Kathleen Kennedy "Saves" Star Wars (Again)

gather round dear viewers as I tell you a tale imagine for a moment that you're a young female production assistant in the late nineteen seventies you're not particularly talented or creative but you are ambitious and you've got the ability to support opportunities when they present themselves almost by chance you come to the attention of an up-and-coming movie director who hires you as his personal assistants both of you agree that you're not particularly good at the job but fortunately he takes a liking to you and before you know it you're working as a producer on his movies as he rises to become one of the most successful and sought-after directors in the world with your keen ability to spot opportunities you manage to stay close to him and his films which are basically guaranteed to succeed no matter how good or bad you are at your job this allows you to ride the coattails of people who are far more capable competent and creative than yourself along the way you also get close to the directors friend that guy who does the Star Wars movies but that guy's getting older and his latest batch of Star Wars films didn't go down very well so he's thinking about retiring now when he reluctantly decides to sell his company to Disney your sense of opportunity singles once more the Star Wars guy still has a lot of emotional investment in the story and the characters that he created and naturally he's nervous that Disney won't treat them with the respect they deserve what he really wants is someone trustworthy to run his company for him someone who knows him understands his creative vision and will fight to make sure it never gets compromised just to make a quick buck that's where you come in you make it known to him that you can be that person and he decides to trust you so the deal is done and you're installed as the new president of his company trusted to carry on his legacy but before the ink is even dry you promptly say [ __ ] it and the bouse see you've been waiting a long time for this moment as a female executive in Hollywood you've had to kiss a lot of arses to make it this far you've had to put up with [ __ ] that you probably wouldn't have had to put up with the viewer agai you've had to bide your time and bite your tongue and as a result you've got kind of a chip on your shoulder a big chip in deeds but it was all worth it because now you have made it know you're calling the shots see you've never particularly cared for Star Wars as a creative endeavor in fact you don't really understand why people like it so much but that doesn't matter what matters is that it's a huge brand with an equally huge reach rather than being a fascinating and culturally significant piece of art you see it more as a giant megaphone with which to project your own personal ideology into the world so you get some work rights away mandating the all-new Star Wars movies will have a strong female character as leads you happily shitcan the huge richly detailed and lucrative extended universe even though you promised you wouldn't do it because you don't really understand it and you want to clean slate to start again to replace the extended universe you hire a new story group stuffed entirely by progressive activists chosen because of their ability to take diversity boxes rather than because of any actual skill or ability who agree with your personal ideology 100% and won't produce a single thing that conflicts with it on the movie front you hire that Star Trek guy who desperately wants to be like the talented young director who got you started in Hollywood's and you use him to kick off your new trilogy of movies he's not all that creative or imaginative but he is compliance and just like you he's good at spotting opportunities and just competent enough to hide his shortcomings he's happy enough to work your progressive politics into his new movie but savvy enough not to go overboard with it the gamble pays off and the first movie makes a ton of money a second female led spin-off also does extremely well then the success kind of goes to your head and you convince yourself that you can get away with absolutely anything so it's time to take it up a notch this time around you hire around headed simpleton who hasn't really done much in his career but himself as the next big cinematic or to write and direct the second star wars movie because even more than the Star Trek guy the round headed simpleton shears your political views 100% and he's happy to do exactly what you wants unfortunately this time the gamble doesn't pay off the next movie proves to be massively divisive making 700 million dollars less than the first concern in huge parts of the Star Wars fan base against you this wave of backlash and negativity spills over into the next movie which ends up being the first Star Wars film in history to lose money no you're starting to panic because everything seems to be falling apart merchandise sales are creating the round-headed simpleton is lashing out his critics on social media while the people that used to work for the old Star Wars guy are increasingly hostile towards the new people that you've brought in contributing to the toxic divisive atmosphere at Lucasfilm you're beginning to realize that the people who most likely agree with your personal ideology are also some of the worst people to work with even worse embarrassing revelations about behind the scenes conflicts and arguments exposing your inability to properly manage directors and productions are starting to become public it turns out that running an entire movie studio is a bit different from sitting back and watching as productions filmed by talented and competent industry veterans basically guide themselves to completion people are beginning to realize that you're not particularly well-liked or good at your job and there are questions around whether or not you should step down especially from your boss who was prepared to tolerate your ideology up to a point as long as it didn't get in the way of him making truckloads of money for his shareholders unfortunately it has no a normal person in this situation would probably fear for their job security luckily you've got a get-out-of-jail-free card see your boss is under a lot of scrutiny and he's got aspirations to get into politics in the near future publicly firing the most senior female executive on his team even a totally incomprehensible one would invite a lots of negative publicity from a news media that's just itching to get outraged a bit stuff like this so you kind of assumed that you're bulletproof when it comes to high-profile professional failures unfortunately for you your boss knows how to play these games - he can't publicly fire you but he's also not willing to sit back and watch you destroy his company so he makes a public statement at seeking all the blame for the recent failures shielding you from criticism and effectively neutralized in the news media but behind the scenes he's moving quickly to take control shut you out and prevent you [ __ ] things up any further he makes it clear that all future productions have to go through him now and he begins quietly bringing in far more competent producers and writers with proven track records to take on future projects soon enough these new projects start to bear fruit the mandalorian turns out to be a surprise hit proving that with the right people working on it and no identity politics awkwardly shoved in Star Wars can still be a viable property naturally this is terrible news for you not only have you been locked out of the decision-making process and demoted to an essentially meaningless figurehead role but other people are quickly proven themselves to be better and more competent at your job than you are the inherently divisive nature of your personal politics is also being exposed as the box office poison that it is the winds of change are blowing and it's becoming increasingly clear that they won't benefit you your contract is almost up and everyone knows there's no chance in hell of it being renewed no any normal person with a shred of dignity self-respect and personal responsibility would recognize that the game was up and resigned from their positions so they could leave on their own terms but you are not a normal person you might be occupying what amounts to a meaningless role now but this still represents the very pinnacle of your career you're 66 years old this is as far as you're going to go and like a punch-drunk boxer on his last legs you're determined to get in one last hit before throwing in the towel but what to do your boss is already it clear the only he has the power to greenlight new projects and it's obvious he won't go near anything with a whiff of identity politics sue you're kind of stuck Lots when inspiration strikes and you decide to pull off a cheeky little maneuver of your own you carefully leaked information to the news media that you've got a new female centric diverse politically progressive TV show in the works headed up by a hardcore feminist showrunner with a questionable employment history and because they've always been in your corner from day one the news media run off the story without even bothering to question it's no it's everywhere everyone's talking about this stunning and brave new project that you've got in the works it doesn't matter that you don't actually have any scripts written a concept to work with or even a pitch to take to your boss it's out there now people know about it and it's real in their minds it can never be taken back no your boss is in quite the pickle he can't publicly shut down your pet project without incurring the wrath of news and social media further damaging his future aspirations you've successfully forced his hand setting up a no-win situation where he has no choice but to let your TV show go ahead it doesn't matter that you're basically repeating the same mistakes that led to an escalating series of box office disasters it doesn't matter that you're further alienating yourself from your own employees and fellow executives dividing an already fractured studio it doesn't even matter that your latest vanity project is almost certainly going to fail demolishing the fragile goodwill that so many people have worked hard to rebuild none of that matters to you anymore all that matters is getting the message out so you can massage your wounded pride an eagle one last time that's the true legacy of your career and honestly I hope it's enough because I sense that when this is all over history will not be kind to you anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 2,039,645

Keywords: Star Wars, Rian Johnson, Lucasfilm, Disney, feminism, force is female

Id: VVNDMuQtipo

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/samstar2]

I noticed a typo.