| October 31, 2012 By Jim Geraghty Those Not-So-Blue Blue States Let's see. Seven days out: Mitt Romney's running ads in Pennsylvania. Both campaigns are running ads in Minnesota. The Obama campaign is buying a week's worth of television advertising on broadcast markets in Detroit, Michigan. Then there's this wrinkle in the early-voting-will-give-Obama-an-unbeatable-edge narrative, as laid out by Dave Weigel: It hasn't gotten too much attention outside of talk radio, but if accurate, Gallup's study of early voters neutralizes one of the Obama campaign's best road-to-victory talking points. As it conducted tracking polls (which have been paused for now), Gallup asked voters whether they'd cast ballots or intended to before election day. The early voters broke 52-46 for Mitt Romney. The dawdling voters who would vote before election day were tied, 49-49. The voters waiting for November 6 broke for Romney, again, by a 6-point margin. This would be easy to explain away if Obama had lagged in 2008's early vote. After all, this study includes votes in Georgia and Texas and other places that have broken away from Obama. But . . . in 2008, Obama was winning this vote. An identical Gallup study taken around the same time gave Obama a 53-43 lead with early voters and a 50-44 lead on voters who would wait for election day. Remember, "If votes cast on Election Day decided the 2008 election, McCain would have won in Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa." That's how central the early vote is to Obama's strategy. Richard Grenell summarizes a take: "It's happening. Romney winning independents, safe Obama states no longer safe, female gap closing. Obama is in trouble." Disney To Make Seventh 'Star Wars' Movie; What Could Go Wrong? For millions of Americans, this is a real October surprise: Continuing its strategy of delivering exceptional creative content to audiences around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by Lucasfilm Chairman and Founder, George Lucas. Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney stock on October 26, 2012, the transaction value is $4.05 billion, with Disney paying approximately half of the consideration in cash and issuing approximately 40 million shares at closing. The final consideration will be subject to customary post-closing balance sheet adjustments. Kathleen Kennedy, current Co-Chairman of Lucasfilm, will become President of Lucasfilm, reporting to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn. Additionally she will serve as the brand manager for Star Wars, working directly with Disney's global lines of business to build, further integrate, and maximize the value of this global franchise. Ms. Kennedy will serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films, with George Lucas serving as creative consultant. Star Wars Episode 7 is targeted for release in 2015, with more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga and grow the franchise well into the future. Actually, for a lot of Star Wars fans, the movie series they loved as kids was already ruined by the ham-fisted treatment of the prequels. The notion of the characters of the Star Wars universe being "Disneyfied" hurts less. Red Letter Media did the infamous 70-minute review of the Phantom Menace. It's unfortunate that the video offers an early tasteless joke about suicide, because in amongst the lonely-lifeless-loser-guy jokes, there is some great, genuine film and story criticism in there. One of my favorites is when he asks people to describe the characters of the original trilogy without mentioning their appearance or rank. C-3PO, Darth Vader, Han Solo -- all of these characters have vivid, strong personalities in addition to (often) visually-striking appearances. For the prequel trilogy, some of the most key characters are just . . . there. They're doing lots of things, but there's nothing memorable about their personalities; they're mostly stoic, restrained, even-keeled, even as they're dealing with life-and-death circumstances and invasions of planets. Weak characters will drag down a movie even if the plot hinges on an immensely technologically advanced civilization being incapable of going and taking pictures of an invasion. Towards the end, the mumbly narrator observes that Lucas lost his edge between the 1980s and the late 1990s; he examines DVD behind-the-scenes footage of Lucas' staff reacting to the first cut, and speculates that no one around Lucas has the stature to offer constructive criticism or anything beyond affirmation and keep his job. He's grown all too comfortable with his computer-generated effects and ability to create any environment on a green screen, and thus uses fewer on-location shoots in extreme environments, aiming to create alien landscapes. The actors are left trying to react to an imaginary aliens who will be added in computer generated effects, and they end up not blinking, much less reacting, as lightsabers and objects come flying towards their heads. One of the benefits of fatherhood is the ability to watch the Star Wars animated series without guilt, and it's amazing how much better the stories of those characters and that universe become away from the hands of its increasingly out-of-touch creator -- character development and internal conflict, a sense of tension and risk, less hackneyed dialogue. Perhaps in the hands of a new creator, new movies will be good. Josh Greenman: ""Episodes 44-47 were way cooler than Episodes 57-60." - an American 12-year-old, 2073" James Lileks: "I know, 'fool me four times, shame on me,' but I'm actually looking forward to Star Wars Ep VII. Finally move the story forward." Doc Zero: "Simba to Luke Skywalker: You know, your dad sounds a lot like my dad." Ben Domenech: "Look on Lucas's face as he says 'I will take $4 billion to never hear your stupid complaints any more' is priceless." VodkaPundit: "Admit it. Part of you is excited to see the Ewoks replaced by thousands of bouncing Tiggers." Mark Kirkorian: "Remember, Disney owns Pixar, too, so Buzz Lightyear will be in Episode VII." ADDENDUM: Jim Pethokoukis: "So 2015 will bring us new Star Wars, new Avengers, Justice League film -- and the Hillary-Biden primary fight?" No, we'll probably see Obama's attempt to pull a Grover Cleveland. To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com Save 75% . . . Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for print-edition information. Click here for digital-edition information. And National Review makes a great gift. Click here to send a full-year gift to NR Digital, and here to send a full-year subscription to the print edition. Conservatives – stay healthy! Get plenty of Vitamin Sea on the next National Review cruise. Visit www.nrcruise.com for complete information about our next trip. National Review, Inc. | 
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