Kathleen Kennedy’s Vision for Modern Star Wars:
Should the rumors prove accurate and Kathleen Kennedy is set to resign from her role as president of Lucasfilm, one might reflect on her nearly 13-year tenure overseeing Star Wars films and ponder how a single individual could supervise an entire industry of sci-fi fantasy aspirations, edicts, and ill-fated declarations that appeared to disintegrate as swiftly as they were created. Similar to any of the Death Stars that have infiltrated these movies, Kathleen Kennedy’s seemingly solid plans for upcoming installments appeared to be obliterated just as they were poised to dominate the Hollywood nebula.
Her time as the leader of Lucasfilm will be marked by ambitious projects such as Josh Trank’s enigmatic Boba Fett film, which disappeared without explanation, and Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron, which vowed to be “fully operational” but were ultimately derailed by budget concerns and creative differences, leaving them as little more than unfinished remnants in the cinematic universe.
While her predecessor George Lucas procrastinated, labored, and expended as much effort as a protocol droid trying to run through quicksand, it is just to say that Kathleen Kennedy moved like a hyperspace-jumping Millennium Falcon in the realm of bringing new Star Wars films to theaters (following the mixed reception of his midichlorian-infested, blue-screen-heavy prequel trilogy). At least initially: as soon as the ink dried on Disney’s galactic ambition to buy Lucasfilm for $4.5 billion (£2.5 billion) in 2012, Kathleen Kennedy was already off looking for JJ Abrams to direct The Force Awakens in 2015.
It was a film that – at the time – seemed to fans of the saga like a long-awaited return to the playful space adventures of Lucas’s original trilogy, but now it feels like a shining hyperspace lane leading to nowhere: a vacuum at the center of all that is amiss with contemporary Star Wars.
The sequel trilogy was impressive, dynamic, and visually stunning – the memory of the magnificent moment when Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren first arrives on Jakku in his menacing command shuttle will forever remain in one’s mind. Now that we know the story culminated in the resurrection of space-zombie Palpatine, complete with his fleet of planet-destroying Star Destroyers, robed Sith followers, and an endless supply of sinister red lighting, it’s hard not to feel that the creative team focused more on crafting impressive cosmic visuals than on trivial matters like character development and story arcs, thematic coherence, and long-term planning.
Indeed, the sequel trilogy was impressive from a technical standpoint, with occasional moments of brilliance, and it generated significant toy sales. But it ended up flickering in and out of coherence like a low-battery astromech droid – bleeping hopefully for a time before collapsing over lifelessly into the bottomless abyss of forgotten plotlines. There are times of visually operatic magnificence, transitions and elaborate sequences that make it seem as though our eyes are bulging out on stalks.
We must remember the battered Resistance ski speeders that carved scarlet streaks across the battlefield while confronting enemy walkers on Crait’s salt-encrusted surface in Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, as well as the dazzling throne room duel where Kylo Ren and Rey momentarily put their differences aside to cut through Snoke’s Praetorian Guard in a ballet of crackling lightsabers and burning red drapery, evoking a moment of raw, operatic grandeur reminiscent of our dreams of Star Wars.
However, the overall impression was of a film trilogy helmed by skilled directors who were completely out of sync with one another and lacked direction, creatives who would have benefited from a star map guiding them from point A to point B, rather than simply being given the keys to the Millennium Falcon.
Apart from the sequel trilogy, what does Kathleen Kennedy have to demonstrate for her time in the role? She intervened to ensure that Gareth Edwards’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story did not turn out to be a disastrous mess; Edwards’s grand introduction to the original trilogy could be regarded as one of the finest films in the saga, across all eras. However, reports from that time consistently indicated that without Tony Gilroy’s intervention to salvage and reshoot it, the outcome could have been disastrous. Then, credit where it belongs: these behind-the-scenes power struggles, eleventh-hour rewrites, and nerve-wracking reshoots culminated in Gilroy being granted free rein on the grim and somber Rogue One Disney+ prequel series Andor.
The Mandalorian has endured for three seasons due to its quality and is set to transition into a film with The Mandalorian & Grogu. However, all of this resembles firefighting rather than intelligent planning; it is hard to believe that anyone can genuinely propose that the original grand vision was to center the entire Star Wars franchise on a pseudo-Lone Wolf and Cub dynamic that conveniently avoids addressing the complete mess left by Abrams and others.
And it’s not finished yet. Should Kathleen Kennedy retire at the end of the year, there are still at least five proposed Star Wars films that are in different phases of pre-production. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will direct a film centered on Daisy Ridley’s character, Rey, as she creates a new Jedi Order. Meanwhile, James Mangold is working on an episode that delves into the origins of the beloved space monks, set around 25,000 years before the original trilogy.
Dave Filoni is set to direct a film that takes place during the New Republic era, designed to serve as a cinematic culmination for Disney+ series like The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Book of Boba Fett. Meanwhile, Shawn Levy is in discussions to direct a standalone Star Wars movie that could feature Ryan Gosling as the main character. Then there’s Lando, where Donald Glover is set to return as Lando Calrissian and co-write the script with his brother, Stephen Glover.
Each of these films has the potential to take Star Wars in a fresh and brilliant direction, but it could just as easily be as exciting as a Senate debate on trade route taxation. Regrettably, this seems to be part of the problem. When your job is to determine the next destination of this vast galaxy filled with Jedi, Sith, bounty hunters, and increasingly confused spectators, there should be a strategy more exact than merely tossing hyperspace coordinates at random, akin to a cosmic Jackson Pollock painting. “Kathleen Kennedy”