The action packed prequel space movies you watched as a kid are finally coming back, but what is all the fuss about? Some people are shaken to the core over the idea of George Lucas selling Lucasfilm to Disney, which includes selling the rights to all of his famous Star Wars films. Is there really any hope in the up and coming Star Wars movies if George Lucas is only going to be a creative hand, and not really have any major say in any part of the movie’s production? I believe there is. There is lack of evidence that Lucas was passionate and even cared himself about the series, especially while making the Star Wars prequels. Also, the Disney staff filling Lucas’s shoes show the passion and skill needed to make their endeavor into a success. Finally, it would be disappointing to see the beauty and mystery of a star filled world full of adventure go to waste and die.

Ben Domenech, co-founder of of the web magazine The Federalist, points out that even in The Empire Strikes Back, which is part of the original Star Wars trilogy, Lucas’s director and publisher had to continuously throw away “Overwritten dialogue, useless scenes, throwaway shots, and the rest” that Lucas had wrote. In essence, Lucas’s team modified this film down greatly to the action packed compelling story we know and love today.

It only makes sense that when Lucas stopped authorizing his fellow collaborators to change his original script during the Star Wars prequels, the movies lacked major character development and interesting dialogue. For instance, many fans agree that it was hard to determine who the main character was in the first prequel movie, The Phantom Menace. In the second prequel movie, as Domenech put it,  there were one too many scenes of “Soap opera-esque looks out the window before turning back.” Lucas himself pointedly stated that he was “The King of Wooden Dialogue”. In regards to directing, Lucas remarked that “I became a director because I didn’t like directors telling me how to edit, and I became a writer because I had to write something in order to be able to direct something. So I did everything out of necessity.” Where is the passion in this? If he did not like writing or directing, why be a part of the movies at all?

Knowing the true Lucas sheds a better light on Disney. Any director following Lucas’s prequels does not have very big shoes to fill. Disney has definitely had it’s share of action packed, high review movies. For example, a similar film to Star Wars that Disney has produced was Tron. In this movie, there are plenty of smartly animated spaceships and light up weapons, similar to the Death Star and lightsaber, proving Disney’s animation and CGI (computer generated imagery) skill.

With the recent purchase of Marvel Studios, Disney has reached a new level of success. In just three years of owning and working with this studio, Disney distributed the “third highest grossing film in North America and worldwide,” according to Forbes magazine. This movie was The Avengers. This shows that Disney has all of the credentials needed to produce such a movie as Star Wars. The special effects produced by Disney’s experienced staff are superior in contrast to those of the re-released prequels of the Star Wars films, in which Lucas haphazardly added low quality CGI just to prove that he could.

Even though the prequels were notably bad, with the fans “Being forced to suffer through Lucas’s bitter meanderings through the universe he inspired” (Domenech), why let a good thing go out with a flop? Plenty of people, including myself, see the potential that these new Star Wars movies have. A world where Star Wars dies off, with the shameful remembrance of the latest and inferior prequel movies, would be a very sad world indeed.

I think Disney does have a significant chance of bringing the life back to a story that is worth every penny of the four billion dollars they bought Lucasfilm for. As a kid, when I saw Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on the big screen, the experience made me feel like I could go out and conquer the world. So why not make more kids feel like they can accomplish anything? Also, just imagine all the new and exciting twists and turns Disney will guide us through, knowing that they have an entire star filled universe of adventure to work with.

After opening your eyes a little wider to see that Disney is obviously expanding beyond the stereotype of princess movies and only producing towards a female child audience, you will soon begin to realize that Disney is a force to be reckoned with. There is no need to cower and shy away at the idea of getting your hopes up for the new Star Wars films. As Domenech points out, “Really, your childhood can only be destroyed in front of you once.”

Disney is fully capable of accomplishing the difficult task of picking through Lucas’s prequels, and piecing a story together that may even surpass The Avengers. Nothing is for certain until the first Disney made Star Wars movie makes its debut, but I can confidently declare that there is A New Hope, and to Disney and all of it’s staff; may the force be with you.