Well said, and strong agreement across the board. (I, too, have only seen The Rise of Skywalker the one time and will probably never watch it again, despite being a life-long Star Wars fan.)
It's pretty clear that Kennedy's experience as a producer has not translated to the duties of a studio head. My take is she's a bean counter who doesn't have the creative talent to make story decisions. (I wonder if George picked her because of this? Like he thought she'd just use his story treatments for episodes 7-9, since story has never been her strength. Interesting hypothesis, anyway.) Instead she's abdicated her creative responsibilities to every director she's hired, which is why the Sequel Trilogy in particular is so disjointed (and ultimately ends so unsatisfactorily). But it also explains the scattershot approach Lucasfilm has approached everything post-Lucas. There is no Feige-esque unified plan because the person in charge of planning is out of her element.
And now I'm hearing rumors about Disney+ shows featuring Luke, Han, and Leia... WTF We are doomed to forever keep circling this one particular point in galactic history. The best thing for Star Wars would be to go back way into the past or far into the future, and tell stories about entirely new characters. The Mandalorian felt like a nice compromise--give us the familiar totems, X-Wings, Stormtroopers, etc.--but make it about an entirely new character and a different part of the galaxy. But season two shoehorned in Ahsoka and Luke. And it's increasingly clear that's the direction Lucasfilm intends to go.
Great read, glad I follow you. It's hard to find people that both really care about Star Wars and aren't blinded senseless by the spectacle of it. If you go to a Facebook Group or Reddit and talk about how disappointing The Book of Boba Fett was (disjointed, made a mockery of the main character, stepped all over the season two finale of The Mandalorian), you'll get shouted down. There's no room in the fandom for serious critical analysis. You're either with them or against them. Which, as you know, is the way of the Sith.
All great points! I think that’s a great theory about Lucas and Kennedy. Either way, I cannot for the life of me understand why Disney’s kept her in place for as long as they have. The end of the Skywalker Saga presented a great opportunity for them to give her a send off and bring in new leadership, but they didn’t take it. Hopefully with Iger back in the saddle and trying to revive the company, he’ll make a move there.
Also, love your 7 things. Especially regarding Luke’s Last Jedi arc. That’s my favorite part of the movie and a big reason why I’m such a staunch defender of it despite its issues. To me it shows a huge lack of maturity that some fans can’t appreciate the gravity of it just because they didn’t get the overpowered Jedi Master Luke they’d always dreamed of.
Like with everything else in life, nothing will ever improve if we can’t have honest critical conversations, especially about the things we care about.
Well said, and strong agreement across the board. (I, too, have only seen The Rise of Skywalker the one time and will probably never watch it again, despite being a life-long Star Wars fan.)
It's pretty clear that Kennedy's experience as a producer has not translated to the duties of a studio head. My take is she's a bean counter who doesn't have the creative talent to make story decisions. (I wonder if George picked her because of this? Like he thought she'd just use his story treatments for episodes 7-9, since story has never been her strength. Interesting hypothesis, anyway.) Instead she's abdicated her creative responsibilities to every director she's hired, which is why the Sequel Trilogy in particular is so disjointed (and ultimately ends so unsatisfactorily). But it also explains the scattershot approach Lucasfilm has approached everything post-Lucas. There is no Feige-esque unified plan because the person in charge of planning is out of her element.
And now I'm hearing rumors about Disney+ shows featuring Luke, Han, and Leia... WTF We are doomed to forever keep circling this one particular point in galactic history. The best thing for Star Wars would be to go back way into the past or far into the future, and tell stories about entirely new characters. The Mandalorian felt like a nice compromise--give us the familiar totems, X-Wings, Stormtroopers, etc.--but make it about an entirely new character and a different part of the galaxy. But season two shoehorned in Ahsoka and Luke. And it's increasingly clear that's the direction Lucasfilm intends to go.
As for Filoni.. he's a middling director, not a messiah. This probably isn't true and I have no way of vetting it, but I attribute all the good things about The Mandalorian to Favreau, and all the stupid expanded universe crap to Filoni. I included this Filoni take in my list of my controversial Star Wars opinions: https://medium.com/fan-fare/7-absolutely-controversial-things-i-believe-about-star-wars-4bbc51875dd1?sk=fa0ce0ba42cb8595eb8f79a57c8c2c1f
Great read, glad I follow you. It's hard to find people that both really care about Star Wars and aren't blinded senseless by the spectacle of it. If you go to a Facebook Group or Reddit and talk about how disappointing The Book of Boba Fett was (disjointed, made a mockery of the main character, stepped all over the season two finale of The Mandalorian), you'll get shouted down. There's no room in the fandom for serious critical analysis. You're either with them or against them. Which, as you know, is the way of the Sith.
All great points! I think that’s a great theory about Lucas and Kennedy. Either way, I cannot for the life of me understand why Disney’s kept her in place for as long as they have. The end of the Skywalker Saga presented a great opportunity for them to give her a send off and bring in new leadership, but they didn’t take it. Hopefully with Iger back in the saddle and trying to revive the company, he’ll make a move there.
Also, love your 7 things. Especially regarding Luke’s Last Jedi arc. That’s my favorite part of the movie and a big reason why I’m such a staunch defender of it despite its issues. To me it shows a huge lack of maturity that some fans can’t appreciate the gravity of it just because they didn’t get the overpowered Jedi Master Luke they’d always dreamed of.
Like with everything else in life, nothing will ever improve if we can’t have honest critical conversations, especially about the things we care about.
Love the analogy in the last paragraph