Original STAR WARS Editor Slams Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams and The Sequel Trilogy
Uh oh, here’s a post that is probably going to open some old Star Wars wounds. Since the last Star Wars sequel trilogy was released, fans have been enjoying everything that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have been doing with The Mandalorian. But damn, when those sequel trilogy films were being released the fans were divided and things got really ugly at times.
Fans have a lot of different opinions on those Star Wars sequel films and after time has passed and I look back at them, they were really kind of a mess. It also turns out that the editor of the original films, Marcia Lucas, wasn’t a big fan of those films.
During an interview for J.W. Rinzler’s book Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life, which examines the prolific producer’s life, including his time on the Star Wars franchise, Lucas slams Kathleen Kennedy and director J.J. Abrams saying that they “don’t get it” and “the storylines are terrible." She said:
“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 J.J. Abrams don’t have a clue about ‘Star Wars.’ They don’t get it. And J.J. 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?'”
She went on to criticize some of the plot points in the films further, saying:
“They have Luke disintegrate. They killed Han Solo. They killed Luke Skywalker. And they don’t have Princess Leia anymore. And they’re spitting out movies every year. 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. It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me — ‘J.J. Abrams, Kathy Kennedy — talk to me.'”
I’m sure that Abrams and Kennedy have moved on from those films and probably don’t think much of them anymore. As a fan, they definitely aren’t films that I’d go back and revisit. Look, when you compare those sequel trilogies to what Favreau and Filoni are doing with The Mandalorian, there is no comparison. All you see is that Favreau and Filoni totally understand Star Wars in a way that Kennedy and Abrams don’t.
Via: Variety