really been a wild ride the past two years, but I've not really seen a true dip in quality. There's consistent star wars, it's fun, it's good, it's not just a "I remember that!" franchise these days.

It's alive, well, and giving us all it's got.

And what it's got is really, really great, and closer to its roots than most things before it.

As a Star Wars fan, I'm being spoiled to a point beyond satisfaction. But as pieces of cinema, I don't expect very much of the Disney films. They appear to be intended more as fanpleasers and fairly simple blockbuster entertainment. Rogue One will most likely be excellent, but I don't think it will be on our minds much in a few years time. The original ideas behind Star Wars no longer appear to be its driving force.

I find it hard to say if I think of this as positive or negative; it's just a given.

My favourite film franchise is Star Wars. My favourite comic book character is Spider-Man. What a time to be alive.

Honestly though, I think the market is over saturated with Star Wars merchandise, but that's Disney and that's their prerogative. As long as FFG are left to keep the quality of this game in tact and not pressured to throw release after release out (which I feel it's coming very close to becoming too much) then I have no real complaints.

The original ideas behind Star Wars no longer appear to be its driving force.

What ideas? The original Star Wars was stick the Hero's Journey in space. I've never seen any deeper themes in the rest of it.

Considering how much they paid for it, Disney cannot afford to simply abuse the license and drain it dry in a year or two. That being said, they are lucky in many regards:

- A lot of creative, very competent and highly passionnnate people would jump on a Star Wars project in a second if they could.

- While they did set it aside, the "legends" aspect of Star Wars is a nice guideline as to what worked and what did not work in Star Wars. They provide a nice source of inspiration and they can draw from it to see what resonated with fans.

- I think that they have (fortunately) made their biggest movie misshaps prior to purchasing Star Wars.

So yeah, the future looks fun indeed!

Considering how much they paid for it, Disney cannot afford to simply abuse the license and drain it dry in a year or two. That being said, they are lucky in many regards:

Disney proved with Marvel that they're a safe pair of hands: they play the long game of good quality and customer loyalty.

Considering how much they paid for it, Disney cannot afford to simply abuse the license and drain it dry in a year or two. That being said, they are lucky in many regards:

- A lot of creative, very competent and highly passionnnate people would jump on a Star Wars project in a second if they could.

- While they did set it aside, the "legends" aspect of Star Wars is a nice guideline as to what worked and what did not work in Star Wars. They provide a nice source of inspiration and they can draw from it to see what resonated with fans.

- I think that they have (fortunately) made their biggest movie misshaps prior to purchasing Star Wars.

So yeah, the future looks fun indeed!

Point number two is the big one.

They can avoid crap like the Vong.

I really don't understand the Disney hate one bit.

They've established a fantastic track record with their Marvel superheroes movies, and although Star Wars lies closer to my heart I don't see any reason to think they can't deliver in that too. Force Awakens was amazing, I'm allowing myself to get excited about Rogue One after seeing what Wil Wheaton said about it... bring on the Force!

I really don't understand the Disney hate one bit.

They've established a fantastic track record with their Marvel superheroes movies, and although Star Wars lies closer to my heart I don't see any reason to think they can't deliver in that too. Force Awakens was amazing, I'm allowing myself to get excited about Rogue One after seeing what Wil Wheaton said about it... bring on the Force!

It's fashionable to hate on Disney.

Personally I hate on Disney because of what they do to international intellectual property law. Not for what they're doing with Star Wars and Marvel, of which I'm a big fan.

The original ideas behind Star Wars no longer appear to be its driving force.

What ideas? The original Star Wars was stick the Hero's Journey in space. I've never seen any deeper themes in the rest of it.

- While they did set it aside, the "legends" aspect of Star Wars is a nice guideline as to what worked and what did not work in Star Wars. They provide a nice source of inspiration and they can draw from it to see what resonated with fans.

Point number two is the big one.

They can avoid crap like the Vong.

Exactly. As long as it's not "that never happened, we're doing everything our own way, it looks nothing like the Star Wars you expect, and it shares major continuity 'glitches' with the original films" (a criticism often levelled at the prequels!), but "this is a cool toolbox of ships, places, characters and storylines - we'll draw from the better bits of it to help fill out our own stories" (which is largely what Rebels seems to be doing with Wedge/Hobbie, Interdictors, TIE Defenders, Thrawn, Concord Dawn, etc), I'm fine with that.

I really don't understand the Disney hate one bit.

They've established a fantastic track record with their Marvel superheroes movies, and although Star Wars lies closer to my heart I don't see any reason to think they can't deliver in that too. Force Awakens was amazing, I'm allowing myself to get excited about Rogue One after seeing what Wil Wheaton said about it... bring on the Force!

Another thing - would it kill them to make some decent Star Wars video games? (I have Battlefront, but where's the Jedi Knights and KotOR type games?).

No MMORPG please.

Pretty much everything said here resonates with me.

Disney does suck for what they do with IP laws and merchandise licensing. If anyone else is a plastic model builder they'll know some of the pain - Revell make OK Star Wars kits in funny scales (e.g. and X-Wing and a TIE-fighter are not the same scale), and have the licence for Europe and the US. Bandai make awesome kits in consistent scales, but only have the licence for Japan (and other Asian countries maybe?). Disney has been cracking down on people importing the far superior Bandai kits.

However, what they've done with the movies and general feel seems wonderful. They paid heaps for Star Wars, they want to make their money back, and they understand that the best way to do that is to produce good quality stuff that people like, and keep on doing that. That is enough to keep me happy.

As for the decision to scrap the EU: at the time, I was very angry. How dare they scrap 25 years of development and story? But in hindsight, I think it was the best choice. Much of the EU was crap, and by now it had become a tired, bloated, wallowing mess. There were some gems in there, but I'd long since given up on it. I'm pretty sure that if they continued to try to develop the original EU, they wouldn't have found a good sized market for it, and Star Wars would have faded and died.

- While they did set it aside, the "legends" aspect of Star Wars is a nice guideline as to what worked and what did not work in Star Wars. They provide a nice source of inspiration and they can draw from it to see what resonated with fans.

Point number two is the big one.

They can avoid crap like the Vong.

Exactly. As long as it's not "that never happened, we're doing everything our own way, it looks nothing like the Star Wars you expect, and it shares major continuity 'glitches' with the original films" (a criticism often levelled at the prequels!), but "this is a cool toolbox of ships, places, characters and storylines - we'll draw from the better bits of it to help fill out our own stories" (which is largely what Rebels seems to be doing with Wedge/Hobbie, Interdictors, TIE Defenders, Thrawn, Concord Dawn, etc), I'm fine with that.

And that's why I love Disney's expanded content so much. It uses all the cool stuff we've never stopped loving and does a fair bit of it justice. They're always given pivotal roles..! Failing that, they get fantastic amounts of screen time.

Disney really seems interested in expanding the Star Wars Universe. For real this time, unlike the "Sure pretend it's happening" attitude Lucas had towards it all, which I will never truly be okay with.

Another thing - would it kill them to make some decent Star Wars video games? (I have Battlefront, but where's the Jedi Knights and KotOR type games?).

No MMORPG please.

Attack Squadrons looked cool - was really annoyed when that died a death.

Disney was the only choice--I was going to write logical choice but that's redundant.

Lucasfilm Ltd. just wasn't able to work out all of the franchising aspects of its property. It was hot or miss, and the sequels were weakened by the aspect of marketing toys rather than stories, particularly fleshing out Darth Vader's origin over the course of three movies--good grief! The Zahn books were definitely worthy of adaptation but the train left the station and at least Lucas had the good sense to find the single company with a long history of handling cinematic properties properly. Disney learned from the same kinds of mistakes Lucasfilm made a decade ago and has been able to survive that process while LFI was stagnating with indecision and a distinct inability for developing other properties of similar staying power.

BTW, copyright law never foresaw the movie industry and the handling of intellectual properties that can potentially span a century of growing value. Disney has every right to push the envelope of antiquated laws, though the methods used have not always been respectable.

As one who saw the first movie on the big screen, completely blown away, I am so pleased to find the ability to play X-Wing and anticipate watching Star War movies with integrity to be a fabulous privilege.

I really don't understand the Disney hate one bit.

I was happy to be done with Lucas' slapstick/deadpan humor and unnecessary adding an overload of special effects to existing movies when not needed. Both take away from the movies. Cheapens them for my tastes; I found myself saying 'What? that was stupid' right in the middle of any otherwise good scene. If I wanted lame jokes I would watch the 3 Stooges, at least they are funny and I expect slapstick comedy. As for the added special effects? I wish he would have paid more attention to the script/editing errors. But it's like that kid who finds a new joke or toy and just goes on and on it while everyone else is rolling their eyes.

Now we just have to wonder about an adult that acts like a spoiled petulant child, the Death Star 3/4/5, etc. No one is perfect I suppose; well I heard there was this one guy, but that was a long time ago.

I see Rogue One tomorrow (a happy intersection of hobby & employment) and will be able to report back whether that anticipation is warranted!