• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Kathleen Kennedy: Making A STAR WARS Film Is Difficult because no source material

MilkyJoe

Member
No source material? lol. And when has that been a problem for a true creative?




These are pretty bad takes. She's been a producer for some of the most famous/well known films of the 80's and 90's.

Jurassic Park
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Schindler's List
Poltergeist
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Gremlins
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The Goonies
Back to the Future
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part III
The Color Purple
An American Tail
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Land Before Time

Producing on those movies she didnt have creative input, producers deal with the money, there's no way she was going to tell Speilberg or Lucas, or Donner what to do. She's probably ruined star wars to get back at all the coffee she had to make.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
she is both a producer with a long list of films when it's convenient

AND when it's not convenient she has no power, and shouldn't be considered by franchise fans who smell something rotten, and people who think she does are "weirdly obsessed" for thinking that a President of a company would have anything to do with the creative decisions.

the answer is, she has a long career, with heavy interest in developing fantasy & genre pictures, and her career should be celebrated. but she is a producer. her IMDB had zero writing credits, everything is production. she doesn't do any writing, the story stuff comes from people she picks & works with.


IMO the problem is that she is just doing what she always does, it is that the new creatives suck compared to the old ones. moral relativity/postmodernism have ruined storytelling. this is why RJ and JJ are too focused on copying or deconstructing the past, rather than creating a new future, the way the OT did. in the past there were good storytellers, everyone is too meta and postmodern these days to come up with something like Ghostbusters or Back to the Future again. when was the last unique franchise? reboots have strangled the culture. there is a phrase i hear a lot that "All the stories have already been told". i disagree and consider this as inviting creative defeatism, as well as personal ego, into the process. yet the structuralist nostalgic Star Trek reboots had already proven to JJ that the reboot approach was too financially successful to not capitalize on. but that's not what Star Wars ever was. it was original, first and foremost.

the honest truth is they could have easily come up with more new characters. but instead they wallowed and pittied their own position, they felt sorry for themselves, having to follow up George Lucas. when George created the original, he had far more humble ambitions, even though he sometimes suffered from writer's block like anyone, he was an endless fount of new ideas and freshly synthesized archetypes. it is as if the ST directors set themselves on pedestals they know will be knocked down (and in Rian's case, he is knocking it down himself). they thought "this will be tough to do, so let's not even try, but sell it by cleverly lampshading that fact & using meta". the lack of imagination in the ST is it's true sin. what new there is has been badly under-served.
 
Last edited:
It's telling that even Bob Iger admitted Lucas' reaction to The Force Awakens was, "There's nothing new."

Not only is there nothing new in these films, but they also fail as remakes *and* reboots. JJ is a clown, but at least he respects the fans. You can bet your life this man is the type to lie awake at night worrying about his film, hoping the fans will be happy, genuinely wanting to give Star Wars fans what they want. His first attempt at Star Wars was both safe and silly, with nothing of substance going for it, but at least the man does not hate the franchise he's working in and all of its fans.

The same cannot be said for the man with the round head.
 

GooseMan69

Member
It’s over. Just admit it. There are no legitimate narrative reasons for the sequels to even exist, which is why they keep having to literally bring characters back from the dead.

Return Of The Jedi is as conclusive as an ending could possibly be.
 

prag16

Banned
It’s over. Just admit it. There are no legitimate narrative reasons for the sequels to even exist, which is why they keep having to literally bring characters back from the dead.

Return Of The Jedi is as conclusive as an ending could possibly be.
Nah they could have done plenty of worthwhile shit if they hadn't made so many inexplicable choices regarding the state of the universe for the start of the ST.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned

more evidence the ST was all made up as they went along. why would Colin Trevorrow spend a year writing a version of IX where Rey grew up in the Solo household, and there was no Palpatine, if he was always in the cards?
 

prag16

Banned

more evidence the ST was all made up as they went along. why would Colin Trevorrow spend a year writing a version of IX where Rey grew up in the Solo household, and there was no Palpatine, if he was always in the cards?
For as much as a disaster the current version sounds like, how would they have explained Rey and Ben growing up together... unless they introduced some kind of memory wipe bullshit. Would have been a train wreck regardless.

Palpatine "always being in the cards" per JJ probably amounts to him having Palpatine cross his mind at one point during TFA. Definitely still making it all up as they go along.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I've defended Kathleen Kennedy a few times, but this is UNREAL! Like COME the FREAK ON! The Star Wars Universe itself is one of the best starting points any creative could ever have to make a movie.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
eh.... so ignore that post i made LOL guess Colin himself is calling it out as fake



also just noticing Jason misspelled "Collin"


See this is why it's hard to believe some things when it comes to Star Wars. It's like people want to hate it so bad.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
See this is why it's hard to believe some things when it comes to Star Wars. It's like people want to hate it so bad.
what are you talking about? what does this have to do with hate?

are you saying he fabricated this in order make people hate the guy? i don't think so. that seems like jumping to conclusions. the dude gets bad info from time to time, that's enough for me.

FWIW i liked the "Rey as household help" angle. it matches TLJ's "nobody parents" line. it also brings class consciousness in it in a far better way than Canto Bight.
 
Last edited:

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
what are you talking about? what does this have to do with hate?

are you saying he fabricated this in order make people hate the guy? i don't think so. that seems like jumping to conclusions. the dude gets bad info from time to time, that's enough for me.

FWIW i liked the "Rey as household help" angle. it matches TLJ's "nobody parents" line. it also brings class consciousness in it in a far better way than Canto Bight.

To me it seems like most people hated that idea for Rey as a storyline.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Did they? Didn’t see a lot of hate for it myself. I saw a bunch of folks saying it sounds better than Emperor or 2.

Then again I feel like the amount of people complaining about SW hate far exceeds the actual hate
 
Last edited:

GV82

Member
Lmao no one from the new trilogy wants to come back to Star Wars if Disney plus offered a spin-off show, anyone see those stories doing the rounds, gee I wonder why? Not since Harrison Ford as there been someone who really wouldn’t do it again.


Watch the whackos say it’s cos of the Toxic fandom 🙄 sure I wouldn’t take a couple of million dollars to do Star Wars on TV and just ignore what people are saying about you on social media, also if the show turned out semi decent, you could also win back some those fans, take your millions & live in blissful ignorance. In a mansion somewhere beautiful & isolated.

The only people who are then going to irritate you is the press.

Just a thought Instead of Rian Johnson & any others at Lucasfilm screaming about toxic fans why aren’t they just like


rylOZ8R.jpg


They must enjoy the Drama.
 

sol_bad

Member
Based on the leaks/spoilers out there.. Don't get your hopes up. (And not for the "herp derp anybody can use the Force" thing either.)

Please don't mention anything else from the leaks, whether they are rue or fake I want to go in to the film clean. I've only watched the 2 main trailers.
^__^
 

prag16

Banned
Please don't mention anything else from the leaks, whether they are rue or fake I want to go in to the film clean. I've only watched the 2 main trailers.
^__^
Fair enough. And nothing is ironclad it would seem, there was talk of several different cuts of the film floating around, with some very large differences between them. So even the complete spoiler junkies may end up finding major surprises when they see the film.
 

sol_bad

Member
Fair enough. And nothing is ironclad it would seem, there was talk of several different cuts of the film floating around, with some very large differences between them. So even the complete spoiler junkies may end up finding major surprises when they see the film.

The whole test screen leak makes zero sense when you think about it logically.

 

prag16

Banned
The whole test screen leak makes zero sense when you think about it logically.


To be fair, J.J. isn't always up front about things. But at the same time Trevorrow said the MSW leak regarding the plot details of the old Trevorrow script was completely false, so maybe there's some bad info out there in general. We'll see. Just 13 more days.
 

sol_bad

Member
To be fair, J.J. isn't always up front about things. But at the same time Trevorrow said the MSW leak regarding the plot details of the old Trevorrow script was completely false, so maybe there's some bad info out there in general. We'll see. Just 13 more days.

Yep, I have my ticket for the 21st. Pretty stoked to see how the Saga plays out.
 

prag16

Banned
The whole test screen leak makes zero sense when you think about it logically.


Circling back, I finally actually watched the video, and damn this guy was brutal. Of course he made valid points, mostly in the first half of the video, but the rest of the video was mostly tearing down straw men, and he spent a full five minutes on a self indulgent hypothetical about Mickey Mouse showing up and threatening him South Park style.

I do not recommend watching this video. Suffice to say: He makes good points to indicate the Doomcock stuff is HIGHLY HIGHLY questionable at best. But it'll be 27 minutes of your life you'll never get back.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
I do not recommend watching this video. Suffice to say: He makes good points to indicate the Doomcock stuff is HIGHLY HIGHLY questionable at best. But it'll be 27 minutes of your life you'll never get back.
yeah i'll save the 27 minutes because Doomcock himself puts like a 2 minute disclaimer at the start of every one of his videos that it's all rumor and conjecture anyways. all the people going over the top to "disprove" him are only giving him more attention LOL.

the guy isn't MSNBC or CSPAN. he's a man in a mask covering rumors about a movie. the guy is a rumor monger, and that's fine. hasn't that been the way for movie and enthusiast press for decades? this isn't important news, this is entertainment gossip.
The whole test screen leak makes zero sense when you think about it logically.
the idea that a company spending millions of dollars on a product would want to do some testing of said product? why is this an illogical conclusion? you realize companies do this a million times a day?
 
Last edited:

sol_bad

Member
Circling back, I finally actually watched the video, and damn this guy was brutal. Of course he made valid points, mostly in the first half of the video, but the rest of the video was mostly tearing down straw men, and he spent a full five minutes on a self indulgent hypothetical about Mickey Mouse showing up and threatening him South Park style.

I do not recommend watching this video. Suffice to say: He makes good points to indicate the Doomcock stuff is HIGHLY HIGHLY questionable at best. But it'll be 27 minutes of your life you'll never get back.

He's industry and has been to screenings so he'd know what he talks about. But yes, the video is overly long. The Mickey Mouse part just made me laugh.
 

NickFire

Member
Rey really better stay as nobody in this new film.
Hell no. Rey better turn out to be tied to Palpatine, and hidden in the dessert by the good guys because they didn't want to kill a child and knew she was too dangerous to make into a Jedi. And then she needs to turn full blown Sith Lord, taking Kylo under her wings as Bane would have wanted.

Then start a new trilogy of children being force trained to eventually confront them. With lots of defeats along the way.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
fuck why did they not plan this out? they wanted to leverage the OT actors, why not plan out their arc and shoot all the footage with the older, more fragile actors while they were younger? that was beyond dumb. irresponsible treatment of the most valuable assets.

cos i was just thinking, Lando is back, i wonder if he will have any scenes with Leia? bu nope, that's impossible. she died before the 2nd film came out and they never considered any of those characters interacting until the final film apparently. indeed it is extra sad cos Lando could have been in TLJ, where he could have possibly shared a scene with Leia, make some old jokes make a nice "Hello what have we here" callback. you know, the dreaded fan service.

but a nice, sentimental, funny scene like that would probably be in this movie, had they filmed all that stuff back then, had they actually planned this thing out. think of all the interactions we missed out on? if they didn't secretly film a reunion w all the main OT cast for a flashback, it will have been the biggest missed opportunity of all time.
 
Last edited:

oagboghi2

Member
yeah i'll save the 27 minutes because Doomcock himself puts like a 2 minute disclaimer at the start of every one of his videos that it's all rumor and conjecture anyways. all the people going over the top to "disprove" him are only giving him more attention LOL.

the guy isn't MSNBC or CSPAN. he's a man in a mask covering rumors about a movie. the guy is a rumor monger, and that's fine. hasn't that been the way for movie and enthusiast press for decades? this isn't important news, this is entertainment gossip.

the idea that a company spending millions of dollars on a product would want to do some testing of said product? why is this an illogical conclusion? you realize companies do this a million times a day?
The problem is he is criticizing the film. No one would be upset about the guy if his "rumours" were nothing but praise.

The worst thing you could do is not be a corporate shill.
 

prag16

Banned
The problem is he is criticizing the film. No one would be upset about the guy if his "rumours" were nothing but praise.

The worst thing you could do is not be a corporate shill.
That was my other problem with the guy in the 27 minute video... He kind of came off like a corporate shill. Okay, not kind of. Very much so.
 
Top Bottom