Star Wars is being swallowed into the wonderful world of Disney, giving that company nothing short of what some say is total control of the Childhood Movie Market. If you believe the fans, the Empire has not only struck back, it's bloated and unstoppable. Walt Disney Pictures has purchased Lucasfilm and plans to make more films in the Star Wars franchise. We will look at the reasons why fans may actually want to embrace the Dark Side.

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Disney buys Star Wars and announces new trilogy - Panel

I realized at some point I needed to retire, and I wanted to go on and do other things ... things in philanthropy and doing more experimental kinds of films ...but I couldn't really drag my company into that. We've got a plan for 7, 8 and 9, which is the end of trilogy, and other films also. So we have a large group of ideas and characters and books and all kinds of things. We could go on making Star Wars for the next hundred years.

Even from a man who's made billions writing science fiction -- squeezing another ten decades out of Jar-Jar Binks and the gang sounds a little far-fetched. While George Lucas believes the Star Wars franchise will stay relevant until the twenty second century, his own relevance is going to be diminished.

Mr. Lucas sold his production company to Disney for just over 4 billion dollars. And Disney plans to keep things going in that galaxy far far away. A new Star Wars movie is expected to be in theatres by 2015. It's been thirty-five years since fans first learned that not only was there a Force -- it had two sides. And they're pretty sure what side Disney's on.

Disney can count on fan loyalty. But really, some of this fan skepticism seems a little harsh. It's not as if Disney is unproven -- especially when it comes to fantasy. With his thoughts on the announcement, we were joined first by Spencer Kornhaber, entertainment editor at The Atlantic. He was in Washington, D.C.

Jason Gorber is a Star Wars fanatic and film writer who blogs at filmfest.ca. He is in Toronto

And Joe Utichi is film writer for the Sunday Times, Yahoo and The Guardian and he was in London, England.

Disney buys Star Wars and announces new trilogy - Camille Paglia

While it's easy to say the last three Star Wars films have not been fan favourites, it really depends which fans you ask. Art and cultural critic Camille Paglia will really miss the Lucas touch because she thinks Revenge of the Sith -- especially it's finale -- is exquisite.

In an interview with PJTV television promoting her new book Glittering Images, Ms. Paglia comes close to disturbing the Force all by herself with her effusive praise. And she thinks we had all better take another look at the genius of George Lucas. Really.

This segment was produced by The Current's Shannon Higgins, Ben Edwards and Jessica DeMello.

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Malala Yousafzai Update & Checking-In