Not offended at all, just felt like for all our recent discussion in here that wasn't doing anything to address any of the actual points raised. So appreciate the response.

I take issue with a few of your points, and I can understand where you're coming from on others. But to start:

Quote:

---

Ask Stan Lee the origin of a lot of his characters and he'll say, "I thought it'd be cool".

---

While that may be true in some instances, it's patently false in many. The X-Men were a group of people being feared and hated in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, and a lot of their stories were metaphors for that (it's not coincidence Magneto's origin stems from Nazi Germany). He also created Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Sam Wilson in the 60s. And one of the Marvel editors recently found this gem from the back pages of a Marvel comic in April 1970:

Stan has always been cutting edge and very social justice forward in the stories he was telling, and the I would have to imagine the characters mentioned generated a lot of controversy when they were created (and as someone in the comments of that tweet mentioned, I wonder what story Stan was responding to).

The Matrix is buried in philosophy and social references (there have been entire books written and there's a commentary track with a well known Harvard philosopher and he even appears in the film). It's hard not to find themes of slavery, salvation, enlightenment, and many others throughout those films. Most any film based around The Hero's Journey (which is most of them) can have salvation themes drawn from them, and scifi as a whole has always been political and philosophical as has been mentioned.

The Harry Potter series is another pretty explicit example of a racial/social class conversation in mainstream film. Maybe Harry not being a non-white ethnicity veils some of the metaphor, but he was pretty blatantly discriminated against for his background (as was Hermione for that matter). And there's dozens more examples in very popular films as briefly covered in that twitter thread.

If the complaint is one of heavy handedness then that's a different argument, bad filmmaking is bad filmmaking no matter the subject matter. I thought the concept of Canto Blight was great, particularly in the idea of introducing these shades of gray into a previous black and white Star Wars world, but it definitely could have been handled with more finesse.

As far as an attack on conservative values, I can see that to an extent (and my own views have shifted far less conservative over time) but you also have to look at the current climate. For better or worse and regardless of political persuasion, the current climate is one of fear and exclusion for a lot of people and the current administration is pretty target rich. People tend to see when their side gets called out but find it "normal" when someone of opposite beliefs is the target of ridicule. As with most political topics the truth lies somewhere in the middle there, and good writers can weave those ideas into a story while making them feel natural for their characters in the world they inhabit.

I would agree with that 100%.

Are you telling me to quit assuming I'm smarter? I just posted those tweets to spur discussion. Doesn't mean a believe or endorse every word. Chill out.

Quote:

---

Quit assuming you are smarter than other people. There is more to this than just "I don't like strong women."

---

I DO NOT like strong women.


When a strong woman beats you up or when a strong woman beats you up and then takes a s--t on your computer, NO ONE remembers that she was also strong, too.


They only say,
"See that man sitting all by himself? The one who is crying? A woman beat him up. Then she took a s--t on his computer."


The woman was also strong! It was a very, very STRONG woman!

Quote:

---

If you honestly think that the majority of people have a problem with TLJ because it has a woman lead and/or minority leads, then you lack critical thinking skills.

---

And who said that? Those tweets were directed at a specific group of people.

Please point me in the direction of these rumors, because I have a VERY hard time believing that.

I will admit, however, that's a very interesting tweet from Hamill.

FL_Ag1998 said:

---

I think you guys hit on something that was a sticking point for some of us right after TLJ came out.....the heavy-handed, clumsy way Johnson and the script handled the messages at the heart of the story was extremely amateurish. I honestly think better writers and a better director could have made this same movie (The Last Jedi, I mean) and had waaay less blowback.

---

This is my thought as well. It was extremely heavy handed with the lessons. A subtle theme or lesson In an action/adventure movie can really add depth. TLJ took it too far and slapped you in the face with it. It was annoying and took away from any redeeming qualities the movie may have otherwise had.

Quote:

---

Hamilton

---

Autocorrect!

Found the report. Screenrant quoting a newsletter called "The Ankler" which cites zero sources. Wake me when there's something more concrete.

What is about to come should be taken with a major grain of salt. Dork Side of the Force shared an excerpt from the latest edition of The Ankler newsletter that says there is "talk" of Kennedy stepping down in September. The report doesn't specify any direct sources, making this sound more like a rumor than anything. Adding another layer of uncertainty to the report is that The Ankler is a paid subscription newsletter that costs $45 for a yearly subscription, so we cannot verify the excerpt shared by Dork Side of the Force is in fact legit. With that said, here is what The Ankler had to say.

Quote:

---

While Kathleen Kennedy worked wonders relaunching this property from the abyss of the Lucas prequel trilogy and turning it into a bigger than ever all-devouring cultural force, there has to be more than some thought that it's time for new blood at the helm. The talk out there is of a September changing of the guards. We'll see.

---

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-kathleen-kennedy-lucasfilm-exit/

Holy clickbait. But, damn, a Kathleen Kennedy search on twitter yields very few positive thoughts.

Hey, I had a FANTASTIC source on that one.

of course they did. Big time. But I, like many, just move on. Even is SW is really, really, important to someone, and there is nothing wrong with that, it's still just a movie.

I only see Kennedy leaving if she just doesn't see an end to what must be a painful media life. I'm sure she has thick skin, though.

I LOVE Filoni, but the head of Lucasfilm is what... A Top 5 job in entertainment? Not sure he has the experience to justify that. I could see him as some sort of Chief Creative/Vision Officer role or something, though. But even then a lack of live action experience would be a big negative, I'd think.

This might sound crazy, but... JJ Abrams? He's been a big-name producer for quite a while, with some pretty big hits under his belt, not to mention experience with Star Wars. And a self-professed fan.

That said, I don't know if he'd want to box himself in with Lucasfilm for the rest of his career.

Yea, it can't be Filoni. He is not qualified for that position, & he needs to be focused on the creative side only.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

---

This might sound crazy, but... JJ Abrams? He's been a big-name producer for quite a while, with some pretty big hits under his belt, not to mention experience with Star Wars. And a self-professed fan.

That said, I don't know if he'd want to box himself in with Lucasfilm for the rest of his career.

---

Issue with that is that for all his strengths, planning out his series is his absolute weakest point. Not to say he couldn't do it, but he'd need some help in that area.

Personally, I think they should hire ME. I'd be as affordable as I am enthusiastic.

FL_Ag1998 said:

---

I think you guys hit on something that was a sticking point for some of us right after TLJ came out.....the heavy-handed, clumsy way Johnson and the script handled the messages at the heart of the story was extremely amateurish. I honestly think better writers and a better director could have made this same movie (The Last Jedi, I mean) and had waaay less blowback.

---

Great post. Had this thought the other day.

Winning cures almost everything. I used to peruse the Football board a bit and the levels of vitriol and unhappiness are at times incomprehensible. And the worse the program does the more Aggie on Aggie violence there is. Our traditions are stupid. Yell Leaders are stupid. Yell are stupid. The Corps shouldn't have block seating. We should have cheerleaders. Then all of a sudden this kid names Johnny Manziel shows up and guess what? Literally overnight, no one cares anymore. The product on the field was so good, so damn much fun to watch, so exciting, that all the little annoyances and over analyzed minutia just seem to fade away. I liked to troll people on the board with posts like "yeah sure, JFF is fun to watch but got damn we're still doing yells from 1925?". Didn't get many responses.

Put a quality product on the screen that is just so much to watch and the same thing happens.

I keep going back to his wife, who is basically his "silent" producing partner. She wants him out of the franchise game. She didn't even want him to do TFA, but they both agreed it'd be his last sequel. So I can't imagine what it took for her to give him her blessing to do IX (probably a mountain of cash), and there's just no way she wants him going full time into Lucasfilm after that. I also imagine it'd be some kind of conflict of interest as he can't run Bad Robot and Lucasfilm at the same time, nor would have any time to direct.

There was a recent investor update report by the media analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen Equity Research on the Disney Corporation. In his assessment of Lucasfilm, it basically stated that SOLO's weak box office was a victim of many things, but mostly poor marketing effort.

Nothing we haven't been saying on this board. He did offer up on bit of opinion that was interesting....
"promote Dave Filoni to a higher level of importance at Lucasfilm. Filoni has been responsible for two animated series, Clone Wars and Rebels, and is executive producer on a third series, Resistance, coming out this fall. Filoni has created about 10x more hours of Star Wars video content than all the movies combined, and in my opinion he 'gets' Star Wars as well as anybody."

While I don't pretend to know how solid this guy is in the media circles, the mere fact that the people with money, and the people they pay to do their research are even mentioning changes at Lucasfilm, means their are likely some grumblings going on behind the scenes and changes may be necessary to improve the product.

Is Feige the equivalent of Kennedy for Marvel?

They need a Feige at Lucasfilm, and I wonder if it could be Filoni working under Kennedy.

Celebration 5-day passes 90% sold out. Apparently they were available through Christmas in 2017.

I wonder if they just allocated a lot fewer this time or if it's selling at much faster. But it seems suspect.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

---

Celebration 5-day passes 90% sold out. Apparently they were available through Christmas in 2017.

I wonder if they just allocated a lot fewer this time or if it's selling at much faster. But it seems suspect.

---

I wonder if being in Chicago has anything to do with it? New Location?

Not only did Kenobi not change Luke's name - he took him to place that Anakin had been. Makes no sense, but hey, it's perfect because Anakin / Vader hates sand.

CJS4715 said:

---

Not only did Kenobi not change Luke's name - he took him to place that Anakin had been. Makes no sense, but hey, it's perfect because Anakin / Vader hates sand.

---

Sort of like attacking the Death Star with small fighters, right? They'll never expect it!