Are people being too hard on Kathleen Kennedy for Star Wars?

If you read or watch online what people say about her, it's just really damning, like she is a devil who ruined Star Wars and screwed people over, completely intentionally. But was it deliberate on her part though, and is she such a bad person, with terrible intentions, like has been made out to be?

Yes and no. On one hand, she only really became a scapegoat in the aftermath of The Last Jedi because she allowed Rian Johnson to make The Last Jedi the way that he did and, in the eyes of the people who hated that film, that effectively made her as responsible for "ruining" Star Wars as Johnson himself. On the other hand, she apparently over-corrected for that decision to hand a Star Wars film over to an auteur writer-director by not just taking Solo away from Phil Lord and Chris Miller over creative differences but also bringing back J.J. Abrams to do Rise of Skywalker in a way that made a concerted effort to disregard The Last Jedi as much as possible, presumably in an effort to appease disgruntled fans. However, this ends up making the Disney era of Star Wars look even more producer-driven than it already did and the resulting films got decidedly mixed receptions as a result - Solo wasn't distinct enough to properly justify its existence and Rise of Skywalker failed to stick the landing for one of modern pop culture's definitive epics. A common criticism for Rise of Skywalker is that its haphazard plotting and ill-fitting connections to its predecessors suggests that there wasn't a strong enough plan to turn the trilogy into a cohesive whole, which - if we take Star Wars as a producer-driven property, which it always was even when that producer was George Lucas himself - means that the fault lies with Kathleen Kennedy for presumably not doing a better job of overseeing the saga's production.

So in the end, people started to hate her because she stood by The Last Jedi and then continued to hate her when she worked to distance herself from it. There's just no pleasing some people, even if it's merited to a certain extent.

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I think this video does a good job of recounting a history of what happened in a very neutral tone. One thing I do believe it demonstrates is that Kathleen Kennedy is only part of the problem. There's a better video I saw that focused more on her, but I can't find it. I definitely think she's a bigger problem than you do, Iroquois. But I personally don't even consider the original trillogy great movies, even though I used to be a massive fan of them and have seen them all at least 25 times each. Nowadays I haven't even been able to sit through The Empire Strikes Back, because I see so many flaws that it's hard to enjoy. I've been meaning to rewatch the original trillogy, and I recently bought it, but we'll see when I get around to it and how I feel about them. That being said I think the prequel trilogy is complete garbage, and the new Disney Star Wars is so bad it would be an insult to garbage to call them garbage. If the prequel trilogy is a dumpster that stinks, the new Disney Star Wars is that dumpster after someone through a rotting corpse in it.

As is often the case, they're probably right to blame her for some of the problems, but the intensity of the blame, often morphing into cartoonish hatred, is pretty ridiculous. But that's standard for the Internet: often wrong, and even when it's right it has no sense of perspective.

Okay thanks.

I haven't finished the video yet, but it's interesting so far. There is also this video I watched before:



At 9:00 into the video, he talks about how Kathleen Kennedy, spread a story to the media, about a new Star Wars TV show that is coming, when it in fact, no show was coming and she just said that in order to gain a higher attention in the company so to speak. And the guy in the video says that now Bog Iger is forced to make the show, all because of a false rumor she spread about one. But does he really have to make the show, just because she said it was coming? Why didn't Iger just go to the media and said that there is no show and it was a false rumor that Kennedy leaked? Would fans really come down hard on him for a false rumor, especially if it was spread by Kennedy, who so many of the fans hate? Why did Iger let her get away with it, if it's true that she spread a false rumor?

Would Iger really "incur wrath" from the fans and media like the host of the video says he would, just from saying that a false rumor leaked about a false TV show?

We have no idea which of those claims are true, so most of those questions aren't answerable and even the ones that are would just be speculation.

People have misunderstandings. Big corporations have relationships and people sometimes have to save face. Those two facts explain pretty much everything you're asking about, most of which is just basic facts about how human beings interact, so if some of this isn't obvious already I'm not sure more detailed answers are going to make sense to you, either.

@ironpony
List your top 10 in your profile. It might help everyone get an idea on where you're coming from with all your questions, and what to reply.

Oh I just thought that if someone spread false rumors in Hollywood, than that producers boss could correct the public on the rumors being false, without fear of such backlash.

They could, but the "boss" thing is kind of meaningless on this scale. Perception matters. People don't want to be seen as hard to work with, for example. It's not a clear hierarchy even if someone is technically someone's boss. Producers pay for movies, but they can't just dump all over directors.

Like I said, though, this really is all very basic stuff about how human beings interact and maneuver around each other, especially when it's public-facing. If the answers aren't obvious to you already, the answers someone on here gives you aren't going to help much, either.

Oh okay, I just put myself in Iger's shoes and if one of my employees lead a false rumor about a TV that doesn't exist, I would have to publicly quash that rumor, rather than agree to make a TV show that doesn't exist, just because someone said it exists, but that's me.

Well, first, I literally just explained why the employee-employer dynamic doesn't really apply normally here. At this point I don't know why I bother replying, since this always happens.

Second, maybe it just didn't happen. You're basing this off of some dude on YouTube, right? It's not a fact. And there's no reason to expect some random people (us) to explain a claim by some other random person we don't know.

I really think you need to make a concerted effort to spend more time considering these kinds of questions on your own before just outsourcing them to the community.

Yep that's true, it could be fake.

Sorry, I guess I just didn't buy it, even with an explanation, it just feels like something is missing, or why Iger is allowing himself to be owned so much, if that is what's really happening. When you say a person doesn't want to be seen as difficult to work with, do you mean Iger, or Kennedy? When you say that producers can't just jump all over directors, the show isn't even made yet, and doesn't have a director yet though, so would it be seen as jumping all over, when there was no director yet?

Yes...the new trilogy was significantly better than the last Lucas trilogy, The Mandolorian is the best thing we've gotten from Star Wars since Empire and the series has been quality wise higher than WB's DC universe though significantly lower than Marvel's releases.

Iger, but it applies to either, because this stuff is happening in public.

It was an example of how the person in charge can't just do whatever they want.

Oh okay, well even a person in charge can't do anything they want, a the owner of disney is allowed to say no to a TV show that doesn't exist and doesn't have to make it just because some people think it exists, does he? I thought that a boss would have at least have that much power. Or are the employees allowed to make movies and shows they want, and he cannot stop them?

Oh okay sorry, I just thought that owners of companies didn't have to yes to a project that an employee wants to make if that was the case. Sorry I just didn't buy it I guess.

These questions are bizarre. You're asking about things I didn't suggest at all. Read the posts again.

I'm done with this, since it's gone the exact same way it does any time someone tries to answer one of these questions. Spend more time reading and considering, rather than immediately posting follow-up questions.

Oh sorry I thought I read what you said before:

But I just didn't understand how is agreeing to making a TV show that doesn't exist, saving face. It just seems like a recipe for disaster, rather than saving face. So that is why I didn't understand it, cause it came off as a recipe for disaster to me. That's all I meant.

Really? Even powerful people have others they answer to, other people whose opinions they need to consider (even if it's just the public at large). Think of how it looks if someone "under" you defies you. You might want to smack them down for it, but you might be embarrassed they even tried it. You might think it looks better to act like it was your plan, rather than something someone tried to pull over on you. It's complicated, like most human interactions.

And that's what we're talking about: human interactions. If this stuff doesn't make sense on some level already I doubt I can explain it. But it's definitely not going to make sense if you reply immediately with more questions rather than stop for a moment and ponder it.

Oh okay. I just thought that making it look like it was your plan, would be worse if it turns out the TV show sucks with people though. It just seems risky to make it look like it was your plan, like it's much more of a gamble, or so I thought. I don't mean to sound argumenative, I just thought that Iger is taking the bigger gamble by doing this.