They put a woman in charge of Star Wars who thinks Star Wars, as it has always existed and been immensely successful, is stupid and needs more Grrl Power.
Posted on 06/26/2018 10:44:50 AM PDT by servo1969
If you don't want to watch, here's the quick written version:
Disney staged a big "secret" conference call with ranking people in the Star Wars division. Security guards were posted outside the doors at offices to prevent eavesdropping. Pixar and Marvel representatives were able to listen in on the call, but not speak on it. Apparently this was allowed to get feedback, I guess at a later point, about the Star Wars situation.
Disney's head Bob Iger wants to fire Kathleen Kennedy, but there's a problem: No one they're willing to offer the job to is willing to take it. JJ Abrams (Randolph reports) was offered the job, but turned it down flat. "Several" were approached.
One person that's brought up as a possible replacement for Kennedy, Dave Filloni, isn't being considered for the job by Iger, I guess because he hasn't run anything big like a studio.
Randolph says (speculating, I think) that no one wants the job because the Lucasfilm team is divided between old-guard Star Wars people and Kennedy's handpicked loyalists.
I would speculate myself that, assuming this claim that no one wants the job is true, it's because the brand is broken, and people know that, and it's a no-win situation: Everyone seems to think that Star Wars is supposed to make money automatically. That's no longer true post-Solo, but people still think that, so any head of Lucasfilm is in a situation where the best they can do is meet expectations (make money), and the worst they can do is fail spectacularly.
There's no upside. Well, except a huge pile of money, but I imagine the people being approached are already getting huge piles of money from other ventures with more of an upside as far as their reputations.
So no big-name person would want to walk into that situation. Smaller names would take that chance, but apparently Disney hasn't gotten desperate enough to offer it to a smaller name. Yet.
Randolph says that Disney feels that Star Wars is too targeted to "older SJWs," instead of its traditional fan base of men, and this is also hurting Star Wars in its merchandise sales, as "older SJWs" don't really buy movie tickets and certainly don't spend a lot of money on Milennium Falcon playsets.
She also reports that all the Star Wars "anthology" movies are indeed on hold as Disney tries to figure this out, except maybe for one: The Obi-Wan movie, which Disney thinks it should have made instead of Star Wars. However, while this movie is not officially on hold, it's also not on the front-burner, either.
Lastly, while "Episode IX" is still on (it's already started filming), it's "too late for any major course corrections." Kathleen Kennedy has ceded all creative control to director J.J. Abrams, maybe to spare herself further blame, maybe because she wants to just sit this one out, or who knows, maybe because Disney wants the ball in someone else's hands.
One point she alludes to, which she made before: She thinks that Star Wars never appealed to Kathleen Kennedy. Kathleen Kennedy didn't like the franchise, because it was, indeed, a boys' adventure franchise.
Instead of making a boys' adventure franchise she didn't get and didn't like, she made it into something she could like: a girls' empowerment fantasy.
This kind of sums up the problem with Social Justice Warriors taking over male-skewing sections of pop culture: They just don't like it. They never did like it. Some of them even feel that these parts of pop culture encourage "toxic masculinity," and therefore are evil.
And therefore must be subverted and remade into something they never were before.
So you... put multimillion dollar companies into the hands of people who don't like the product those companies sell and in fact might even hate?
Well, good luck with that, I guess.
Doubling Down and Redoubling Down: Apparently an official employee of Lucasfilm, writing for the "official" StarWars.com website, has decided to inform people that they are not "customers" of Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm owes them nothing at all, not even polite treatment.
She seems to be echoing Kathleen Kennedy, who has previously declared that she owes nothing to the male fans of Star Wars (who, let's face it, have maintained the value of the franchise for 40+ years):
"I have a responsibility to the company that I work with. 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.'"
Yes... yes... reach out with your Hatred... all is proceeding precisely as I envisioned...
They put a woman in charge of Star Wars who thinks Star Wars, as it has always existed and been immensely successful, is stupid and needs more Grrl Power.
My 13 yr old son says that everyone in his school has grown tired of Star Wars. i asked him about it yesterday.
The force is female only on planet Prattle.
Disney paid a literal fortune for the Star Wars franchise, so they must squeeze every penny they can out of it. That means Star Wars movies monthly until the end of time, lunch boxes, Burger King figurines, and everything else needed to monetize the brand. I was tired of it years ago already. No surprise kids are bored also
They would be better off giving her a big paycheck, an etch-a-sketch, and an assignment with a ten-year long time frame. Just keep her away from the movies.
I am waiting for “Star Wars: The Toilet Paper” and “Star Wars: The Flamethrower.”
I wonder what Disney will do with their storm trooper parade given each of the troopers is a guy and they carry “GUNS”.
Feminism has a couple basic beliefs:
1) Men and Women are exactly the same. There is literally no difference between Men and Women.
2) Stuff like Star Wars is stupid. Empowered women are going to totally change that icky boy-stuff into something totally different so that Women like it. Because space ships are dumb. Only stupid Men like space ships.
What made the first trilogy legendary?
Simple. Good vs evil
Simple. Character Development
There were things Luke would and wouldn’t do. Same with Han and Leia.
When you complicate things; you ruin them. Vader was evil. The empire was evil. Luke was Good.
Not so tough
I’ll replace Kathleen Kennedy. First, I’ll redo Episode 8...
I went to Star Wars in 1977. Haven’t seen one since. It seems like there have been about a hundred made since then.
Did they have earplugs?
-PJ
[My 13 yr old son says that everyone in his school has grown tired of Star Wars. i asked him about it yesterday.]
Everywhere you look there is something “Star Wars”. Civilization has been hyper-saturated with merchandising and licensing of the SW brand, it’s become an absolute turnoff.
She was handed the Maryland Governor’s job like Hillary was the presidency. Unfortunately for her, the voters thought otherwise.
She was handed the Disney job. Unfortunately for her, the customers did not like the product.
If you can’t succeed despite having all the opportunities given to you by having the Kennedy name, it should tell you something about yourself.
Maybe you could paint portraits of SJW warriors.
It's not 13 year old boys that were buying up all the Star Wars stuff.
At least until Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson trolled them away.
Those dudes suck at making Star Wars movies!
After checking, I remembered there was a Star Wars TV Holiday Special made in 1978. In it, you get to meet Chewbacca’s father “Itchy” and his son “Lumpy.”
No doubt Disney execs cringe at the thought of it.
If you want a good laugh, it can be found at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3a5j8PgQxg
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