Leia Organa, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker WILL return for Star Wars

Versteckt auf der letzten Seite eines tollen Bloomberg-Artikels über Disneys Star Wars-Deal bestätigt George Lucas himself, dass Luke, Leia und Han offiziell mit dabei sind und bereits für Episode VII unterschrieben haben. Er rudert dann nochmal ein Stückchen zurück, aber ich denke, den Sack können wir zumachen:

Asked whether members of the original Star Wars cast will appear in Episode VII and if he called them before the deal closed to keep them informed, Lucas says, “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’ ” He pauses. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.” Then he adds: “I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.”

Disney verfügt jetzt auch über Lucasfilms eigene Star Wars-Datenbank, die über 17.000 Charaktere auflistet, verteilt über tausende Planeten in einem Zeitraum von 20.000 Jahren. Wahrscheinlich sowas wie eine Wookiepedia auf Speed.

His company maintained a database called the Holocron, named after a crystal cube powered by the Force. The real-world Holocron lists 17,000 characters in the Star Wars universe inhabiting several thousand planets over a span of more than 20,000 years. It was quite a bit for Disney to process. So Lucas also provided the company with a guide, Pablo Hidalgo. A founding member of the Star Wars Fan Boy Association, Hidalgo is now a “brand communication manager” at Lucasfilm. “The Holocron can be a little overwhelming,” says Hidalgo, who obsesses over canonical matters such as the correct spelling of Wookiee and the definitive list of individuals who met with Yoda while he was hiding in the swamps of Dagobah.

How Disney Bought Lucasfilm—and Its Plans for ‘Star Wars’ (via Daring Fireball)

[update] Wired hatte vor fünf Jahren eine ausführliche Story zum Star Wars Holocron:

Of course, Chee’s Holocron isn’t a Force-sensitive crystal. It’s a FileMaker database, a searchable repository of more than 30,000 entries covering almost every character, planet, and weapon mentioned, however fleetingly, in the vast array of Star Wars titles and products. The Holocron isn’t just for fun—when Lucas Licensing inks a deal with a toy company or a T-shirt designer, it vets those ancillary products to ensure they conform to the spirit and letter of the continuity that has come before and will continue afterward. In the past 31 years, Star Wars movies have grossed in excess of $4 billion worldwide. But retail sales of merchandise stand at $15 billion, and 20 percent of that has been earned since 2006, the year after the final film was released. Careful nurture of the Star Wars canon—thousands of years of story time, running through all the bits and pieces of merchandise—has kept the franchise popular for decades.