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‘Star Wars’ Editor Marcia Lucas Slams Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams: ‘They Don’t Have a Clue’

INC

Member
Eh, they could of been better, but I thought the prequels and sequels were fine. Some weird decisions made in the sequels for sure, tho.

I’m just ready to move on from the Skywalkers and all that. Come up with new stories and new characters and try to make it feel like the vibe Mandolorian was giving out, and I think you’ll start to reign people back in.

Or cast someone who can act, daisy Ridley was horrific in terms.of tone, delivery and basically everything, plus her teeth made every word out her mouth unwatchable
 

Xenon

Member
Qy5kAvP.jpg
 

Madflavor

Member
Star Wars is so fucking broken, played out, and creatively bankrupt. Once in a while they do put out good stories, like Jedi Fallen Order or The Mandalorian. I'm also looking forward to the KotoR Remake, provided they don't fuck it up. But despite the franchise being around for 40 years, they've never been able to match the quality and magic of the OT. That's because the OT at it's core, is one of the most well crafted Hero's Journey we've gotten in storytelling. There was a time many decades ago where people were lining up around the block to see Star Wars movies, not because they had Star Wars in the name. It wasn't because of lightsabers, or people's nostalgia being preyed on. People loved those movies because they were wholly original, and well made blockbusters.

But you watch that video from Freddie Prinze Jr, and all the comments of fans bickering over "balance of the force" and what the force is, and it's clear that the concept of The Force has been completely fucked up. It's become too loosely defined now, and there are too many voices making their official stamp on what the Force is. Doesn't matter what Lucas said. The franchise isn't his anymore.
 

sol_bad

Member
Star Wars is so fucking broken, played out, and creatively bankrupt. Once in a while they do put out good stories, like Jedi Fallen Order or The Mandalorian. I'm also looking forward to the KotoR Remake, provided they don't fuck it up. But despite the franchise being around for 40 years, they've never been able to match the quality and magic of the OT. That's because the OT at it's core, is one of the most well crafted Hero's Journey we've gotten in storytelling. There was a time many decades ago where people were lining up around the block to see Star Wars movies, not because they had Star Wars in the name. It wasn't because of lightsabers, or people's nostalgia being preyed on. People loved those movies because they were wholly original, and well made blockbusters.

But you watch that video from Freddie Prinze Jr, and all the comments of fans bickering over "balance of the force" and what the force is, and it's clear that the concept of The Force has been completely fucked up. It's become too loosely defined now, and there are too many voices making their official stamp on what the Force is. Doesn't matter what Lucas said. The franchise isn't his anymore.

Too loosely defined? Did you watch A New Hope? That's as loose as you can get.
 





This is as good a place as any to also bring up the long-running theory that the 1997 Star Wars Special Editions exist due to Marcia Lucas. The theory goes that as long as the original theatrical cuts of Star Wars existed, George would have to pay out royalties to his ex-wife (who edited the first movie). So in 1997 he re-edited the movies with a bunch of new visual effects; meaning the 1997 versions are *NEW* versions of Star Wars and not the original work Marcia Lucas edited and she'd never see a royalty from the 1997 versions. That's also one of the reasons why when they put the non-anamorphic Laserdisc rips on the 2005 DVDs they were labeled as "special features".

Also, Harrison Ford has wanted Han Solo to die since 1983. She didn't get that memo.

Yeah I mean she's wrong, and it's ok.

The Prequels killed Star Wars. Disney created some sort of functioning Frankenstein that is now resembling a human being w/ stuff like The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch.

Eh, they could of been better, but I thought the prequels and sequels were fine. Some weird decisions made in the sequels for sure, tho.

I’m just ready to move on from the Skywalkers and all that. Come up with new stories and new characters and try to make it feel like the vibe Mandolorian was giving out, and I think you’ll start to reign people back in.

That's pretty much what happened with the sequel trilogy - they just fucked up the end because JJ didn't know how to follow Rian.
 
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Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I don't like the sequels either, but that criticism is dumb as hell. Not only is there not anything wrong with killing Han Solo, but the universe could benefit from not revolving around a handful of characters like Han Solo in the first place. He shouldn't have even been in the movie. Shit, he shouldn't have even been in Return of the Jedi. By that point the series was already losing its artistic integrity in favor of chasing the action figure sales. Luke is the only one with a real justifiable reason to have been in new movies due to his predisposition as a Jedi master in a story where they've established such characters are rare/extinct.

If Star Wars fans wanted a bunch of cheesy adventures with the OG trio, they already made plenty of comic books & fanfics for that shit. Because thats what it is, fanfiction shit.
 

gatti-man

Member
Yeah I mean she's wrong, and it's ok.

The Prequels killed Star Wars. Disney created some sort of functioning Frankenstein that is now resembling a human being w/ stuff like The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch.



That's pretty much what happened with the sequel trilogy - they just fucked up the end because JJ didn't know how to follow Rian.
Rian didn’t know how to follow Rian. He left the trilogy in a pigeon hole with no where to go. Honestly I thought after Rians film Disney would be forced to make a quadrilogy. There was no where to go with a satisfying ending after that shit show of a middle film.
 

Stuart360

Member
One thing the Disney trilogy did for me was make the prequels seem better in my mind.
I mean the prequels will never be masterpieces, but i appreciate them way more after the Disney trilogy.
 
Would Star Wars be better off just being a TV series from now on? Focus on new characters and have a conclusion after 1-2 seasons of those characters/storylines.
Or will Disney right the ship and make the movies worthwhile again?
 

Madflavor

Member
I've often felt that the coolest and most interesting thing they can do is a mature rated Old Republic tv series, with the budget and quality of Game of Thrones (the good seasons anyway). A violent, political heavy drama of the Republic vs the Sith Empire, that switches perspectives from Republic Officers, to Jedi, to the Sith, to even some of the criminal underworld. I feel like to a certain extent, Star Wars is held back by it's family friendly nature. A serious war and political drama aimed toward adults would be fucking rad. But it's Disney so this will never happen.
 

gatti-man

Member
Would Star Wars be better off just being a TV series from now on? Focus on new characters and have a conclusion after 1-2 seasons of those characters/storylines.
Or will Disney right the ship and make the movies worthwhile again?
I think so only because of how bad the movies left the franchise. They need to rebuild interest and characters. Much easier to do with tv series than movies. Much less risk too.
 

Lord Panda

The Sea is Always Right
Lucas fucked up Star Wars with the prequels, but at least it still felt like Star Wars. Instead of making the prequels, Lucas should have gone ahead and adapted Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy.

Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy is an abomination, and it should have ended Kennedy and Abrams’ careers.
 
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thefool

Member
The sequels are indeed a hot pile of rancid garbage but time already took care of that. They're irrelevant products, lost in bargain bins or in endless stream catalogues. From time to time people chuckle at their existence, like we still do with the Christmas special.
 

GeekyDad

Member
:messenger_tears_of_joy: Silliest drama in...forever.

Even after they got, what was it, some $4 billion+ for the rights, this chick's still got sour grapes. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Trust me, sweetheart, they get it. They're already turning a profit for Disney. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Silly, silly stuff.

The very first movie came out in '77. I was six. Waited with my older siblings in a line that wrapped around the theater building to see it on release day. It was my favorite...thing...for many, many years. I still have very strong nostalgia for it. Didn't love everything that came after the trilogy. But objectively speaking, I think they get it pretty damn well. Lucas mighta had a vision, but that vision only stayed visible because it made mega-fuck tons of money for the studio. These folks might not have the same vision, but they're also managing to make mega-fuck tons of money for their new owners, and just like before, that's where it starts and ends.
 

Ionian

Member
Lucas fucked up Star Wars with the prequels, but at least it still felt like Star Wars. Instead of making the sequels, Lucas should have adapted Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy.

Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy is an abomination, and it should have ended Kennedy and Abrams’ careers.
Savage, yet so very true.
 

sol_bad

Member
The sequels are indeed a hot pile of rancid garbage but time already took care of that. They're irrelevant products, lost in bargain bins or in endless stream catalogues. From time to time people chuckle at their existence, like we still do with the Christmas special.

Give it another 20 years, the prequels got dog piled but now has heaps of fans as the younger audience has grown up.
 

Nico_D

Member
Well JJ is a mystery. How such a hack has managed to get such a position in Hollywood is beyond me.

But he is not the only one. "The other" space franchise is run by another hack.

That said, as great as the original trilogy is, it is that only because someone else other than Lucas did the writing after IV. Lucas can't write characters and dialogue at all
 

Kimahri

Banned
Killing Han was fine, killing Han without getting any kind of reunion between him, Luke and Leia is the fuckup. That's what fans waiting 30 years for. To see these guys together. And that's exactly the thing people like JJ don't understand. When you think you're an artist and misunderstand the thing you're working on, idiotic things like that happens.
 

Lunarorbit

Member
She's definitely right. But her divorce gave us the special editions.... Now I'm not sure who to dislike. Might as well chose both
 

Madflavor

Member
Give it another 20 years, the prequels got dog piled but now has heaps of fans as the younger audience has grown up.
I’m not convinced that’ll happen. The biggest difference between the PT and ST is that the PT at least did a great job with world building, which paved way to greater stories like The Clone Wars. The ST on the other hand didn’t add anything new to the setting. It treaded old ground and didn’t have a cohesive vision. As of this point there is nothing the ST era offers that the PT and OT don’t that is not better. That’ll hurt it in the long term.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
My honest feeling is that George Lucas was temperamentally unsuited to making huge movies, certainly compared to Spielberg. Running these big projects is like being a general in charge of armies, and I just don't think that level of power and control ever sat well with him

I mean if you look at his filmography as director, and think of all the opportunities to do stuff that the immense success of SW would have created for him, its shocking how little he actually did. Its not the track record of a guy who wanted to make blockbusters.

I kinda suspect by the time of the prequel trilogy he was pretty much a fish out of water in the director's chair and had to surround himself with functionaries to get the job done. Unfortunately that shielded him from pushback creatively, and the results were... well, what they were.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
didn’t have a cohesive vision.

Oh come on, that's the most disingenuous attack on the ST and it comes from people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about because neither the OT or PT had a "cohesive vision" and Lucas made up both as he went along (IT'S IN THE RINZLER BOOKS). Vader wasn't Luke's father until the second draft of ESB, hell originally Luke hung out with Anakin's ghost on Dagobah. Leia wasn't even the sister until ROTJ was practically in production and Lucas changed it just to rush and finish his movies because his wife was divorcing him and he cancelled his plans for sequels. In the Prequels the ONLY thing planned was Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting over a "molten pit" because Lucas had that put in the ANH novelization. Even then, the scene where Obi-Wan picks up Anakin's lightsaber on Mustafar had to be shot in reshoots because GEORGE LUCAS forgot that he gave the lightsaber to Luke in ANH.

That's how Star Wars has always been made, but now people want Star Wars movies to not be made like Star Wars.
 

Salz01

Member
The prequels may have tarnished the Star Wars brand a little bit, but the Disney sequels made the brand into dog shit.
 

Madflavor

Member
Oh come on, that's the most disingenuous attack on the ST and it comes from people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about because neither the OT or PT had a "cohesive vision" and Lucas made up both as he went along (IT'S IN THE RINZLER BOOKS). Vader wasn't Luke's father until the second draft of ESB, hell originally Luke hung out with Anakin's ghost on Dagobah. Leia wasn't even the sister until ROTJ was practically in production and Lucas changed it just to rush and finish his movies because his wife was divorcing him and he cancelled his plans for sequels. In the Prequels the ONLY thing planned was Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting over a "molten pit" because Lucas had that put in the ANH novelization. Even then, the scene where Obi-Wan picks up Anakin's lightsaber on Mustafar had to be shot in reshoots because GEORGE LUCAS forgot that he gave the lightsaber to Luke in ANH.

That's how Star Wars has always been made, but now people want Star Wars movies to not be made like Star Wars.

Here are some things to consider. First off Star Wars was made during a time where sequels were a lot less common, so back then they had an excuse to not have the entire story mapped out. Secondly there was three years between each film in the OT, so they had more time to write the story. Unlike Star Wars 1977, we knew the Sequel Trilogy was going to be three films. It was also a sequel trilogy to the most beloved and famous trilogy of all time, and when you add to the fact the PT wasn't received well, they should've known better than to be so careless. So we're talking about different times, expectations and circumstances here. As for the PT, I don't believe for a second Obi-Wan vs Anakin was the only thing George planned when he mapping that story out. I'm not gonna claim preciously how much was or wasn't planned because I'm not George Lucas and I can't read his mind, but at the very least he had a rough idea how it was going to go. For example Senator Palpatine being Sidious, and Padme being Anakin's wife. The PT was a telling of the events that lead to the downfall of the Republic and Jedi Order. I'm sure some of the finer details changed during the journey to get those films made, but at least they were all directed and written by the same guy.

Juxtapose all that with the fact that the ST had two years between films, and were being juggled between different directors and writers. The fact that they brought back Palpatine without any explanation of how he returned speaks volumes about how disorganized they were. I'm not being disingenuous here, it's well known and common knowledge at this point that there was a lot of poor planning behind the scenes. Some of the actors, in their clear frustration, have even flat out said so or have alluded to as much.
 
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ManaByte

Gold Member
Here are some things to consider. First off Star Wars was made during a time where sequels were a lot less common, so back then they had an excuse to not have the entire story mapped out. Secondly there was three years between each film in the OT, so they had more time to write the story. Unlike Star Wars 1977, we knew the Sequel Trilogy was going to be three films. It was also a sequel trilogy to the most beloved and famous trilogy of all time, and when you add to the fact the PT wasn't received well, they should've known better than to be so careless. So we're talking about different times, expectations and circumstances here. As for the PT, I don't believe for a second Obi-Wan vs Anakin was the only thing George planned when he mapping that story out. I'm not gonna claim preciously how much was or wasn't planned because I'm not George Lucas and I can't read his mind, but at the very least he had a rough idea how it was going to go. For example Senator Palpatine being Sidious, and Padme being Anakin's wife. The PT was a telling of the events that lead to the downfall of the Republic and Jedi Order. I'm sure some of the finer details changed during the journey to get those films made, but at least they were all directed and written by the same guy.

Juxtapose all that with the fact that the ST had two years between films, and were being juggled between different directors and writers. The fact that they brought back Palpatine without any explanation of how he returned speaks volumes about how disorganized they were. I'm not being disingenuous here, it's well known and common knowledge at this point that there was a lot of poor planning behind the scenes. Some of the actors, in their clear frustration, have even flat out said so or have alluded to as much.
So basically you're saying you want a planned out Marvel sequel but in a Star Wars skin. That would've given you want you wanted but that's not Star Wars.
 

Madflavor

Member
So basically you're saying you want a planned out Marvel sequel but in a Star Wars skin. That would've given you want you wanted but that's not Star Wars.
Ok you're simplifying what I said and also putting words in my mouth.

That said, you wanna bring up the MCU? How about the fact that the MCU has surpassed Star Wars in terms of profitability, popularity and recognition worldwide? You wanna know why MCU films continued to make more and more money, culminating in Avengers Endgame making $2.8 billion, and why the Sequel Trilogy went from $2 billion -> $1.3 billion -> $1 billion? It's cause the people behind the MCU have a formula that works and knew what the fuck they were doing. I don't care to speak of the quality of the MCU. It's always been hit or miss for me. But the numbers don't lie, the MCU resonates with audiences way more than modern day Star Wars does. Fucking Captain Marvel, one of the more generic and least interesting MCU films made more money than the final entry in the Skywalker Saga.

Rise of Skywalker was not only the final entry in the Sequel Trilogy, but also the finale to the whole Skywalker saga. There was no excuse for it to make half of what Force Awakens did. No excuse at all.
 
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ManaByte

Gold Member
How about the fact that the MCU has surpassed Star Wars in terms of profitability, popularity and recognition worldwide?
I’ve actually talked to people at Lucafilm about this. The reason is because Marvel was able to cultivate a very young and loyal fan base over ten years, and Lucasfilm couldn’t do that in 40.
 

Madflavor

Member
I’ve actually talked to people at Lucafilm about this. The reason is because Marvel was able to cultivate a very young and loyal fan base over ten years, and Lucasfilm couldn’t do that in 40.

I'm sure that's certainly one of the reasons. LF had their chance with the Sequel Trilogy. They had a fresh young and diverse cast for a new generation of movie goers. But oops, the story and characters suck. Oh well.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
I'm sure that's certainly one of the reasons. LF had their chance with the Sequel Trilogy. They had a fresh young and diverse cast for a new generation of movie goers. But oops, the story and characters suck. Oh well.

No, they see it as THE reason. They've been trying hard to remedy it. They started these animated YouTube shorts with an action figure line connected to them in order to introduce kids to the Star Wars characters, but then people on the internet flipped out that they were kiddie and started bitching about Kathleen Kennedy destroying the franchise again.
 
No, they see it as THE reason. They've been trying hard to remedy it. They started these animated YouTube shorts with an action figure line connected to them in order to introduce kids to the Star Wars characters, but then people on the internet flipped out that they were kiddie and started bitching about Kathleen Kennedy destroying the franchise again.
Then they are even more idiotic and creatively bankrupt than we thought. Clear evidence of the wrong people making decisions for the brand.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
Then they are even more idiotic and creatively bankrupt than we thought. Clear evidence of the wrong people making decisions for the brand.

No they have the metrics internally that prove it. Marvel did it because there were at least two (sometimes more) Marvel movies every year for a decade. So you have a generation of kids who grew up with a constant onslaught of Marvel. Star Wars didn't really have that. It was 18 years between the OT and the PT and then another 10 years between the PT and ST. You had Clone Wars on TV, but that's not the same as multiple HUGE movies on the big screen every year. Lucasfilm wanted to do that with Star Wars, with a movie every year, but again people bitched and complained that it didn't make Star Wars "special" anymore and Iger caved into that mindset. So now they're going to try it with Disney+ by having MULTIPLE series every year starting in 2022 when there will be THREE Star Wars series: Obi-Wan, Andor, Mando S3.
 

NickFire

Member
No, they see it as THE reason. They've been trying hard to remedy it. They started these animated YouTube shorts with an action figure line connected to them in order to introduce kids to the Star Wars characters, but then people on the internet flipped out that they were kiddie and started bitching about Kathleen Kennedy destroying the franchise again.
People need to just call this situation for what it is. Disney bought the IP, and instead of treating the source material with respect (like Marvel) they challenged the get woke go broke narrative with it. And Disney lost that bet, and now the IP is tarnished. Whether people are happy, mad, or split on how Disney treated the IP, this is what happened.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
The funny thing about the scene is that Finn had just seen Kylo Ren stop a laser with his Jedi abilities and only 20 or so years have passed since the events of the first trilogy. Imagine if some kid came up to you and asked if 9/11 was true.

It was 35 years between ROTJ and TFA. Finn wasn't even born yet at the time of ROTJ.
 

NahaNago

Member
60a2091811972205cc279b420ea7fdc8.gif



She's clearly got no idea what she's talking about, the sequels were masterpieces.
I had only seen this movie once and did not remember the fight scenes being this terrible. One guy in red just turns around and runs away on the left and one guy on the right just staight up aims for the light saber when kylo has it in the ground. I kind of now want to rewatch the fight scenes in slow motion to see where else it looks silly.

More on topic as others have said yeah, water is wet.
 
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