Knee-jerk reaction: It was the end of the world. Another sign of the end-times. Sudden proof in my disbelieving world that the Mayans may have been right.

In case you missed the internet exploding about it, Lucasfilm has been sold to Disney. As if most of your childhood didn’t belong to them already, they now purchase the rest of it in a similar fashion to Marvel and Pixar.

When I first saw the story, I thought of it as another big corporate buyout. I thought of it as a steamroller coming to crush Star Wars into a family-friendly mouse-eared mold and use it as another cash cow. I realized later, however, that this was just my anti-establishment mind reflexively railing at the idea that one of the most important parts of my growing-up geek would be sullied by the big bad D.

After I had some time to think, I remembered that Disney had bought out Marvel not too long ago, a point which I instinctually railed about on this very blog the day it happened.

My point is that I actually had to think to remember that Marvel had been bought by Disney. With the Avengers movie shining so brightly this summer plus the insanity of the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline in the comics, it completely skipped my mind that Uncle Walt somehow had a hand in this. I realized that Marvel has done better under Disney. Marvel will continue to prosper under Disney. Print is dead? Disney ain’t got time for that. They’re going to help Marvel to keep cranking out comics until there won’t be a tree left in the world that hasn’t been pulped and printed with a character’s face.

Hopefully, this means the same for Star Wars. If Marvel taught us anything, it’s that Disney knows what it’s doing as far as preserving a brand. Look at the Muppets, too.

Also, part of the press release was regarding “Episode 7”, something which fans once pined for but had lost faith in ever since the prequels. Again, instantly, I rail against something that shouldn’t happen.

Lucas, in an interview about everything, said that he was going to allow another generation of filmmakers to take on his universe. He claims to have treatments for 7, 8, and 9, but that’s as far as it got. Somehow, I think that with Disney in the room when they go over the script could only result in something purely awesome. I’m not going to go out on a limb and say that 7,8, and 9 will be better than the originals, but, with Lucas wanting to be as hands-off as possible, they at least have a chance of being better than the prequels by a good parsec or two.

Lucas was already sort of wrapped up with Disney due to attractions at their parks, notably Star Tours and the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. This is taking it a bit further. The ball is now in Disney’s court and there are much worse courts in the world. If they take on another Star Wars flick, you can at least be confident that the output will be a very fair product.

Geeks, I call to you in words familiar to us all: Don’t Panic. The future is brighter than you might think.

Keep fighting the good fight.

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