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Star Wars: Kathleen Kennedy Expected to Retire from Lucasfilm

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  • Movies (2 hits, 3 misses):

    • TFA was a good palate cleanser for the non-prequel-kids audience. Had some serious weaknesses that needed to be massaged away, however. Still, a hit.
    • Rogue One is overrated but perfectly suited for its intended purpose to keep the fires burning and generate new narrative (and branding) opportunities between Skywalker movies. Hit.
    • I maintain that The Last Jedi, apart from some modest concerns about pacing and (not) moving the timeline forward enough, was exactly what was needed and actually treated the themes and legacy of the OT and PT with respect. Shit, it was the only one that even mentioned the precious prequel trilogy. Clearly I'm in the minority there, though. I reluctantly concede it was a miss.
    • Solo is a decent enough heist movie but they took the already-too-much fan service of R1 and turned it to eleven. It also cost too much, looked too dark, and came out at the worst possible moment because Disney refused to accept that Star Wars was becoming a Christmas thing. Miss.
    • TROS was creatively reactionary garbage that didn't even satisfy the TLJ haters whose hurt feelings it was meant to soothe. Huge miss even if it made "enough" money.

    Animation (4-1-2):

    • Wrapping up The Clone Wars. Hit.
    • Rebels. Slow out of the gate, but hit.
    • Resistance. All of Filoni's iffy tendencies, with no built in nostalgia or time to "fix" the characters. Big miss.
    • Bad Batch. Basically more TCW. Filoni's obsession with introducing an immature, annoying lead and hoping to either make them great or blend into the ensemble still mostly works here. Modest Hit.
    • Visions. Good synergy and audience cross marketing. Some lovely vignettes. Some seeds for new directions in storytelling, but maybe mis-setting expectations for a certain segment of the audience. Hit.
    • Tales. Fine, for the most part, but forgettable. Neutral.
    • Young Jedi. Actual kids stuff. The only one I couldn't bring myself to watch, but that's not its fault. I guess it hasn't truly exploded, but the point of all Disney Jr. shows is to make a few dozen episodes to be recycled for the constantly rotating demographic. Is what it is. neutral.

    Live Action TV (5-4 if you count each Mando season as its own thing):

    • Mandalorian: Launched D+ with great fanfare. Devolved into Marvel-lite too quickly, but despite a weaker third season, 1 and 2 are still quite good and even 3 still just barely (IMO) counts as a hit.
    • BoBF: Clearly came out the back side of Development Hell too ragged to be what it could have been. Some genuinely good ideas overwhelmed by a lack of cohesion and some truly baffling filmmaking choices. Miss.
    • Obi-Wan Kenobi: Shoulda been a movie, needed at least two more passes over the script, and displayed an overreliance on the shiny new toy (The Volume stage) that George would have been proud of. Miss.
    • Andor. It built back credibility and is the closest Star Wars has come to sophisticated storytelling, and is just generally good fucking TV, so even though it didn't do great as "content" for Disney, definitely still a hit.
    • Ahsoka: Oh boy, should have been an obvious hit. It's basically Rebels season 5, but Filoni was really struggling to tell a decent story in a compelling way. I'm fairly fond of it, but going to call it a miss.
    • The Acolyte: A bit underrated, especially with Darth Bortles throwing some molotov cocktails at the Jedi, but still an undeniable miss.
    • Skeleton Crew: Maybe the damage to the brand is already done, but this is still a good and fun show. No Home Run, but still a hit.

    So look, I love the animation, but you have to maybe aggregate all them to get one project that's equal in significance to a movie or a season of live-action streaming. By that measure, I'd call her record on actual projects mixed to slightly positive, but the misses, on the films particularly, were so very divisive that regardless of who you really "blame," she was head of Lucasfilm during the period when it lost significant social cachet and market power. I reckon that she doesn't deserve all of the blame, and that Disney thinking they had Space Marvel (and of course Marvel has finally grown pretty stale too) was a huge factor in how they approached schedules, tone, and process. I won't judge too harshly, not knowing what she was up against, but if the best you can say is that it might have been even worse with someone else, that's a pale legacy.

    If nothing else, they need new blood with a mandate to re-build the brand and the independence to do it well.

  • Made a mint mishandling sonething beautiful. Business as usual in the entertainment industry.

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