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Runaway 03-01-25 06:29 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by DJariya (Post 14561364)
Yeah I never heard of any director who took a studio head job. The ones that I’m familiar with were all producers.

I'm not sure if all of you are being ironic, but what about James Gunn, he is the co-Ceo with Peter Safran who's also "only" a producer, so a writer/director/producer like Jon Favreau wouldn't be a giant leap. I'm not endorsing Favreau, I have no idea if he could handle the job, I just thought that he would be an obvious choice, if and only if Disney wants a creative studio head. Between the MCU, The Lion King and Star Wars shows, he's been a very successful producer for Disney.

story 03-01-25 06:51 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
"I'll do it. I always end up doing it."

https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/dec...#w2rMLFwJ.copy

Bluelitespecial 03-01-25 07:41 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by PhantomStranger (Post 14561379)
It's breathtaking the amount of damage Kennedy has done to one of the world's most popular brands. She doesn't seem to care and has doubled down repeatedly on stupid decisions, both creatively and financially.

The fish rots from the head.

If Kathleen Kennedy were a man she would have been fired years ago.

Jay G. 03-01-25 08:13 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Runaway (Post 14561578)
I'm not sure if all of you are being ironic, but what about James Gunn, he is the co-Ceo with Peter Safran who's also "only" a producer, so a writer/director/producer like Jon Favreau wouldn't be a giant leap.

I actually forgot about James Gunn, since he's only co-running the studio, and he's still taking time to direct. But I think the inclusion of Peter Safran is critical in that deal. From my recollection, Gunn insisted Safran be co-CEO to even consider the job, because Gunn both didn't want to do it alone, and wanted to continue to write/direct films and TV, which would've been much harder to do if he was running DC Studios alone.

So maybe Jon Favreau and his favorite producer as co-leaders of Lucasfilm. John Bartnicki looks to have produced a lot of Favreau's projects, especially recently.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2962362/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr

Still, even with James Gunn as an example, it shows how rare it is for a director to step into that role, even only as a co-runner of a studio.

Jay G. 03-01-25 08:16 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Bluelitespecial (Post 14561584)
If Kathleen Kennedy were a man she would have been fired years ago.

On the flip side, since we're speculating, if a man was running Lucasfilm, maybe he would've seen less criticism and calls for being fired. Marvel had several years of flops and misfires, but I never heard people calling for Kevin Feige to be fired.

Bluelitespecial 03-01-25 08:26 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
If said man would do his job and honor the vision of the world created by George Lucas than yes there would be less outrage.

story 03-01-25 09:28 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Bluelitespecial (Post 14561584)
If Kathleen Kennedy were a man she would have been fired years ago.

Mmkay.

rocket1312 03-01-25 09:34 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
Jeepers. There have been numerous women who have run studios and production companies in the last 40 odd years. Kathleen Kennedy is not some sort of pioneer or trailblazer in that respect. Why would Disney be afraid to fire her? They had no problem letting go of Stacey Snider, one of the most successful women executives in recent Hollywood history, when they acquired 20th Century Fox. Unless you actually follow Hollywood business news and know the names and the history and can back up the notion that she only has a job because she's a woman, then GTFO with that garbage. Just because a bunch of mouth breathers on the internet who are afraid of vaginas (probably because they've never seen one) said so doesn't make it true.

Jay G. 03-01-25 09:51 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Bluelitespecial (Post 14561599)
If said man would do his job and honor the vision of the world created by George Lucas than yes there would be less outrage.

OK, so if that's your argument, why did you have to drag gender into it? It just makes you sound sexist.

GoldenJCJ 03-01-25 10:15 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Bluelitespecial (Post 14561584)
If Kathleen Kennedy were a man she would have been fired years ago.

If she were a man, she would have been fired…after decades of sexual abuse allegations within the industry and several years of those allegations being made public.

…You know, since we’re just making stuff up.

Spiderbite 03-01-25 10:58 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
With James Gunn at the Star Wars helm, I can see it now...snarky, 50%-of-the-time funny, pop culture laden humor with various 70's and 80's deep cut pop and rock songs as one random major character along with several weird minor characters scattered across the years of Star Wars lore (deep cut from the original Marvel comic series!) walking away in slow-motion while snapping at each other during massive explosions in the background with a gigantic monster to fight.

How'd I do?

Bluelitespecial 03-01-25 11:30 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
^^Even if that were true it would be better than anything produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gunn wouldn't have a seething hatred of lifelong Star Wars fans like everyone currently working at Lucasfilm.

Michael Corvin 03-01-25 11:33 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Jay G. (Post 14561598)
On the flip side, since we're speculating, if a man was running Lucasfilm, maybe he would've seen less criticism and calls for being fired. Marvel had several years of flops and misfires, but I never heard people calling for Kevin Feige to be fired.

DC burned through 3-4 before landing on Gunn.

Jay G. 03-01-25 11:55 AM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Michael Corvin (Post 14561667)
DC burned through 3-4 before landing on Gunn.

Still, even with those, I don't actually recall their names, and I didn't see the level of vitriol directed at them personally. Discussions were often "WB/DC don't know what they hell they're doing." With Star Wars, the ire got directed at Kathleen Kennedy very specifically and very quickly. Hell, people ignore that Bob Iger saddled Lucasfilm with the task of getting a new Star Wars movies out every year, ASAP. He personally apologized for that and reversed course after Solo flopped, but still, the hate is only at Kennedy, not Iger.

https://www.indiewire.com/features/g...op-1202175861/

Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion in October 2012 and relaunched the Skywalker saga with director J.J. Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” in 2015. Since then, Disney has aggressively put out new “Star Wars” movies, and the company’s CEO Bob Iger admits to The New York Times that the plan might have been too much.

“I just think that we might’ve put a little bit too much in the marketplace too fast,” Iger said about the response to “Star Wars” under Disney.

Josh-da-man 03-01-25 04:00 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Jay G. (Post 14561598)
On the flip side, since we're speculating, if a man was running Lucasfilm, maybe he would've seen less criticism and calls for being fired. Marvel had several years of flops and misfires, but I never heard people calling for Kevin Feige to be fired.

I've been hearing calls for Feige to be shown the door (and I'm one of them) post-Endgame. The MCU went, almost overnight, from being a well-oiled machine into a hot mess.

I think that the main difference between Kennedy and Feige is that Kennedy burned through her good will a lot faster. Feige had a run on the MCU of two dozen films over twelve years; Kennedy had the fandom ripped apart within two years and three movies -- and there also that Resistance cartoon, but it was so awful that everybody forgot it even happened.

I'm not sure if I'd say that the vitriol directed at Kennedy is solely because she's a woman (though many of her vocal critics are from alt-right trolls who hate women), but male forerunners get tons of hate and calls for firing, too. Chibnall and RTD on Doctor Who, Kurtzman on Star Trek. Really, it's a pretty common thing for major franchises with prominent shot-callers and showrunners. Feige is about the only one who didn't get a lot of shit thrown at him because almost everyone was on board with the MCU.

Josh-da-man 03-01-25 04:15 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Jay G. (Post 14561337)
Running a studio is very different than producing individual film/TV projects. Jon Favreau could turn out to be terrible at running a studio, if he even wants the job. Can anyone point to the last time an actual director took a studio head job?

Studio heads tend to be producers because they're money guys. Directors are creative guys who blow budgets.


Originally Posted by Jay G. (Post 14561596)
I actually forgot about James Gunn, since he's only co-running the studio, and he's still taking time to direct. But I think the inclusion of Peter Safran is critical in that deal. From my recollection, Gunn insisted Safran be co-CEO to even consider the job, because Gunn both didn't want to do it alone, and wanted to continue to write/direct films and TV, which would've been much harder to do if he was running DC Studios alone.

So maybe Jon Favreau and his favorite producer as co-leaders of Lucasfilm. John Bartnicki looks to have produced a lot of Favreau's projects, especially recently.

Still, even with James Gunn as an example, it shows how rare it is for a director to step into that role, even only as a co-runner of a studio.

We're kind in new territory here. Traditionally studio heads made all kinds of movies for their production companies and studios; now they're running franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, et al. Shepherding these franchises is a new skill set that people like Kennedy didn't develop. Feige, in addition to being a long-time comic book fan who understood the material, also had an extensive resume producing comic book films before the MCU.

I suspect that relationships like Gunn/Safran or Favreau/Bartnicki might be the way to go forward where you would have both a creative head and a business head qho are both on the same page co-running these franchises.


Abob Teff 03-01-25 10:09 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
Please, Force, no more Filoni. Mandalorian was good because of Favreau, not Filoni.

The issue with Filoni’s idea of lore is that, while he is a fan, he doesn’t give a shit about the lore. He only cares about HIS additions to the lore, and those come from childish and dumb sensibilities. (Yes, so did some of Lucas’ later work.)

Josh-da-man 03-02-25 01:32 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
I'm not a fan of Filoni's either. There were a few good stories in Clone Wars and Rebels, but most of it comes off as fan-ficcy.

Ahoska is, when you get down to it, a Mary Sue/Creator's Pet. She was introduced between films, then managed to weave herself all over the story and become the most important character in the galaxy. -rolleyes-

And he's either completely obsessed with the Clones (Rex in particular), or that's the only thing they'll let him play with.

Also not a fan of his convoluted take on the Force like that Father-Daughter-Son business, the Living Force, the Cosmic Force, etc. (Which might have come from Lucas?) It just completely demystifies the Force and turns it into something that seems like comes from a video game series.

Meathead 03-02-25 06:44 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
Filoni should be allowed to finish his stories whether it get wrapped up with Ahsoka s2 or the previously announced wrap-up film. There are plenty of us who like what he's put out.

Michael Corvin 03-02-25 07:33 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Josh-da-man (Post 14562106)
Ahoska is, when you get down to it, a Mary Sue/Creator's Pet. She was introduced between films, then managed to weave herself all over the story and become the most important character in the galaxy. -rolleyes-

At this point with all the Jedi that were alive during the original trilogy, Order 66 was just a mild suggestion.

The obsession with Clones is a valid complaint but to me, that's one area where George dropped the ball. It's called the CLONE WARS yet we're given no reason in the films to give a shit about them. Now the amount of time Filoni has spent on Rex and Cody, et al is bordering on the absurd. He swung too far the other way. However, the Bad Batch is perfection. Seeing some "defective" clones coming to grip with being out of work and in hiding was a fun little side adventure.

Mike86 03-02-25 08:06 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
The Clone Wars is some of the best Star Wars period if you ask me. Not sure if I’d say to have Filoni be in charge but he far enhanced the Prequel Trilogy from being so-so to much more fleshed out and interesting.

Abob Teff 03-02-25 08:19 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
Maybe an odd tangent . . . but since there were never any actual known clones or reference to them throughout the entire run of the OT, I had always assumed it was something else, such as a planet/system/race. You know, the Klohn Wars.

I may also be imagining this one, but I believe when I was little I may have thought it was the Cologne Wars. They certainly couldn't smell good on Tatooine. Or inside a TaunTaun.

Michael Corvin 03-02-25 09:22 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
I worked with someone in the mid-late 90s (pre-Episode 1) that swore up and down that we were going to find out that Obi-wan was actually Obi-ONE and the first clone. I found it preposterous at the time and debated him on it but after the PT we got? Maybe that could have been something. :lol:

Artman 03-02-25 10:29 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Originally Posted by Abob Teff (Post 14562311)
Maybe an odd tangent . . . but since there were never any actual known clones or reference to them throughout the entire run of the OT, I had always assumed it was something else, such as a planet/system/race. You know, the Klohn Wars.

Yep, it could've been a war in a Clone system. I believe as legend has it when Timothy Zahn was preparing to write his novels he asked if it was actual clones and he was given the go ahead. Even with that the Clone Wars were supposed to be before the prequel stories but it was was moved up to be the central focus of the prequels when the films were made.

JTH182 03-02-25 10:34 PM

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 
I remember thinking long before the prequels that the Clone Wars were the Jedi fighting clones of themselves.


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