Disney's recent attempt at scifi was terrible (John Carter) so I don't have much hope for these.

Yeah they can't be that much worse can they... lets hope they don't have a look at the star wars holiday special and base ep 7+ on that.

Hopefully they'll use some of the existing novels as a basis for them, so lets hope for the Thrawn trilogy.

I think movies is one thing, BUT I bet a big part of the deal is more over the other stuff if you think about it.

They Get Lucasarts with Lucasfilms - that is huge.
So off the bat that is Star Wars 1313 and the Star Wars: The Old Republic . The latter is not doing to well but that may get a boost. Star Wars 1313 will be a new console launch title and looks pretty dam good. The game company there is not bad. Get them to make top disney movie based games too. So they got themselves a decent games company.
They now have a digital movie arm that makes awesome movie tech too - Important for all their movie making needs.
Toys - Huge.
Introducing star wars through things like clone wars for example has paid off and Disney can tap into this more and introduce heaps of kids shows, animated star wars movies etc.

It is a LOT of money but they get a hell of a lot of useful stuff outside of the movies.

x-wing vs tie fighter could be made, Think about all the adventure game stuff that they could make like a new full throttle or grim fandago.

The Star Wars films alone have made $4.4 billion and the toys were even bigger money spinners.

So while it is a lot I think Disney have got them selves a steal in a way and they will milk it all for what its worth big time.

And Yeah - Disney trying to do sci - fi - They suck at it, they now have bought teams who have some skills at it to try improve that.

I think this actually could be a very good thing.

They could also do quite well with them, John Carter was fairly enjoyable and I imagine they're learning a lot with regards to big budget blockbusters since they took over at Marvel. Tron Legacy is another recent one they've done that rather rather good. The Narnia films were great as well.

Couldn't agree more with you. The first 20 mins of Wall-E is proof that they don't need to aim low to be engaging. It's one of my favourite films that doesn't involve sex, violence or one liners.