Kathleen Kennedy To Exit After "Tribute" At Disney "Star Wars 23" Convention

[AndyDursin]

Figures -- Disney about to piss away the only good thing they've managed to get going since they spent a billion on STAR WARS.

Short version: Favreau's been ticked ever since Kathleen Kennedy and Robert Rodriguez ruined BOBA FETT, forcing him to go back, junk the last group of episodes and use THE MANDALORIAN's 3rd season opener as two of its last shows.

Allegedly he can't stand her, which makes sense since everything she touches turns to Bantha waste.

[AndyDursin]

I guessed as much.

[AndyDursin]

[Monterey Jack]

Because THAT's what Star Wars fans want...immediately-dated political commentary!

[AndyDursin]

Lol does she know how long he's been out of office

[Monterey Jack]

Lol does she know how long he's been out of office

Doesn't matter...everything wrong in the world is Trump's fault.

[AndyDursin]

This is the other thing that destroys the trust between fans and corporations like Disney -- the sheer fact that these "retcons" are pissing away decades of books, film, TV, games, etc. And they are doing it now with every new piece of this franchise. Bravo guys!

[Eric Paddon]

Honestly, I have reached a point where I only acknowledge the original trilogy and nothing else. And there are times I wish I could restrict it to just the innocence of the original Star Wars film and before we were exposed to "*I* am your Father!" and "Leia! Leia is my sister!"

[AndyDursin]

It's really pretty easy to do so. Joanne said that to me tonight -- she loves the originals, she's happy to keep it there (the prequels def have their issues, I don't disagree, but at least they're from the same creative source so they feel legitimate). And I agree with you -- I think the heavy "mythology" Lucas started instilling in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was to the detriment of what was originally just a massively FUN Saturday Matinee experience with the 1977 original.

One thing is for sure: nearly everything Disney has produced feels like scattered fan fiction, utterly without any care or fidelity to what came before it. It's STAR WARS for the Marvel crowd is what it is -- characters leaping in the air with super-powers (Rey took down a TIE FIGHTER in Episode IX! I forgot that one) and all that. Coincidentally I finished RISE OF SKYWALKER tonight (first time since theaters) because Theo hadn't seen it and it's just so utterly SENSELESS even by the rules established by the series. "Palpatine's back!" Okay, why? For what purpose? No explanations are ever provided. Just like how the Empire managed to restore itself with a kid Vader wannabe who's so useless he's defeated by Rey's inexperienced warrior EVERY SINGLE TIME across the three movies. No explanations, nothing.

Anyways...Jon Favreau managed somehow to get THE MANDALORIAN out there and that's the only piece of KathleenKennedySTARWARS that's really worth it. The only thing that feels like a nice tangent off the usual STAR WARS Skywalker narrative but still in the "same universe" -- and the kind of thing they should've done more of. Everything else can be safely disregarded.

[mkaroly]

She can do whatever she wants to it at this point and that is fine by me. STAR WARS was one thing, but now it is another thing. Everyone knows what Disney is and what it stands for - we should not be surprised. And we should not be surprised that KK could care less about the former fan base; like most things the corporate Empire is looking to replace the older fans with newer fans so the product survives into the future and said corporate Empire can keep making money off of it. Classic! Maybe STAR WARS is better off dead at this point - in which case people just need to stop paying for it and watching it.

[AndyDursin]

And we should not be surprised that KK could care less about the former fan base;

I'm certainly surprised. It's one of the largest fanbases for any pop culture phenomenon, like, ever. They aren't that old and many of them spend a lot of money on entertainment. I don't think it makes much sense at all because there a lot more of us than there are "current fan base" members who actually like what Disney is doing with Star Wars on a regular basis. If there were, they'd still be making movies and not TV shows.

But you're right, Michael -- she doesn't care. I haven't seen any company do what Disney has done and call fans racists, hate mongers, and generally horrible people the way they have to us. They can do whatever they want but I also don't buy it. Like the cast of GHOSTBUSTERS in 2016 this has all been to shield their shitty product from actual criticism, like planting stories that people hated the girl in OBI WAN because she's a "person of color." They started planting those stories BEFORE IT EVEN AIRED because they knew their show was garbage but it generated publicity for them and stopped anyone from posting bad stuff because, ya know, they're "racist" if they don't like her, or the series.

Her problem in embracing "new fans" is all of this is playing to diminishing returns -- the movies and the shows alike. KENOBI lost viewership at the end, which is probably the only stat you can tell (outside word of mouth/social media) that people generally didn't like it. And like so many of these things she's produced, it was a creative disaster that "retooled" its entire concept after it got going, resulting in a mess (just like Solo, Rogue One, Rise of Skywalker, and countless other things).

Disney never should've let her handle the creative element. She held no such capacity working for Spielberg and she's not easy to work with...if only they'd let Favreau/Filoni alone, and let other writer/directors do their thing, and it'd at least be more interesting. This "corporate hands on" thing Disney does worked for Marvel in terms of the reliability of the end product but Star Wars was a George Lucas thing -- a franchise with a single POV -- and that's long gone now. What they've tried to do here in exploiting it has been close to a total CREATIVE failure IMO.

[Monterey Jack]

Of COURSE Lukas is totally on board with Tom Clancy's Star Wars.

https://www.lukaskendall.com/post/andor-trailer

HILARIOUS that he has faith that Disney won't micro-manage Andor, because Tony Gilroy "saved" Rogue One. They'd nip and tuck a SCORSESE Star Wars project by this point.

[AndyDursin]

lol agreed. I'm going to have to bite my tongue on this one -- but I'm glad someone is excited!

I also love how somehow ROGUE ONE has become this classic film amongst, I don't know, some parts of the media? "The best Disney Star Wars Movie of them all!" as if that's some kind of cinematic achievement.

[Monterey Jack]

lol agreed. I'm going to have to bite my tongue on this one -- but I'm glad someone is excited!

Just funny that Lukas - who was the king of sour, "I hate everything" cynicism in the FSM print era - is giving a pass on Andor because Tony Gilroy made Michael Clayton...fifteen years ago. Yeah, and Sam Raimi made A Simple Plan 24 years ago, but that doesn't mean that his Dr. Strange 2 wasn't the same bland paste that every other MCU movie is, just with a handful of lite "Raimi-isms" sneaking through (it was certainly no Darkman).

[AndyDursin]

Just funny that Lukas - who was the king of sour, "I hate everything" cynicism in the FSM print era - is giving a pass on Andor because Tony Gilroy made Michael Clayton...fifteen years ago.

I mean, it's a different game when you are "in" the industry and trying to make a career of it. But yeah, I know exactly what you are saying. I remember the "editorial staff" trashing everything from BRAVEHEART ("it's Mel Gibson's Jesus Christ complex!") to FAR AND AWAY in FSM years ago and to see this kind of thing...especially given where the entertainment world was 25 years ago VS. today...it's kind of like living in a parallel universe.

Just being honest -- I often wondered back then if ANY of them actually LIKED movies. Granted the L.A. staff were mostly out of college but I actually LIKED movies and had seen a lot more of them, even being a few years younger, than they had...but the tone of the mag was sarcastic and highly critical, even of quality. That of course was also its charm for readers too, but in hindsight, they really had no idea how good they had it back at the time compared to now!