Luke has a new Father: Disney buys out Lucasfilm for $4 Billion

As a longtime Star Wars fan, this news to me was bigger than the invention of the wheel. Announced by Disney on October 30, 2012 The creator of the Star Wars universe and CEO/Executive Producer of Lucasfilm George Lucas has sold off the Star Wars universe and licensing to the Walt Disney Corporation.

In 2009 Disney purchased the Marvel universe for $3.96 billion allowing them to reap the benefits of anything ironman, Thor, Captain America, Avenger, and so on. Now Disney has purchased lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, and worth every penny. The purchase includes all that is under Lucasfilm including, the technologies that ILM and Skywalker sound has engineered over the years. 

Lucas stated he thought it was time for him to step down and try other things like philanthropy and some projects on his mind that are not Star Wars related.

The passing of the torch to Disney was a move to maintain and immortalize the Star Wars Universe in order to continuously deliver the Jedi fantasy to past- present- and future fans.

Disney will do a fine job keeping Marvel and Star Wars alive for fans to come, due to the example they have demonstrated for themselves. The Disney Brothers studio started in 1923 and well after Walt’s death, Disney has continued to prosper and dominate the entertainment industry. One of the big 5 media conglomerates, with a revenue of over $40 billion a year and a net income of over $4 billion a year “here you go Lucas, let me sacrifice a years profit for a massive future gain”(laughs his way to the bank).

What does this all mean; a lot of big changes, Kathleen Kennedy the current co-chair of Lucasfilm will now become the President of Lucasfilm reporting to the Chairman of The Walt Disney company Alan Horn. 

The Saga’s animation “Clone Wars” will probably now be aired on the Disney channel instead of Cartoon network, taking away from Turner Networks revenue, next Disneyland and Disney World will incorporate even more elaborate Star Wars themed rides and attractions. Also the merchandising will grow even more out of control than it is now. I can’t complain though, “I love my light saber chopsticks”.

But for even bigger news, Disney has announced that they will also expand on the Star Wars Saga and produce Episode VII, to be released 2015. When Disney acquired Marvel they kept the key elements concurrent but changed the stories a little to suit their audience and their own ideas. Disney will most likely keep most of the Lucasfilm elements the same, but for Episode seven give it more of a bounce hopefully not enrage any long time loyalist. 

Filmmakers Exempt in Copyright Law

According to copyright.gov The Digital Millennium copyright Act (DMCA), was originally made to limit the liability of Internet service providers in conjunction to their users engaged in media copyright infringement. The DMCA saved companies like Google’s YouTube from a Viacom lawsuit, where Viacom accused YouTube of allowing their users to illegally distribute their products along the video-sharing site.

Due to notions made by documentary filmmakers, the U.S copyright department has decided to make an exemption to the DMCA, allowing filmmakers use copyrighted media ripping content from DVD’s and streamed videos, but including Blu-Ray. [indiewire.com]

Documentary filmmakers have gotten the copyrights office to agree that this act is for the fair use of digital media in a documentary.

The exemption makes sense to me because DVD’s and streamed videos are a readily accessible resource, and how else are you suppose to show an authentic example without going over budget.

Filmmakers can make a documentary on NASA or space exploration and will be allowed to use scenes from Apollo 13 staring Tom Hanks, without fear of being reprimanded by Universal Pictures.

 The Blu-Ray not being part of the exemption, I would say doesn’t matter as long as the quality of what you are referencing is decent; the filmmaker is giving an example not reproducing a feature. The main reason I can see Blu-Ray not being part of the exemption is to deter those who would misuse the resource and have open-game with illegally distribution of a high quality format. DVD’s have always been easily rip-able but ever since Blu-Ray’s beginning, it has had a specific copy protection, utilizing multiple layer of Digital rights Management (DRM) designed to deter illegal copying, done mostly to maintain the value of the supposed future format of home entertainment.  

Even though DVD’s are rip-able and Blu-Ray’s can be ripped by the use of wide range of software available, it is still illegal for consumers to do so. 

Intellectual Property gets some extra muscle

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is the voice and advocate for the American motion pictures, home video, and television industries, with its members consisting of Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros, Sony, Universal, and Twentieth century fox.

That being said the MPAA was happy to hear that on October 3, 2012 the Department of Justice awarded more than $2.4 million dollars to 13 law enforcement agencies around the country in order to improve their ability to fight the war on Intellectual Property Rights; preventing, investigating, and prosecution against intellectual property infringement.

The agencies awarded the funding were all in association to PRO-IP which is Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, enacted by congress and signed by President Bush in 2008, to protect creative property and jobs involved in creative the process, also suspecting that the bill will help leave Bush’s mark on history.

The IPR or Intellectual property rights centers employs a multi-layered approach to combat IP theft, involving the identification, disruption, prosecution, and dismantling of criminal organizations involved in the manufacturing and distribution of counterfeit products. When the IPR investigates IP theft it is in all aspects of business, but the MPAA appreciates the attention made due to the increase of piracy and intellectual theft in the motion picture industry, causing the industry to experience major declines in ticket sales, and mostly due to illegal distribution.  

 Michael O’Leary the Senior Executive Vice President for Global policy and External Affairs of the MPAA made a quote stating “These generous grants will support the ongoing efforts of local law enforcement working in the field to combat the theft of creative content. While we continue to work toward an Internet that works for everyone, we must also continue to protect the creative industries that contribute to national job growth and a stronger economy".

I believe that O’Leary is spot-on with the claim that the beefing up IP security will help create more jobs leading to a better economy. 

Think of a recording artist and all the people involved in the process of getting an album recorded then distributed, the main players who get the most profit will always be the producers whom invested their own money and resources in the talent, the following commission will go to the artist who is the foundation of the product. The artist or talent receives a good sum for their work but not enough to retire or become their own boss, maybe if they invest well; that isn’t the case most the time so the artist must continue to produce hit after hit to maintain a lifestyle; but the producers just needs the artist album to sell in general, it being a hit is just their bonus. 

Point being- without intellectual property rights there would be no point in wanting to become a recording artist because most your products would be given away free online or distributed by illegal parties that do not have the rights to your product, thus decreasing the revenue of the studio or producer and mainly the talent whom gets a percentage of what is left over.

Decreasing Artist salaries or even studio salaries decreases jobs needed to produce music or film, because less jobs means less dollars to pay anyone. 

                                              Respect the BIll! 

Big things can come in small minds

Adam Savage is a special-effects artist, fabricator, model maker, and as Disney would put it an imaginer. Since 2002 Adam and another film industry veteran Jamie Hyneman have been the host of the Discovery channel hit show “Myth busters”, where they take unlikely and see if it could be made likely.

Adam had spoken to college students on “how simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries” and the speech was posted for TED.com.  Adam went on to talk about inventors of the past and how their own curiosity and dedication to finding the truth behind something is what led to great discoveries and inventions used throughout the ages; Inventors and theorist such as Richard Feynman a scientist of quantum physics and Aristoteles also known as Aristotle- theorist in natural philosophy. The story of Richard Feynman was significant because, when Feynman was a child he asked his father why the ball in the wagon moved to the back of the wagon when you pulled it and his father explained it to be inertia.  Feynman credits this conversation with his father to be the catalyst for his obsession and career. I believe the story of Richard Feynman to be important because it shows how an idea no matter how small can stick with us throughout our days and influence us through the paths of life.

Adam kept his young audiences attention with animated visuals complementing what he was talking about, and high energy, which was fueled by his passion of the subject.

Adam does not speak of adversity he dealt with personally or anything about himself at all, but he does speak of how Galileo was replaced in history for the one who discovered the earth was round, over 1800 years later by Christopher Columbus. Yes many others that were highly educated or well versed in the work of Aristoteles would know that Columbus did not discover the fact that the earth was round, but the fact that there were two astute individuals that found their major discoveries through entirely different yet simple methods should be enough to inspire anyone to rediscover a theory or even dig deeper into a forgotten dream from their youth.  

Hasbro presents Transformers 4

What comes to mind when you hear these names Shia laBeouf, Josh Duhamel, and Tyrese Gibson? Correct Transformers; but according to Hasbro that’s not the way it’s supposed to be!

Transformers is produced & distributed by Paramount pictures in association with Hasbro Entertainment, because Hasbro has all licensing rights to the transformers characters and universe.

Paramount collected a whopping $709 million in gross box office sales world wide for the first Transformer movie in 2007, $836 million for the second movie in 2009, and $1.12 billion for the third installment in 2011. It seems that the films are a great asset and continue to bring in the revenue, but not for all. Hasbro being one of the main forces behind Transformers being on the silver screen has hit a roadblock in the sales of their friendly robot counterparts. So Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner has geared Michael Bay the Producer/Director for all the films, into writing the fourth installment of the Transformer franchise towards having more robotic characters and focusing more on the robots.  At a UBS "Best of America 2012 Conference" Goldner opened with presentation talking about how more robots and directed more towards the production of a wide range characters he believes will entice children into wanting to collect the characters they do not have already and with a redesign of the older characters make them want to purchase old Optimus and Bumble bee all over again. Transformer sales will rise again. 

I believe it’s a great idea, because it opens whole new paths for the direction of the franchise, and with the films geared towards toy production, maybe the new characters will have a design that makes the toys look more practical in there transformation. In the films when the robots transform it looks like every square inch of the fiberglass fenders and hoods rotate and bend making it less realistic and impossible for the toys to compare in an opposable sense.

I don’t collect the toys now but maybe the film will inspire better quality figures and encourage the development of characters that you just can’t pass up in the store. I don’t know about all my readers here but I am looking forward to seeing an explosive Michael Bay film again. 

Writer/Producer Ehren Kruger the writer for the last two Transformer films is working on the screenplay for the new film and Paramount hopes to release the film June of 2014