[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

What they do to Star Wars is inconsequential. The major effects that this deal has are much farther-reaching than "maybe they'll make some bad Star Wars stuff".

They now own ILM, which means ILM and Pixar can both work together to worsen artist conditions without it being collusion. The artistic labor market has taken a major blow.

They have invested $4.05 billion into legacy IP. They will then invest on top of that by producing content within that IP to recoup costs. Since Marvel's valuation is roughly equivalent, we're looking at a major loss of potential cultural capital.

This money could have been used to make:

-20 movies with the budget of Toy Story 3
-25 movies with the budget of Tarzan
-36 movies with the budget of The Lion King
-59 movies with the budget of The Little Mermaid1
-97 movies with the budget of Aladdin
-122 movies with the budget of Fantasia
-187 movies with the budget of Snow White

Budgets adjusted for inflation.

On top of paying $4.05 billion dollars just to own the license, they're going to be occupying top filmmaking talent and an extra ~$200 million per film rehashing an older franchise and turning a blind eye to new creators because they have a $4 billion investment to make pay off for them.

The farther-reaching industry effect of Disney purchasing Marvel and LucasFilm is that the largest focus of one of the handful of companies that determine what we get in terms of cultural capital is in recycling things that have been successful in the past. That's harmful. By comparison, I really don't care if Darth Vader is re-imagined as a teenage boy who tries desperately to win over Padme through making it big as a teen pop sensation, and ultimately uses the Force to pull off rad dance moves in an inspirational finale. I just don't.

You definitely know your research, I'll give you that.