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Lucasfilm Boss Kathleen Kennedy Expected to Retire This Year
- Thread starter adamsapple
- Start date
DKehoe
Member
The Last Jedi deeply scarred some people to the extent that they're still going on about it seven years later.
Jon Favreau, obviously. Mayne he isn't interested, but his stuff has largely been the only critically AND audience approved stuff. He has a great touch as a director, has a great understanding of story and character, and has a bit of a frat boy attitude that makes his stuff appeal to boys/men which is the CORE AUDIENCE for Star Wars, and will ALWAYS be the core audience for Star Wars.
Filoni has some good ideas but he is waaaaaaay too into the mystic stuff for me and his live action chops are massively underdeveloped compared to his animated skills. Have him stay in the cartoon world but let Faverau loose with live action. Give Joseph Kosinski (TG:Maverick, Oblivion, Tron Legacy) whatever is left of Patty Jenkins Rogue Squadron project and let him inject some testosterone into it and give us a great starfighter action film. Give Bryce Howard a more character focused project set far in the past or into the future. And continue Skeleton Crew.
diffusionx
Gold Member
This is true, but over time I have started to think that the whole concept of these perpetual franchises is a folly. I mean, Star Wars came out in 1977. It is 2025. The cultural milieu that Star Wars found popularity in doesn't exist anymore, but we expect Star Wars to be popular? Do we really expect a 50 year old franchise to remain not just relevant but super popular and valuable forever? Especially with boomers shuffling off to their eternal reward? It doesn't make sense.
The problem is that these boomers have been around for so long they think their tastes are eternal. Think about it, Kathleen Kennedy is now 71, shes been working on SW for a decade, so you have a woman in her 60s trying to make stuff to appeal to 10-25 year olds. It's just fundamentally flawed. Star Wars is going to be irrelevant and while I do think she is to blame for the the crappy output, it was always going to be inevitable.
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
KK specifically targeted girls/women with Star Wars, THAT is where she strayed. Instead of acknowledging reality, she drove the ship unto the rocks. Though even that might have worked as a side set of stories had they not gone whole hog with J.J. Abrams and his nonsensical 'mystery box' style of "Write shit that sounds intriguing and cool, figure out how it all works...maybe never" and then the pivot to Rian, then the pivot back to J.J. She had the PERFECT bones of a new trilogy with Heir to the Empire, coulda recast all the principles because lets be honest, ain't none of them worth keeping around as old people, and then get off to the races with decades of vetted EU content to mine for the gems.
Instead we got this lazy convoluted 'soft reboot' that went straight into the toilet. Rogue One was the only film worth a shit under her tenue.
Miyazaki’s Slave
Gold Member
What’s a Star War?
Anyway…byeFelicia.gif
Anyway…byeFelicia.gif
diffusionx
Gold Member
These companies that think they can set up forever franchises are just making a mistake because that's not the way culture works and it's not the way societies work. Kathleen Kennedy mishandled the franchise by making it lame girlboss shit, but even if she didn't, it probably still would have run out of steam.
Here's an article that goes into this dynamic, and I would say Klosterman has been proven wrong as people dont really give a shit about Chuck Berry, young people like Queen and stuff like that:
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Shakespeare is still relevant. LOTR is still relevant. Dune is still relevant. Lots of IP can maintain their relevancy through various cultural and generational shifts. Not that I'm putting Star Wars on the level of some of these other IPs, but the notion that it is 'stale' or 'outdated' is just a matter of superficial trappings. The BONES of Star Wars; the dichotomy of light side/dark side, the appeal of the force, scrappy underdogs fighting oppression, the hero's journey, these are timeless. Add in the cultural penetration of the lightsaber, droids, lightspeed, and stormtroopers and you have an easy recipe for "rinse. repeat" storytelling that can have narrative depth as well as easy curb appeal aesthetics. Sticking to the pulp adventure reel base, leaning into the samurai warrior code, reveling in all the alien 'diversity', it's so easy to make a Star Wars story because you can graft almost any good narrative into it. Skeleton Crew was a great example of taking a classic perpetual story, Treasure Island, and porting it over to Star Wars. Same with stuff like Bad Batch, these are classic GI Joe/Brothers in Arms stories just with a sheen of sci-fi. It's only when you wander over to the preachy/"the message" side of the street that it goes astray, because THOSE STORIES SUCK, no matter what set dressing you cloak them in.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Shakespeare and LOTR are still relevant because they are brilliant works written by incredible geniuses, not because they have "good bones." Obviously it is an opinion but I have my doubts about Star Wars being on the level of those. And of course for every JRRT and Shhakespeare you have dozens of people who have been forgotten, even if their work was momentarily popular.
And LOTR is relevant as a book trilogy, the work that was actually written by the master. It is not relevant because a bunch of people are trying to squeeze money from it forever and all that shit is going to be forgotten very quickly. Just because something is popular and even enduring doesnt mean that it is now a source of forever cashflow in the form of some cynical "franchise."
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BigBeauford
Member
Favreau has many more hits than misses in his career, but Mandalorian Season 3 was garbage at worst, and forgettable at best, and he was a lead writer for virtually the entire season. SW could really use some new blood.
Ridicululzz
Member
For real this time? People have been saying she’s gonna step down every other year it feels like
Chuck Berry
Gold Member
Man I forgot how much I love Klosterman. Thanks for this!
AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
Dude made the absolute worse SW film ever made. Did more damage to the franchise with terrible plot (Fuel is a the problem now, slow space chase) Absolute misunderstanding of Luke, and terrible side characters heading out to stick it to the rich.
Rian Johnson killed SW.
Blame the Fans for making Lucas want to sell. They did that, Rian made a horrible movie.
I think it could, if the franchise understands WHY the IP is beloved, or at least has cultural resonance, in the first place. What we have today are business guys who see the MARKETING VALUE of an IP and they get activist writers to throw out some ESG score slop with that IP slapped on. It isn't a true creative, inspired by the IP, that then makes a culturally current adaptation of it that accounts for (rational) "modern sensibilities" but still takes the themes and character cues from the original.
Star Wars of course doesn't really have a core wellspring, other than the OG trilogy, which is why we see so much orbiting that story. So, like Indiana Jones for example, it's harder to perpetuate the film franchise because its ALL a film franchise. Unlike something like Bond, perhaps, which has a core book series as canon and you can riff off it for film, games, comics, etc.
The articel you linked referenced a lot of music. Thats in interesting one. I feel that styles of music come in and out of favor based on it's ability to be played live. See an orchestra play classical music LIVE and the sheer POWER of the music shows why its endured for centuries in some cases. But played through small speakers on a phone or in earpods.....not so much perhaps. Rock music I feel has more roots with classical than with jazz, at least when you move towards the heavy metal side and that stuff is still very much alive in Europe compared to the US. I think rock collapsed in the us when the musicians started singing about feelings rather than going out, partying, and having a good time. The nihilistic edge to grunge and amplified by nu-metal was a downward spiral versus the more creative themes of Metallica (of the 80's) or the wild fun of hair metal. I don't get the rap scene today, at least hip-hop had some musical qualities, and all the girl singers and boy crooners today sound the same to me with their flat auto-tuned vocals. The music scene being dominated by clear channel/Iheartradio for so long is why music has imploded into just a few artists that get awarded over and over. Hopefully we will see a resurgence of the 'indie' scene and more freedom of expression to get us back to quality music.
See, I feel that s3 is the effect of Filoni's "mythic side" as well as having to serve as a launchpad for failed shows that never happened (New Republic) or kinda fizzled (Ahsoka) or were wrapped up with Fett.
We'll see with the movie if Faverau can get back to just telling good stories (or is ALLOWED to just tell one story). Since Mando is the only real hit of "nu-Star Wars" I can't really blame Lucasarts for trying to milk it to get these stillborn projects off the ground but I wish they would stop doing it.
I say what I always say about Luke. Basically turning Luke into Yoda could have worked. You just had to spend a good portion of the film, 1/2hr to 45 minutes, showing what Luke was up to after RotJ. (Basically giving the fans what they wanted but not in the way they wanted it.) It could have worked if RJ earned it. However instead of that he basically just wasted everybody's time with the casino planet sub plot that went nowhere. Pretty much if he had spend that time on Luke trying, and failing, to re-establish the Jedi order it would have been a much better use of the time in the film. (Instead of explaining it with a 15 second clip of, "Well guess it's time to murder my nephew" that we actually got.) Of course my take on TLJ is a lot of ideas that could have been interesting if they were done with any level of competence.(But Rian isn't that kind of director.)
Shubh_C63
Member
I had read Darth Bane books which were one of my favorites. The force was touted as some magical stuff that light and Dark side still do not completely understand.
It had uses like siphoning power from people to heal yourself, meditation to control the entire battlefield, even magical forcefield just made out of force, it had possession over someone else's body. I really don't think Leia (the OG force sensitive user) couldn't have meditated her way out of such fancy techniques.
Similar to Luke's force projection from a far away land.
This is where I might be wrong about understanding Luke's character that he literally forgo his weapon to fight his father while he was ready to strike this little kid because he had bad dreams BUT, the entire StarWars saga started because one little mis-calculculation from the Jedi council to ignore young Vader's age (and dark thoughts) which may have bring balance to the force but did plunged the entire galaxy into fire. Maybe Luke summarised correctly he should snub the light out of this thing right away (even momentarily) and correctly summarized and believed thereafter that entire magical Wizards shouldn't really exist in the land of normal men and women.
TLJ was visually striking and had bold ideas. I cannot forgive Ship kamakaze scene though as well as the secrecy that woman hold over not sharing her plans with the rebel forces. Unforgivable scene that invalidated entire ship combat in the franchise.
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See, you fail to realize that withOUT Vader, the Emperor would STILL have taken over, just with another apprentice, and then we wouldn't have an inside man to turn on the Emperor at the last minute to help. The rebellion would have been crushed all the easier without Luke as well.
Now a story about Anakin, rejected by the Jedi, and left to his own devices to discover his force powers and then come onto the stage as a more neutral player, possibly sought after by Palpatine AND Obi-wan (who never exiled himself to Tatooine to look after Luke, but remained a shadowy force of resistance), could be a cool "what if" STar Wars story.
Coloress_Kafka
Member
I appreciate her efforts to give the Star Wars IP to more obscure directors but she never gave those directors the support they needed to achieve their vision. It all just felt like she wanted headlines for attention and didn't actually care about pushing the franchise forward.
Tokio Blues
Gold Member
Also palpatine somehow returned. Vader, the chosen one, sacrifices himself for nothing.
SW last trilogy was lazy working and writing. It doens't make sense at all. It doesn't rhyme like poetry.
SW last trilogy was lazy working and writing. It doens't make sense at all. It doesn't rhyme like poetry.
I dunno, they gave the Weinstein "I never saw nuthin'" assistant over 200 MILLION dollars to run with her space lesbian story, hard to say that wasn't super support and then some. Now Obi-wan was fucked by making it a miniseries instead of a movie. Fett had a solid director, no F'in clue what happened there other than they just didn't have a compelling enough story to begin with and somehow they ran out of time to make the action interesting. J.J. certainly was no obscure director. I bet that Lord and Miller probably gave her EXACTLY what they said they would but it got scrapped for Howards version anyway. Ahsoka was Filonis, all the way. He just needs more practice to be a good live action director. No complaints about Skeleton Crew at all, except for the last 10 minutes which had better be leading to S2.
So really, for me, Star Wars hasn't suffered from bad directors, but a bad VISION. Conceptually the product almost deliberately eschews the core audience in search of one that never existed. It keeps rehashing the Skywalker saga over and over and for the most part can't figure out how to move away from it, though both Mando and Skeleton Crew are hopefully paving the way. R1 and Andor are really just capstones to the OG trilogy in my view, not a way forward.
Saber
Member
Her show got memory holed so I think we’re safe from that fate at least.
Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
I care so little for Star Wars these days that a part of me wants it to be Leslye just for the lols. Anyway whoever replaces her will have a lot of work to do.
PrimetimeKnight
Member
As much as I 100% agree with this, there is no way they will wipe the slate clean unfortunately. I really think it is the only way to bring back fans at this point too.
Gp1
Member
Somebody should do this as an introduction of the a new boss in Sega's Yakuza
She should have been booted after the clusterfuck that she did with the new Trilogy's production.
How the hell you start to film without at least a draft/scope of the three movies and and, most importantly, how do you let a completely crazy fucker take over the second episode without any kind of guidance?
No amount of money or script doctoring could save the third movie after that.
ResilientBanana
Member
Wonder what franchise she will raze next.
TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
It's April.
The BigD conference starts.
Kathleen Kennedy appears in a mea culpa Olympics opening ceremony style send off.
Doctor Doom approaches the stage.
He whips off his mask, and it's George Lucas.
He smiles wryly, shouting proudly, "Make it so!"
The crowd fucking erupts. Some asshole 35 year old weeb in the crowd screams "WEESA FREE!"
Turns out the entire venue was a starship and everyone gets shot into Mars.
The BigD conference starts.
Kathleen Kennedy appears in a mea culpa Olympics opening ceremony style send off.
Doctor Doom approaches the stage.
He whips off his mask, and it's George Lucas.
He smiles wryly, shouting proudly, "Make it so!"
The crowd fucking erupts. Some asshole 35 year old weeb in the crowd screams "WEESA FREE!"
Turns out the entire venue was a starship and everyone gets shot into Mars.
Unless she jumps over to Apple or something, I think she is done.shed do the rounds at award shows that will laude her as a woman poineer in the biz, and she has certainly earned some of those laurels.But she is clearly not performing for Lucasfilms theatrical output nor generating the right content for D+ and the animosity that 'the audience' has for her is tangible. BlueSky likes is not translating to asses in seats or views on D+. The merch gravy train is almost nonexistent and ancillary.media is in shambles. As much as I liked it, I think Skeleton Crew had low viewers and I doubt Andor S2 will fare much better than s1 but looks to still have a massive budget. Star Wars is a graveyard of pre-production efforts and that shit is expensive as well.
I wonder what the licensing fees for Star Wars are these days. Bargin bin or still pricey?
Badlucktroll
Member
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt
Biggest Trails Stan
You should write a book, I would read it
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
The IP should really be retired imo, it's been bled dry, whatever potential it had post Lucas has been ruined.
IF they want to try to keep it going the only to save the thing is to strike some of the recent stuff from the canon, full stop.
IF they want to try to keep it going the only to save the thing is to strike some of the recent stuff from the canon, full stop.
TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
I mean, realistically everyone knew pre-TFA that Disney had two choices:
-treat it as a legacy IP and release a Trilogy every twenty years. Big events, big production, big hype.
-treat it like Assassin's Creed and release two and a half of them a year, each one with a shorter and more convoluted dev period, while the actual talent sees the slow motion car crash writing on the wall and bails early, leaving only an echo chamber of yes-men to endlessly trace the good work their predecessors did, with each transfer losing some key piece of the original art.
WONDERWHICHONETHEYDIDLOL
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
Make the prequels and shitquels non cannon throw it all out. Recast actors, use super duper quantum Ai or whatever and make a sequel to ROTJ do something, anything just keep Disney, Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson far away from it.
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NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt
Biggest Trails Stan
Nah keep the Prequels, ditch the shitquels
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
