George Lucas is not coming back, Star Wars Fans, he is 75+ years old – and leave Kathleen Kennedy alone already

The Kathleen Kennedy scoreboard: movies she’s been involved with

As a general rule at this site, I try to stay away from responding to internet rumors. Often in my daily online reading travels, I come across “news” that is 99% speculation, rumor and hyperbole and 1% or less true news. Most of this I don’t bother covering or responding here. Why waste your time with a bunch of click-baiting garbage without any verifiable source?

Then again, sometimes I’m feeling playful and want to poke trolls … just because.

We have enough challenges staying on top of when and where movies are going to appear to get hung up on whether or not a 75 year old retired George Lucas is coming back to “save” Disney Star Wars.

Yeah, that’s one of the biggest “news” stories I keep seeing. It’s gone on for over a week now, started by a guy who uses a voice analyzer and wears a suit that makes him look like an alien from The Outer Limits.

Sadly, I’m being serious.

In 2020, we are supposed to take our news from a guy who shakes his fist in an alien costume disguising his voice. He has over 185,000 subscribers on YouTube and several claiming his Lucasfilm sources are credible in past stories.

I just laugh looking at his ridiculous on screen persona. Dude, the first rule of being taken seriously is to be, well, serious. This guy is a caricature. I like his shtick for entertainment value, but not for news. If you watch Dicktor Von Doomcock’s videos (seriously, he has “dick” in his name like twice lmao), he openly admits that we should take his rumors “with a grain of salt.” Of course very few are actually doing that.

I digress.

Awhile back I asked here if we would even want Lucas back? I would love to see George Lucas as writer and director of another movie. Not another Star Wars movie, no thank you. I know he created it, but he had three Star Wars prequels that pretty much ruined my interest in more George Lucas Star Wars. Could he do a spin-off in the Star Wars universe that was cool? Sure, maybe. Would he want to at 75+ years old? Based on his own commentary on the subject, it’s extremely unlikely.

Lucas has like $2 billion dollars worth of reasons to spend time with his family and not get into making more Star Wars. Life is way too short, especially when you’re in your mid 70s.

This brings us back to the Kathleen Kennedy haters.

I can’t subscribe to the group that blames Kennedy for all that is wrong with Disney Star Wars (see: Kathleen Kennedy and The Mandalorian Rumors). If you make it her fault that the final three sequels were jacked up, then you also have to credit her for The Mandalorian and Rogue One and dare I even suggest that Solo was better than two of the three final trilogy (it wasn’t as good as Force Awakens)?

While I don’t have independent verification, Robert Meyer Burnett is saying that Solo toys are currently outselling any other Disney Star Wars toys except The Mandalorian Baby Yoda rules all SW toy sales. Anyway, got to credit Kathleen Kennedy for this, too, right? Only fair.

I just read a good story that, like Dicktor Von Doomcock, claims to have an inside source at Disney. If you want to get caught up in reading all things bad about Kathleen Kennedy, it’s worth having something to balance with a contrarian viewpoint.

More specifically, they say there is no talk about Kennedy leaving any time soon. At present, she has her attention focused on the film side of things over at Lucasfilm, while Favreau and Filoni are more focused on the Disney+ content. Furthermore, our source added that the rumored “civil war” is not true, and that they trio’s working relationship is fine.

LRM – No, Kathleen Kennedy Is Not Getting Pushed Out Of Lucasfilm, And There Is No Internal Civil War | LRM’s Top Shelf Rumor

100% don’t believe George Lucas is ever coming back to Star Wars — other than in a capacity to consult (he’s been doing that by many reports all along).

If he ever directs a Star Wars movie will I want to see it? Sure, but after seeing his prequels, I’m not clamoring for any more Lucas Star Wars. Give me some fresh eyes and ideas making new Star Wars films. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni can give us more Mando and spinoffs. There are plenty of other filmmakers that can probably do some crazy cool things within the Star Wars galaxy.

(Not Rian Johnson)

Kathleen Kennedy staying isn’t going to be a roadblock to getting more good Star Wars created. Logic and history will tell you otherwise. She’s been a part of way too many good movies to be as terrible as some Star Wars fans believe. I don’t subscribe to the notion that on every film she just got coffee for the directors. That’s not only sexist, it’s just ignorant and stupid. Kennedy had good ideas according to Spielberg himself.

Let’s not rewrite history here. Lucas hand-picked Kennedy. Maybe he thought she’d use his Star Wars sequel stories and feels somehow betrayed, but he took the money and every writer — even the great George Lucas — should understand rejection. Disney doesn’t have to use his ideas. He sold Star Wars and thus gave the new owners the power to do whatever they wanted with the IP, including telling whatever stories — good, bad or indifferent — they wanted to tell.

In closing, George Lucas isn’t coming back. If he does come back, I’ll happily admit being wrong, and if he does would welcome and look forward to seeing any non-Star Wars movies that he writes and directs.

Star Wars fans need to move on from Lucas. Not from Star Wars. Keep The Force alive, I get it. We can get more great media out of this IP.

Plenty of great creative people out there besides George Lucas. As for Kathleen Kennedy, she’s earned a seat at the table doing what she is doing as long as she wants to do it. I don’t get the hate, really. It just supports the notion that women executives aren’t treated as well as men. Hollywood does have far too many men in positions of power and Kennedy has a resume that is very deserving a seat at any film production table.

15+ more Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker Reviews – Disney Placates George Lucas + Boyega Under Fire

Why are we still talking about Star Wars?

Because The Mandalorian just closed out on a high note the first season, and Episode IX is still turning and burning in the theaters, ringing cash registers for the gigantic D.

As much as I’d like to move onto many other films, the movie blogs I’m following are still posting reviews and talking Star Wars. They are drawing me back in.

So, who buys this rumor from an inside source that says Disney’s Lucasfilm wants George Lucas back?

the studio want him back, but want him to work in a more official capacity and more “on the record” this time around. It’s likely this new role will give Lucas significant creative control over the direction of the newer Star Wars films that he oversees, unlike his work on Rise of Skywalker, which Lucas allegedly did as a favor to director J. J. Abrams.

Lucasfilm Reportedly Wants George Lucas To Return And Oversee Star Wars

The headline is a bit misleading — imagine the clickbait. It actually is believable that they would give George Lucas some sort of pat on the head consultant role, but it’s obvious by their actions they have no interest in paying attention to any of his creative ideas unless he steps back up and gets in the director chair.

Which, if you watch this video with Mark Hamill’s award ceremony, he’s blatantly dismissive about ever coming back: “No, I’m out of the game.”

At the end of this speech you can fast forward to 2:50 and see Lucas reaction to making more movies

Our favorite stormtrooper renegade, John Boyega, is in a wee bit of a dustup over joking around on social media. Come on, Finn, you know you can’t make any sexual jokes about co-stars characters. This is DISNEY Star Wars, man, the house that Mickey built. Keep those pipe laying comments in the trench for Wedge to navigate and shoot down the Death Star target.

Sorry, I laughed. I’m not really much of a Star Wars fan any more. Haven’t been for years. I did enjoy The Mandalorian and am eager for season two, but theater-wise it’s just been a run of too many so-so to bad movies for me to get all that excited about the feature films any more.

People, we had George Lucas make three more Star Wars films not that long ago. Two of the three were awful. I don’t think Lucas, as great as he was when all cylinders were firing and he wanted to make great movies, has any heart left for it any more. I mean that with all due respect. He’s rich and retired, and wants to stay that way.

If I were him, I’d have no interest in any sort of complimentary consulting role at Lucasfilms. That’s sounds like a good excuse to use his name for promotional purposes. He’s much smarter than that.

Now, we just have to hope younger people will take the torch and make more stories like The Mandalorian.

More Reviews by Others

Just putting the newest reviews I’ve read here, rather than separating by recommended and not recommended.

1. And in this Corner: “The movie is not as bad as critics have made it out to be. It is certainly not good, but it is also not the worst “Star Wars” movie”
2. Anthony Herring / Byte: “…when the film works, it truly excels, but when it doesn’t work, it really, really does not.”
3. Cinema Perspective: “…a rescue mission gone terribly wrong.”
4. Cole Mushel / The C Word: “I’m going to say that I like this movie, I don’t love it, I don’t even think it’s that great, but I like it. I think I mostly like it because at the end of the day it’s a Star Wars.”
5. Emerald / My Turn To Talk: “I found the ending neither hopeful nor satisfying, but the stuff that came before it was enjoyable enough.”
6. Ginger Movie Reviews: “To be the final movie in the Star Wars story, it was held to a very high standard. It did not disappoint me.”
7. Maria Copeland: “…wasn’t a brilliant film, but it succeeded where it most mattered..”
8. mrushing02: “To my utter surprise, I liked it, from start to finish. It did something I never expected it to be able to, it not only made me like The Force Awakens more, it actually utilized plot elements from The Last Jedi in a way that almost redeemed them in my eyes. It also found a way to bring the Skywalker Saga to a satisfactory close for me.”
9. Patrick Why / The Ebert Test: “…does leave a bit of a bad taste due to its almost algorithmic hitting of beats, tying up of loose ends and resolving of call-backs.”
10. Plenty of Popcorn: “…is definitely worth watching with a friend or two who can interject with outlandish, inappropriately-timed fan theories.”
11. Riley’s Ramblings: “Actually most things, it wasn’t a bad movie, except for the issues with Kylo Ren and Rey”
12. Son of Freedom: “While JJ Abrams did pull off a miraculous feat, everything about this trilogy was so haphazard and random that it’s hard to care. The film is too rushed. The characters spend too much time yelling at each other. The jokes rarely land. The retcons and MacGuffins are dumb.” (ed. this is one funny well-written review. Nicely done!)
13. Stroke of Genius: “I can say I was happy with the way they landed the plane.  As for suspicions and reports about various forms of clunkiness in the process well, that’s kinda how these things go.  Life and art imitate each other, you know.”
14. The Bad Movie Marathon: “This film is a mess, and I could probably roll with that more if it wasn’t for the fact that a lot of the reason for that is that it backpedalled on TLJ, for better or – more often – for worse.”
15. The Genre Freak: “In his desperation to please the wide berth of Star Wars fans, JJ Abrams has made a movie that’s both narratively flawed and just honestly soulless.”
16. The Movie Vampire (3.5/5): “…as easy as it is to pick holes in certain elements of the movie, but pros outweigh the cons in a pretty big way for me.  This is the first time we’ve really seen the cast of the new trilogy working together on a mission and the adventure elements here really delivered for me.”
17. The Nerdy Critique: “I did enjoy it. But if you start to think about it even the slightest, it crumbles to the ground in a heap”

Want to read 65+ more reviews by others? Check out this post and this one.