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Should Disney hold Kathleen Kennedy responsible for the fall of Star Wars brand?

She is the head of Lucas Film after all. She mis-managed the most recognized movie brand in history, I think she should go

She set the early tone by alienating SW original fanbase, which happens to be mostly male

KK: "....I don’t feel that I have a responsibility to cater in some way. I would never just seize on saying, 'Well, this is a franchise that’s appealed primarily to men for many, many years, and therefore I owe men something...."



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She said those words right before the release of Rogue One. In fact you may argue, that's one of the reasons why RO grossed so low in relative comparison to TFA, which was just released one year before

Now, the brand is in tatters, the movies are grossing lower and lower, the amusement park barely has any visitor, toy sales are down
 
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Pidull

Member
Absolutely. The prequels increased their opening weekend box office one after another, showing increased audience engagement with each release. This trilogy has decreased in opening weekend box office with each release, and The Last Jedi was so bad it grossed significantly less than The Force Awakens.

It's a complete failure, and KK/RJ are to blame.
 
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cryptoadam

Banned
She hired RJ, and I am sure she was behind or highly supported the whole Rose/Holdo stuff. TFA and RO made bank. It was after TLJ where the movies hit the shit. But with all the troubles on the productions like hiring and firing of directors and redoing movies its clear she didn't have a good handle on the projects.

You can't tell me having to have Ron Howard come in and re shoot Solo shows she is a genius. They also did a ton of reshoots on RO and TROS, not a good sign for a production and expensive.

I don't think casting Rey was a big problem, but truth is SW is a male power fantasy and its fueled by appealing to boys. Its not women that have made SW an enduring franchis from the late 70's to today. So having the series be about Ben Solo instead of Rey probably would of appealed more to the target audience. But I still don't think Rey was really a huge problem, just not the direction I would of taken.
 
The last movie was just good enough to not throw her to the pits. Star Wars is a little too simple though, they need better stories.
 
Non-white male leads didn't make the sequel trilogy suck. Pretty much everything else about them did.

Who's talking about non-white male leads in this thread? Oh wait, it's you. The cast from these movies could have made something really special. Nothing was wrong with the cast. It was the writing that ruined it. You don't see Marvel movies making consistently less money with each release.
 

sol_bad

Member
The last movie was just good enough to not throw her to the pits. Star Wars is a little too simple though, they need better stories.

They tried that and you saw what happened. Both with the prequel trilogy and The Last Jedi.
Stray too far from the concept and fans whinge, stay to close to the concept and fans whinge.
It's really hard to understand what the supposed fans want.

RedLetterMedia once said that Star Wars is stuck with what it can do with it's stories and that it always involves Jedi's. Sith, Light sabers, X-Wing/TIE fighters and space battles. They were right. But it's not because the writers can't come up with new ideas or themes. It's because the fans turn evil when they try. The fact that Lucas walked away from his baby is enough to tell you how his "fans" are/were.
 
S

slugbahr

Unconfirmed Member
They tried that and you saw what happened. Both with the prequel trilogy and The Last Jedi.
Stray too far from the concept and fans whinge, stay to close to the concept and fans whinge.
It's really hard to understand what the supposed fans want.

RedLetterMedia once said that Star Wars is stuck with what it can do with it's stories and that it always involves Jedi's. Sith, Light sabers, X-Wing/TIE fighters and space battles. They were right. But it's not because the writers can't come up with new ideas or themes. It's because the fans turn evil when they try. The fact that Lucas walked away from his baby is enough to tell you how his "fans" are/were.
Lucas got billions of dollars. That's the fact.
 
I think there have been definite growing pains. We'll have to see how the other Disney+ shows are.. Is Mandalorian an exception? Or will they all be good and well recieved?

Giving SW a movie break for a few years is the best idea they've had in a while. I do think fans have no clear idea what they want all the time, but do know what they don't want.

But I think that was their dilemma. Are they trying to appeal to old fans or try to attract new ones? Personally I'd of said if someone didn't like Star Wars before, I don't know what you could do to make them like it now without alienating fans. I feel like they tried to end up somewhere in the middle.

They need a strong force holding it all together and making sure there are plans ahead of time so we don't end up with a ST mess again.
 

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
Her contract has been extended to 2021 and Kevin Feige is assisting her with the next movie as a producer. But if RotS does poorly at the box office then nothing will save her, she'll be gone after that. Amazing how George Lucas left his legacy to her and she decimated it in under a decade.

It is totally her fault btw, she is the core decision maker ultimately so...
 

theekad

Banned
Rogue One, The Last Jedi, Solo, The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker are all mediocre to flat out bad. Whoever is in charge of them should be sacked.

Then again Marvel also releases a ton of mediocre schlock, so I guess as long as they’re making money and getting bizarrely decent reviews (sans TROS), no reason to change horses midstream.
 
Her contract has been extended to 2021 and Kevin Feige is assisting her with the next movie as a producer. But if RotS does poorly at the box office then nothing will save her, she'll be gone after that. Amazing how George Lucas left his legacy to her and she decimated it in under a decade.

It is totally her fault btw, she is the core decision maker ultimately so...
Lucas is to blame a little. He chose her to be in charge iirc.
 

Hinedorf

Banned
In this very progressive era of the #MeToo movement, I think it's only fair we literally crucify Kathleen for allowing space wizards to become jedi jesus instead.

I love Abrams, I love Johnson, I blame Kathleen 100%
 

Yoda

Member
She's literally the highest level executive at LucasFilm and micro-manages creative decisions there. She's responsible for the current state of the brand, if Disney really thinks no one could've done better (...lol) than nah don't replace her, otherwise it's their money, they're free to waste it however they see fit.
 

sol_bad

Member
Lucas got billions of dollars. That's the fact.

Of course he did. But he sold it because he no longer had the will power or enthusiasm to make the sequel trilogy. The amount of hate he received is just beyond insane. And this is before social media was a thing.
 
Was it her or Iger?
Her. Iger threw out Lucas' treatments for a sequel trilogy fearing they would stray too far from why people liked the originals. Lucas tried to get her to fight for his ideas, but she sided with Iger and oversaw TFA with the mandate to make it a soft reboot of ANH. After TFA made bank, Iger gave her more freedom to make decisions. She then let Rian throw out JJs plans and do his own thing. Apparently this is because they saw eye to eye creatively.
 
RedLetterMedia once said that Star Wars is stuck with what it can do with it's stories and that it always involves Jedi's. Sith, Light sabers, X-Wing/TIE fighters and space battles. They were right. But it's not because the writers can't come up with new ideas or themes. It's because the fans turn evil when they try.
Sorry, but no. Those same "pesky fans" loved a lot of the stuff the EU produced.

I just want a well made Star Wars movie that respects the characters in it, and acknowledge that people have some head canon after 40 years that you cannot simply wipe away from existence.

See how "Cobra Kai" did it.

In that way, I loved how Rise of Skywalker did that. I would have loved the movie to be a bit more slow, and a bit less stupid, but they 100% nailed the part where they respected their fan base and the old characters..
 
The fact that they didn't have an agreed general outline for the ST absolutely blows my mind. I wonder if there was one originally and then they later decided it was a good idea to make it up as they went on? It's one of the strangest parts about this whole debacle.
The outline was what you can see in TFA and then TROS.
It's just that RJ Roundhead decided "fuck it", killed off whatever there was that didn't fit into his vision, and then went on to create his own movie that has nothing to do with Star Wars.
 

Paracelsus

Member
Pointless to point fingers now, they completely retconned OT and PT out of existence.
What use is replace her now? They can't just make the ST non-canon and start from scratch. It simply cannot be fixed.
 
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MilkyJoe

Member
Pointless to point fingers now, they completely retconned OT and PT out of existence.
What use is replace her now? They can't just make the ST non-canon and start from scratch. It simply cannot be fixed.

Because they still have to claw back that initial investment and the continued, daily, expenditure on the brand. You can't do that if people are not interested in the product, and if the reason they are not interested is because the CEO is the most toxic person in the eyes of the fan-base, then that's going to be an extremely tall order.

She's fucking toast, TRoS opening weekend is down 20% on TLJ and down 30% on TFA, if the 2nd week drop off is massive then someone is getting thrown to the lions.


Let's hope this is true.
 

Paracelsus

Member
Because they still have to claw back that initial investment and the continued, daily, expenditure on the brand. You can't do that if people are not interested in the product, and if the reason they are not interested is because the CEO is the most toxic person in the eyes of the fan-base, then that's going to be an extremely tall order.

She's fucking toast, TRoS opening weekend is down 20% on TLJ and down 30% on TFA, if the 2nd week drop off is massive then someone is getting thrown to the lions.


Let's hope this is true.

I know, and I understand, but this is like firing the captain while the ship is sinking. What's the use?
I mean, sure, they can still do minor things like the Mandalorian, but as far as mothership entries and big spin-offs, they're screwed. The foundation that kept people coming is gone.
They better be saving every little dollar of the billion they're gonna make out of ROS, because they ain't gonna make much more afterwards.

Non-white male leads didn't make the sequel trilogy suck. Pretty much everything else about them did.

What was the original vision for the ST? If you answer that, you realize both things are strongly intertwined.
 
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ZehDon

Gold Member
The OP is ridiculously inflammatory bait. There's literally hundreds of issues with the Disney Trilogy without even touching the behind-the-scenes politics.

Issues with the Disney Trilogy:
1. Going into the trilogy with zero overall plan.
3. Dis-regarding Lucas' entire treatments and outlines.
6. Allowing JJ to do a soft-reboot of A New Hope.
14. Rian Johnson.
15. Actually - basically everything Rian Johnson.
156. The Story Group not focusing on the story.
19,657. Insulting everyone who dislikes the first two movies as sexist, racist, misogynist, [insert-new-thing]-ist, etc.
...
267,944. Behind the scenes politics framing decisions around casting, narrative drive, and messaging.
 
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MilkyJoe

Member
I know, and I understand, but this is like firing the captain while the ship is sinking. What's the use?
I mean, sure, they can still do minor things like the Mandalorian, but as far as mothership entries and big spin-offs, they're screwed. The foundation that kept people coming is gone.
They better be saving every little dollar of the billion they're gonna make out of ROS, because they ain't gonna make much more afterwards.



What was the original vision for the ST? If you answer that, you realize both things are strongly intertwined.

The fix is easy. Like super easy.

1) Fire Kennedy and her entire story group.

You know not one single person here is a Star Wars fan. Kennedy herself complained that writing these movies was difficult as "it's not like we have 800 page novels and comic books as source material" - fucking clueless

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2) Give her job to Jonathan Favreau

3) Announce a new Trilogy starring Mark Hamill as Jedi Master Luke. Maybe make it about his Jedi academy and do NOT include the character of Ben Solo - this will speak louder than any apology.

Do that and people would scramble over each other to get into that cinema.

Disney's biggest failure is not giving the OT & PT fans what they want. Your average 30 to 40 year old couldn't give a flying fuck about gender bollocks and those are the people they needed to rely on to pass the torch of the fandom to the next generation. "Let the past die, kill it if you have to" was the most costly mistake in movie, if not business history. There will be books written about this.
 

Yoboman

Member
I don’t like Star Wars

But I liked Luke Skywalker. Dude was a pretty dorky hick who could drive a ship well. He grew into the character

The new chick (can’t even remember her name) just seemed so perfect in so many ways that she was boring. What is her personality? I couldn’t describe it

Female characters can be awesome, stop being afraid to make them flawed or silly or in over their heads in order to get those “strong woman” points
 

GymWolf

Member
The films makes a shitload of money, not so sure that disney is gonna change something in their leadership for the saga...
 
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