Rumor: Lucasfilm Claims Luke Skywalker “Is Not A Significant Part Of The Matrix Of New Content Going Forward”
A new rumor claims that Lucasfilm has given directives that Luke Skywalker will not be “a significant part of the matrix of new content going forward.”
This new rumor comes from scooper WDW Pro, who most recently scooped Lucasfilm’s recent Rey-focused Star Wars film that was announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
In this new scoop, WDW Pro’s source informed him that Lucasfilm had a meeting with Hasbro, a consulting firm, and others where they detailed that Luke Skywalker will never be a main character in Star Wars again. WDW Pro added, “He was at best allowed to be an occasional cameo.”
From there, WDW Pro relayed that Lucasfilm sees Luke Skywalker as “cobwebbed character. He is a museum piece. He sells, but he is not a significant part of the matrix of new content going forward. So if Grogu is going to stay with Luke then you lose Grogu. He’s out of sight with the exception of some glancing exposure.”
“And for everybody in that meeting that would have been catastrophic,” he stated.
Pro would further reiterate later in the video, “The page has turned on Luke Skywalker, Lucasfilm said regarding current active media, cameos and on-screen references to him are the best anyone can expect going forward, nothing more, don’t ask. All the way from Kathleen Kennedy.”
It’s not just Luke Skywalker, but all of the original trilogy characters. WDW Pro said, “The original trilogy characters are stuck in the past, good for stunt cameos, and for legitimizing new characters and stories. However, various partners believe if they become desperate enough that Luke Skywalker can be used as a Hail Mary.”
He also explained this information came from a meeting two years ago and was confirmed again in a meeting 10 months ago. He specifically noted, “Following the success of The Mandalorian Season 2 that was Lucasfilm’s position. They came out and said, ‘You will get not Luke.'”
This rumor echoes a previous one WDW Pro reported on back in December 2020. Then he noted, “Behind the scenes, large swaths of Kathleen Kennedy loyalists are messaging back and forth about their disdain for Luke Skywalker – a Caucasian male – being brought back in any valiant form.”
He added, “In fact, I’m even told that individuals at Lucasfilm have been reading articles here on Pirates and Princesses, as well as watching videos on Clownfish TV, and are now actively planning on how they can roadblock the retcon attempts of Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau to make Luke Skywalker a hero once more.”
Specifically he noted that these Lucasfilm employees were planning to ““introduce ideas and narratives that would make a Luke redemption difficult” and were “reportedly working in private messages to sabotage attempts by Filoni and Favreau via minor mediums such as graphic novels to push The Last Jedi narrative even harder.”
“The goal is to canonize concepts in the coming years that would prevent the Luke and Grogu from being the future heroes that Favreau has planned,” WDW Pro clarified. “These people are incensed that the reaction to Luke Skywalker in the Mandalorian has been incredible.”
A Lucasfilm employee previously had a picture of Luke Skywalker with a giant red “X” across his face as discovered in an episode of Rebels Recon on the official Star Wars YouTube channel.
Previous Lucasfilm employee Justin Bolger claimed the image was his desk and that was part of his Imperial Couture “decorating style.”
However, Kathleen Kennedy made it perfectly clear during an appearance at Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women Summit in 2015 that she planned to radically change not just Lucasfilm’s internal culture, but also the type of stories they would tell. Specifically, she planned to inject feminism into Star Wars.
Kennedy 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 place who frankly didn’t initially feel that Star Wars was for girls.”
She continued, “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?”
Kennedy also relayed, “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 noted.
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.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Ewan McGregor also revealed that Lucasfilm scrapped an idea that would see the series focus on Kenobi and Luke Skywalker rather than Kenobi and Leia.
As reported by MovieWeb, McGregor said during an appearance at FAN EXPO Boston, “It was going to be a story about me and Luke. It was always going to be that, and that was one of the genius moments where everyone went, ‘Wait a minute,’ and then changed it. That’s the beautiful thing about how passionate Disney, Lucasfilm, all of us are, who are involved with it is from the beginning is we try really hard not to let anything of the bad just to protect your experience of seeing it for the first time.”
He added, “I think it’s really cool that Disney and Lucasfilm care so much for the fan experience. They really want you to have a 100% experience the first time you see it, and if you’ve read that, and that leaked, and this came out, it’s just a bit of a shame isn’t it? It’s like looking at your Christmas presents before Christmas Day.”
What do you make of this new rumor about Lucasfilm, Star Wars, and Luke Skywalker?
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