Agreed. George Lucas has great story ideas, but he really needs to hand them over to other to flesh them out and excute them. Empire, Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark are prime examples of this.
Let him come up with a story, and allow him final cut. Those are where he shines. DO NOT allow him to give actor direction or write dialog.
It irritates me that this is an “announcement.” We know this already, it was in the first “announcement.”
Story here. (News to me that Disney had bought the franchise.) The story picks up 30 years after Return of the Jedi.
But who will shoot first?
Jar Jar Binks. (What, you thought they were gonna leave him out of a Disney treatment?!)
Was it really? I didn’t remember that. It makes sense. I wonder when hey will confirm to us which old stars will be back. Mark Hamil would be awesome to see again. He was underrated as an actor on screen. Hey, he quit the Joker now so he’s free! 
The only way I’m interested in this at all is if none of the original characters are in it.
Missed this other thread. Mods, merge-or-lock, please?
Which begs the question of why to make it at all. Why not spend the time and effort into building a new story universe? There is pretty much no way this comes out well; either Abrams and his hacktasic crew will make some kind of retooling that will change the basic look and sensibility of the original trilogy while making clumsy callbacks, or some kind of hybrid riff with the “Extended Universe” material that will equally offend all, or will just go and make a story that has only the most tangential relationship to the original materials. But I guarantee that it will have enormous, indiffierently directed giant action setpieces with big explosions and plenty of lens flairs. So…really not that different from Lucas’ prequels.
Stranger
Yes, I’d like to see Hamill, Ford and Fisher all return, if only in a semi-cameo as they send the youngsters off to go adventuring in the New Republic.
I think Disney understands the market-value of an established brand name.
Yes, Disney is great at brand managment, a field of endeavor I hold in just slightly higher esteem than pimping thirteen year old girls and selling Cutco knives. Original and creative content, on the other hand…we’ll, it’s best when they sub that out to someone else.
Stranger
Merged, these threads are.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has such a high opinion of Disney.
I also agree with you on your earlier post about why make a sequel, why not create a whole new story/universe. And you answered your own question here, that would require creativity on a much higher order than is available anywhere in the movie biz, much less at Disney. Maybe they could find another old Japanese movie to steal story ideas from. There’s the one about the bureaucrat who builds a playground in a slum against all odds, and then dies while swinging in one of the swings and singing softly to himself. I could see possibilities with that.
Um, well… is there a light-sabre duel before he dies on the swing?
I’m not sure if I’m happy or saddened by the fact that we will never have another Kurosawa, but his films will endure and continue to be aped by lesser talents.
Stranger
Haters gonna hate.
I’m pretty jazzed about the new Star Wars movies. Cautiously optimistic, but really I just want to be entertained.
Why do we need to see Hamill and Fisher again? Is there anyone out there saying “Star Wars sucks. Oh, Fisher is in it?? I’m there!”
Does the audience really need to see aged actors in the same roles? It’s the characters we care about, who cares if we see the actors again? I’m totally okay with the new Star Trek actors. I didn’t really even need to see Nimoy in it to sell me on the reboot.
I’m with Stranger on this one. To hopefully recreate any sense of wonder while trying to emulate the original, (to satisfy original fans), is to have a startlingly original brand new story with original characters. Don’t even include R2-D2 or C-3PO. What made the original so memorable, even as an adult, was the allusion to to Star Wars legends many years past.