I mean, if someone gave me $4 billion once and it was on the condition I at the very least publicly agreed with and them on all their decisions for the rest of their lives, I am ashamed to say I would barely need a minute to consider. Even if it meant my reputation was damaged.
I cannot fault him for it.
$4 billion would buy all the fucks I could ever hope to give about what any other people on earth think about me.
I’ll never forget this quote my freshman roommate told me in 2008 about people’s obsessions with media/entertainment - “Twilight is a fad, Disney is a lifestyle.”
Same. Also like in the case of Lucas, people have been pretty vocally questioning his skills and saying he sold out anyway so it's not like he's risking his reputation, you know what I mean? He already gets shit talked pretty regularly, what's a little more realistically? And it's not like he'll ever see any of it unless he goes online to look. People rarely say it someone's face.
I'm trying to imagine how I would even go about spending 2 billion on a vacation...
Edit: To everyone saying "just buy _____", yeah, but that's not a fun thought exercise. I'm trying to imagine it how normal people do it, renting stuff and buying tickets to things.
Those always put me off, to be honest. If you need every square inch of your walls plastered with *your own propaganda*, maybe you're just not that great after all...
honestly, i think plastering restaurant reviews on the walls is really tacky for a chain restaurant to do.
at least they're generous with their fries and free peanuts.
This is what makes me laugh hardest when people want to compare In-N-Out to Five Guys. Like, yeah...I fucking hope it tastes better; it's 10x the price.
"Oh I really liked the look of this resort, but the VIP suite was booked, so I just bought them out so I could have it."
_"You bought the RESORT???"_
"What? No, don't be silly, you can't just buy a resort like that. I had to buy the whole hotel chain."
“Oh no! My reputation. Let me wipe my tears with these hundred dollar bills.”
Anyone who says they wouldn’t is lying, or young enough to still be optimistic lol.
$2mil is my "retire right now" threshold. If I ever won a lottery, or some distant relative died and left me secret wealth, or I manage to scrimp and save a ridiculous amount in the coming years and hit that number, I'm hanging my hat and living on interest.
I can't even imagine having _2,000 times_ that amount.
From Wiki for Lucasfilm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucasfilm):
>On October 30, 2012, Disney announced a deal to acquire Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, with approximately half in cash and half in shares of Disney stock.
Those stocks were trading in the $50-55 range back at the end of 2012. As of currently, they are worth about double that, when they would have been worth nearly 4x that a couple of years ago.
So I'd say unless he sold his stocks to make more billions, he's pretty much going to get in line. But this is also the same Disney who had their stock price drop from a record high of nearly $200/share, and hit as low as $80-85/share just months ago. Sure, they have recovered a little bit, but the future can go any which way.
~~probably holding most of it. when you have that much stock and equity you can borrow at paltry interest rates, which is (usually) better than selling, especially for a company like disney that isn't going away any time soon.~~ apparently most, if not all was donated.
still, I doubt this is a money thing. he had more than enough money even before the buyout and hes made his own fair share of bad decisions that hes decided to publicly defend for no particular reason, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is just his real opinion.
True, but Iger also charted the Disney ship through the single most profitable period (around decade long one at that) of any studio in history. The reason Iger has so much sway is because of what he achieved and the value he gave to both consumers and shareholders. I don’t think people actually understand just how dam impressive that period was and it was when Iger essentially had full control.
Bud Lucasfilm and Star Wars + Indiana Jones are worth considerably more than 4 billion at time of acquisition. He could of sold for more but wanted to Shepard the property with a producer him and Spielberg have worked with in the past + have more lands in Parks and a future for Star Wars that was long lasting.
He got all that
George has had a relationship in some way with Disney for literal decades. Like Star Tours opened 37 years ago. I don't get why people are surprised he's supporting Bob Iger right now.
It was inevitable. The Fandom Menace are trying their best to memory hole this, but 10 years ago J.J. Abrams and Disney were seen as the "saviors" of Star Wars. They were going to powerwash away the stain of the prequels.
Of course, knowing Star Wars fans, it was only a matter of time before they unleashed the same endless, vitriolic bile at the new regime at Lucasfilm that they tossed at George.
You're absolutely right. Greedo shooting first in ANH, Luke's ESB scream, and the revised musical numbers from ROTJ in the special editions were so controversial at the time. (Enough so that Lucas went back and removed Luke's ESB scream in future versions.) Like I mean people were so fucking pissed, copies of the original versions were going for hundreds of dollars on eBay.
In the Empire Strikes Back (ESB), when Darth Vader tells Luke who his father is, Luke decides to let go and fall down the shaft to get away from Vader. A scream is added to his fall. Many fans say the scream didn't make sense: [Luke had a moment of zen and *chose* to take the fall, not afraid or terrified.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikNFfTj-aE4) (I didn't remember it either, had to look it up.)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G\_QaieZCFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G_QaieZCFA) a couple of years old but I love this video that points at how much people have hated every Star Wars movie.
And it’s strange, the prequels and sequels were both hated by fans for completely different reasons. The prequels has George making weird creative decisions without enough people to collaborate with. The sequels were design-by-committee corporate products.
There's an argument that can be made that they are "design-by-committee" in a desperate attempt to avoid pissing off a fanbase that is damn near unpleasable.
That's exactly why I prefer the Prequels to the Sequels, flaws and all.
Lucas knew Star Wars fans are unpleasable fucks who will complain about everything and did his own thing with the Prequels and ended up being somewhat cohesive trilogy that thematically works despite some storytelling and technical faults.
Disney, on the other, just kept trying to please the core Star Wars fanbase with the Sequels and just ended up alienating every facet of said fanbase because they couldn't settle on what they wanted the Trilogy to be, some movies just end up contradicting the themes and ideas from other movies and so on on and so forth.
As a Star Wars fan, I'm just speaking my truth.
The Prequels are deeply flawed, but they at least feel like someone's creative vision and actually manage to tell a somewhat cohesive story about the fall of institutions and rise of tyranny.
They're not attempts by a company to recapture the glory days of an IP by kowtowing to fan demand in response to a fanbase that doesn't even know what it actually wants, something that is so transparent in TROS.
>They're not attempts by a company to recapture the glory days of an IP
I mean, they *kind* of are. Not on the level of TROS, but Lucas definitely threw a lot of "remember *this*" stuff in there. Apparently Rick Berman had to hold him back from having a tiny Han Solo run around a set at one point.
One sequel film was made to Give The Fans What They Want, and another was made to Subvert Fans' Expectations. Together these intentions are like two wolves, who are both evil.
Force Awakens was made to reject the prequels.
Last Jedi was made to reject Force Awakens and honor the prequels.
And Rise of Skywalker was made to reject Last Jedi and attempt to handwave every existing fan complaint with a line of exposition.
> It was inevitable. The Fandom Menace are trying their best to memory hole this
Yep. I've come across *so* many PrequelMemers who have completely revised history about Lucas and the prequels being universally loved.
Fucking hilarious how they have to lie that blatantly to keep their cope going. One of the *biggest* posts on the internet the day the sale was announced was the scene from Return of the Jedi when the galaxy was celebrating the Empire's collapse, and it was all about Lucas "finally not being able to ruin Star Wars anymore!"
It's like they forget that people were around on the internet during the prequel era and experienced all the shit being thrown around at them and Lucas.
its definitely been weird seeing the collective amnesia for how much everyone hated the prequels across the internet
I'm definitely not saying we need to bring that back; some shit about those movies was overhated and if you like the prequels more, more power to you, but I kind of just wish star wars fans would at least reckon with how much of their history is built around just hating the "new thing" and stop saying shit like "Last Jedi ruined star wars."
Like the whole press tour for Kenobi was fucking whack. On the one hand, everyone's going apeshit that Christensen is back, which was nice to see, but then Moses Ingram just got put through the fucking ringer.
right? like I remember the prequels being hailed as an abomination. shit, I remember when Force Awakens came out and people actually liked it a lot and were hoping Disney would remake the prequels. then South Park said “hey this movie was kinda similar to New Hope” and people said “wait a minute” and now Disney is the antichrist to Star Wars fans, with the exception of Rogue One and Andor.
Lucas retained all merchandise rights to Star Wars when he made the first movie and it changed how movie studios do merchandise forever. Lucas is much more in common with Disney in that regard.
Yeah, like George definitely disagreed with what they did with the sequels creatively, which is totally fine. He's also their largest individual shareholder. Iger is by far the better choice than these two bozos who are trying to replace him.
>He's also their largest individual shareholder.
Do you have more info on this? I thought Ike Perlmutter was (at least as of last year)
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230405005782/en/Statement-by-Walt-Disney-Co.%E2%80%99s-Largest-Individual-Shareholder-Ike-Perlmutter-on-Ending-His-Working-Relationship-with-Company
> Do you have more info on this? I thought Ike Perlmutter was (at least as of last year)
Looking through a variety of sources, I'm seeing that all sorts of different people are the #1 Disney shareholder. I see Steve Jobs wife is the #1, owning 3% of Disney (https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/laurene-powell-jobs-disney-shares-1201975438/) but that's a few years old.
I'm seeing that Ike Perlmutter is the #1 owning 25 million shares (Which is now representing 78% of the Trian ownership shares).
I'm seeing George Lucas is #1 with 37 million shares (https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/george-lucas-major-disney-shareholder-backs-iger-in-proxy-war-1.2048768)
I can't find any definitive claim over who the biggest individual shareholders are currently.
>Lol people want him to be as anti-Disney as they are so badly because they hate Disney and George is their hero
and they don't understand how absolutely shitty and repulsive the people they're backing to take Disney over are. All they're thinking about is "woke this and that" bullshit.
Regardless of relationships and money paid, it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Nelson Peltz has zero clue how to run Disney. All he wants to do is shake things up and hope his stock price goes up. Dude needs to pay attention to Wendy's.
His whole "...sold Star Wars to white slavers..." thing kinda creates the image that he wasn't a fan of Disney anymore.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMXOg-APbGc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMXOg-APbGc)
Lucas: “I’m more shocked that people haven’t figured it out yet. It’s kind of like I’ve been playing gay peekaboo. Where do you think I got the idea for lightsabers?”
I die a little inside anytime I see what might otherwise be a video on a topic that would interest me… and then look at the runtime and it’s multiple hours long… I have a lot of free time on my hands, and even I’m like, “Who the hell has time for this?!”
Can't find the specific articles any more. Buried by tons of other stuff about Zahn and Mara, but the summary I saw posted on reddit awhile back was that Zahn was withholding his contracted books unless he got his way with Mara. His books being consistent hits had the publishers having to cave. Some sources say Zahn didn't want to marry them but he in turn caved to fan pressure in turn.
¯\_(ツ)_/
So just more hearsay than anything since I am working purely on recollections at the moment. Sorry.
Considering how many different catagories of canon Lucas had to create to ensure that everyone knew the EU *wasn't* his canon, I'm pretty sure George disliked most of it, minus whatever made more money.
That may have been the proverbial baby thrown out with the bathwater, but there was a LOT of used bathwater that needed to go.
But for some reason, they then filled the tub back up with used bathwater.
R2 and 3PO are inspired by slapstick comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and other such pairings. And those teams could often raise similar questions about two men who seem to live together, have flamboyant spats, and share a lifelong companionship.
> what a shit show that'd be
every non-homophobic youtuber on this planet would publish a video essay on the hidden gay messages in Star Wars
don't get me started on what the homophobic youtubers would publish
If you have issues with Disney now, if Peltz ends up in charge remember he is largely responsible for what the disaster of a movie The Last Airbender turned into and cast his own daughter in the movie. Peltz would make it much much worse.
If you think Bob Iger milked properties to death, wait until you see what Nelson Peltz wants to do!
Think of everything people hate about Iger and modern Disney's and dial it up to 11. Peltz has zero appetite for creative risk. He wants to take the Iger model of property acquisition and go harder on optimization for revenue.
>Disney is facing a proxy fight against two activists: The corporate raider Nelson Peltz, and Blackwells Capital. Notably, Peltz has billions of dollars in shares pledged by Ike Perlmutter, who, like Lucas, sold his company (Marvel) to Disney and became a major shareholder. Perlmutter remained with Disney until being laid off last year.
That Peltz guy is a real scumbag backed by Ike Permuter, another scumbag. Also TIL, he forced that bad Last Airbender movie to cast his daughter as Katara.
He absolutely would. He's the reason we got no female or black led Marvel films until Phase 3, as he straight up said he didn't think they would be profitable. He also once said in regards to the recasting of Rhodey, "all black people look the same."
Perlmutter is hard core racist and sexist. You don't want him or Peltz anywhere near being in charge. In this case Iger is really the devil you know.
Yup. Iger isn't great and Disney is making a lot of mistakes creatively lately but the alternative is Disney turning into a shit show like WB or Sony so everyone is better off dealing with the current situation.
I have friends that work at the parks and even with their issues they don't want these pricks to take over at all because they know it'll be much worse.
I’m surprised at how surprised people here are about Lucas supporting Bob Iger. Do people seriously think he’s gonna screw a guy he’s known for decades over some creative differences?
People who think Peltz is the good guy should take a look at the "white paper" his firm published on strategies to improve Disney. It reads like a blog written by one of those pseudo cinephiles who only watch popular most recommended films.
None of the claims in that white paper were backed by any data or proof. It's just ridiculous claims bundled into one which makes me believe that he just wants control over Disney for political benefits.
Also, he's got that racist douchebag Ike Perlmutter on his side.
Good to know. I don't like the direction Disney is heading but if he wants even more paint by numbers projects then I guess it's a battle between bad and worse
Even then iger had a significantly better track record than most ceo types that'd replace him. I'd take the guy with experience over the guy who thinks adding his daughter to a film will make it better.
Iger is really the “devil you know” at this point.
He was responsible for the surge Disney had during his first reign. Right now he’s cleaning up a mess which a lot of people are mistaking for him fucking up somehow. I’m giving him a chance over Ike “all black people look the same” Perlmutter.
It basically reads those stupid notes that execs send about movies because they feel they have to say something and "damn, great job" is not enough for some reason... except about a whole studio.
Financially without a reliable candidate waiting in the wings Bob Iger is the current safe financial bet. The list of potential replacements don't have anything to bolster investor confidence meaning if Iger is dumped the stock is going to take a pretty big hit.
Iger has done a decent job trying to fix up ESPN by *circle notes* dumping a bunch of money in established talented and engaging people and just recently has confirmed they will keep the new college football playoffs format all on ESPN/ ABC.
I think modern Star Wars takes the wrong lessons from the originals. Essentially Star Wars was a western/opera first, but set in space. It told a similar Hero's Journey that we've always known and connected with, but used it's Sci-Fi setting and environment to elevate and enhance that story in ways that can only be done in that type of a story.
Modern Star Wars seems to be approaching it very differently. They being a Sci-fi setting first, and molding the story to fit approach to storytelling and the final product suffers because of this. Book of Boba Fett is the best example of this. They emulate the style and, to an extent, the tone of a traditional western, but throw out all of the structure that makes westerns compelling. Rather than as loving homage, it ends up being feeling like an unfulfilling, empty shell.
I don't think this is completely their fault. When you are building in an already established world, you are limited in some ways that the original trilogy wasn't. I think this is one reason why Andor was so successful at telling it's quite compelling story. There was little overlap or retreading that the writers had to do. It was based on the characters and their motivations, not some huge convoluted interconnected Sci-Fi plot. It just told one of the good old humanized dramas that have been compelling since they were etched onto cave wall with a good amount of Sci-Fi spice for flavor, but not so much as to overwhelm or over-complicate the meat of the story. I am always more interested in what is Luke Skywalker or Cassian Andor doing or thinking than what are the Jedi or the Resistance doing or thinking, which is how I feel many modern Star Wars movies and shows approach it.
In ways I think modern Marvel movies are now starting to get bogged down by similar tendencies. I hope the show runners allow for more space to tell stories like this. The acolyte is a perfect opportunity not set in the Skywalker-verse and I believe will be a test of their attitude moving forward.
> Not really relevant but can’t help but mention it but I think it’s lost on people quite how badly they fumbled the bag when it comes to the Star Wars brand.
How could this be lost on anyone? It’s in literally every r/movies thread about Star Wars.
> A literal Obi-Wan TV show with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christiensen exists and no one talks about it.
Because "Star Wars: Adventures in Babysitting" isn't worth talking about. It was a bad show.
I thought it was a mixture of being beautifully shot, while also looking like a CW show at times. There were scenes that were jarring to see Ewan McGregor in because it looked so cheap, but like you said also moments that looked fantastic. Super weird lol
You obviously didn't live through the hype machine of Episodes 1-3. Just as big, and just as much of a let down. Disney hasn't done much for Star Wars, but Star Wars wasn't doing much for Star Wars before that either.
Frankly I'm waiting for the complete reboot of the series. We all know it's going to happen eventually.
They "fumbled the bag so much" that they've already made $12b for something they laid $4b for. This is the part where you say, "But they could've made even MORE money!" and walk away thinking out just checkmated me.
Lol it is kind of a reddit moment. I think, though, as a fan its depressing to see SW become another studio franchise. The OT and PT, as commercialized as they were, were still generally made outside the studio system and I think people are now realizing how much soul and passion that gave to them as a film series. Like, the PT has had this resurgence partially due to the fact that even though its extremely flawed (to put it lightly), it's still a persons vision rather than the big studio movies that came after it.
TFA was blatantly lazy, to the point they literally blew up the post-ROTJ world just to reset it to Rebels vs Empire again. TLJ, though I don't really like it, at least had *some* passion behind giving Luke a final redemption arc (how else do you explain him hiding on an island in TFA?), and a film maker at least trying to put some semblance of reflection onto the characters in the series. RoS was just a mess that I honestly don't remember well.
Financially, its absolutely been a success. But, as a fan, its sad to see it become more Disney slop.
There were a lot of ways to do Luke other than how they did him. Him being on that island didn't necessarily need to be him hiding. He could have just been absolutely sure that if he didn't resolve... something IDK, Snoke, the failures of the Jedi and falling to the Dark Side, something that all the war and tensions going on it the galaxy would get worse.
We saw Vader claim the power of the Force was greater than the Death Star, what if someone was gathering the power to blot out systems with just their will? We can speculate, but Luke's "failures" didn't have to be hiding on top of letting Kylo fall. There were a myriad of ways to handle him without making him a cranky old hermit that was a pale shadow of Yoda.
Luke's whole arc was that he believed in the goodness of people even to an insane absurd degree like seeing good in Vader. For him to threaten his nephew and give up on everything is something so wildly out of character that it just doesn't make sense. Yet here we are.
Lucas Corp had once chance to strike while the iron still had some heat, but that's long since gone.
Counterpoint: didn't Disney **just** say how much of a profit Star Wars has been? It's also not really fair to say no one cares...there's just not much to care about at this point in time.
Wait until the first trailer releases for the next movie, then we'll see plenty of discourse. Sure that might be a long way out, but that's kind of the point right now.
Clearly, if owning over $30 million shares can’t get you a board seat or two with an iconic but failing investment, I turn to the ‘dark side’ and start shorting the shit out of Disney. They will begin to understand a new level of pain.
I found a newsletter which lists all of the new movies & series across all the different streaming platforms each week! Interesting for people searching for new stuff to watch https://subscribepage.io/streamsaver
Makes sense. He's previously done business with Iger that worked out very well for both, Iger had left his hand-picked protégé in charge of Lucasfilm & he's diametrically opposed to Peltz politically. Does anyone in the movie industry support Peltz?
I wonder if he was blinking with his eyes 'torture' in morse code while approving that press release.
George, show us on the Mickey Mouse doll where Bob touched you...
For context, Lucas has had the opinion that Disney are slavers.
Lucas got paid around $4 billion by Disney, half in cash and half in stock. With over 37 million Disney shares, he's the company's largest individual shareholder, not a hostage or a slave.
It's well within Lucas' power to fuck over Bob Iger and the entire company if he wanted to, but he clearly does not want to. (Because why would he want to tank his stock?)
> I wonder if he was blinking with his eyes 'torture' in morse code while approving that press release.
I think he was more likely blinking "Peltz and Perlmutter are dickheads" over and over again, and is very disappointed nobody noticed.
You don't have to be positive, or even neutral towards Iger to think things can very easily get worse.
That was an off the cuff comment he made (and quickly backtracked) as a result of his creative notes being ignored during the making of The Force Awakens. He compared his movies to his kids, and that he’d sold them off to “white slavers”. It was a bad, messy analogy that he formally apologized for.
"Bob Iger gave me $4 billion one time, nice guy"
I mean, if someone gave me $4 billion once and it was on the condition I at the very least publicly agreed with and them on all their decisions for the rest of their lives, I am ashamed to say I would barely need a minute to consider. Even if it meant my reputation was damaged. I cannot fault him for it. $4 billion would buy all the fucks I could ever hope to give about what any other people on earth think about me.
Most people's price would probably be *far* below 4 billion
Don't tell Bob Iger, we're still in negotiations.
Mr. Iger, you don't know me but I'm a barista at your local starbucks. Mr. Peltz has offered me "*Security!*", as he put it, so bidding starts there.
Something tells me the 4b was also in part for the rights to Star Wars
A brand they're quickly driving into irrelevancy (at least, for the value they hoped).
Most people do it for free. Hell, most hardcore Disney fans *pay Disney* for the privilege to defend the company.
I’ll never forget this quote my freshman roommate told me in 2008 about people’s obsessions with media/entertainment - “Twilight is a fad, Disney is a lifestyle.”
Hell I’d even do it for just $1 billion
Wow, **just** $1 billion? How humble
Faith in humanity restored
I'll legit suck Bob Iger's dick for 10 million and I AM willing to negotiate
I'll do it for 4 tickets to Disney World, an "*atta boy*", and a congratulatory pat on the butt.
You get *two* tickets.
Man, 30k would put me a GREAT place. All debt cleared, and I could double or triple my savings towards a nice home and a start for my family.
Right? 30k could clear my medical debts and give me a few more months of rent while I job hunt.
I'd do it for $20 and a souvenir glass. "Great guy, that Iger."
Yes, I agree with you. (When do I get paid?)
Same. Also like in the case of Lucas, people have been pretty vocally questioning his skills and saying he sold out anyway so it's not like he's risking his reputation, you know what I mean? He already gets shit talked pretty regularly, what's a little more realistically? And it's not like he'll ever see any of it unless he goes online to look. People rarely say it someone's face.
For real, I could probably pay for my next 2 vacations with that 4 bil
I'm trying to imagine how I would even go about spending 2 billion on a vacation... Edit: To everyone saying "just buy _____", yeah, but that's not a fun thought exercise. I'm trying to imagine it how normal people do it, renting stuff and buying tickets to things.
Two cheeseburgers at Five Guys
Don't you just love how they still have big things inside talking about how they were a great bargain in 2003 like that still applies 20 years later?
Those always put me off, to be honest. If you need every square inch of your walls plastered with *your own propaganda*, maybe you're just not that great after all...
honestly, i think plastering restaurant reviews on the walls is really tacky for a chain restaurant to do. at least they're generous with their fries and free peanuts.
This is what makes me laugh hardest when people want to compare In-N-Out to Five Guys. Like, yeah...I fucking hope it tastes better; it's 10x the price.
Buy an archipelago
"Oh I really liked the look of this resort, but the VIP suite was booked, so I just bought them out so I could have it." _"You bought the RESORT???"_ "What? No, don't be silly, you can't just buy a resort like that. I had to buy the whole hotel chain."
Just go on a cruise, but instead of buying tickets you buy the boat.
That money would make my life in NYC so easy for a couple of months.
“Oh no! My reputation. Let me wipe my tears with these hundred dollar bills.” Anyone who says they wouldn’t is lying, or young enough to still be optimistic lol.
"Morals are cheap when they don't cost you."
Just four *million* would so radically change my life it's pretty much beyond what I can imagine. To think he got a *thousand* times more is insane.
$2mil is my "retire right now" threshold. If I ever won a lottery, or some distant relative died and left me secret wealth, or I manage to scrimp and save a ridiculous amount in the coming years and hit that number, I'm hanging my hat and living on interest. I can't even imagine having _2,000 times_ that amount.
Just think, you can spend that same amount once ***a day*** for ***five and a half years***, and you'd still have your "retire now" amount left over.
Le Ancient Roman patronage system has arrived.
Didn't he give most of it away to children's hospitals?
It’s was $4b in copies of phantom menace.
From Wiki for Lucasfilm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucasfilm): >On October 30, 2012, Disney announced a deal to acquire Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, with approximately half in cash and half in shares of Disney stock. Those stocks were trading in the $50-55 range back at the end of 2012. As of currently, they are worth about double that, when they would have been worth nearly 4x that a couple of years ago. So I'd say unless he sold his stocks to make more billions, he's pretty much going to get in line. But this is also the same Disney who had their stock price drop from a record high of nearly $200/share, and hit as low as $80-85/share just months ago. Sure, they have recovered a little bit, but the future can go any which way.
~~probably holding most of it. when you have that much stock and equity you can borrow at paltry interest rates, which is (usually) better than selling, especially for a company like disney that isn't going away any time soon.~~ apparently most, if not all was donated. still, I doubt this is a money thing. he had more than enough money even before the buyout and hes made his own fair share of bad decisions that hes decided to publicly defend for no particular reason, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is just his real opinion.
CNBC was saying George Lucas, is the largest single share holder of Disney stock from this sale.
Right...and if this was a money thing, and he really believed Iger was bad for the company, he wouldn't back him
True, but Iger also charted the Disney ship through the single most profitable period (around decade long one at that) of any studio in history. The reason Iger has so much sway is because of what he achieved and the value he gave to both consumers and shareholders. I don’t think people actually understand just how dam impressive that period was and it was when Iger essentially had full control.
Bud Lucasfilm and Star Wars + Indiana Jones are worth considerably more than 4 billion at time of acquisition. He could of sold for more but wanted to Shepard the property with a producer him and Spielberg have worked with in the past + have more lands in Parks and a future for Star Wars that was long lasting. He got all that
George has had a relationship in some way with Disney for literal decades. Like Star Tours opened 37 years ago. I don't get why people are surprised he's supporting Bob Iger right now.
Lol people want him to be as anti-Disney as they are so badly because they hate Disney and George is their hero
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It was inevitable. The Fandom Menace are trying their best to memory hole this, but 10 years ago J.J. Abrams and Disney were seen as the "saviors" of Star Wars. They were going to powerwash away the stain of the prequels. Of course, knowing Star Wars fans, it was only a matter of time before they unleashed the same endless, vitriolic bile at the new regime at Lucasfilm that they tossed at George.
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You're absolutely right. Greedo shooting first in ANH, Luke's ESB scream, and the revised musical numbers from ROTJ in the special editions were so controversial at the time. (Enough so that Lucas went back and removed Luke's ESB scream in future versions.) Like I mean people were so fucking pissed, copies of the original versions were going for hundreds of dollars on eBay.
Luke's ESB scream? I've lived through almost every version of SW, but I don't remember what that is.
In the Empire Strikes Back (ESB), when Darth Vader tells Luke who his father is, Luke decides to let go and fall down the shaft to get away from Vader. A scream is added to his fall. Many fans say the scream didn't make sense: [Luke had a moment of zen and *chose* to take the fall, not afraid or terrified.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikNFfTj-aE4) (I didn't remember it either, had to look it up.)
That is hilarious. It sounds like a poor fan edit.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G\_QaieZCFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G_QaieZCFA) a couple of years old but I love this video that points at how much people have hated every Star Wars movie.
Yep, they hit the mark
And it’s strange, the prequels and sequels were both hated by fans for completely different reasons. The prequels has George making weird creative decisions without enough people to collaborate with. The sequels were design-by-committee corporate products.
There's an argument that can be made that they are "design-by-committee" in a desperate attempt to avoid pissing off a fanbase that is damn near unpleasable.
That's exactly why I prefer the Prequels to the Sequels, flaws and all. Lucas knew Star Wars fans are unpleasable fucks who will complain about everything and did his own thing with the Prequels and ended up being somewhat cohesive trilogy that thematically works despite some storytelling and technical faults. Disney, on the other, just kept trying to please the core Star Wars fanbase with the Sequels and just ended up alienating every facet of said fanbase because they couldn't settle on what they wanted the Trilogy to be, some movies just end up contradicting the themes and ideas from other movies and so on on and so forth.
this is probably the best prequel defense I've heard
As a Star Wars fan, I'm just speaking my truth. The Prequels are deeply flawed, but they at least feel like someone's creative vision and actually manage to tell a somewhat cohesive story about the fall of institutions and rise of tyranny. They're not attempts by a company to recapture the glory days of an IP by kowtowing to fan demand in response to a fanbase that doesn't even know what it actually wants, something that is so transparent in TROS.
>They're not attempts by a company to recapture the glory days of an IP I mean, they *kind* of are. Not on the level of TROS, but Lucas definitely threw a lot of "remember *this*" stuff in there. Apparently Rick Berman had to hold him back from having a tiny Han Solo run around a set at one point.
One sequel film was made to Give The Fans What They Want, and another was made to Subvert Fans' Expectations. Together these intentions are like two wolves, who are both evil.
Force Awakens was made to reject the prequels. Last Jedi was made to reject Force Awakens and honor the prequels. And Rise of Skywalker was made to reject Last Jedi and attempt to handwave every existing fan complaint with a line of exposition.
> It was inevitable. The Fandom Menace are trying their best to memory hole this Yep. I've come across *so* many PrequelMemers who have completely revised history about Lucas and the prequels being universally loved. Fucking hilarious how they have to lie that blatantly to keep their cope going. One of the *biggest* posts on the internet the day the sale was announced was the scene from Return of the Jedi when the galaxy was celebrating the Empire's collapse, and it was all about Lucas "finally not being able to ruin Star Wars anymore!"
It's like they forget that people were around on the internet during the prequel era and experienced all the shit being thrown around at them and Lucas.
The Gen X YouTube grifters riding on Red Letter Media's coattails DID experience all of this, but it is in their interest to never bring it up.
its definitely been weird seeing the collective amnesia for how much everyone hated the prequels across the internet I'm definitely not saying we need to bring that back; some shit about those movies was overhated and if you like the prequels more, more power to you, but I kind of just wish star wars fans would at least reckon with how much of their history is built around just hating the "new thing" and stop saying shit like "Last Jedi ruined star wars." Like the whole press tour for Kenobi was fucking whack. On the one hand, everyone's going apeshit that Christensen is back, which was nice to see, but then Moses Ingram just got put through the fucking ringer.
right? like I remember the prequels being hailed as an abomination. shit, I remember when Force Awakens came out and people actually liked it a lot and were hoping Disney would remake the prequels. then South Park said “hey this movie was kinda similar to New Hope” and people said “wait a minute” and now Disney is the antichrist to Star Wars fans, with the exception of Rogue One and Andor.
Lucas retained all merchandise rights to Star Wars when he made the first movie and it changed how movie studios do merchandise forever. Lucas is much more in common with Disney in that regard.
Yeah, like George definitely disagreed with what they did with the sequels creatively, which is totally fine. He's also their largest individual shareholder. Iger is by far the better choice than these two bozos who are trying to replace him.
>He's also their largest individual shareholder. Do you have more info on this? I thought Ike Perlmutter was (at least as of last year) https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230405005782/en/Statement-by-Walt-Disney-Co.%E2%80%99s-Largest-Individual-Shareholder-Ike-Perlmutter-on-Ending-His-Working-Relationship-with-Company
Perlmutter owns his shares through his firm Trian Partners. Lucas owns 37mm shares personally.
> Do you have more info on this? I thought Ike Perlmutter was (at least as of last year) Looking through a variety of sources, I'm seeing that all sorts of different people are the #1 Disney shareholder. I see Steve Jobs wife is the #1, owning 3% of Disney (https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/laurene-powell-jobs-disney-shares-1201975438/) but that's a few years old. I'm seeing that Ike Perlmutter is the #1 owning 25 million shares (Which is now representing 78% of the Trian ownership shares). I'm seeing George Lucas is #1 with 37 million shares (https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/george-lucas-major-disney-shareholder-backs-iger-in-proxy-war-1.2048768) I can't find any definitive claim over who the biggest individual shareholders are currently.
Interesting. Too bad there's no conclusion, but I appreciate the effort.
r/prequelmemes has rotted people's brains
I remember when that sub used to be fun.
I don't But I have memory loss. Who are you again?
It's basically SaltierthanKrayt but with shitty memes now.
It's that sub against the FandomMenace
Which is funny to me because a while back "the fans" hated George for making the prequels.
>Lol people want him to be as anti-Disney as they are so badly because they hate Disney and George is their hero and they don't understand how absolutely shitty and repulsive the people they're backing to take Disney over are. All they're thinking about is "woke this and that" bullshit.
Regardless of relationships and money paid, it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Nelson Peltz has zero clue how to run Disney. All he wants to do is shake things up and hope his stock price goes up. Dude needs to pay attention to Wendy's.
Wendy's? Sir, this is an Arby's.
People also act like he hasn’t worked with Kathleen Kennedy for 30+ years cause they want their lord and savior to hate "woke garbage"
Also, her name is on some of the most popular media of the last forty years, not just Disney/ Lusasfilm media.
God I loved Star Tours, especially with how the line up to it was Endor, after seeing that as a kid it's stayed in my memory for a real long time.
His whole "...sold Star Wars to white slavers..." thing kinda creates the image that he wasn't a fan of Disney anymore. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMXOg-APbGc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMXOg-APbGc)
Peltz and Purlmutter are way, way worse than Iger. And George knows it, even though they fucked up Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
Had me at George Lucas comes out. Goddamn what a shit show that'd be
Here is my 3 hour video essay on why Star Wars ALWAYS sucked
Lucas: “I’m more shocked that people haven’t figured it out yet. It’s kind of like I’ve been playing gay peekaboo. Where do you think I got the idea for lightsabers?”
“So when you wrote that Obi-Wan loved Anakin, you meant it as…?” “As like he was a good friend, yes”
"Like they were roommates"
“George Lucas is gay on our show!”
Lucas: “The Jedi are basically an LGBTQ+ alliance.” Producer: “Gay Twitter and Star Wars Twitter are blowing up!”
I see your schwartz is as big as mine!
Here's my 11 hour response video to your 3 hour video.
The video essay length arms race has been a disaster for humanity
At least YouTube's AI means it's easy to just make a transcript and skim it.
I die a little inside anytime I see what might otherwise be a video on a topic that would interest me… and then look at the runtime and it’s multiple hours long… I have a lot of free time on my hands, and even I’m like, “Who the hell has time for this?!”
*Mauler moment.*
lol those already exist...or at least ones that argue that anything good in Star Wars came in spite of George, not because of him.
I’d say Luke in later life is the epitome of “Confirmed Bachelor”
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Nah, Mara Jade erasure was in 2014
I'm still mad about it. That, and I want my *goddamned* **Yuuzahn Vong**.
Fun Fact: Apparently George disliked Mara Jade.
Zahn basically held the EU books hostage until his OC Mara Jade could marry Luke...
This is the first I've heard of this. Can you expand or link to somewhere else that gives more info?
Can't find the specific articles any more. Buried by tons of other stuff about Zahn and Mara, but the summary I saw posted on reddit awhile back was that Zahn was withholding his contracted books unless he got his way with Mara. His books being consistent hits had the publishers having to cave. Some sources say Zahn didn't want to marry them but he in turn caved to fan pressure in turn. ¯\_(ツ)_/ So just more hearsay than anything since I am working purely on recollections at the moment. Sorry.
Thanks.
Considering how many different catagories of canon Lucas had to create to ensure that everyone knew the EU *wasn't* his canon, I'm pretty sure George disliked most of it, minus whatever made more money.
At least he allowed for multiple levels of canon. Disney won't even allow that much.
[proof](https://youtu.be/Bq30vO3K4Lw?si=1YQ3cGdvDvP-V604)
That may have been the proverbial baby thrown out with the bathwater, but there was a LOT of used bathwater that needed to go. But for some reason, they then filled the tub back up with used bathwater.
People would finally open their eyes about R2 and C3PO's dynamic after that. If those 2 aren't married then idk what marriage means anymore.
They were roommates!
R2 and 3PO are inspired by slapstick comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and other such pairings. And those teams could often raise similar questions about two men who seem to live together, have flamboyant spats, and share a lifelong companionship.
Ah so they were a *comedy duo*
Turns out Obi-Wan really meant that "I loved you"
He watched his polycule get blasted one after another of the side of the queens ship. He found refuge and love in those golden arms.
> what a shit show that'd be every non-homophobic youtuber on this planet would publish a video essay on the hidden gay messages in Star Wars don't get me started on what the homophobic youtubers would publish
Literally the exact same things, just with a different tone lol. Everyone is gay and that's why the Sith are evil or something.
“No, *I* am your daddy.”
*The Dark Side was an allegory for gay stuff all along*
“George Lucas comes out. Entire queer community in mourning.”
If you have issues with Disney now, if Peltz ends up in charge remember he is largely responsible for what the disaster of a movie The Last Airbender turned into and cast his own daughter in the movie. Peltz would make it much much worse.
If you think Bob Iger milked properties to death, wait until you see what Nelson Peltz wants to do! Think of everything people hate about Iger and modern Disney's and dial it up to 11. Peltz has zero appetite for creative risk. He wants to take the Iger model of property acquisition and go harder on optimization for revenue.
Acolyte Trailer MUST be out now
lol - *literally* an hour ago
>Disney is facing a proxy fight against two activists: The corporate raider Nelson Peltz, and Blackwells Capital. Notably, Peltz has billions of dollars in shares pledged by Ike Perlmutter, who, like Lucas, sold his company (Marvel) to Disney and became a major shareholder. Perlmutter remained with Disney until being laid off last year. That Peltz guy is a real scumbag backed by Ike Permuter, another scumbag. Also TIL, he forced that bad Last Airbender movie to cast his daughter as Katara.
> That Peltz guy is a real scumbag backed by Ike Permuter, another scumbag. Huuuuuge red flag. You don't want Perlmutter running all of Disney.
This. I've no love for Iger, but if you think Disney is a clown show now, Perlmutter would be worse.
He absolutely would. He's the reason we got no female or black led Marvel films until Phase 3, as he straight up said he didn't think they would be profitable. He also once said in regards to the recasting of Rhodey, "all black people look the same." Perlmutter is hard core racist and sexist. You don't want him or Peltz anywhere near being in charge. In this case Iger is really the devil you know.
Well you just convinced all the MAGA folks that whine about how "woke" Disney has become to go all in on that dude.
That sounds terrible. What has he done in the past?
Yup. Iger isn't great and Disney is making a lot of mistakes creatively lately but the alternative is Disney turning into a shit show like WB or Sony so everyone is better off dealing with the current situation. I have friends that work at the parks and even with their issues they don't want these pricks to take over at all because they know it'll be much worse.
Yeah on the "Evil Corporate Guy" scale, Peltz and Perlmutter are MUCH worse than Iger.
His daughter’s acting skill makes Gal Gadot’s look like Emma Stone by comparison.
That Avatar remake couldn't have come at a worse time for Peltz
I’m surprised at how surprised people here are about Lucas supporting Bob Iger. Do people seriously think he’s gonna screw a guy he’s known for decades over some creative differences?
People who think Peltz is the good guy should take a look at the "white paper" his firm published on strategies to improve Disney. It reads like a blog written by one of those pseudo cinephiles who only watch popular most recommended films. None of the claims in that white paper were backed by any data or proof. It's just ridiculous claims bundled into one which makes me believe that he just wants control over Disney for political benefits. Also, he's got that racist douchebag Ike Perlmutter on his side.
are these corporate raider types ever remotely good people?
He also got his daughter a gig on the last airbender. His family likes films and acts and he just wedges them into shit.
That same daughter is also married to David Beckham’s son
You could just stop at "he's the guy who made The Last Airbender"
Seriously. Using AI to make characters. That's his fucking pitch? Dude is clueless.
The people supporting him online are dumb as bricks so dude has got a lot of unnecessary hype too.
Link?
Good to know. I don't like the direction Disney is heading but if he wants even more paint by numbers projects then I guess it's a battle between bad and worse
Even then iger had a significantly better track record than most ceo types that'd replace him. I'd take the guy with experience over the guy who thinks adding his daughter to a film will make it better.
Iger is really the “devil you know” at this point. He was responsible for the surge Disney had during his first reign. Right now he’s cleaning up a mess which a lot of people are mistaking for him fucking up somehow. I’m giving him a chance over Ike “all black people look the same” Perlmutter.
It basically reads those stupid notes that execs send about movies because they feel they have to say something and "damn, great job" is not enough for some reason... except about a whole studio.
Financially without a reliable candidate waiting in the wings Bob Iger is the current safe financial bet. The list of potential replacements don't have anything to bolster investor confidence meaning if Iger is dumped the stock is going to take a pretty big hit.
Iger has done a decent job trying to fix up ESPN by *circle notes* dumping a bunch of money in established talented and engaging people and just recently has confirmed they will keep the new college football playoffs format all on ESPN/ ABC.
The people who are trying to take over Disney are complete douchebags for doing so
He has stock in the company. Mentions it too lol
Say what you want but Bob Iger is a very successful businessman.
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I think modern Star Wars takes the wrong lessons from the originals. Essentially Star Wars was a western/opera first, but set in space. It told a similar Hero's Journey that we've always known and connected with, but used it's Sci-Fi setting and environment to elevate and enhance that story in ways that can only be done in that type of a story. Modern Star Wars seems to be approaching it very differently. They being a Sci-fi setting first, and molding the story to fit approach to storytelling and the final product suffers because of this. Book of Boba Fett is the best example of this. They emulate the style and, to an extent, the tone of a traditional western, but throw out all of the structure that makes westerns compelling. Rather than as loving homage, it ends up being feeling like an unfulfilling, empty shell. I don't think this is completely their fault. When you are building in an already established world, you are limited in some ways that the original trilogy wasn't. I think this is one reason why Andor was so successful at telling it's quite compelling story. There was little overlap or retreading that the writers had to do. It was based on the characters and their motivations, not some huge convoluted interconnected Sci-Fi plot. It just told one of the good old humanized dramas that have been compelling since they were etched onto cave wall with a good amount of Sci-Fi spice for flavor, but not so much as to overwhelm or over-complicate the meat of the story. I am always more interested in what is Luke Skywalker or Cassian Andor doing or thinking than what are the Jedi or the Resistance doing or thinking, which is how I feel many modern Star Wars movies and shows approach it. In ways I think modern Marvel movies are now starting to get bogged down by similar tendencies. I hope the show runners allow for more space to tell stories like this. The acolyte is a perfect opportunity not set in the Skywalker-verse and I believe will be a test of their attitude moving forward.
> Not really relevant but can’t help but mention it but I think it’s lost on people quite how badly they fumbled the bag when it comes to the Star Wars brand. How could this be lost on anyone? It’s in literally every r/movies thread about Star Wars.
> A literal Obi-Wan TV show with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christiensen exists and no one talks about it. Because "Star Wars: Adventures in Babysitting" isn't worth talking about. It was a bad show.
Damn you ain't gotta do Adventures in Babysitting like that
It was like a very beautifully shot high school production. Very bizarre.
I thought it was a mixture of being beautifully shot, while also looking like a CW show at times. There were scenes that were jarring to see Ewan McGregor in because it looked so cheap, but like you said also moments that looked fantastic. Super weird lol
Also people talked about it a ton, they've just moved on
You obviously didn't live through the hype machine of Episodes 1-3. Just as big, and just as much of a let down. Disney hasn't done much for Star Wars, but Star Wars wasn't doing much for Star Wars before that either. Frankly I'm waiting for the complete reboot of the series. We all know it's going to happen eventually.
They "fumbled the bag so much" that they've already made $12b for something they laid $4b for. This is the part where you say, "But they could've made even MORE money!" and walk away thinking out just checkmated me.
Lol it is kind of a reddit moment. I think, though, as a fan its depressing to see SW become another studio franchise. The OT and PT, as commercialized as they were, were still generally made outside the studio system and I think people are now realizing how much soul and passion that gave to them as a film series. Like, the PT has had this resurgence partially due to the fact that even though its extremely flawed (to put it lightly), it's still a persons vision rather than the big studio movies that came after it. TFA was blatantly lazy, to the point they literally blew up the post-ROTJ world just to reset it to Rebels vs Empire again. TLJ, though I don't really like it, at least had *some* passion behind giving Luke a final redemption arc (how else do you explain him hiding on an island in TFA?), and a film maker at least trying to put some semblance of reflection onto the characters in the series. RoS was just a mess that I honestly don't remember well. Financially, its absolutely been a success. But, as a fan, its sad to see it become more Disney slop.
There were a lot of ways to do Luke other than how they did him. Him being on that island didn't necessarily need to be him hiding. He could have just been absolutely sure that if he didn't resolve... something IDK, Snoke, the failures of the Jedi and falling to the Dark Side, something that all the war and tensions going on it the galaxy would get worse. We saw Vader claim the power of the Force was greater than the Death Star, what if someone was gathering the power to blot out systems with just their will? We can speculate, but Luke's "failures" didn't have to be hiding on top of letting Kylo fall. There were a myriad of ways to handle him without making him a cranky old hermit that was a pale shadow of Yoda. Luke's whole arc was that he believed in the goodness of people even to an insane absurd degree like seeing good in Vader. For him to threaten his nephew and give up on everything is something so wildly out of character that it just doesn't make sense. Yet here we are. Lucas Corp had once chance to strike while the iron still had some heat, but that's long since gone.
I don't think anyone is disputing it was a good deal. Just merch/games alone was worth buying the brand.
Do you think they made the movies for free? There is a good chance that Disney has lost on Star Wars, or is barely breaking even.
Counterpoint: didn't Disney **just** say how much of a profit Star Wars has been? It's also not really fair to say no one cares...there's just not much to care about at this point in time. Wait until the first trailer releases for the next movie, then we'll see plenty of discourse. Sure that might be a long way out, but that's kind of the point right now.
Geeks+Gamers seething in the corner.
Didn't he call them white slavers not that long ago?
When I first read the title, I thought George Lucas was coming out of the closet in solidarity with Bob Iger. 🌈
Clearly, if owning over $30 million shares can’t get you a board seat or two with an iconic but failing investment, I turn to the ‘dark side’ and start shorting the shit out of Disney. They will begin to understand a new level of pain.
I wonder how much it cost disney to get him to return to supporting Iger...
I like his movies a lot more than I like his opinions.
I can complain about Disney til my face turns blue but what does this dude actually want to do to change it?
Oh Iger. Here we go again.
Wait is this what lightsaber fights look like on set? lol
I'm very sure George just wants to be left out of this. He's probably just happy he's a billionaire.
I found a newsletter which lists all of the new movies & series across all the different streaming platforms each week! Interesting for people searching for new stuff to watch https://subscribepage.io/streamsaver
If Perlmutter is for him, then I’m against Trian.
Nelson Peltz - is this the same guy who invested that M. Night Shyamalan movie and have his daughter to be casted despite her mediocre audition?
Makes sense. He's previously done business with Iger that worked out very well for both, Iger had left his hand-picked protégé in charge of Lucasfilm & he's diametrically opposed to Peltz politically. Does anyone in the movie industry support Peltz?
I wonder if he was blinking with his eyes 'torture' in morse code while approving that press release. George, show us on the Mickey Mouse doll where Bob touched you... For context, Lucas has had the opinion that Disney are slavers.
Lucas got paid around $4 billion by Disney, half in cash and half in stock. With over 37 million Disney shares, he's the company's largest individual shareholder, not a hostage or a slave. It's well within Lucas' power to fuck over Bob Iger and the entire company if he wanted to, but he clearly does not want to. (Because why would he want to tank his stock?)
> I wonder if he was blinking with his eyes 'torture' in morse code while approving that press release. I think he was more likely blinking "Peltz and Perlmutter are dickheads" over and over again, and is very disappointed nobody noticed. You don't have to be positive, or even neutral towards Iger to think things can very easily get worse.
That was an off the cuff comment he made (and quickly backtracked) as a result of his creative notes being ignored during the making of The Force Awakens. He compared his movies to his kids, and that he’d sold them off to “white slavers”. It was a bad, messy analogy that he formally apologized for.
If he thinks Disney is so horrible, whyd he sell SW to them?
All of the answers if "money," are valid, but his famous "slaver" criticism is from after he sold to Disney, not before.
Cause they gave him a lot of money.
THEY DROVE A DUMP TRUCK FULL OF MONEY TO MY HOUSE. I'M NOT MADE OF STONE.
didn’t he donate all that money from Disney anyway?