The Mind of Kathleen Kennedy

Thank you for the info. :)

No, the video of Kennedy being irritated appears to be from a conference event.

George looks quite comfortable in the roundtable discussion but you can sense a disconnect between them as far as ideas go.

She risks alienating parts of the audience who see Star Wars as a politically neutral, fun story with interesting colourful characters. The reality is in my view that Star Wars has always been political but has never sought to lecture people on any given point, choosing instead allegory to illustrate political tensions in the context of a fantasy universe. I think Lucas has Leftist sympathies but also someone who cherishes individual freedom. He was keen to show how people can cooperate in a cause for the benefit of all. It's maybe not as clear in the latest trilogy-to-be that cooperation is the main aim, even though technically all the charcters seem to strive to do that save one or two usual suspects.

If you think the replacement of male leaders with female ones is too abrupt and suspicious given that Lucasfilm management is now headed by a woman (who we can see strongly embraces female empowerment politics) and the plots appear to pander to female characters, then perhaps Kennedy is failing to support Star Wars values. But here's a point worth pondering - during the original trilogy all leaders and heroes were male, save Leia who was always important to the film as a protagonist, but why were the leaders mostly male? Is it because that was a conventional idea about social structures and warfare in the 20th century and thus transfered to fantasy worlds of the time, or was it that George Lucas being male assumed that capable leaders would likely be men and women on the whole would be more passive? Was Lucas doing a disservice to audiences in the early days by not representing in his narratives a proportionately balanced depiction of men and women, assuming equality exists always in all advanced societies?

But that’s the issue - story and creativity have been subordinated to PC, and that shouldn’t be the case in a work of art. Art should be the free expression of creative ideas. By all means make it gender and race inclusive, provided that the story, characters, lore, continuity, etc... come first

Yeah, to some extent she is involved in balancing conflicting points of view, but it is quite noticable that consistently women are being chosen as lead characters in a genre typically represented by men. What is this saying to the audience? Is it coincidental that female characters are coming more to the fore in Star Wars films? Is it serving a market need to please larger numbers of female fans who are frequently also active consumers of merchandise (women have more discretionary income than before and represent a significant market segment across the economy). Is it an attempt to serve a political agenda to balance female representations and opportunities, to symbolically communicate the idea that women are highly capable and men sometimes are obstacles to that achievement (ie. In Star Wars, symbolically males like Kylo Ren, General Hux and others are barrier to Rey finding herself)?

Do the movies really appease an international audience by being racially diverse? You would think so but is it true?

As the far as the movies being entertaining and in some way serving the characters and spirit of Star Wars, I'd agree she is doing a good job. I think she still may have to listen more carefully to the audience and what both male and female fans are actually saying about the movies and what they think about Star Wars, especially given that Lucas made the mistake of becoming self-indulgent and overly absorbed by both CGI technology and premature scifi ideas/concepts in his prequal films.

Making the films a profitable enterpise is her core responsibility but she has other duties which are important if you value narrative and art.