Should Kathleen Kennedy be let go from the Star Wars megaproject?

[Karha of Honor]

I honestly don't know if she should. There's only three franchises other than the MCU and Star Wars itself that have kept the level of sequel potential that SW currently has for serious lengths of time, one of them consists entirely of B-movies, one of them is largely non-serialized and half its films suck ass, and one of them is Harry Potter.

The MCU is run on a nonstop train of consistently entertaining and straightforwardly fun films, all but four of which have been really good and the weakest of which was merely mediocre. It has an unprecedented hype train, tight budgets, "good enough" production values that still look great, and a truly exceptional level of writing, directing, and production discipline.

The current Star Wars universe is run on massive budgets, long production times, what I feel is too much auteur philosophy, and is catering to a notoriously unpleasable fanbase. Given that, I think that the social-justice question is not the best way to analyze Kathleen Kennedy's performance as franchise runner, and I think that any analysis of Kennedy's performance is inevitably going to find her lacking due to the simply extraordinary run of good luck that Marvel's had and the inevitability of comparisons to Marvel.

However, it's still, I think, a valid point of argument, and while any comparison will inevitably be imperfect it is I believe possible to attempt an analysis of Kennedy's performance in her role.

Here's the weakness of Kennedy's approach to putting people other than more straight white dudes in Star Wars (not that there weren't already, I mean seriously, did the racists even see Lando Calrissian or Princess Leia before?). By intentionally focusing on confronting the racist, sexist monsters hanging around the Internet harassing anyone who happens to exist while female, and making that such an important part of the debate around her franchise, Kennedy and her associates have structured a very black-and-white debate. People on Tumblr express unconditional support for the films and refuse to admit that TLJ was a deeply flawed mess of a movie that shat on its best characters (Rey and Rose), using one to shill Kylo Ren and the other as part of the single worst romance arc I've seen since Trip and the Xyrillian who raped him in a holodeck. Racists whinge about how "teh sjws" are "ruining" Star Wars and claim that Kelly Marie Tran is Chinese, which is like saying that that William Wallace from Braveheart was English.

The core issue from a business perspective like this is that most people don't give a fuck about the Internet wars and just want to watch a movie with their kids, and the Tumblr anti-racists don't watch the movies enough to keep ticket sales up. Does hyping their LGBT characters make EA a less evil company? Hell no. Does it help EA make money? Nope. It's the Ultimate Team lootbox scam that makes them money, they killed Mass Effect by making a weak game that didn't make money and I know people personally who actually have played Mass Effect and DragonAge specifically because of the LGBT content.

TLJ, objectively, had a steeper drop in ticket sales than TFA, indicative of a lack of overall popularity and very few repeat views. I suspect that that was due to the haphazard and disorganized story, the frankly mean-spirited attempts at deconstruction, and the mind-blowing misuse of several key characters. DC has proved that bad movies are KRYPTONITE to serial franchises.

Side note, I don't think that Solo's box office problems are because it's too straight-white-dude, or that TLJ was bad; Solo is releasing at a bad time and is meant to appeal only to a small group, it was never going to make the big bucks, which is why splurging so much on it was moronic.

But honestly, the core problem with Kennedy's tenure is that all four movies her team's put out have been flawed. Episode 7 had every single one of JJ Abrams's problems as a filmmaker on full display and made money mostly on nostalgia. Rogue One's main characters were boring as shit. TLJ was a hot mess. Solo was never going to be better than OK and really was only OK.

You can't sustain a cinematic universe on a track record like that.

So...yeah, my thoughts are a bit muddled. But overall, I think that Kennedy is not doing as well as she could, though it's not entirely her fault.

I hope all that makes sense.

Why does one have to be a racist to have problems with SJW's? What definition are you using exactly.

Another reason Kennedy needs to go, and perhaps the most damning of them all.

She's turning the criticisms of her tenure on Star Wars into a Gender war.

I know she's technically been silent, but Kelly Marie Chan's exit from social media, her silence on the matter but the widely circulated story that it was the bullying of star wars fans that drove her and Daisy Ridley of Social Media, the later was proved false by a statement that was found made by Daisy Ridley prior to last Jedi, has been used by too many people as an excuse to target males, specifically white male fans, by too many people. Then there's Stephen Colberts mock trailer of a Rose Tico only film calling Star Wars fans dweebs, and specifically mocking the white male fans.

Disney is one of the most copyright strike happy companies on the planet. If this video wasn't endorsed and requested by them and/or Lucasfilm, it would have been off the internet and a Lawsuit filed against Stephen Colbert within an hour.

Considering she's very pro-female, boasting that 75% of her incompetent writers circle are female, and circulating "The Force is female" T-shirts, this is just the sort of stunt she'd pull to save herself and make the failure of her tenure seem like the fault of the fans.

Yeah about that.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/j ... m=facebook

I suppose Kennedy could have made them do it.

Have you looked up that group? Or the tweet itself? They currently have 35 followers, the tweet itself has five likes. The supposed fb page was deleted months ago. And on the tweet itself, there are numerous people calling it a false flag, which I have to agree with simply because looking back at legit hate campaigns in the franchise, like The People Vs George Lucas, which targeted Lucas, Hayden Christiansen, and Jake Loyed, and even approached the OT actors for support who publicly told them to bugger off, there was WAY more activity, likes, and support. Also incriminating is... where are the groups replies to criticisms? Hate groups LOVE to argue and overstate their points.

Not only, but episode IX is in full post production mode. None of the involved actors are allowed on Social media. So where did the story of Kelly Marie leaving social media due to cyber bullying come from? It's typical for even extras to turn in their phones and ANYTHING with a camera and/or recording function while on set. So again, I must ask, WHERE DID THIS STORY COME FROM?

And in regards to your rebuttal about Abrams, Wendig, Johnson, and Kasdan, I'm not going to discuss their wording, but rather their attitude. Please imitate their attitude towards a client or customer at your office/workplace, let me know how that works out for you.

Please elaborate on people vs George Lucas being a hate campaing.

[Beastro]

......

I'll ignore most of the last few pages and stick to the OP: I don't think anything could really change things and improve them in the way people expect. People have built up too much around what Star Wars should be that there isn't a lot of room, if any, to work with between the Scylla of "sticking to the formula" and just putting out rehashed "lightsabre duels and dogfights" or the Charybdis of introducing something new a fresh to the series while trying to stick to the spirit set by the origins.

As it stands, I think they cynically tried to go through the middle providing too much rehash and enough new stuff to piss most everyone that isn't a little kid off.

I don't see them standing a chance now with the well so poisoned unless they stopped and let the series go fallow for everyone's palate to get cleansed (of both the series and the social issues that are clouding EVERYTHING now).

Even then I think thing's are too late. Too much was cemented with Return of the Jedi and the real era of creativity and brilliance in the series ended with TESB.

[Karha of Honor]

......

I'll ignore most of the last few pages and stick to the OP: I don't think anything could really change things and improve them in the way people expect. People have built up too much around what Star Wars should be that there isn't a lot of room, if any, to work with between the Scylla of "sticking to the formula" and just putting out rehashed "lightsabre duels and dogfights" or the Charybdis of introducing something new a fresh to the series while trying to stick to the spirit set by the origins.

As it stands, I think they cynically tried to go through the middle providing too much rehash and enough new stuff to piss most everyone that isn't a little kid off.

I don't see them standing a chance now with the well so poisoned unless they stopped and let the series go fallow for everyone's palate to get cleansed (of both the series and the social issues that are clouding EVERYTHING now).

Even then I think thing's are too late. Too much was cemented with Return of the Jedi and the real era of creativity and brilliance in the series ended with TESB.

There is a lot of room. The prequels looked way different and felt different and would had made more money if executed better and with a more charismatic lead.

Era of creativty and brilliance? Come on, you can hire the best story tellers, if union rules allowed they would write your stuff for free, Star Wars is that fuckign great.

[Beastro]

......

I'll ignore most of the last few pages and stick to the OP: I don't think anything could really change things and improve them in the way people expect. People have built up too much around what Star Wars should be that there isn't a lot of room, if any, to work with between the Scylla of "sticking to the formula" and just putting out rehashed "lightsabre duels and dogfights" or the Charybdis of introducing something new a fresh to the series while trying to stick to the spirit set by the origins.

As it stands, I think they cynically tried to go through the middle providing too much rehash and enough new stuff to piss most everyone that isn't a little kid off.

I don't see them standing a chance now with the well so poisoned unless they stopped and let the series go fallow for everyone's palate to get cleansed (of both the series and the social issues that are clouding EVERYTHING now).

Even then I think thing's are too late. Too much was cemented with Return of the Jedi and the real era of creativity and brilliance in the series ended with TESB.

There is a lot of room. The prequels looked way different and felt different and would had made more money if executed better and with a more charismatic lead.

Era of creativty and brilliance? Come on, you can hire the best story tellers, if union rules allowed they would write your stuff for free, Star Wars is that fuckign great.

What I mean by that is that, from a world building perspective, Star Wars remained very open ended at that point. Return of the Jedi set a precedence that has continued in what people put into whatever their working on. Everything has become locked in a creative cycle in a ways that keeps being beaten on about more and more.

Planet destroying super weapons are the worst to me that keep reappearing, but it seems to be a self-limiting thing that happens consciously or not.

What I lament is that there was room to add more as the prequels showed, but even by then the window was mostly closed.

[Karha of Honor]

......

I'll ignore most of the last few pages and stick to the OP: I don't think anything could really change things and improve them in the way people expect. People have built up too much around what Star Wars should be that there isn't a lot of room, if any, to work with between the Scylla of "sticking to the formula" and just putting out rehashed "lightsabre duels and dogfights" or the Charybdis of introducing something new a fresh to the series while trying to stick to the spirit set by the origins.

As it stands, I think they cynically tried to go through the middle providing too much rehash and enough new stuff to piss most everyone that isn't a little kid off.

I don't see them standing a chance now with the well so poisoned unless they stopped and let the series go fallow for everyone's palate to get cleansed (of both the series and the social issues that are clouding EVERYTHING now).

Even then I think thing's are too late. Too much was cemented with Return of the Jedi and the real era of creativity and brilliance in the series ended with TESB.

There is a lot of room. The prequels looked way different and felt different and would had made more money if executed better and with a more charismatic lead.

Era of creativty and brilliance? Come on, you can hire the best story tellers, if union rules allowed they would write your stuff for free, Star Wars is that fuckign great.

What I mean by that is that, from a world building perspective, Star Wars remained very open ended at that point. Return of the Jedi set a precedence that has continued in what people put into whatever their working on. Everything has become locked in a creative cycle in a ways that keeps being beaten on about more and more.

Planet destroying super weapons are the worst to me that keep reappearing, but it seems to be a self-limiting thing that happens consciously or not.

What I lament is that there was room to add more as the prequels showed, but even by then the window was mostly closed.

Just look at the old EU. There is room.

If Guardians of the Galaxy can be a thing in the movies there is room.

[Fixer]

I was going to say. Some of my favourite stories from the Star Wars EU were from the Rogue Squadron series, which involved a lot of a elite pilots doing the impossible. Wraith Squadron which was their band of misfits.

Most of the SWTOR Empire storylines revolved around power plays and Sith politics and they're a lot of fun. The Thrawn trilogy itself didn't involve superweapons but clever strategies and applications of pre-existing technologies or those hinted at in the OT.

Not to mention the Lucasarts games. Dark Forces, X-Wing, TIE Fighter and the Jedi Knight series.

There was an awful lot of depth to the Star Wars universe that was delved into before.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

As problematic as the films themselves may be, the prequels did provide very fertile ground for expanding the mythology and more material for books, games, and television. It says something that outside midichlorians, most people aren't complaining that the prequels misunderstood the Star Wars universe or failed to mesh with the OT. In that sense, the prequels were a very good contribution to the Star Wars universe. To be honest, I sometimes lose track of what was introduced in the prequels and what was introduce in the originals, which speaks well to its sense of continuity and worldbuilding.

The sequel trilogy, on the other hand, led to the end of the old EU (necessarily, I guess), and rather than expanding the universe, the material dealing with that era seems to be spending its time trying to fix things the sequels haven't bothered explaining. I'm constantly seeing defenders of the sequels refer to some novelization to explain some hole in The Last Jedi or why the New Republic allowing the First Order to exist actually makes some sort of sense (still doesn't to me).


Just thinking about the events of the ST chronologically ticks me off at the incoherence of it all. In The Force Awakens, a brand new Republic has no military of its own and is unconcerned with this suspiciously Empire-like group seizing all of the Empire's old assets. In short order, a super weapon destroys several New Republic planets. In response, this Resistance group destroys the First Order's big secret weapon. Then, a matter of days later, the First Order is chasing around the last remnants of the Resistance? Holdo light speed rams multiple ships, including their big capital ship, and a matter of hours later they're still cornered by still more First Order people. And the rest of the universe just doesn't give a crap despite the Republic being destroyed a couple days. But somehow the image of Luke Skywalker showing up for a couple minutes to about two dozen Resistance people is going to "inspire the galaxy"?

I just don't see how people can defend that storytelling. It's too bad, because there are still writers out there who could manage something better. Rogue One fits in pretty nicely, in my opinion, but the rest of it is just absolute garbage from a worldbuilding perspective.

[Fixer]

Just thinking about the events of the ST chronologically ticks me off at the incoherence of it all. In The Force Awakens, a brand new Republic has no military of its own and is unconcerned with this suspiciously Empire-like group seizing all of the Empire's old assets. In short order, a super weapon destroys several New Republic planets. In response, this Resistance group destroys the First Order's big secret weapon. Then, a matter of days later, the First Order is chasing around the last remnants of the Resistance? Holdo light speed rams multiple ships, including their big capital ship, and a matter of hours later they're still cornered by still more First Order people. And the rest of the universe just doesn't give a crap despite the Republic being destroyed a couple days. But somehow the image of Luke Skywalker showing up for a couple minutes to about two dozen Resistance people is going to "inspire the galaxy"?

I just don't see how people can defend that storytelling. It's too bad, because there are still writers out there who could manage something better. Rogue One fits in pretty nicely, in my opinion, but the rest of it is just absolute garbage from a worldbuilding perspective.

It gets a lot worse if you consider a lot more about what should be in the Universe from what is still canon post EU culling. All the factions and worlds from the Prequels, Clone Wars and Rebels.

All of them just stood back and let the First Order take over apparently. What's more, the Supremacy was supposed to be the First Order's capital. So when Leia called out for help and nobody came it was with the villains having lost their super weapon after having committed a massive warcrime, with their fleet and headquarters crippled and vulnerable to any kind of attack.

At that point it's more logical to think that the Rebellion and New Republic ran things so badly for the last 30 years that the Galaxy was happy to see them wiped out and welcomed the return of the Empire with open arms.

The Empire Did Nothing Wrong subreddit should be pleased.

[TGLS]

Just thinking about the events of the ST chronologically ticks me off at the incoherence of it all. In The Force Awakens, a brand new Republic has no military of its own and is unconcerned with this suspiciously Empire-like group seizing all of the Empire's old assets. In short order, a super weapon destroys several New Republic planets. In response, this Resistance group destroys the First Order's big secret weapon. Then, a matter of days later, the First Order is chasing around the last remnants of the Resistance? Holdo light speed rams multiple ships, including their big capital ship, and a matter of hours later they're still cornered by still more First Order people. And the rest of the universe just doesn't give a crap despite the Republic being destroyed a couple days. But somehow the image of Luke Skywalker showing up for a couple minutes to about two dozen Resistance people is going to "inspire the galaxy"?

You know, before TFA came out I was arguing with a friend about how ridiculous that it would be if the Empire some how outlasted the original trilogy, based on some rumors I heard at the time. I guess my vision for ridiculousness is too limited.

[unknownsample]

And on the tweet itself, there are numerous people calling it a false flag,

Of course it's all a sinister plot to make Star Wars fans look bad.