Kathleen Kennedy "Saves" Star Wars (Again)

When critical drinker is taking the piss out of something he rocks, but I recently watched one where he was recommending his favorites.

Wasn't always on board with those.

Well, he's not wrong about Star Wars, a storied franchise that stood at the pinnacle of pop culture that crashed and burned in the space of five years under Kennedy's reign. The Force Awakens was fine for what it was--a nostalgia wank, but was never more than than because the plot was paper-thin and the Disney additions uninteresting. Oh lordy, Rey had the personality of a log and it didn't help that she was given everything: Anakin/Luke's lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, Chewwie, and appropriated the Skywalker name without going through a character arc. What's even worse is that they derailed Luke's character because--deconstruction. Combined with Rian Johnson's with rampant stupidity it is little wonder why fans left in droves after The Last Jedi and why The Rise of Skywalker was such a cluster--k. Kennedy's continued shenanigans are no doubt going to make sure the franchise will never reach the heights it once did.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a common thread in pop culture. Star Trek has been in the gutter since Into Darkness, but Discovery and Picard have been abysmal. Part of this was because of the rights situation after the initial Viacom/CBS split, but most of it has to do with the injection of ideology into to the franchise combined with flagrant disregard for the canon. Revenue from merchandise as all up dried up (same for Star Wars too) and now Trek is unlikely to fetch a high price when the recently re-merged ViacomCBS will inevitably sell off assets to pay off their debts.

Terminator: Dark Fate was one of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history, Charlie's Angels too, and Birds of Prey got its ass handed to it by Sonic the Hedgehog of all franchises. What they have in common with Star Wars/Star Trek is that they failed because they pandered to a small, but extremely loud group of ideologues that do not even watch the films in the first place. Directors, screenwriters, and actors love to point the finger at the audience and blame them for their failures, but what they fail to to recognize is that the audience are also the customers. They are NOT entitled to the audience's money because the product carries the name of a franchise. One of the reasons why the aforementioned Sonic the Hedgehog was such a success was that Paramount responded to audience reaction to the first trailer (you remember the Uncanny Valley that was the model for Sonic) and changed Sonic's appearance to better resemble the games, which earned good will from the audience. We will see if lightning strikes again if Ghostbusters: Afterlife can win back the fans next year after the disaster what was Ghostbusters 2016 with Paul Feig and Leslie Jones's public tantrums.

Thanks, Bart, Doc. I recently watched this video on that explains the problem with Hollywood and the mediocrity of its corporate overlords:

The TL;DR version is that corporations such as Disney are so devoid of creativity that they can only acquire franchises with a proven track record of profitability and avoid risks wherever possible. We have seen this with the Mouse's spending spree when it bought buy Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Fox. It also does not help that these corporations actively discourage original thinking and reward those who repeat the company line ad infinitum. Let's look at how well they're doing now that society's in lockdown due to COVID-19:

Disney - Heavily in debt after its $71 billion acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Any revenue they have has died up now that theatres and their theme parks are closed, which has led to layoffs and cancellation of projects.

Warner Bros. - AT&T is heavily in debt because of its acquisition of Time Warner. Franchises like the DC Extended Universe have been struggling due to poor management, but are in slightly better shape because AT&T is a telecommunications company and has some revenue coming in from other divisions.

Universal - Seems to be doing better than the aforementioned two, but I'm not too knowledgeable about the inner workings of that company. Comcast owns them, so like WB, they have other sources of revenue.

Sony/Columbia - Struggling due to poor management and the PlayStation brand is they only thing keeping Sony as a whole afloat from what I hear.

ViacomCBS - In dire straights from what I hear. The corporate split of Viacom and CBS hurt Star Trek since it transferred Star Trek from Paramount (the original owner) to CBS by creating a sticky rights situation when the former produced the 2009 reboot that hurt that merchandise sales. It is possible that the company may sell Star Trek for pennies on the dollar.

At the core of it is A) corporate aversion to risk, and B) the contempt for the fanbase that is killing these franchises in what is a potential cultural extinction event. The fanbase is effetely a focus group that practically works for free. So instead of listening to the Kathleen Kennedys, the J.J. Abrams, the Alex Kurtzmans, maybe it's time to listen to a group that has a vested interest in the franchise and want to pour money into it? Of course, Corporate America exists in its own bubble so it's not their own fault that they are failing. :roll:

That was the tl;dr version!

Yea, Hollywood is so debt ridden that it's also become so risk averse that it can't generate anything that people with money want to see.

All the good stuff comes from independents, or Netflix. Look at recent stuff like "Arrival" that had to be done outside Hollywood.

I like the Mandalorian. Didn't hate Rogue one. And that's about it.

Kennedy out this week, Gina AND Lucas are back with a new trilogy.

Yeah....I'll believe it when I see it. I'm not going to put any stock into what someone who dresses up like that says. It's no different than all the Cubans in Miami who used to say for the last 50 years that Castro was on his way out...it was only a matter of hours...

That weirdo is doing nothing more than rumour-mongering. I think it's pretty safe to say Gina Carrano burned all the possible bridges she could on her way out.

And all there is to hear about Lucas is some info that got leaked about how he would have done episodes 7,8 and 9.

Whereas I don't blame you for thinking that, where there is smoke there is fire. I think this very much is an all in call by Favro. I can totally see him making the call that either Gina is in or we are OUT and the Killer Bee's will be glad to kick Kennedy to the curb after what she has done to the franchise.