And then what happened? Without those talented men behind her, she has made a muck of things. I think it is pretty clear that she lived off of their skill and hard work. Who couldn't produce major box office sales with the likes of Lucas and Spielberg creating films for them? They created those successes, not her. Replace her, and those films would be just as successful. I think her days are numbered. I could see someone like Jon Favreau displacing her in time; especially seeing as that The Mandalorian is finally bringing Disney some good will. Of course Disney can't fire her because she is a woman, but they will either wait out her contract or quietly push her to the side. ...and then she stabbed him right in the back. It's all on video; look it up on YouTube. That treacherous snake made all sorts of promises and then she immediately went back on them. She is a liar and fool. Lucas HATES what they have done to Star Wars (Bob Iger admitted this). The Fandom Menace will not be satisfied until her head is on a pike (figuratively of course).
Pretty sure Disney has done what most media companies do to a minority outraged fandom. They try to appease them by addressing their points in interviews. They maybe even reduce the role of a character the fandom is particularly outraged over (see Rose ep IX). When that doesn't work they write them off and move on. Specially when their movies are breaking a billion world wide. The bulk of evidence for Kathleen Kennedy is in her favor in terms of her career as a producer. Also, she produced both Rogue One and the Mandalorian btw.
A minority of fandom? That's the Disney talking point. The box office failure of Solo has permanently disproved the theory that the Fandom menace comprises only a minority of the SW fandom. If that is not enough, the steep decline in SW toy sales and the poor performance of Galaxy's Edge disbands any reasonable doubt. Off of (what was at some point) the most valuable movie IP. What is of interest is that the movies' box office performance is declining. Also consider that they typically need to be around that billion dollar mark just to start making a profit. The cost of making and promoting these films is extremely high, and studios typically take in only about 60% of the box office gross (about 25% in China). I'm aware that her name was credited, but I suspect she had little to do with the success of the Mandalorian... I'd look to Jon Faveau and Dave Filoni for that one.
I doubt George Lucas is going to come back. I believe one of the reasons he sold Star Wars to Disney is that he is getting old and didn't have the energy. He wanted to retire. He might try to come out of retirement now to save his legacy, but I doubt it. I predict if he did come back he would over correct. He would end up creating something subjectively better than the Disney Stars trilogy but subjectively worse than the prequels. That is something that will redeem Star Wars legacy. I don't think Kathleen Kennedy had any elaborate deceptions. I think she is just good at telling her superiors what they want to hear, and George Lucas is susceptible to flattery. I predict Kathleen Kennedy will likely sideline herself, craft a golden parachute and quietly leave with dignity. I'm more curious to what will happen with JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson. They are throwing a lot of shade at each other. Hollywood big names have a tendency to fail upwards. It takes more than one or two public relations disasters to torpedo a career like theirs, look at Elizabeth Banks who keeps getting large $ projects. M. Knight Shamaylan took a long time to fall. He was able to ride the coattails two or three good movies past seven or eight sub par ones.
I think I remember him also saying something like "they aren't fun to make anymore" and he tied it to how a few people were being assholes and called it "being fans". He's an interesting example. As soon as he left what is his passion he produced movies that sucked. He returned to his roots (weird Horror/psycho stuff) and as soon as he did (roughly 2015) his movies got a lot better again.
Definitely not in a full scale role. However, I could see him coming on board as a creative consultant (I believe he did so with the Mandalorian).
I doubt that. She has been in the game a long time. You don't end up as Executive producer of Lucas Films by accident.
I'd say she also had little to do with Rogue One's success. That was more due to Gareth Edwards and the chap who took over after Edwards' first draft was believed to be too dark (even darker than the already dark final film). True, we do have a female protagonist in it, but Jyn is certainly not a Rey. She has flaws where Rey doesn't, and shows more humanity in the one film she was in than Rey does in three. What's more, while the male characters were not given as much development, the development they got didn't make them look stupid or incompetent. It's evident that Edwards and his successor kept a firm hold on the film's plot to make sure Kennedy's 'Force is Female' rubbish was kept to a minimum. I was watching a documentary not long ago about Britain's involvement in the Star Wars franchise (we did a lot in helping organise the sets and so on), and one of the end segments focused on Gareth Edwards (who is currently the only British director of a Star Wars film) and Rogue One. In his interview he explained how he loved the OT and wanted to recreate it in the film techniques they used for it, which I felt was really interesting because while he did love the OT, we know from the final cut of Rogue One that it is evident he still made sure that that love for it didn't get in the way of the story he wanted to tell in the film, because its grimdarkness is unlike anything we see in the OT, or indeed any Star Wars film other than Revenge of the Sith, the only one that comes close on the dark scale. Therefore, it is certainly possible to have a great love for the OT, yet still make a Star Wars film that is undoubtedly different in plot and feel, which makes Abrams and Johnson look all the more incompetent as they evidently can't do that.
I don’t know about JJ Abrams - I was under the impression he’s made several ‘controversial’ films on top of the Star Wars stuff - but I’m pretty sure Rian Johnson will be fine given the massive success and critical acclaim of Knives Out this year (which I personally feel is completely deserved).
I just saw Rise of Skywalker today and I have a couple of things to say after reading all your posts. Frankly I really enjoyed the movie. I think the biggest issue for the movie is that it's star wars and a high expectation was set for it from the beginning. That being said I do agree with most of your assessments of the flaws etc. Also about Force Heal if I'm correct not every Jedi can use it. You have to either be trained to use it or have it sort of come to you. For example there are many force techniques that not all Jedi/sith used, not because they weren't worth using but because they either weren't capable, or didn't know how. Every Force User sort of have an innate set of skills that comes with them. For example the skill of Battle Meditation is extremely powerful yet most Jedi couldn't use it. Battle Meditation greatly increases all allies resolve to fight, conectration etc and has an incredibly large radius (a whole fleet of ships was affected once) and simultaneously decreases the enemies resolve to fight. That would have worked wonders if Luke had used it but he didn't know how. Standard skills such as force push and such are very simple and sort of come naturally but more advanced skills like Force Heal isn't usually natural though some people can innately use it. Baby Yoda and Rey just happened to be gifted with that skill. That being said it still may have been an oversight but it is also possible it wasn't.
Rey just happens to be gifted with every skill that the plot demands without ever having to earn said skill.
That is true lol. I was just saying that since the memes were assuming all Jedi could do it. Still thought they were funny though lol.
I think the memes were ultimately making fun of the fact that force healing seems to remove the consequences in the story. Qui Gon is impaled with a lightsaber... he dies. Kylo is impaled with a lightsaber and seconds later he is completely fine. However, I do agree with your analysis that certain force powers were only known to a very small number of gifted (and in many cases, specialized) force users.
I personally thought TRoS was a good send-off. Granted, that was the result of going into the theater with low expectations given TLJ, but it was good enough for a popcorn flick. What I did find interesting was how much of the plot was more or less lifted from Legends' Dark Empire series, from Palpatine surviving via clone-jumping in the Unknown Regions to his plot of possessing a powerful fallen Jedi so that he may return to the galaxy in force. With everything said, Rey being Sheev Palpatine's granddaughter had me raise the question of how Palps had the time or inclination to have a child in the first place. Probably another plot point that'll never be resolved, but I'd imagine that it was through means that some would consider... unnatural. Oh, and more stormtrooper deserters for Finn to hang out with, because that's apparently the only way that Disney knows how to write sympathetic stormtroopers.