Discussion Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Star Wars Movie - NOT FILMING April 7th, 2024 (Blame Fredrik!)

This argument is about why Kathleen Kennedy is still running Lucasfilm and we are simply telling you why she is. And also saying Star Wars is ruined is a 100% subjective.

 

No one denied any of these thing (although pleasing fans is typically seen as a way to make more money, so the people who have their hands on the money levers don’t do it out of generosity). The question though why hasn’t she been fired, and the primary answer, given that the franchise is still successful, is the reason why.

No need to pretend that anyone is being denied an opportunity to criticise KK/Disney, because that wasn’t actually the discussion.

You’ll also find most people here don’t like the ST.

 

Yes. Debates over the quality of the ST is probably more suited to discussions outside of the Kathleen Kennedy job standing. As it is crystal clear why she is still running Lucasfilm.

 

I'm not debating it. And I never said people are being denied their opportunity to criticize.

"Why hasn't Kennedy been fired" was a question, and I was relating fans' dissatisfaction with that.

 

And we've answered this question.

 

I apologize in advance, because I do not wish to be impolite, but this is one of the most asinine things I've read on the forum in a while.

1. TFA made $2 billion because it was a widely acclaimed and massively anticipated movie that the vast majority of critics and audience members seemed to like quite a bit. Kennedy does in fact deserve a share of credit for that, as she brought on JJ Abrams, as well Lawrence Kasdan to facilitate rewriting the script, and oversaw what was an overall smooth production.
2. Rogue One was absolutely, positively not all Gareth. The story was pitched by John Knoll to Kennedy directly, who greenlight the film after seeing its story potential. The actual success can in no small part be attributed to Tony Gilroy, for taking the (by all accounts) incredibly messy cut of the film Edwards produced and drastically rewriting, reshooting and restructuring the film.
3. KK signed off on TLJ's plot points... in addition to plot points in every film and TV series that has been produced, both good and bad, for the past 10 years. The film was backlashed by a contingent of fans, but was still widely acclaimed by critics, still made over $1 billion, and still received the wide support of audience members as can be evaluated by all impartial metrics. And the film was, by all accounts... the smoothest production to date.
4. Kennedy did not sign off on Solo being released in May, the account that we have indicates she greatly wished for it to be pushed back to December of that year, as Bob Iger himself took full responsibility for mandating that the film be released when it was. To summarize, Solo's release debacle was down to Disney issuing a top-down edict, rather than Kennedy herself determining to release the film in May come hell or high water. Do you know how rare it is for the CEO of a company to cop a mea culpa instead of passing the blame to someone who's ostensibly a subordinate? That should be the proof you need that he was actually, genuinely responsible for that mishap.
5. Jon Favreau was responsible for pitching The Mandalorian and for executing it alongside Dave Filoni, whose contribution is so significant he's credited as a co-creator alongside Favreau (at least spell him name correctly, Google is your friend), but that production is (again) overseen directly by Kennedy, who has final signoff and say on hiring and story approval. That also goes, for better and worse, for Rebels, Resistance, The Bad Batch, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and everybody's new darling favourite, Andor.

Attributing every failure or misstep to her and her alone, while failing to credit her in any capacity for any successes, despite her involvement with every production being ostensibly the same, indicates a total lack of understanding of how film/TV production functions at the bare basic level. Maybe you should ask your friend who's supposedly working on Waititi's movie for a quick industry rundown.

 

How can you be dissatisfied with the answer, when the only alternative is that she should be fired upon your own subjective opinion about the output during her tenure?

We, as fans, shouldn’t indulge with the idea that the leadership of a company should be fired because they produced some films which we didn’t like. It’s a silly way to look at the running of the world. It also, wrongly, presumes that problems will largely be solved with a new person in her position. It foists upon one person the blame and responsibility for all the issues, when there are so many reasons as to why the ST turned out the way it did even beyond KK.

 

^That's a lot assumptions based on very little I've actually said. I never said she's responsible for everything bad about Disney SW. And I agree, creative decisions are probably more complex than that.

But I think it's understandable that people wouldn't want more of something they don't like, by the very people who made the thing they don't like. Whether it's a CEO, director, writer, if someone is involved with the creation of a "bad" work, sometimes repeatedly, then of course people won't want them to continue.

To try to get back to the actual topic though... I think I'd only want a post-TROS film if it pretty much retconned the ST.

 

Business decisions aren't made based off of subjective opinions. Your argument would have held up better in a thread strictly discussing the quality of the films. Not discussions based on business practices of companies.

 

I went with those assumptions because getting rid of Kennedy as some type of ‘solution’ doesn’t make sense unless you’re interested in scapegoating or you basically hate everything released on Disney+ as well.

Kennedy was the leader of LFL when the ST was produced. I’m doubtful, firstly, how much the problems can be attributed solely to her so as to justify her taking the fall, but more importantly, they are released and are in the rear view mirror. Firing her is not going to fix the past.

The question shouldn’t really even be about the ST at this point, even if you blame Kennedy for it and hate it. The question is whether the direction the studio to moving and the content it is currently putting out there, is making money and is of quality. Unless someone dislikes essentially everything released, then I think the people wanting KK fired want it done as retribution for the ST (this can be seen clearly when people declare that KK isn’t responsible for the content they like).

What Kennedy needs to do is get the theatrical SW stuff back up and running. These false starts are a problem because it erodes confidence. However while LFL seems to really want to inadvertently air its laundry by announcing projects only to ice them, the task they have isn’t an easy one. They want to move the story forward (so no prequels), which means the first film has to build a new foundation, while at the same time it really cannot be a misfire. There’s probably more pressure on it than JJ had, and they don’t have the various low hanging fruit which JJ had. So I don’t begrudge the detail, I begrudge the false starts.

 

Releasing five huge movies over a four year period was not Lucasfilm's idea. That likely had a lot to do with how the ST turned out and why the plot development was rushed.

Then after the sequels finished we had a worldwide pandemic that hit the entire film industry with a ton of bricks. We have another celebration happening here in five months which I highly suspect they scheduled in order to announce a new slate of films. If Celebration comes and goes without clear word about the plans for the movies I will become far more critical of the situation as well. But given everything that has transpired in recent years I am willing to hold off that criticism until Celebration.

People like to say Marvel releases a lot of movies so why can't Star Wars. Only a small portion of the Marvel movies are as big production wise as Star Wars movies are. Now Star Wars movies don't necessarily need to be so massively huge and that is something that could change.

 

Dp

 

Why am I not surprised to see this thread arguing over Kennedy instead of discussing the potential new movie.

 

Some Fans sure does not like KK, lol. Anyway moving on.

 

Yes, moving past that... my preference for a movie set post-TRoS is for it to be at least a century afterward. I know the initial article mentioned a possibility for ST characters to appear, but I could easily imagine a scenario where the writer for THR simply made an assumption along those lines, since hearing "the movie is set after Episode IX" probably doesn't immediately lead you to assume it's hundreds of years later.

I'm going to hope that this is the case until we hear otherwise.

 

With some characters still alive post TROS that are around in Rebellion era, I think we Will see the movie start 10-15 after TROS. They might want to show the Rebuilding of the republic and jedi order, as was rumored before of a trilogy of jedi order rebuild.

 

I personally wouldn't mind a jump of more than a hundred years (more a long the lines of 500 to a 1,000 years). Give it enough time for Rey's Jedi Order to be rebuilt to a point to where they could realistically fight off a big threat as well as enough time for different offshoots of that Order to gain power. It could realistically become just like the Old Republic but in the future instead of the past.

Then once the Mando shows are over filling in the gaps between the ST and these new movies set far into the future could become the next big television initiative.

And then if the Sequel actors want to come back in the future they could be a part of a movie that builds off of those tv shows (or they could simply do a tv show).

 

I recently watched a documentary about the city of Jericho being excavated. They mentioned an archaeologist from the '50's who did some work there whose name sounded very similar to Kathleen Kennedy. I blame her.

 

Y'all are sucking all the joy out of this thread.

 

One thing I know for certain, if this movie - which is clearly well into development - gets cancelled, or worse if it is released and is terrible, that will not be Kathy’s fault.

 

IT will be Bob's fault.

 

I'll blame this thread.