I have seen that many are celebrating George Lucas' sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, but will Disney making a new trilogy of Star Wars films actually be a good thing?

Sure, Lucas has done a lot to alienate Star Wars fans.  He nearly ruined Return of the Jedi with the Ewoks, altered scenes in the original trilogy (he made Greedo shoot first), cast Jake Lloyd in Phantom Menace (he could have been called Mannequin Skywalker his acting was so wooden), put Jar-Jar in the same movie, ditched his cutting edge stop motion visuals for CGI, hired Hayden Pantierre to be Anakin in Episodes II and III, and has always acted like he was exempt from criticism.  But has what he's done really been as bad as everyone claims?  Let's see if his much maligned prequel trilogy is as bad as other science fiction movies.  

Let's take a look at a list of a very large film company's sci-fi films.  Let's take a look at Disney's sci-fi films:

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea -1954 (I guess this is okay for a 1954 movie.)

Darby O'Gill and the Little People -1959 (This is isn't really a sci-fi movie, but it features a pre-Bond Sean Connery and includes the hunting of leprechauns , so I figured that I should mention it.)

Babes In Toyland - 1961 (The visuals in this are great if you're a color blind cyclops on acid.)

Blackbeard's Ghost - 1968 (It has Peter Ustinov, and pirates, and lameness.)

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes - 1969 (The only interesting thing about this is that a very young Kurt Russell is in it.  He would go on to be Snake Plisken, who would influence the main character of an entire line of video games that I forgot the name of.)

Bedknobs and Broomsticks - 1971 (Mary Freakin' Poppins was better than this!)

Escape To Witch Mountain - 1975 (This was so good that it became an awesome remake starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.  It was right up there with The Tooth Fairy.)

Pete's Dragon - 1977 (Puff, The Magic Dragon is better.)

The Cat From Outer Space - 1978 (Do I really need to say anything about this?)

A Spaceman In King Arthur's Court / Unidentified Flying Oddball - 1979 (This should be remade my Adam Sandler.)

The Black Hole - 1979 (This one's actually pretty entertaining for it's excellent soundtrack and extremely outdated special effects if you can find it on TMC at 3:45 A.M.)

Tron - 1982 (This one I actually like.  It's sequel isn't as good.)

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids - 1986 (The first in a trilogy which Rick Moranis refers to as "Honey, I Shrunk My Career.")

John Carter - 2012 (Have you ever seen John Carter?  Don't worry... no one has.)

So there you go.  There's a definitive list of the science fiction films that Disney has made.  When you look at it, it doesn't look like Mr. Lucas did a very bad job at all, does it?  I hope that you guys are happy that you are getting what you're asking for and that's a company that made The Cat From Outer Space in charge of making the next Star Wars trilogy.  When the next trilogy stinks, remember that this is what you wanted.  

I can't wait to see Lucas write troll posts on Disney's website criticizing them about how they're messing everything up while he has billions of their dollars in his wallet.

Anyone else have any opinions on this?

Hey amp :)

I don't expect him to be trolling disney too too much since he is a 2.2% shareholder in the company's 2.3 million stocks @50$ a share.

About artistic influence of Disney in the Star Wars film, Disney intends to leverage the current studios of LucasFilm to continue Lucas' creative vision, and Lucas handed the torch to his co-chairman Kathleen Kennedy (I think that's her name), so in the near future (the next 3 films), Disney shouldn't have too much influence on the matter. The exclusion of Lucas takes biggest chunk of the influence on the next movies, and that's undoubtedly positive. If there were any negative from Disney, it would be very little, and in contrast with the good coming from Lucas' departure, it should tally to generally positive quality improvement from the last 3 films.

as "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" have shown, other Directors than Mister Lucas can make a good Star Wars movie.

...although they died after they did... just saying...

I actually liked Revenge Of The Sith, so I do I am not 100% positive that these will be better.  Also, there's the problem with what the trilogy is actually going to be.  Is it going to involve Luke, Leia, and Han?  I'm assuming that they would be portrayed by the same actors.  Do we really need to see Luke with a lightsaber in one hand and a walker in the other?  They could do even worse and hire different actors.  Also, if it's just set in the Star Wars universe but later there will be a great disconnect because we won't be familiar with anything.  Also, remember the Black Hole?  Man was that cheesy.

Also, what's going to happen to Indy? 

The original Star Wars trilogy rocked. The new trilogy, prequels to the original trilogy were mediocre. Now Star Wars has been sold to Disney and the next trilogy will more than likely be worse than the last trilogy. Star Wars has been milked so much over time and its quality has deteriorated over time.

Stars Wars franchise is to movies as Final Fantasy franchise is to video games. In the past they were great but now they are mediocre.

This is true, but he was the Executive Producer and leading them by the hand.  Irvin Kershner, the director of the great The Empire Strikes Back's follow up was ... oh, never mind.

Star Wars is not science fiction, it's fantasy. You should compare it to fantasy films.

Its really not a good thing. Disney have lost their touch a long time ago.

i think a Star Wars movie in the style of Pirates could work out pretty well 

(Wasn't Hayden Pantierre the cheerleader from HEROES???)

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that Disney have released some high quality genre-related movies in recent times, such as The Avengers and several of the Marvel related movies, as well as The Pirates ot Caribbean series (all of which contain scifi elements...at least as much as some of the films you've mentioned!!!)...TRON LEGACY was utter crap though, I'll admit.

I'm absolutely convinced that star wars will be better in anyone but Lucas' hands these days and at this point I have no reason to doubt the acquisition just because it's DISNEY. I have faith they'll get the best people they can to work on em. (oh and I didn't mind the prequels...well, mebbe phantom menace, but the other 2 were ok)