Star Wars A Mess: Kathleen Kennedy Leaving?

As far as I am concerned, Disney has struck out four times with their Star Wars movies, which means they are way past due of being called out.

I’ve also said it before that Kathleen Kennedy and anybody associated with Star Wars: The Last Jedi should be let go (Rian Johnson), and I would probably also add J.J. Abrams to the mix. 

I’m not happy at all with the Disney Star Wars movies as I feel they haven’t done the property or its fans justice.

Now a rumor hits the net that Kathleen Kennedy may be stepping down from Star Wars and LucasFilm, which again doesn’t come as a surprise especially following Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the recent failure of Han Solo.

The information comes from a Hollywood newsletter put out by The Ankler:

While Kathleen Kennedy worked wonders relaunching this property from the abyss of the Lucas prequel trilogy and turning it into a bigger than ever all-devouring cultural force, there has to be more than some thought that it’s time for new blood at the helm.  The talk out there is of a September changing of the guards. We’ll see.

The newsletter dives into some of the problems surrounding Disney Star Wars including:

Behind the scenes, there are the director changes, the last minute scrambles, the press tours overwhelmed by explaining the messy product.  For the film blogger/media world to be raising eyebrows of skepticism against Star Wars, takes a lot. And that’s where they are. On screen, prequels, standalones, new visions, fidelity to the old vision – it’s completely confused where all this is headed, both narratively and just in terms of creative vision.

With another point being:

None of it looks like its headed anyplace that connects with anyone under 40 who aren’t just in the thrall of the original films.  Whatever you think about Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley’s characters, the evidence that they’ve captured the public heartstrings as Luke, Han and Leia once did is pretty hard to find.

The article also offers that Kathleen Kennedy may want to leave:

There’s also plenty of reason to believe that Kennedy herself is tiring of this. The fights, the bad press – can’t be fun after a very gilded career.  The job requires constant commuting between LA and London, which also gets old. 

The newsletter also contains a letter send in by a fan about the problems with the Disney Star Wars, which hits the nail on the head:

Disney and LFL are really missing what has caused this: How they handled the reverence for the original trilogy three. Han gets killed off like a punk from his emo son; Luke has a complete tonal change from the guy who risked going to the dark side to save his friends, to a bitter elder man who turned his back on everyone after one failure. Worse they pulled it offscreen and expected the audience to roll with it.

Leia received the least damage, but so many missed opportunities (Like Leia with a lightsaber) and now Carrie’s gone. 

Disney thought they could treat those three characters like a brand. Ruin their happy endings from Return of the Jedi, re-cast them with younger actors and start telling side stories.

But they miscalculated the emotional connection the world has with Star Wars is not starships and lightsabers and Jedi. It’s the familial relationship established between those three characters that anchored the world audience to this universe.