This is not a drill. It’s actually happening this time. After fourteen years, Kathleen Kennedy is just stepping down as head of Lucasfilm. And I have mixed feelings about this.
Kathleen Kennedy has been in the film business for almost forty years now. She’s been a producer on some of the greatest movies of all time, from E.T. to Back to the Future to Jurassic Park. But for a lot of Star Wars fans, she’s best known for being the President of Lucasfilm after George Lucas sold the company to Disney. And saying that her leadership has been controversial would be an understatement. A sizable part of the Star Wars fandom sees her as one of the biggest problems with the franchise right now. I should know; I’m one of those people! And after hearing that she is retiring, as head of Lucasfilm, I should be ecstatic about this. I should be joining others in celebrating while listening to “Naboo Parade” and “Victory Celebration.” But for some reason, I can’t.
Maybe it’s because I know that the current state of Star Wars wasn’t entirely Kennedy’s fault?
Not Everything Was Kennedy’s Fault
I will not deny it: as head of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy was ultimately responsible for overseeing Star Wars from the moment Disney bought the company. Ergo, anything that happened to the franchise during that time happened on her watch. And while it’s had its fair share of success with things like Rogue One, Andor, The Mandalorian, and Rebels, Star Wars also had a bunch of failures. The Sequel Trilogy lacked any overarching cohesion. They axed the old Expanded Universe. And the sheer saturation of Star Wars shows on Disney+ started to wear thin on people’s nerves. Case in point, The Acolyte was a dumpster fire that tried to make the Jedi look bad, and failed. Needless to say, as head of Lucasfilm, she bears some of the blame for the screw-ups.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth, though: being the leader doesn’t mean that it’s her fault by default.
Truthfully, no one person can truly be blamed for the perceived decline in quality of the Star Wars franchise. There were numerous different parties that can be blamed for how things have turned out. JJ Abrams relied too heavily on nostalgia for The Force Awakens. Rian Johnson made decisions with The Last Jedi that many fans think tried too hard to subvert the tropes of the franchise, and that led Abrams to overcorrect for the final movie. Even Dave Filoni, the golden boy many consider Lucas’ padawan, has had his pitfalls with Ahsoka. And I think The Acolyte’s failures can be summed up as Leslye Headland having an agenda that runs counter to what the Jedi are about. That, and her writers couldn’t tell a good story to save their lives!
But ultimately, I think the ones most at fault for how Star Wars has turned out were the higher-ups at Disney. They were the ones who pushed for the Sequel Movies to come out so fast, neglecting to lay th groundwork for them in the interim. In addition, they didn’t plan the entire story out ahead of time, leading to a huge mess.
Filoni has his Work cut out for Him
Ultimately, I think the dislike for Kathleen Kennedy, while not wholly unwarranted, has become a bit of a dark joke for Star Wars. Whenever something bad happened to the franchise, it felt like our go-to answer was to blame Kennedy. Like I’ve said, though, things are rarely ever that simple and there are plenty of parties responsible for the pitfalls the franchise has faced over the last decade. Maybe a few years from now, people will look on her time with a more favorable light. At the very least, she helped keep Star Wars relevant. Though, if I’m being honest, I have more faith in her successors, Lynwen Brennan and Dave Filoni.
I don’t know anything about Brennan herself, but it seems that she will be handling the business aspects. What we should care about, though, is Filoni’s role. For years now, Star Wars fans have been calling Dave Filoni the heir to George Lucas, having been hired by Lucas and mentored by him for years. He’s as much of a Star Wars fan as the rest of us and treats the franchise with that kind of reverence. While his storytelling skills were caught lacking with Ahsoka, we can’t deny that he’s done a lot of good for the franchise. People have wanted him in charge for years, and we’re finally getting what we wanted. Hopefully, he can turn the ship around before a fandom that’s become toxic and jaded over the last decade abandons it altogether.
As for me, I’m cautiously optimistic and hopeful. All I want is for Star Wars to be good, and to keep being good, no matter who’s running it. I dont think I hate Kennedy as much as I thought, but I think it’s best she’s moving on. It’s time for Dave to take the role that we wanted for him and show us if he really can keep Lucas’ legacy together. May the Force be with us all.
