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Kathleen Kennedy reportedly out at LucasFilm

John Marston said:
While I do agree with you the first 3 movies (Or 2 because fuck Ewoks 😆) will always remain dear to my heart.

Don't let the massacre mess with your dreams.
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Jedi was my favorite when I was a kid because I loved the ending space battle and the final battle between Luke and Vader (and the music and all of that). I mean it's clearly the weakest of the three after growing up and thankfully acquiring a bit more taste, but I still think it's a great overall movie. Too bad they had to waste so much time rescuing Han, and then redoing the Death Star though.

But in terms of the Ewoks ... I know people say they are cute and there is some of that but think about it. They were gonna cook the heroes alive, and they had no qualms about it. Then at the end of the movie they are more or less playing with the heads (well, helmets I suppose) of the Imperials for music. They may be little bears but they are savage little brutes.

But yeah ... the soundtracks of the first three movies are just so unbelievably good. The change in style from Star Wars to Empire is great too. Maybe I'll listen to them tomorrow and see if I can still enjoy them.
 
Dr Bass Dr Bass
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Days like these... said:
Even if they made the best star wars movie ever tomorrow. The great majority of us who were huge fans are 40+. Star wars doesn't have the appeal it had to us on younger folks. It's dead.
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I'd be there day one if they adapted Zahn's Empire/Thrawn trilogy as close as possible - that's the true sequel trilogy for me. Perfectly fine if they recast all the characters as well.
 
Lord Panda said:
I'd be there day one if they adapted Zahn's Empire/Thrawn trilogy as close as possible - that's the true sequel trilogy for me. Perfectly fine if they recast all the characters as well.
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So would I but that doesn't change the fact that it won't have younger people suddenly become massive fans like those of us who grew up with the original trilogy
 
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jason10mm said:
I don't think there is some inherent limitation for women in leadership roles of media companies, mystic stuff, it's all prophecies, visions, force ghosts, and stuff with him.
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It's not about leadership but creative vision. 99,999999% of women make female oriented stuff. This applies to everything from literature to movies. In legacy "male" franchises you can't put women in charge, regardless of their talent, the same way that a dudebro kind of guy should not write female fantasy. Their themes and tropes are so different that very few creators from the opposing sex get them right.
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
It's not about leadership but creative vision. 99,999999% of women make female oriented stuff. This applies to everything from literature to movies. In legacy "male" franchises you can't put women in charge, regardless of their talent, the same way that a dudebro kind of guy should not write female fantasy. Their themes and tropes are so different that very few creators from the opposing sex get them right.
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Ehh, there are enough projects I love made by gay men or women that I'm not sure that's entirely true, though as a rule of thumb it's probably workable. I think it ultimately rests on what you actually want your AUDIENCE to be, and this is where modern shit goes wrong because their 'audience' target is an algorithm derived composite being that doesn't actually overlap with many real individuals enough to drive engagement. For example, a hardcore dude bro action film with a heroic male lead, hot women needing to be rescued, a cute kid/puppy/vintage car on the line, and some gratuitous violence and boobs will be like crack cocaine to about 20% of men, enough to base a certain budget around. Add in a love story or cast an actor with high female appeal and the audience grows to include 20% of women who will now tolerate seeing the film with their men, so more men will see it and bring their women. Now the budget can increase because returns are higher.

But then the algorithm breaks down, because it will say "add some LGBTBBQ for 5% more audience", "add a cute mascot and tone down the gore for 30% kids", "pick an actor from each continent for 15% market overseas", "female can't be seen as weak because that drives away 30% potential females", "lead male must wait for female to initiate all advances or we lose 25% of the youth audience", yadda yadda, so you end up with a bland offering designed to appeal to EVERYONE about 30% but to NO ONE more than 50%, and then they wonder why there is no big box office or cultural staying power? IMHO you should make stuff that targets specific audience and if it's strong enough in core story, dialogue, and emotional resonance it will get crossover appeal that way.
 
Dr Bass said:
Jedi was my favorite when I was a kid because I loved the ending space battle and the final battle between Luke and Vader (and the music and all of that). I mean it's clearly the weakest of the three after growing up and thankfully acquiring a bit more taste, but I still think it's a great overall movie. Too bad they had to waste so much time rescuing Han, and then redoing the Death Star though.

But in terms of the Ewoks ... I know people say they are cute and there is some of that but think about it. They were gonna cook the heroes alive, and they had no qualms about it. Then at the end of the movie they are more or less playing with the heads (well, helmets I suppose) of the Imperials for music. They may be little bears but they are savage little brutes.

But yeah ... the soundtracks of the first three movies are just so unbelievably good. The change in style from Star Wars to Empire is great too. Maybe I'll listen to them tomorrow and see if I can still enjoy them.
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Jedi has great music -- the Vader/Luke fight with the chorale voices -- so amazing.

But honestly, Episode I and Episode III have AMAZING scores. I think Williams was on the top of his game for these. BUT -- they couldn't have been made without the first three, for sure.
 
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spookyfish said:
Jedi has great music -- the Vader/Luke fight with the chorale voices -- so amazing.

But honestly, Episode I and Episode III have AMAZING scores. I think Williams was on the top of his game for these. BUT -- they couldn't have been made without the first three, for sure.
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I hope John Williams is remembered like Beethoven, Bach, and all those guys. Even divorced from the films they were in, his scores resonate and are IMMEDIATELY recognizable and distinct.

Though I admit I'm ignorant if he puts out albums of his own stuff, or if its all wrapped up in work.

Huh, apparently he doess.

 
jason10mm said:
I hope John Williams is remembered like Beethoven, Bach, and all those guys. Even divorced from the films they were in, his scores resonate and are IMMEDIATELY recognizable and distinct.

Though I admit I'm ignorant if he puts out albums of his own stuff, or if its all wrapped up in work.

Huh, apparently he doess.

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Oh wow. I need to check some of that out. Just a freakin' genius.
 
jason10mm said:
I hope John Williams is remembered like Beethoven, Bach, and all those guys. Even divorced from the films they were in, his scores resonate and are IMMEDIATELY recognizable and distinct.
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Hmmwah ....

 
kruis said:
Hmmwah ....

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Hmmmm, perhaps. Though how much similarity do all these pieces have with each other? Or how they were played for the recording versus what's on the page.

I don't really know enough about classical music to opine, but I do know that Williams puts together some good shit. Maybe call him DJ Williams instead? :P
 
jason10mm said:
I hope John Williams is remembered like Beethoven, Bach, and all those guys. Even divorced from the films they were in, his scores resonate and are IMMEDIATELY recognizable and distinct.

Though I admit I'm ignorant if he puts out albums of his own stuff, or if its all wrapped up in work.

Huh, apparently he doess.

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John Williams the guitarist is a different guy. I remember my mum had a cassette of his and I thought this was must have been the composer's side project thing.
 
I'm working my way through the Star Wars documentary that was posted and there's a bunch of info that can contribute to this thread.

On the John Williams stuff. Lucas, inspired by 2001 A Space Odyssey wanted to use existing classical music, in particular he wanted to use Holst's The Planets. When John Williams was brought in he told George that he needed to have bespoke music written for the scenes that could bring their own signature pieces. So it's not a surprise to hear the closeness of The Planets to Star Wars given the path to get there.

When it comes to women and movie making. I do think there are individual women that are more than capable of doing action, though probably much fewer in number than men overall given the general interest. In the case of Star Wars, Marcia Lucas (Wife of George and film editor) was key to helping sculpt the emotional and character parts of the movies because George was much more of an action and special effects guy, and his efforts and direction fell flat when it came to character scenes. She talks in depth about the final Vader and Luke scene where Luke takes off Vader's mask, and also how Vader behaves during the Luke and Emperor fight. Both in the early cuts lacked character emotion, so Marcia got in there and reedited, changed takes, added extra pauses, and I think got some extra pickups recorded to craft those powerful emotional beats.

So in the case of Star Wars, it was the man who brought the action (George) and the woman handled the emotion (Marcia)

In the prequel movies, Maria wasn't there and George proved that he can not do characters for shit.
 
falconhoof said:
I'm working my way through the Star Wars documentary that was posted and there's a bunch of info that can contribute to this thread.

On the John Williams stuff. Lucas, inspired by 2001 A Space Odyssey wanted to use existing classical music, in particular he wanted to use Holst's The Planets. When John Williams was brought in he told George that he needed to have bespoke music written for the scenes that could bring their own signature pieces. So it's not a surprise to hear the closeness of The Planets to Star Wars given the path to get there.

When it comes to women and movie making. I do think there are individual women that are more than capable of doing action, though probably much fewer in number than men overall given the general interest. In the case of Star Wars, Marcia Lucas (Wife of George and film editor) was key to helping sculpt the emotional and character parts of the movies because George was much more of an action and special effects guy, and his efforts and direction fell flat when it came to character scenes. She talks in depth about the final Vader and Luke scene where Luke takes off Vader's mask, and also how Vader behaves during the Luke and Emperor fight. Both in the early cuts lacked character emotion, so Marcia got in there and reedited, changed takes, added extra pauses, and I think got some extra pickups recorded to craft those powerful emotional beats.

So in the case of Star Wars, it was the man who brought the action (George) and the woman handled the emotion (Marcia)

In the prequel movies, Maria wasn't there and George proved that he can not do characters for shit.
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I hear the entire reason Lucas was so adamant that the OG films had to be changed and the original cuts were forever lost was just to screw Marcia out of payments.

I don't think I'm gonna be able to swing LOTR in theater again this go round but ABSOLUTELY will for the Star Wars OT re-release.
 
jason10mm said:
I hear the entire reason Lucas was so adamant that the OG films had to be changed and the original cuts were forever lost was just to screw Marcia out of payments.

I don't think I'm gonna be able to swing LOTR in theater again this go round but ABSOLUTELY will for the Star Wars OT re-release.
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They talked about what she got out of the divorce and I don't think residuals were mentioned. He was adamant that she got nothing of the businesses. Her offer was to take a % and he said no. She ended up with $50m from their joint savings.

She did critique the Special editions of the movies rolling her eyes on the scenes he brought back. Stuff like the Jabba scene in A New Hope, which she'd cut because it was just a repeat of information from the Greedo scene.

I'm just watching the parts of the documentary now covering the prequels, Man, George was so all in on Jar Jar.
 
falconhoof said:
They talked about what she got out of the divorce and I don't think residuals were mentioned. He was adamant that she got nothing of the businesses. Her offer was to take a % and he said no. She ended up with $50m from their joint savings.

She did critique the Special editions of the movies rolling her eyes on the scenes he brought back. Stuff like the Jabba scene in A New Hope, which she'd cut because it was just a repeat of information from the Greedo scene.

I'm just watching the parts of the documentary now covering the prequels, Man, George was so all in on Jar Jar.
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Sounds like he did all that in the special editions just to piss her off. His kids loving Jar Jar was extra salt in the wounds.

$4b worth of petty :pie_roffles:
 
Dr Bass said:
Right. And can't even be nostalgic about the original stuff anymore, considering how badly all the updates have treated it, and then the sequel trilogy finished it off by destroying just about every single classic character.

As a kid if I had known what was coming I would have never been a fan in the first place. I can't imagine a more perfect destruction of a franchise.
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Nah, I still love the originals. Nothing Disney does can make the originals worse for me, but I can easily ignore the slop they keep making. Though I do hope they get their butts into gear and wake up, Andor was incredible and I'd love to see more Star Wars along those lines (though I'm pretty sure we won't).
 
jason10mm said:
I hope John Williams is remembered like Beethoven, Bach, and all those guys. Even divorced from the films they were in, his scores resonate and are IMMEDIATELY recognizable and distinct.

Though I admit I'm ignorant if he puts out albums of his own stuff, or if its all wrapped up in work.

Huh, apparently he doess.

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This is a different John Williams. Classical guitarist. Kind of an unfortunate name to have if you're a musician. :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
Mengy said:
Okay, wow, that's pretty crazy in all honesty. I love the music John Williams has made for movies over the years, but ..... DAMN.
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Yeah I knew what a bunch of these would be before watching and I think some of those are a bit of a stretch, but none of this is big news. Everyone rips off from everyone. Also that Imperial march sounding like Mars is way off. That's much more like Gladiator's battle scene. The Imperial March is much more like Chopin's Funeral March, which is also what the latest Batman theme basically rips off directly.

Go listen to Holst's "The Planets" and you'll hear all kinds of movies, including the aforementioned Gladiator, Back to the Future, Star Wars etc. You can go down that path with a bunch of classical music as well.

Games do this with movie music and jazz fusion a lot btw.
 
Mengy said:
Okay, wow, that's pretty crazy in all honesty. I love the music John Williams has made for movies over the years, but ..... DAMN.
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Well, he also works for hire. If he's paid to make something and the director says "I like these compositions, do something like that", then he's probably gonna riff off that just like every artist riffs off sounds and rhythm. He's pulling from the public domain, so if the director wanted those specific pieces he could use them, royalty free in most cases.
 
Dr Bass said:
Yeah I knew what a bunch of these would be before watching and I think some of those are a bit of a stretch, but none of this is big news. Everyone rips off from everyone. Also that Imperial march sounding like Mars is way off. That's much more like Gladiator's battle scene. The Imperial March is much more like Chopin's Funeral March, which is also what the latest Batman theme basically rips off directly.

Go listen to Holst's "The Planets" and you'll hear all kinds of movies, including the aforementioned Gladiator, Back to the Future, Star Wars etc. You can go down that path with a bunch of classical music as well.

Games do this with movie music and jazz fusion a lot btw.
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Every artist rips off and borrows from those that came before. Art takes inspiration from many sources.
 
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All the early Mario music was copied as well. But it still requires some talent to change it and make it associated with the product you are selling rather than the original.
 
Her allegedly not allowed to be fired for a set amount of time in the sale to Disney contract explains a lot, really.

Down to unfettered damage being done with bone headed (see: deliberate?) decisions to the IP.

Most would've been gone a long time ago.
 
Finished watching the documentary now, and the end of episode 6 goes deeper into Marcia and George's relationship post divorce, or lack thereof. It's pretty emotional. I'm still unsure of the breakdown given that we only get to hear her side of things, but its still interesting that the truth is somewhere within it.

It's also interesting to hear her takes on the Special Editions and the prequels as you get snippets of what she would have done if she'd still been there, and how we have the evidence of what she did with the OG that clearly made the difference to those movies; like killing off Obi-Wan in A New Hope instead of just have him linger round. Or pacing where Lucas wanted Luke to do two runs on the death star, which I saw in a later comment by the director of the documentary say that the lack of that kind of thinking is why we got three laps of the podrace, and so many finale battles in the prequels.

But there's a quote from Marcia about Kennedy, not in the documentary, but from the forward to the book Howard Kazanjian: A Producer's Life

"I like Kathleen. I always liked her," says Marcia Lucas. "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?"
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"And then at the end of this last one, The Last Jedi, they have Luke disintegrate. They killed Han Solo. They killed Luke Skywalker. And they don't have Princess Leia anymore."
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"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."
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Man, the more you hear from her the more you feel that she was the secret sauce behind what took Star Wars as a visionary idea from George and helped sculpt it into an exciting adventure series that got characters, drama, excitement and escapism.
 
falconhoof said:
Finished watching the documentary now, and the end of episode 6 goes deeper into Marcia and George's relationship post divorce, or lack thereof. It's pretty emotional. I'm still unsure of the breakdown given that we only get to hear her side of things, but its still interesting that the truth is somewhere within it.
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So I started watching this doc. They always seem to make these things seem like it was just a heartbeat away from disaster but maybe thats true.

Gotta say, Marcia Davis was pretty cute back in the day, Lucas had good taste.....

vGdVozXoodhEI7oJ.jpg
 
jason10mm said:
So I started watching this doc. They always seem to make these things seem like it was just a heartbeat away from disaster but maybe thats true.
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The format follows the typical TV show structure. Talking heads, lots of repetition, build up to cliff hanger for the ad breaks. That part does annoy me but I guess it was done that way for broadcast (presuming it was broadcast).

Does mean that each episode could have been about 20 minutes long. Content is still good though, and there was a lot I didn't know about it despite watching many other documentaries and reading articles.

The director said that the interview with Marcia was 6 hours long at her home in Hawaii. So there's probably a good amount of stuff that wasn't shown due to it not fitting the narrative of the show.
 
Gp1 said:
Just casually zapping through some YT shorts...



How the hell Disney missed that chance...
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Because they had no plan.

From watching the trilogy, you can tell they just made it up as they went along. There might have been the ideas of a road map, but that was thrown out as soon as they decided to let each director do what they wanted with each film.

Not only should they have had a plan, but having the three main legacy actors together should have been a fucking slam dunk idea.

But no. What we got was a very poor rehash of the original trilogy. People hate on the prequel trilogy, but at least that had a clear and unique identity, complete with a coherent beginning, middle and end arc. The sequel trilogy is just nonsense and takes a dump on the established lore.
 
Gp1 said:
Just casually zapping through some YT shorts...



How the hell Disney missed that chance...
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Fucking son of bitch.
Yeah, it was the story of the "Mary-sue brave and stunning". Yeah that fucking bitch is the hero, the movie annoyingly keep pushing in our face every goddang time. In the end nothing in the film was new, just reuse of the old films. Thats the so called story of this idiot.
 
So this Marcia Davis documentary thing can't be totally true. They make it seem like she is writing the film from the editing room but she she can't invent stuff that wasn't filmed. Poor Richard Marquand, he takes a few hits :P

I find it amazing that these studios finance millions and millions on films where the script isn't totally storyboarded out for all the major beats. But I listen to story after story from actors where they were improvising shit on the fly and entire scenes were written that day, it seems so crazy. But maybe thats just Hollywood.
 
jason10mm said:
So this Marcia Davis documentary thing can't be totally true. They make it seem like she is writing the film from the editing room but she she can't invent stuff that wasn't filmed. Poor Richard Marquand, he takes a few hits :P

I find it amazing that these studios finance millions and millions on films where the script isn't totally storyboarded out for all the major beats. But I listen to story after story from actors where they were improvising shit on the fly and entire scenes were written that day, it seems so crazy. But maybe thats just Hollywood.
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Not just Hollywood. Games are the same.

I'm pretty sure somewhere in the documentary it mentions doing pickups to film extra scenes. But even still, it's amazing what you can adjust with some tricksy editing and ADR (voice dubbing). If not changing the narrative of a scene then changing the delivery of it using shot inserts and pacing out the dialogue.
 
jason10mm said:
So this Marcia Davis documentary thing can't be totally true. They make it seem like she is writing the film from the editing room but she she can't invent stuff that wasn't filmed. Poor Richard Marquand, he takes a few hits :P

I find it amazing that these studios finance millions and millions on films where the script isn't totally storyboarded out for all the major beats. But I listen to story after story from actors where they were improvising shit on the fly and entire scenes were written that day, it seems so crazy. But maybe thats just Hollywood.
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Marcia saving Star Wars in the editing room isn't a new idea though. People have explained her influence on the movie for decades.

Also, you can do a lot in editing. Look at Terrence Mallick's "The Thin Red Line." Adrien Brody thought he was the star of that movie all through filming, and that's what he was hired to be. He did a bunch of promo work for the movie and when it came out, he was hardly in it. :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
falconhoof said:
Not just Hollywood. Games are the same.
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I can totally believe this. I mean I heard a rule that John Romero had that flips this on it's head, design the last level first. (Which is beautiful in it's simplicity and ease in determining if you're doing it or not and when you get down to it if you do that you know where you need to end up.) The funny part? In the same article they gave that same rule to other game designers and asked them what was their similar rule? They literally couldn't come up with one. (Just stupid shit such as make the game fun.)
 
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Dr Bass said:
Marcia saving Star Wars in the editing room isn't a new idea though. People have explained her influence on the movie for decades.
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I guess you need to see the earlier cuts to really appreciate what she did.

She's so damn salty though, the last bit of that documentary where she's bemoaning that Lucas cut her out of his life, like girl, YOU DIVORCED HIM. I'm sure it's played up for the camera but wow, her other husbands gotta be like WTF? that she seems so hung up on Lucas. And the notion that Lucas somehow still pines for her, despite him being remarried himself...kinda sus.
 
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