In Defense of Kathleen Kennedy (Sort of)

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  • #207484

    For many of us, Star Wars was the most significant movie of our lives. However, we have collectively let our nostalgia get in the way of reality.
    Let’s face it. Star Wars was an almost mess of a movie that was saved in editing to become a classic. The Empire Strikes Back was one of the few cases where a sequel was better than the original.

    It was downhill from there.

    The Return of the Jedi was a lame rehashing of the Star Wars. This time the movie was designed sell Ewok toys.

    But we kept going back hoping that eventually the Star Wars sage would rekindle the flame of the original.

    But it never did.

    Next came the prequels what were total stinkers. There was in incomprehensive story line, completely with a rip off from Ben Hur. There was the woeful miscasting of Anakin in the first prequel. And the horrible acting of Natalie Portman and Hayden Christianson. Add in horrible scripts that included the line “That does not compute” and the inane placing of C-3PO’s head on top of another ‘droid. And, did I mention Jar Jar Binks?

    As dreadful as these three films were, we still forked over out money. Maybe we’d see “the one.”

    LucusFilm’s other success was Indiana Jones. But that was even in a worse of a mess with the Crystal Skull, a movie I wish there were an amnesia drug I could take to erase any trace of having seen it. I still try to believe that there were only three Indiana Jones movies and The Crystal Skull was just a nightmare.

    Everything else at LucusFilm had been a series of disasters. Howard the Duck. Willow. Red Tails. Radioland.

    I doubt it is a coincidence that the only good Star Wars movies were made when George had someone else having great control him. Once he had complete control, Star Wars went to the dogs. Watching the behind the scenes videos for the prequels make is clear that the number one job requirement at LucasFilm during that era was to lick George’s ass. If George makes a stupid joke, everyone has to laugh like it was delivered by Jack Benny. If George decides to rip off Ben Hur, everyone has to pretend it was George’s brilliant idea.

    By the time Disney bought LucasFilm, it was a toy and special effects company going nowhere.

    At this point, if Disney had a CEO who could actually manage a company, it would have hired a group of the best sci-fi writers it could find. They would have staked out a plot thread on a Lord of the Rings scale spread out over at least three movies.

    OK, George, said he had done that—but he was full of it. The inconsistencies in the first three movies and the inane plots of the three prequels belie any of his claims of having a massive epic planned out up front. Quite frankly, I was encouraged when I read Disney had thrown out George’s plot lines for Star Wars.

    But Disney has a Bull Chip Shooter for a CEO. He’s a guy like Jack Welsh who puts on a show for the press and brings in short term profits while leaving long-term mess behind for his successor.

    For its first Star Wars movie—and with no plan, Disney brings in a hip auteur director who creates a rehash of the third Star Wars movie that was a rehash of the first Star Wars movie. It was just a mindless shoot-em-up that that was like Marvel in Space. Except for the music, there was nothing that made this feel like this was a star wars movie. The same director wrecked Star Trek by turning it into Marvel as well.

    For the second Star Wars movie, Disney brings in a second auteur director who creates a total mess. If the previous movie was setting up anything, the one undid everything. Nothing made sense in this garbage. From the beginning there was the inane dialog between the good guy and the bad guy. Then dropping bombs in space. And the main plot has the good guys—I mean dolls—running with the bad guys nipping at their heals. Meanwhile some of the good guys are able to fly to a distant planet and come back. Yet the bad guys can’t make it to the good dolls.

    The theme of this lame excuse for movie is “men are stupid and everything will work out all right if they would just blindly obey women.” In itself, that is not entirely bad. That is the plot of every Blondie movie made. The problem is Disney pushed that theme but had nothing to go with it.

    If you are going to take the risky road to denigrate Luke Skywalker, you need to have an innovative and viable plan to succeed him. Again, that requires competence which Disney obviously lacks. Disney suffers from both terminal wokeness (note A Wrinkle in Time) and incompetence.
    * * *
    Contrary to the claims of many out there in Youtube Land, Disney did not kill Star Wars. Kathleen Kennedy did not kill Star War. Star Wars was dead when Disney bought it.

    Yet, private equity companies buy up dead institutions all the time and work to bring them back to life. The trick to buying companies is to get the ones with problems (so you can get a low prices) then have a plan for turning the company around.

    But was passes for management at Disney is incompetent. They bought the corpse of LucasFilm but had no plan to revive it. Disney’s Emergency! room needed a Dr. Bracket for Star Wars. Instead they brought in a mortician: Kathleen Kennedy.

    Disney’s apparent “plan” to breed Star Wars TV shows will never restore life to LucasFilm. Star Trek and CSI have shown there are limits to how much you can saturate a market.

    Sadly, life is not fair.  The buffoon at the top of Disney will continue to collect his $30,000,000+ salary until he leaves and be lauded by the access media as a genius while the next Disney CEO will have to deal with mess.

    * * *

    Star Wars is dead. After Ewoks, three inane prequels, and two incompetent Disney productions, it is over for me. I did not see that last one. I did not see Solo. I am not subscribing to Disney+. And a Willow series? Come on man.

    Star Trek is dead.
    Doctor Who is dead.

    Instead of encouraging the rehashing of old material, we should encourage new things like The Orville or The Expanse.

    #207488

    Contrary to the claims of many out there in Youtube Land, Disney did not kill Star Wars. Kathleen Kennedy did not kill Star War. Star Wars was dead when Disney bought it.

     

    Hmm.

    Sorry, gotta disagree. See this?

     

    IMG_1398

     

    20+ years of Star Wars. The majority of these were consistently on the New York Times Best Seller List, when that actually meant something and you didn’t buy your way on. And this is only the mainline story not including anything Old Republic/Prequals and side stories like Rogue Squadron series, and I’m missing the Thrawn Trilogy because I need to reaquire them. That means MILLIONS of people were buying these books for over 20 years, keeping Star Wars alive, well, and enjoyed.

    And even though I  personally am not the biggest fan this…

     

    z113-620x420

     

    …was a hit for years getting all kinds of kids excited and the product alive for a new generation.

    Then add in videogames from regular console releases to SWTOR, and the franchise was alive, well and chugging along without any real negativity to speak of. Yeah, you had EU people and live action media people always sniping at each other, but you know what? That was nerds arguing over nerd shit. Nothing wrong with that, no matter how angry we might get at one another.

    But then within a 5 year period Disney buys Lucasfilm, the SJWs take over, and now Star Wars is FILLED with negativity. Nerds are no longer having nerd fights that are in the end harmless, we have SJWs, lead by the bullshit KK spearheaded, trying to destroy peoples’ lives because they didn’t like a movie.

    So, I’m sorry, but you have it entirely wrong. KK and the SJW did kill current day Star Wars by trying to destroy the past that millions of people loved to replace it with SJW dogma agenda.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Roas.
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