Years Ago Star Wars Editor Criticized Kathleen Kennedy & Predicted the “Terrible” Course of the Franchise: “They don’t have a clue”
It’s not a secret that Star Wars fandom is facing a crisis. Ever since Disney bought Lucasfilm, fans have noted the decrease in the quality of storytelling. The problems started as far back as the sequel trilogy and culminated a few weeks ago when ‘The Acolyte,’ the latest installment in the Star Wars franchise, was released.
The stories just don’t hit the way they used to, and that could be due to several reasons. George Lucas himself recently commented on that in the context of the prequel trilogy, saying that perhaps fans have different expectations for what is essentially a kids’ movie now that they are adults.
Some attribute various instances of review-bombing to simple hatred of female and diverse representation within the live-action projects, once again the most recent example of that being ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ whose cast and crew saw an unprecedented amount of abuse on social media. The truth is somewhere in the middle as it most often is, since the problems started way before ‘The Acolyte’ was released, and it lies in the quality of stories.
Back in 2021, Marcia Lucas, an acclaimed Star Wars editor gave an interview to JW Rinzelr for his new book about Star Wars producer and she summarized everything wrong with the current state of Star Wars, and identified two main culprits for the deteriorating state of the franchise:
I like Kathleen. I always liked her. She was full of beans. She was really smart and really bright. Really wonderful woman. And I liked her husband, Frank. I liked them a lot. […] Now that she’s running Lucasfilm and making movies, it seems to me that Kathy Kennedy and JJ Abrams don’t have a clue about Star Wars. They don’t get it.
And JJ Abrams is writing these stories – when I saw that movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious. I was furious when they killed Han Solo. Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. […]I thought, ‘You don’t get the Jedi story. You don’t get the magic of Star Wars. You’re getting rid of Han Solo?
Lucas won an Oscar for Best Film Editing for the original Star Wars (1977) alongside Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew. The film, starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher, was written and directed by George Lucas. Lucas also worked as an editor on the sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). In the same interview, Lucas accused Kennedy and Abrams of spitting out movies every year and commented on the nonsensical Rey story:
They killed Han Solo. They killed Luke Skywalker. And they don’t have Princess Leia anymore. […]It sucks. The storylines are terrible. […] And they think it’s important to appeal to a woman’s audience, so now their main character is this female, who’s supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don’t know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is. […] Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me… JJ Abrams, Kathy Kennedy – talk to me
I wonder what Lucas thinks about ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’? Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!
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