Does Lucasfilm Need New Leadership?

I would recommend to anyone to go and watch or rewatch both The Pixar story and the making of Wall-E documentaries.

There is a studio whose success is based on not being afraid to making late and radical changes for the benefit of the film.

Andrew Stanton makes a great analogy about knowing that you're building a dinosaur from all the dinosaur pieces you have and having this cool t-Rex begin to form in front of you, but then realising that you don't have the correct pieces to complete the T Rex. At Pixar they aren't afraid of rebuilding almost from scratch to create the beautiful Stegosaurusthat they hadn't realised they could achieve from all the pieces they have.

 

Indeed. The majority of Pixar's movies were disaster at one point or another. Walt Disney himself threw out six months of work on Pinocchio to start it over from scratch.

 

Rogue One didn't just have forced reshoots. It had forced directing and writing. Gareth's original vision was muddled, Han Solo movie looks like it's to be the same with the directors and writers being casted off due to studio disagreements(disagreements in which was noticed from the start). Yes, issues are common within the film industry but offing 3 directors/writers in a row causes me to start thinking about their ways of handling the films. I deem it a red flag and I don't see this as respect for the filmmakers or films.

 

Ehm, Lawrence Kasdan and his son wrote Han Solo, and it's precisely because the film didn't align with their vision for the film and the characters, that the two directors were canned...

 

I feel most of the reason she went back to him (Abrams knows, they always come back) is because she didn't trust anyone else to do it. But sadly, the damage will be done none the less. Abrams mistakes Star Wars plot twists with his mystery box concept.

 

There's a lot of TFA hate popping up recently. That's discouraging to me. I liked the film, and don't forget that the general audience did as well. It is the highest grossing Star Wars film, after all, which means there were a lot of repeat viewings.

 

Star War started with a defiant middle finger to the suits. 20th century fox wanted no part of SW back in 1977 and kept trying to end the production but Lucas stuck to his guns and made a masterpiece. That would never happen nowadays with totalitarian leaders like Kathleen Kennedy at the helm.

And it's also funny to me that the Lucas haters use to bash him during the making of the PT that he was selfish with his story and didn't include the input of others.(yet the behind the scenes doc for the pt and many other actors have said otherwise) And yet are praising Kennedy for the same thing. Wish I can say I'm surprised but double standards are nothing new to this fandom.

Which is why I have so much more respect for Lucas. During the troubled productions of both ESB and ROTJ he could have easily fired the directors he choose and found another work for hire director to finish them. Instead he stepped in and stuck by his directors and crew and even helped financially fund the films himself. Kershner even praised Lucas for his patience during the troubling production of ESB(you know the film that so many falsely believe Lucas had no part in its success).

The biggest sin though of all is Disney had endless possibilities with the ST and so many up and coming young hungry filmmakers to choose from. But instead they would rather play it safe than be risk takers.

 

The hate is well warranted and it's been bubbling up since the film was released, the rosy nostalgia goggles have warn off and it is time to objectively judge the direction of the franchise and KK as its head. If 3 out of 5 firings isn't a red flag than I'm not sure what is. Once a film actually bombs at the BO? By that point the direction of the franchise will be very hard to change course on.

 

The point is that KK is doing her job if the studio still puts out well-received films. And the two films that they've put out so far have been well-received, regardless of more recent backlash that you feel--inaccurately, I think--is becoming widespread. So what if they've had to fire directors? As I've pointed out before, most of those hirings were done in basically a single wave. The studio may have changed its direction since then and it became apparent that creative visions for the upcoming movies differed. That's not a problem if it gets resolved, but it looks bad if it results in a firing. Still, the mass audience doesn't know what's going on behind the scenes. They go to the movies to see a Star Wars movie and enjoy the film, tell their friends its good, and it makes more than a billion dollars.

From where I'm sitting, Kathleen Kennedy has done good business.

 

Too each their own of course but to me the core of star wars and why I love the prequels so much was the risk taking that this saga was once about. The boring formulaic assembly line produced approach just leads to a soulless finished product in my opinion. Which is been my biggest issue with disney owned star wars.

 

But why does SW need to be stuck with a 1977 mindset? Why does the new films need to be beholden to the aesthetics and plot beats of the OT? Why can't these new films have their own identity?

Lucas said in the charlie rose interview a few years back that he tried hard to make every film feel and look different. That's the way it should be in my opinion. I don't get the mentality that the films should feel like its still 1977. Star Wars used to be about pushing boundaries and I miss that brave approach. It's easy to play it safe and pander to OT elitilists but that will only last so long.

Unless DIsney decides to give the ST its own identity soon and not be a greatest hits remix of the OT. These new films won't have a lasting legacy.

 

I think there's room for both approaches in this film a year era. Sure, the classic formula works for good reason. I would also be open to a hypothetical film from the Empire's perspective, or a modest, reserved main character of either sex, or an anti-hero who's not as forgiving as Luke, even with his or her own family. I've generally found that my favorite SW works (whether films or tie-in material) feel like they come from a mindset of expanding the boundaries of Star Wars, rather than simply feeling like known Star Wars. Doesn't mean I'll always like something new just because it's new, but on the other hand I'd never want to see creativity thrown out the window from the start just because there's a formula that works.

 

Once again why does the new films need to be beholden to the OT??? They absolutely don't need to have the look and feel of the OT. What this new trilogy needs is its own identity with its own look and feel.

 

What defines star wars means different things but at the core I believe what truly defines star wars is that its a space fantasy that addresses certain themes. Just because the OT came first doesn't mean that each new film needs to feel like the OT in my opinion. That is lazy filmmaking and not what SW should be about. Too each their own of course but I prefer the boundary pushing SW than the play it safe SW.

 

I prefer the Star Wars that's good. That can come from new ideas, or it could come from re-hashed ideas done well. I don't give points to something that did something different if it was a bad movie.

For example: Timecode. Its a movie filmed with four continuous shots played at the same time. Completely different and technically brilliant. But the movie is a broken cluster**** that works only in a technical sense.

 

Yeah, and also we live in a continuity-minded world and fandom right now. If characters suddenly behave completely different because a director has a different vision, no one would like that. If you want to have characters to have a previously unexplored personality, it has to be a new character, not Han Solo

 

Prisic Duskleap wrote

Star War started with a defiant middle finger to the suits. 20th century fox wanted no part of SW back in 1977 and kept trying to end the production but Lucas stuck to his guns and made a masterpiece.

Yes, the film was rather anti-establishment (characters of authority portrayed in an unfavorable manner) and Lucas firmly held on to his vision of featuring a freedom fighter film with uplifting tendencies in an era of mostly discouraging, pessimistic films. And the OT carried a clear, educational message "Don't listen to authorities or what you are being told, but do listen to your heart and do the thing you know is right".

With the Prequel Trilogy he painted (rather well, IMHO) how fast we could end up with authoritarian regimes many of us actually despise, which sadly enough ended up being a rather prophetic vision. And how people can get delusions of doing the right thing, when it's actually plain wrong.

The biggest sin though of all is Disney had endless possibilities with the ST and so many up and coming young hungry filmmakers to choose from. But instead they would rather play it safe than be risk takers.

My complaint would be obvious lack of vision. I stand in the camp feeling Star Wars 7 is not that much more than a rehash of ANH and Star Wars 8 now and currently looks to me as some kind of PT rehash, which will be mostly (if not entirely) based on "the Chosen One" concept hijacked from the PT, but twisted from its original context.

 

The original question to this thread was "Is Kathleen Kennedy doing a good job." I come from the original Star Wars generation so you'd think that my alligience would be with the Trilogy. But I like VII and I also enjoyed Rogue One. Any speculation on the Han Solo movie is just that - speculation. The proof is in the final product. But for now, my opinion is that Lucasfilm under Kennedy's guidance is doing a pretty good job. I don't believe that George Lucas would have had the enthusiasm and stamina to do either of those films.

 

[quote="Lt. Hija, post: 54601856, member: 1414001"

With the Prequel Trilogy he painted (rather well, IMHO) how fast we could end up with authoritarian regimes many of us actually despise, which sadly enough ended up being a rather prophetic vision. And how people can get delusions of doing the right thing, when it's actually plain wrong.

.[/quote]

The story in the prequels was inspired by history. The Imperial Roman senate, The Reichstag fire, Nixon's conspiring with the south Vietnamese to sabotage the peace process in '68 in order to disrupt the US presidential election in his favour.

Not by a vision that Lucas had.

History has a habit of repeating itself, which is why those movies resonate with recent history. As does just about any political film you care to mention.

Which kind of makes the annoyance at the parties within the Star Wars universe making the same choices/mistakes as being "unoriginal" a bit weird. I can see where it's coming from, superficially speaking. But the reality that influenced the well received aspects of previous movies is just as relevant in the syndromic nature of the struggles that rear their heads in these Star Wars.

 

Or that Vader was Luke's father. Or that Yoda was wrong about Vader's redemption possibility (senile idiot?)

What made ESB so great (and hence the saga) was it ended with an answer to a question that wasn't being asked. So yeah. I want more of that. At least if we want it to *feel* Star Wars.