FrankLapidus Nov 25, 2015

My first thought was "how did they do that?" rather than "2 hour toy advertisment" but there you go. For me it was an early glimpse of a pretty amazing and unique practical effect that normally would just be added digitally after filming but then I don't immediately and fervently think "CASHGRAB!" everytime I see anything to do with Star Wars, particularly now that George "didn't see a future in dead Han toys" Lucas is no longer involved. And this is where I stop taking you seriously. “I could see where things were headed. The toy business began to drive the Lucasfilm] empire. It’s a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It’s natural to make decisions that protect the toy business, but that’s not the best thing for making quality films,” former Lucasfilm insider and producer of the first two "[B]Star Wars" films [B]Gary Kurtz told [URL=' http://herocomplex.latimes.com /movies/star-wars-was-born-a-long-time-ago-but-not-all-that-far-far-away-in-1972-filmmakers-george-lucas-and-gary-kurtz-wer/']Hero Complex[/URL] in 2010. He also said “the first film and ‘Empire’ were about story and character, but I could see that George’s priorities were changing.” “We had an outline and George changed everything in it,” he said. “Instead of bittersweet and poignant, he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principals killed. By that time, there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.”[/I] Yeah...I think you're way off on that one. If there is "animus" it's not because Lucas doesn't like how Iger views the franchise. If anyone, including Bob Iger, thinks that Star Wars is a "toy franchise that happened to make movies", its down to George Lucas and the choices he made when the franchise was his to control.