Kathleen Kennedy Spins New Narrative For Star Wars: “Quality Is Always Everything”
John F. Trent
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Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy recently put out a new spin for Star Wars while trying to hype up new films and television programs.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: (L-R) Asad Ayaz, Diego Luna and Kathleen Kennedy attend the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
Speaking with IGN’s Alex Stedman during Star Wars Celebration 2023, Kennedy was asked, “I just want to see if there is any major hope that you want to strive for in this kind of new era of Star Wars that you just announced today.”
Kennedy replied, “It’s as I said, I think quality is always everything. We want to tell resonating stories that really speak to what Star Wars is.”
“I don’t really want it and none of us want it to become like everything else,” she concluded. “We want it to be something that continues to live up to the expectation that fans have. And that’s the most important to all of us”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Kathleen Kennedy onstage during the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
It’s unclear what Kennedy actually means by “quality” given her entire tenure as President of Lucasfilm has produced objectively poor quality films and television shows.
The biggest black eye is the Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi. The film has a poor 6.9 weighted average on IMDb. It has an even more abysmal 42% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes with moviegoers rating the film an average of 2.6 out of 5.
The Last Jedi Rotten Tomatoes scores
Star Wars isn’t just getting negative reactions towards its feature films, but its flagship TV series, The Mandalorian, is now receiving the worst user scores it’s ever received.
The most recent episode “Guns for Hire” which featured Lizzo and Jack Black has a 6.5 weighted average on IMBd. In fact, the most reason season hasn’t just posted the worst score of the entire series, but the three worst rated episodes of the show’s entire run. “Chapter 19: The Convert” has a weighted average of 7.1 on IMDb and “Chapter 17: The Apostate” has a weighted average of 7.5.
The Mandalorian “Guns for Hire” IMDb Review Score
And this is by design despite Kennedy’s claim she’s focusing on quality. Ahead of the release of The Force Awakens, Kennedy made an appearance at Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women Summit in 2015 where she laid out her plan to fundamentally change Star Wars.
During her appearance Kennedy revealed how she quickly changed the demographics of the company once she took over.
Kennedy said, “The fact that the company was bought by The Walt Disney Company has been amazing because they very much support the fact that we are trying to grow in the work force a number of women in executive positions and in all positions inside the company.”
“And with the movies that we are making and with the protagonists that we are putting in the stories. So I get a huge amount of support with that,” she continued.
She then touted, “But we have 50% of our executive team are women. And six out of eight of the people in my story group are women. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would be surprised that we’re making Star Wars movies and the majority of the people involved in the development of those stories are women. And I think it’s making a huge difference in the stories that we’re trying to tell.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Kathleen Kennedy onstage during the Andor studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
On top of admitting to fundamentally changing the people who worked at the company, Kennedy also detailed the company had changed how they would market the franchise as well switching from primarily a boys and men franchise to women and girls.
She detailed, “I think the interesting path we’ve had is the conversation that took place around consumer products. Because there were a lot of companies that were in palce who frankly didn’t initially feel that Star Wars was for girls.”
Kennedy went on, “And when you have a company situation where between Lucasfilm and Disney, we were all looking at this situation saying, ‘No, with Star Wars we have to change this. We have to make sure that we create products that are in a sense appealing to both boys and girls.’ What’s wrong with that?”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Host Kathleen Kennedy walks onstage during the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
Despite her claim of wanting the it to appeal to both boys and girls, when asked for an example it was specifically focused on creating products for females.
Kennedy said, “I mean even with simple things like t-shirts. There’s a fantastic story with this young woman who came to Lucasfilm in 2009. She plays the character of Ahsoka in both Rebels and she also had a role in Clone Wars. And she came to Lucasfilm in 2009 saying why aren’t their clothes that are tied to Star Wars for girls. And she struggled for quite a while and put a company together called Her Universe and it’s doing unbelievable business.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: (L-R) Daisy Ridley, Kathleen Kennedy and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy attend the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
It’s highly unlikely Lucasfilm and Star Wars will start churning out higher quality products when Kennedy admitted she gutted the company’s employees and decided to reshape it in her image. Not only did she reshape the company in her image, but she set about drastically altering who the franchise would appeal to.
Given Kennedy is still in charge, it’s unlikely her initial vision will ever be changed. And even if she is removed, if she is replaced by one of her disciples it would just be more of the same or even worse.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Kathleen Kennedy attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
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The most interesting part of Kennedy’s new claim is indeed the fact that she is saying the company needs to focus on quality. A company that is actually producing high quality products would never come out and say such things. Their product speaks for itself, and they are bragging about how good it is.
Instead, Kennedy is out here implying the quality of their product is quite poor. This is a tacit or maybe even subconscious admission that under her leadership she knows the company has produced extremely poor quality films and TV shows.
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA – MAY 26: (L-R) Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni attend the studio showcase panel at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California on May 26, 2022. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
What do you make of Kennedy’s new spin for Star Wars?
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