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George Lucas Consolidates his Empire
Shadowcat writes "George Lucas is consolidating his galaxy, merging LucasArts, Lucas Digital (ILM & Skywalker Sound), Lucas Licensing, and Lucasfilm into one mega-corporation to provide a single place to create all sorts of media. You can find the
article on SF Chronicle Site."
Just maybe we'll see about 10 thousand more star wars games, cause there aren't enough....
Well....the evil grows
I wonder what the final company will be called? LucasEgo Intergalactic?
does this mean SOMEONE will now figure out that we hate Jar Jar??
Hollywood.com's story
Bizjournal.com's story
Uemedia.com's story
Anyway, it IS going to (still) be called Lucasfilm Ltd.
Wait shit
Anyways Lucas will try anything and everything to make as much money off of something that he can, this has been proven on many occassions, what makes it so unsettling for slashdot readers is that _WE_ really enjoy the star wars films and we all go and see them. SEE the problem? We hate it, but we love it, ack capitalism vs. socialism.
Posting as AC because I'm too lazy to log in and I already an "Excellent"
George will likely seek the hand of Athina, the grand-daughter of Aristotle Onassis, now that she's turned 18 and inherited all that money.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I doubt this will change the fact that the third Star Wars will probably suck.
I always wondered why Lucas didn't do this before. He had all these disparate companies that did different things. It seems like he could do things a lot more efficiently if they combined everything into one mega-studio.
Centralization breaks the internet.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't really see what the purpose of this is. Doesn't Lucas already own all three of these companies and don't they all work together on his creative abomin^H^H^H^H^H^Hprojects? Someone please clue me in as to why Lucas would want to bother doing something like this.
Later, George was overheard muttering to himself:
"Truth, fiction...I'm the guy with the lightsaber. Fzoom!"
"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet [through rampant licensing] is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
Formula for cinematic infamy:
I had a sig, but
Maybe we could start calling it the Trade Federation, too.
your friends have failed.
Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational mega-corporation!
Is it me or do companies split off and merge at stock market whims? A companies stock goes up for merging, the all merge. When one company makes money from spinning off, they all start spinning off companies.
---------------------
OnRoad: It gets you there and back again.
January 29th, 2003, AP Rumours of major re-organization in California today from Media Baron George Lucas' Lucasfilm company. Merging four distinct entertainment entities into one, this easily allows Lucas to command his armies of creative types into the future battlefield of the digital frontier. Also, in a related story, sales of white plastic one-size-fits-all suits has increased dramatically nation-wide.
is fire the directors and get someone who'll make the actors actually act!!
He is one egocentric guy, naming almost all those companies after himself...
I personally liked the name 'Industrial Light and Magic' (ILM) - it sounds pretty cool.
#define ROSE any_other_name
Thank you. I was quite unable to click the link myself.
The dark side merges YOU!
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell, 1984
... until a ship landed a few miles south of my house and unloaded a bunch of droids.
Dang George.. he's trying to build a monopoly and destroy other movie businesses! Darn him!
We must now start an open-movie force! We'll build movies for free, and all the scripts will be written (and sanity-checked) by students. We can include a free sound-crunching system and rendering farm. We'll call it ShowForge.. and we can have a solid business.. let's see.. Movix.. then we can have some of the Movix people drop out and call themselves the FMF (Free Movie Foundation).
Oo oo... and then we'll need a mascot. We'll take a Red Rhone Cow... (So no infriging on any possible movie system that Gateway could come up with), and we'll call 'em Mux!! Yeah.. that's the ticket. Then we'll make movies for free, with volunteer actors, and make movies a-plenty. Taco and Hemos in Rob & Jeff's Excellent Adventure!
Then we could make a Star Wars movie.. maybe call it Distro Wars! YEAH!
Ok.. now, I'll bet that 3rd Star Wars movie is sounding not-so-bad, eh? Hehehehe...
-What have you contributed lately?
Don't worry, the final Star Wars will most definitely not be any good.
Should'nt that be modded INFORMATIVE & not FUNNY?
Not only is he trying to be a karma whore, but there's also a goatsex link in the text!! FEAR!
The more companies will slip through your fingers.
What signature defines me as a person?
Torture and kill Jar Jar Binks. With superaccurate blood-splash algorithms! [http://eg.ath.cx]
More Jar Jar! How about a Jar Jar trilogy. Me no thinkem dat will happen but me can hope.
But he can't sell Star Wars forever... And I think he realises this.
Hey relax fella, you need a rest, guy.
what, you didn't know already?
I like the new starwars, I have finally come to accept that I like complaining about things, and that I probobly have had more fun over the past few years bashing the new movies than I ever would have had if it was actually good.
-You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.
If Jar Jar proposed that the board vote on the consolidations.
Offtopic but since my submission wouldn't be accepted,
RIAA website hacked again
I can't wait for the robotic Senator Amidala with realistic hand and mouth action...
He could leverage a hostile takeover of Microsoft.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I guess we're about to find out whether crap has a critical mass.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I was working for a cheap-ass closeout bookstore just north of Marin when Star Wars Episode II was coming out. A gentleman wearing a shitload of Lucas swag (jacket, shirt, hat) came in to the store with his family about a week before the movie came out.
I helped him find the book he was looking for (miracle of miracles, we had a copy), and I asked him if he worked at Lucas or just had friends/family there.
Turned out, he worked for LucasArts, and he had just come from a screening for employees of all of the Lucas companies. He said that it was worth seeing, but not really the best of the series.
Then there was a pause.
"You know what my next question is," I said.
"Yes. He's on screen for all of about five minutes, and they toned him down."
That was a fun experience, to get an honest appraisal of the movie before it came out and to find out the most important thing about the movie without even mentioning the "J-J-word".
And he did it without killing off the Jedi Council, something even Palpatine couldn't do!
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
ARKIN: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
TAGGE: That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
TARKIN: The regional governors now have direct control over territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
"This company is now the ultimate power in the movie industry. I suggest we use it."
I wonder if slashdot will create a LucasBorg in the likes of billyG...would could have a Borg War and see who would win
Completely offtopic, but the last company I worked for the CTO called himself "The Wizard", said that on his business cards and everything.
These are not the droids you are looking for...
"These are not the droids you are looking for..."
"Is that your final answer?"
Looks like any hope I had for a LucasArts internship is now down the drain.
Anakin Skywalker, or the guy who plays him on tv was at the bar i was drinking at last night. I felt no courage enough to take on the would-be-master of evil, as I had not enough liquid FORCE in me at the time.
I should have told him his boss was an egomaniac.
How not to screw up episode III. I think Lucas should step aside as director and give that task to someone who knows what they're doing. Ever since American Graffiti has Lucas ever directed anything sensibly? (Not even Star Wars).
I for one, liked Jar Jar. All you geeky jedi wanna-bes, can't you just grow up and accept that there are people around that you don't like? Obiwan was man enough to have Jar Jar come along with him on the adventure, can't you be a bit more mature, like Obiwan?
I mean, what did Jar Jar do that was so terrible? He may be clumbsy, but he is the most well meaning character and has done nothing wrong.
Get a life.
This, of course, is 'offtopic'
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
*insert open-source Soviet Russian death star Empire Jar Jar joke here*
That ^H joke makes you look like a fucking retard.
Have a nice day.
All your Force are belong to ME!
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
From:
D =2 624
http://cgi.theforce.net/theforce/tfn.cgi?storyI
Gary Kurtz, the producer of ANH and ESB, spoke at the Sci-Fi Expo in Plano, TX this weekend along with his daughters Tiffany and Melissa (as children they played Jawas in ANH). He shared with the crowd about meeting Lucas, leaving the Star Wars films and the original plans for the entire saga.
.
.
.
EPISODE 1: Was to focus on the origins of the Jedi Knights and how they are initiated and trained
EPISODE 2: Introduction and development of Obi-Wan Kenobi
EPISODE 3: Introduction and life of Vader
EPISODE 4: There were seven different drafts of the film. At one point, they pursued buying the rights to Hidden Fortress because of the strong similarities. At one point, Luke was a female, Han was Luke's brother, Luke's father was the one in prison (interesting point for some debates) and the film featured 40 wookies
EPISODE 5: Once written, the screenplay of Empire is almost exactly what is seen on screen. The only cut scenes were those involving wampas in the rebel base (cut because of time and unsolved technical glitches) and about two minutes of Luke/Yoda Jedi training with no real dialog.
EPISODE 6: Leia was to be elected "Queen of her people" leaving her isolated. Han was to die. Luke confronted Vader and went on with his life alone. Leia was not to be Luke's sister.
EPISODE 7: Third trilogy was to focus on Luke's life as a Jedi, with very few details planned out.
EPISODE 8: Luke's sister (not Leia) appears from another part of the galaxy.
EPISODE 9: First appearance of the Emperor.
Take a look at the "mythical" 7, 8, and 9. They don't take place after the fall of the Empire. They basically drag out everything that happened in Jedi over 4 movies instead of one, killing Han in the process. Can you imagine EPISODE 7, an entire Star Wars movie devoted solely to Mark Hamill!?!?
From what I've read the reason why Kasdan left Jedi was because he wanted the episode 6 listed here instead of ending it at Jedi.
Whatever Lucas's mistakes, ending it at Jedi was an excellent move (and one that cost Lucas a great deal of money). Ending it at Jedi helped save the original Star Wars movies from dragging out and getting stale. Whatever you say about the new movies, if you wish you can essentially ignore them and just enjoy the great story told in the original 3.
Brian Ellenberger
....are good...keep 'em coming. Who needs mod points when we can get instant feedback from the group at large. Why wait for the so-called site admins to turn over the right rock.
Democracy rules.
...that 'Lucas Arts franchise dealership' you wanted is closer to a reality!
They grounded me for smoking pot!
I didn't even bother going to Episode 2.
Uh oh, I can see my karma falling now. One of us will keep our "excellent" karma.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
RIAA down (again/still...thank bhudda) ----> crapflood....Lucas Arts plans more toys---->flood of crap.
./ shows no hope of ever having logical submission handling, so we're have to send a man to do the job...that's us!
See..only one Kevin Bacon away.
Keep these adhoc submittals coming.
... You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.. we must be cautious"
But hell, no matter what i gotta give him props what must be one of the greatest space fantasies i have seen (episodes iv - vi anyway)
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
I thought the whole point of having a bunch of little companies under your control was to create a kind of tax shelter.
You know, Lucasfilm has to "pay" ILM for doing special effects for Star Wars 3, paying involes moving money around, moving money around = economy, the government likes the economy and gives Lucasfilm a big tax break for being a good corporate citizen and not doing all their stuff in house - that's how it looks on paper.
Lucas saves a bunch of cash and puts it all into his pocket.
Guess I thought wrong. Someone enlighten me, please!
he still cant make a movie worth a shit. sorta like sound feedback, he has too many of his own ideas bouncing off yes men *cough*mccullum*cough and he is getting shit feedback, and no one is there to do anything about it. he suffers from "Michael Jackson" syndrome. Yes. I'm a troll. But you agree with me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Imagine this: Shanghai Knights 3 in Space. This time Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan team up with Yoda to do kung-fu. I haven't seen the Owen Wilson/Jackie Chan shit-fests so I can't really extend this parody any further. I suppose there would be some jokes and, uh, dolls - possibly a Taco Bell tie-in? LucasConglom should buy a fast food chain, for future marketing considerations already. Also, my Shanghai Knights 3 shit-fest idea is a great one and I give it the green light. I just need to get the Boss to check it out and then we're rolling. In fact, we could use the two past Jackie Chan/Owen Wilson shit fest movies and just splice Yoda in. No need to film new scenes because the public doesn't remember anything. How do you think Episode II made money?
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Come on, Lucas is just tired of cashing 7 different paychecks at his local money store every Friday.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
I forgot where I grabbed this from, if anyone knows please reply...
25 Lines From Star Wars that can be improved if you substitute the word "Pants"
1. A tremor in the pants. The last time I felt this was in the presence of my old master.
2. You are unwise to lower your pants.
3. We've got to be able to get some reading on those pants, up or down.
4. She must have hidden the plans in her pants. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally Commander.
5. These pants may not look like much, kid, but they've got it where it counts.
6. I find your lack of pants disturbing.
7. These pants contain the ultimate power in the Universe. I suggest we use it.
8. Han will have those pants down. We've got to give him more time!
9. General Veers, prepare your pants for a surface assault.
10. I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants back home.
11. TK-421. . . Why aren't you in your pants?
12. Lock the door. And hope they don't have pants.
13. Governor Tarkin. I recognized your foul pants when I was brought on board.
14. You look strong enough to pull the pants off of a Gundark.
15. Luke. . . Help me take...these pants off.
16. Great, Chewie, great. Always thinking with your pants.
17. That blast came from those pants. That thing's operational!
18. Don't worry. Chewie and I have gotten into a lot of pants more heavily guarded than this.
19. Maybe you'd like it back in your pants, your highness.
20. Your pants betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for your sister!
21. Jabba doesn't have time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial Cruiser.
22. Yeah, well short pants is better than no pants at all, Chewie.
23. Attention. This is Lando Calrissean. The Empire has taken control of my pants, I advise everyone to leave before more troops arrive.
24. I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.
25. You came in those pants? You're braver than I thought.
Actually, Rogue Squadron and Rogue Leader were both good. So were Dark Forces, Jedi Knight and Jedi Knight II (though a good portion of the game was done by Raven, and not LucasArts).
The Starfleet Command series hasn't been that bad, and neither was the Elite Force game for the ST series.
"Completely offtopic, but the last company I worked for the CTO called himself "The Wizard", said that on his business cards and everything."
I tried to get 'Supreme Commander of the Universe' on my business card. That didn't fly but at least I have a coffee mug with those magical words emblazed on it.
It mentions in the article that Pixar was sold by Lucas to Apple. Funny, becuase I could have sworn they were small animation shorts, and then partnered with Disney to make Toy Story. I had never heard this part before.
I suppose the odd thing about this supposed marriage is that in their history, they've have typically stuck to PCs or Unix/Linux machines. Now I'll agree that most people see Sony as a big competitor to ILM, but I would say that there also needs to be Dreamworks Animation, and the company that has been producing LoTR.
To be honest, if I were a competitor of one of Lucas' companies, I would be happy to see this consolidation, assuming that they're truly going to put one management team in charge of the whole thing. Here's why.
1) As independent operations, each of those companies has a clear focus. The management team at the sound company knows that its goal is to provide the best sound work possible in order to get business from other production companies making films. The video game unit is focusing on making money on its games. The ILM people are focused on effects and selling those effects to other studios. From a business point of view, combining will tend to make those units lose focus, because they're now going to be looking at what the new "big boss" wants instead of focusing on individual goals. See Al Ries' book, "Focus," for a good discussion of why focus is essential to a company. (Actually, see almost any of the work from Ries and Jack Trout for more support of this point, going back to their work in the '70s on positioning.)
2) This is going to potentially create sales problems for the divisions that sell to other movie studios. As it has been, a studio that bought its special effects from ILM was dealing with a specialist company, NOT a competing studio. ILM's specialist competitors are now going to be saying (to other studios), "Why would you want to use LucasFilm? They're your competitor." You might say that it was that way already, but there's a very real difference when you're dealing with a company with a different name and different management team. If a studio is angry at LucasFilm for some action that it's taken in one area, they'll hold it against the whole company since they'll be one combined operation.
I know this is being pitched as something to streamline operations and reasons like that, but I would bet that the original idea originated with the bean counters for reasons involving taxes or other accounting reasons. My bet is that the decision was made for accounting reasons and is being sold as something to help operations.
I honestly don't see any operational advantage and I see multiple disadvantages. It will be interesting to see how the combined company does in the future (as compared to how its doing in its current structure), but since the numbers are private, we might never know.
David
If you'll look at the story again, you'll see that the article only referenced Apple by mentioning that it was "Apple CEO Steve Jobs" who bought the company. Apple has never owned Pixar or had any business relationship with it, other than sharing CEOs, unless I am badly mistaken. David
Actually, I really liked the Star Wars games before Episode I. Games like XWing and Tie Fighter are classics. Dark Forces and JKI were right up there too. I even liked the old console games (even though they were hard as heck). They were even willing to take a few risks. XWing vs. Tie Fighter was simply ahead of its time in being a primarily "Internet Only" game.
Around Episode I is when the games really started to suck. It was just too many games put together too quickly.
However, Lucasarts seems to be turning around with some help from companies like Raven and Bioware. Jedi Knight 2 deserves better than an honorable mention. It is in my opinion the best Star Wars game ever. It is the only game I have bothered playing through twice in many many years. It wasn't afraid to give you the full power of a Jedi in the name of presenting a "challenge". I am also looking forward to the upcoming Knights of the Old Republic RPG from Bioware.
Brian Ellenberger
In the first triology of Star Wars, it is quite obvious that good is at war with evil. Simple citizens of the galaxy are rebelling against the Empire. If one looks just below the surface of the plot, a message of rebellion against Mega-Corporations and capitalism can be found. The evil Empire of Capitalism must be destroyed by a bunch of good, independent freedom fighters. The bad guys always want to overthrow a regime and replace it with his own. But always, the new regime is evil as are the bad guys. This message hasn't been incorporated in the new episodes. In this real-life world, Lucas doesn't seem to promote this message anymore. Instead, he is building himself an Empire, an evil Empire guided by capitalism that is. The latest news about his corporation confirming this. Did he forget about his first Star Wars movies or did he simply turned over to the Dark side of capitalism? Is Lucas so weak of mind that he must conform to the rules of capitalism? Or is he just so uncomfortable with the chaos of simpleness and freedom?
DrkBr
So does this mean that Ep. III will have credits that don't last as long as the film itself since all the CGI, model and other work will be done "in house?" I thought that shit was never going to end in Ep. II (the credits...not the movie).
On a more serious note, this isn't really that surprising. 3-7 years ago, everyone and their dog was doing the diversification thing. Spin off divisions into completely separate companies that have "licensing agreements" with the parent company that allow for sweetheart deals that bulk up both company's "earnings" without any money actually changing hands.
In light of the current spotlight on corporate buttfuckery, now all these companies are bringing these spin off corps back in-house and making like nothing ever happened.
It doesn't hurt that Commandant GW Bush wants to make it so that the bigger your corporation is the less taxes you have to pay so that one $3 billion (annual revenue) corporation will pay about 1/4 the taxes of 3000 $1 million corporations.
I'm just sayin'...
BFL
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
That's my advice to George. He'd better work on getting some new creative properties going instead of spreading Star Wars around. That crap is wearing pretty thin.
Take away Star Wars and what has he got? Grim Fandango?
George Lucas merged four companies into a megacorporation? Shouldn't that be a quadcorporation? You don't often see a fusion of a million businesses into one corporate structure, unless you are talking about Enron subsidiaries.
Get your prefixes straight!
...does that mean that this will come down in price so i can freaking afford it?!??
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
That was either by Boyd Rice, or Jim Goad, I forget which. The Troll who posted it sure as hell did not think it up on his own though!
Who cares, it's a corporate re-org, probably to cut costs and make him richer, yar...
oooohhh...one company that has a monopoly over a certain sector, and is all powerful...
can i suggest "Lucassoft"????
if they ever went public, the symbol could be "LSFT"...fits perfectly...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
How will Lucas maintain control without the bureaucracy?
I'm sorry.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Steven P. Jobs, current CEO of Apple, owns the controlling interest in Pixar. Not an Apple company, but it might as well be.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Fear of his new corporation!!
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
hopefully they'll do something akin to the Agent Scene in the upcoming Matrix Movie. I can just imagine a saber wielding Jedi and a room full of Jar Jars!!! Oh, the sweetness!
Episode III: I wipe my ass with your money.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
"Death Star Productions"
No, that'd be AT&T.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Steve Jobs is Apple. And I was just curious about the relationship, since I am a big fan of Pixar and have never seen any thing referencing this.
And I think that Steve typically crucifies anyone working for him that is not using an Apple Computer.
Actually, I think you'd be surprised. The last I heard, Pixar used quite an assortment of computers, but maybe someone else knows more about the specifics of it than I do. I'm sure Jobs would LIKE to use Macs for everything at Pixar, but he's enough of a businessman to use the tools that get the job done, just as Apple is pragmatic enough to use non-Apple computers for some internal needs.
Also, you might be interested to know that before he came back to Apple, there was a time when Jobs was using an IBM ThinkPad instead of a Mac. (If I remember correctly, that came from an article in Wired magazine, but it's been awhile, so I could be wrong.)
David
Steve Jobs is Apple. And I was just curious about the relationship, since I am a big fan of Pixar and have never seen any thing referencing this.
And I think that Steve typically crucifies anyone working for him that is not using an Apple Computer.
(Sorry about the repost, missed Submit and hit post anan... didn't pay attention)
People are overlooking that GWL is building a brand new facility in San Francisco's Presido, which when completed (approx 2008) will house all his businesses, with the exception of Skywalker Sound (still at Skywalker Ranch) and LucasFilm, which is housed at a new facility just up the road from Skywalker Ranch. With all of his production busineses in one place, why have redundant HR or IT departments? Think of the benefits of having all your expertise centered in one spot, where they can easily advise and coordinate with each other.
GWL's a smart guy, and deserves the success he's achieved. I've worked for GWL, and let me tell you, it doesn't suck. Skywalker Ranch and Big Rock ranch are beautiful examples of what a work space can be. He puts his money where his mouth his, and when things goes well, he reaps the reward, and when things don't work out, he pays the tab.
They use a lot of stuff from Sun Microsystems.
Steve Jobs doesn't run Pixar the way he runs Apple.
And, in typical fashion, George Lucas takes credit for starting Pixar and then selling it to Steve Jobs.
IIRC, what really happened was that, in the early 1980s, all the people in the then-small ILM computer graphics department wanted to do full-length animated films using computer animation. Lucas, on the other hand, wanted ILM's CG department to supplement ILM's business as a VFX company for traditional films. They were able to reach an agreement where the guys in ILM's CG department would get to go out on their own, and in return they would hire and train their replacements, as well as giving ILM continued access to whatever technology they developed. Thus Pixar was formed.
In 1986(?), Steve Jobs acquired a controlling interest in the newly formed company. However, Pixar is John Lasseter's baby, and would most likely not have become so successful were it not for him.
On a side note, Lucas is a revisionist and a bit of a megalomaniac. I think that the new consolidation is an attempt to bring in the "wayward" companies (aka ILM). And while the LucasArts people might be glad about having better access to ILM's resources, I'll bet that the ILM people are none to pleased. I know I'd be pissed.
Yep they use lots of SUN machines for the renderfarm. But probably most of the artist workstations aer (or at least were) SGIs. There was some sort of statement by someone high up at Pixar that they would use Macs, at least in limited roles, when OSX came out. Some people speculated that they might turn the rederfarm to Apple servers but I think it was just a rumor.
Some people speculated that they might turn the rederfarm to Apple servers but I think it was just a rumor.
I doubt they'll do it. IIRC, they get their Sun machines dirt cheap, and in return they put, "Final Rendering on computers provided by Sun Microsystems".
They use Suns for non-rendering stuff too, like file serving, asset management, etc. I remember reading an article where the Pixar guy they interviewed said that they never take any of their old fileservers offline. Lots of VFX companies will just back up and then delete from the file servers anything not related to their current projects, but not Pixar evidently.
I think their reasoning was that by the time one of the file servers becomes obsolete, chances are that whatever is on it is also obsolete. However, they might want to go back and see how they did something in the past, etc., so they keep the old file servers online. The article used to be on Design in Motion, but now I can't find it.
They did it because it would have added a whole unecessary layer to the first hour of the film, slowing the story down and complicating it. Where does he get the parts from? How can he afford the equipment? When does he build them? How does he invent something so sophisticated so quickly?
It would have taken maybe 10 minutes to deal with that, that's a lot of screen time in an action movie.
By being organic, he had all his powers immediately which meant you could go straight into the main plot.
Given the autonomy that ILM has enjoyed when there hasn't been an army of Jar-Jar's to make, it's sad that now it will be under the arm of Lucas. Given his push to keep everything proprietary under tight control (THX, Laser Disc, etc.), this will probably affect the projects that they are able to do.
Sucks, because they've contributed to so many great projects out there, like several of the Star Trek movies. The same thing for LucasArts, I suppose.
just think about it all pieces fits, oon he vill hold the world ransom, when his company buils a gigant laser! And his army of clones attack the world!
"I bet I'll get blamed for this." --Mayor Quimby
Just wait until Lucas get's to the Presidio. .
The Presidio trust looks at Lucas as a cash cow and you can bet they plan to milk him for everything he's worth
Sony Interactive Entertainment is working with LucasArts to make Star Wars Galaxies. I fear the worst.