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Kathleen Kennedy: Making A STAR WARS Film Is Difficult because no source material

#Phonepunk#

Banned
No source material? lol. And when has that been a problem for a true creative?




These are pretty bad takes. She's been a producer for some of the most famous/well known films of the 80's and 90's.

Jurassic Park
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Schindler's List
Poltergeist
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Gremlins
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The Goonies
Back to the Future
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part III
The Color Purple
An American Tail
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Land Before Time
I never said she wasn’t involved in a ton of stuff that did well decades ago. But why she get hired in 2012, it wasn’t the success of Back to the Future III.
Why is she still allowed to talk
She is there to take the blame, easier to spin “SW is really back!” when she retires in 2021. Firing her is out of the question given the woke posturing. Better to leverage this era and have her own it, especially if ROS is a bust.
 
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GymWolf

Member
I mean ep 4.1 a new order was almost complete shit even copying the first film, you have to be talented even when you have source material...
 

gatti-man

Member
I never said she wasn’t involved in a ton of stuff that did well decades ago. But why she get hired in 2012, it wasn’t the success of Back to the Future III.

She is there to take the blame, easier to spin “SW is really back!” when she retires in 2021. Firing her is out of the question given the woke posturing. Better to leverage this era and have her own it, especially if ROS is a bust.
Her damage is essentially done. By killing skywalker and solo she essentially rebooted Star Wars after the OT and fucked all the potential comic and book story lines. Finding amazing stories and writers isn’t very easy even for Disney.
This is why I felt they are putting Star Wars on hiatus bc they don’t have anything good in the pipe line and don’t know where to go.
 

royox

Member
I don't fucking get it. She's not a hack, she knows what she's doing. She's not some demographic hire, she knows movies inside out.

What the fuck happened?

What happened is that they don't have to create only a new story with new characters. They have to do that AND ALSO add all the political agenda of 2019's earth to a "galaxy far far away". That's why they can't come up with good ideas or stories, they need specific stuff done by specific characters based on color, gender and sexuality. Like Poe and Finn on TLJ failing at everything, Rey beating a lot of red guards and Kylo and the Pink haired bitch that could just have said the plan to everyone else becoming a hero by suicide-lightspeed attacking the big destroyer.

We would have totally different movies if characters could act as normal people would instead of being forced to act retarded for PC agenda.
 
Wow...I think the thing that is MOST disappointing about this whole disney/star wars thing (and to a lesser degree, marvel, just because marvel, despite it's obvious flaws still makes MAD cash) is Disney's inability to actually take responsibility for it's bad decision making and instead has become a true paragon of the Trumpian era, using diversionary tactics and controversy to stir up good will for them as victims when they know they have nothing good to offer their real fans. At least they can appeal to the cult of reaction that exists right now. I feel like a lot of companies learned this from the Ghostbusters 2016 marketing campaign. Like, they know a product of theirs is subpar, so instead of admitting they kind of fucked up or attempting to fix it, they start massive campaigns claiming it's all just incel man-baby neckbeards complaining...when in actuality, the movies rarely have anything to offer...anyone.

No source material. For star wars. I cant even imagine having the ego to say that straight faced. Of course, I guess I've ALWAYS been a horrible liar, gat-damn.

More has been written on star wars than a lot of religions. Stop making excuses. Hire people who can do the job, not who fit a demographic, you FUCKING. FASCIST.
 
No source material? lol. And when has that been a problem for a true creative?




These are pretty bad takes. She's been a producer for some of the most famous/well known films of the 80's and 90's.

Jurassic Park
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Schindler's List
Poltergeist
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Gremlins
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The Goonies
Back to the Future
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part III
The Color Purple
An American Tail
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Land Before Time
Damn. That's a fine pedigree.
Sometimes though, within the span of decades (or however long since Schindler's list), apparently people can and do change.

Fuck man, if these movies had an ounce of the flavor of even ONE of those movies, star wars would be selling like gangbusters.
 

Gp1

Member
My face reading this...
Zp2xYgF.png


Making shit is hard when you can't copy/remake/steal ideas.

They cant even make shit having source material to copy. The new trilogy is a mishmash of rehashing the original trilogy seasoned with expanded universe.

Disney killed EU just to have chewie back and to use just some points as inspiration. eg. Kylo is a watered down version of Cade Skywalker
 
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So you're spoiling it for the other 1%, literally no need for that dude, we have spoiler tags.

I'll cover it. I didn't realise you were seriously asking me to cover a spoiler for a game so old and underloved that we have more chance of choking on rocking horse shit, than ever getting a remaster or sequel.
 

Nymphae

Banned
I didn't realise you were seriously asking me to cover a spoiler for a game so old

I do not accept this reasoning for being able to freely spoil things - people are born every day and the age of a piece of content has no bearing on whether or not people have consumed it. We should try to be considerate about major spoilers imo because it takes almost no effort (even though I will also argue that having content spoiled is not a big a deal as others will make it out to be)
 
I do not accept this reasoning for being able to freely spoil things - people are born every day and the age of a piece of content has no bearing on whether or not people have consumed it. We should try to be considerate about major spoilers imo because it takes almost no effort (even though I will also argue that having content spoiled is not a big a deal as others will make it out to be)

Too true, I've covered it. God speed to the young'uns who say NO! to todays tripe-tier games and wonder in to yesteryear for a healthy dose of God-tier gaming.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Literally just give us a good original story.

Not a reboot of 4 like 7.
Not a a prequel to 4 like R1.
Not a disaster like 8.
Not a Han Solo origin story.

I do not accept this reasoning for being able to freely spoil things - people are born every day and the age of a piece of content has no bearing on whether or not people have consumed it. We should try to be considerate about major spoilers imo because it takes almost no effort (even though I will also argue that having content spoiled is not a big a deal as others will make it out to be)

Darth Vader is Luke's dad.
 
I'll cover it. I didn't realise you were seriously asking me to cover a spoiler for a game so old and underloved that we have more chance of choking on rocking horse shit, than ever getting a remaster or sequel.
They did update it recently and include extra stuff for free, including patching new resolutions and including gamepad support as far as I remember. Plus I think they remastered it and released it for IOS not that anyone cares about mobile gaming.
 
Check her imdb page and read up on her history if you don't want to sound like you have no idea what you're talking about. When I heard she was taking over, my first thoughts where that this was a perfect choice. She should have been a perfect choice.

You do know that Directors can have duds too right? (the fact that you mentioned 80s Cartoons just furthers my point about Disney and IDMB is the worst place to have an opinion on anything)

I am not saying that she was a terrible choice, just not an ideal one. (Since your keyword is: Should, it should have been "Perhaps")

I don't think it matters if I follow them religiously or not (since you tried to call out my ignorance), as I am allowed my own opinion and the opinion that most people commented in this thread is she didn't do her homework. Past credits/honourables mean nothing if they are taking on something as big as Star Wars, since this is what the topic is about.

Sorry if a director citing that there is no Source Material is going to upset long time fans. Perhaps we have higher standards and expect an otherwise respected Director to say something more professional? (Hard I know)
 

Kreen101

Member
Star Wars is a male-fantasy story and universe that's tailor-made for the male mind. It couldn't have been created by a woman, in the same way that Wuthering Heights couldn't have been written by a man. Doesn't mean women can't enjoy SW. But you need a guy to be in charge of something like Star Wars. The name itself screams young boy fantasy world.
 

ROMhack

Member
Star Wars is a male-fantasy story and universe that's tailor-made for the male mind. It couldn't have been created by a woman, in the same way that Wuthering Heights couldn't have been written by a man. Doesn't mean women can't enjoy SW. But you need a guy to be in charge of something like Star Wars. The name itself screams young boy fantasy world.

that's a fair point. Star Wars is the most Western shonen-like thing I can think of.
 

Dural

Member
As for Kennedy. I wonder what the hell happened. She has been a part of some of the greatest movies ever made. Need I mention? Indiana Jones, E.T., Land before time, Roger Rabbit, Back to the future, Jurassic Park. the list goes on.

What the hell happened. How could she go from being a producer on some of the best cinema ever, heavily involved in almost every Spielberg film, to taking Star Wars, and driving it off a cliff?

I don't fucking get it. She's not a hack, she knows what she's doing. She's not some demographic hire, she knows movies inside out.

What the fuck happened?
These are pretty bad takes. She's been a producer for some of the most famous/well known films of the 80's and 90's.

Jurassic Park
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Schindler's List
Poltergeist
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Gremlins
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The Goonies
Back to the Future
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part III
The Color Purple
An American Tail
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Land Before Time


I've known her name since I was a kid as her name showed up on some of my favorite movies. Just how much influence did she have on them though? It seems like she's been attached to anything Spielberg has anything to do with. I believe he either directed or produced every movie on that list.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
KK is probably the person that gets stuff done, ie gets the actors they need, spends the money on the right stuff, etc. But assembling a creative team or managing a meta world is clearly not in her wheelhouse and she hasn't been able to, or simply refuses, to appoint a single visionary. Instead we have the gaggle of girls in charge of making sure diversity checkboxes are checked and directors doing what they want without regard to the overall story. A big problem when you are making trilogies! If they were just doing one offs like R1 this would probably be ok, but no one can deny that TFA and TLJ have zero coherency, plot, or arc. I still cant say who the bad guy is in all this or why the First Order is so industrialized yet only 25 people resist them. It just makes no sense.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
The no source material thing deserves to be clowned on until the end of time given that every film and tv series they released has been a shitty xerox copy of the OT.
 
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mcz117chief

Member
I don't see that happening. He got the Death Star plans in EU.
Not entirely true. He got part of the plans. The original canon worked with multiple spies/mercs getting pieces of the plan from separate locations and then were put together by Leia. But yeah, I get you, man.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
I don’t understand how some people can be paid so much to fail so badly.

You’ve literally got folks doing the Old Republic games that can write better stories.

It’s like how the DC movie universe struggles to tell decent stories while their animation studios have no issue. Feels like there are out of touch executives getting in the way trying to be woke or whatever.

Just look at the struggles in filming an Uncharted movie. How can anyone fuck up such a simple premise based on a best selling video game?
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
all this is "woe is us it's SO HARD to make these movies" extra funny reading this ancient 1977 interview with George:
No, it would be interesting. I would want to try and get some good directors, and see what their interpretation of the theme is. I think it will be interesting, it is like taking a theme in film school, say, okay, everybody do their interpretation of this theme. It’s an interesting idea to see how people interpret the genre. It is a fun genre to play with. All the prototype stuff is done now. Nobody has to worry about what a Wookiee is and what it does and how it reacts. Wookies are there, the people are there, the environment is there, the empire is there… everything is there. And now people will start building on it. I’ve put up the concrete slab of the walls and now everybody can have fun drawing the pictures and putting on the little gargoyles and doing all the really fun stuff. And it’s a competition. I’m hoping if I get friends of mine they will want to do a much better film, like, “I’ll show George that I can do a film twice that good,” and I think they can, but then I want to do the last one, so I can do one twice as good as everybody else. [Laughs]
so yeah, there's all that source material ripe for exploitation. the OT IS THE SOURCE MATERIAL

wonder what made KK forget about this in the past 40 or so years. then again maybe she didn't forget, this could all just be PR speak to make it seem like JJ and RJ using tracing paper are bringing more to the table than they are. in fact all the damage control so far seems to be about minimizing accusations that they are doing exactly what they are doing, regurgitating the same things over and over again.
 
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all this is "woe is us it's SO HARD to make these movies" extra funny reading this ancient 1977 interview with George:

so yeah, there's all that source material ripe for exploitation. the OT IS THE SOURCE MATERIAL

wonder what made KK forget about this in the past 40 or so years. then again maybe she didn't forget, this could all just be PR speak to make it seem like JJ and RJ using tracing paper are bringing more to the table than they are. in fact all the damage control so far seems to be about minimizing accusations that they are doing exactly what they are doing, regurgitating the same things over and over again.
That quote from Lucas is even more telling in that when Disney finally purchased the franchise, they had massive amounts of source material to reference and material that had filled the fanbase for a long time. Before the prequels, people existed on the books, comics and videogames. I think a large part of my frustration came from Disney thinking they were too smart to rely on other forms of media. They're Disney. Why would they need the Star Wars books or comics or video games? They are the music makers. They are the dreamers of dreams. That Disney hubris was more frustrating than any of the prequel movies we got in my opinion.
 

kunonabi

Member
Considering how much they've pissed on the source material so far and how they couldnt even get rogue 1 to fit into continuity properly I cant imagine more source material would have made much of a difference.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
maybe this explains the make up of the Lucasfilm Story Group, most of whom appear to have created little to no source material of their own before joining in 2012.

sorry i just can't get over this quote. like damn, now i have to feel sorry for JJ pulling out his tracing paper and putting it over ROTJ? i should feel sorry he had a hard time coming up with the story? LOL give me a fucking break.
 
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GV82

Member
I.. just....l wtf?

Even If some of the old EU was considered bad, you can take it & improve it, another word take out the Skelton of okay to good bits & throw all the rest away.

Then just re-use all the good EU stuff, because it’s all there for you, just retool some of it to fit together.

Add new stuff to it if you like, but it was all there.

At least the latest rumour is I heard they giving Jon Favereau & Dave Filoni both bigger & more permanent (for Jon) roles at Lucasfilm.
 
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desertdroog

Member
Meanwhile Jon Favreau is over here making some good content as a series in the Mandalorian.

The EU can go crazy at times, however the Thrawn Trilogy was just close enough to the finality of ROTJ to be not only plausible, but also a well written NEW creation in the Star Wars universe. Hell the Black Sun and the Outer Rim locations don't feel out of place as the 70's dirty space remoteness fits the aesthetic.

Less intersectionality for feminists sake and more creative writing with talent please. It's not like it is as constrained as Star Trek with its closer to the bone Canon.
 
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No need. I'm on 99% of Gaffers' ignore list. My nature is the spoiler cover
People get ignored on gaf? Interesting...
No, instead they have the poor chap rewrite his heart and soul of Thrawn to retcon him into a cartoon.

Heir to the Empire should have been EP7.

Missed opportunity.
I read heir to the empire like 20 years ago. Holy shit, was it good. Cannot say the same for any of the new movies, post-Disney
 
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#Phonepunk#

Banned
what Lucas did took real guts. he fully believed in his vision. there are so many wild and idiosyncratic choices he made when devising the original Star Wars. yes, his source material was indeed comics (he was inspired by Fourth World & 60's psychedelic Kirby stuff), pulp science fiction (Leigh Brackett, writer of the first draft of ESB, had written a story with lighstabers in it during the 1940s), spaghetti westerns, japanese films, war movies, etc. C-3PO and R2D2 were nothing more than references to the Hidden Fortress, as Star Wars was originally a remake/reboot of that movie, and the two traveling lowly peasants were transformed into the iconic droids that would basically live to see (and tell) the full events of the series. all these things were his source material. SW only exists because he would take a character from a comic or movie he liked and twist it into a new thing, be it a robot, an alien, etc. the new folks don't even try to do this, they spend all their time commenting on the old stuff, and complaining about how hard it is to get paid millions of dollars to play with someone else's toys.

JJ and RJ and others have been graced with an embarassment of riches, and all they can do is throw their toys at the wall. it is not difficult to just come up with a new Jedi, a new furry alien friend like Chewie, a new robot duo, hire an esteemed older actor to play an Obi Wan type, a new lovable puppet like Yoda, etc. instead they took the old ones and made it about them, and then they told us "this isn't about the old characters, quit caring about them". if instead of Chewbacca it was Chimbo then that dumb Porg comedy scene wouldn't sting so much. they just failed at even trying anything new. where is Rey's spaceship? or a new lightsaber like weapon? where are the new non-TIE Fighter non-X-Wing ships? they just going to do slightly bulkier Star Destroyers, no new designs? they could have easily invented new things. they chose not to. Admiral Holdo is just a Bad Rebel Commander who subverts by NOT telling everyone the plan in a holographic conference room (every previous SW film have gratuitous scenes of commanders explaining & projecting vital data to everyone involved, even random smugglers). Rian did not give us anything new, he gave us a poor twist on a known character type.

really, Rose is the only new part of TLJ, and she is practically a bipolar fascistic militant designed purposefully to be unlike anyone who would be in a Star Wars movie. her first scene has her tasing the black male lead in a disturbing moment where his loss of agency is played for comedy. you think back to the very first SW film, where C-3PO and R2 kick off a whole series of adventures by doing what Finn was trying to do, fleeing on an escape pod. but here it's bad, trying to help your friends, trying to get away from violence. the Resistance is basically acting no better than the Empire used to be, as demonstrated by Rose, in her debut scene. later she lectures a former child soldier "(and us) on the perils of capitalism before they introduce the idea that maybe both sides really are the same (DJ). moral relativity has poisoned a series which once had pretty clear & archetypal moral lines drawn. the new people writing these just aren't good enough to write those kind of mythical tales.

indeed, the true rot is just bad writing. even taken at face value, these movies are houses of cards, precariously built on well designed trailer worthy images based on images from 40 year old films. the writing, the character arcs, the dialog, all of it is incoherent. i cannot find myself caring about any of the characters after the last ST film. TFA was ok if you shut your brain off, TLJ had such a big ego it dared you to question the shit you were consuming, and i found the ST lacking in it's entirety. they aren't even trying. if they are having trouble making these, it is difficult because the people she has chosen are not capable of doing a good job.
 
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