Iger and Chapek Livid With Lucasfilm

[Imagineer45]

They’re more like a gang of schoolyard bullies than a hate group.

Just ask Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best and Kelly Marie Tran.

I personally know Ahmed Best, and he still gets letters in the mail from fans expressing how much they hate Jar Jar. It does not bother him too much anymore, but it did years ago. I agree that a gang of schoolyard bullies is better terminology than a hate group because a hate group generally implies its based on someone's race, ethnicity, gender, etc. and generally has worse connotations.

 

[Ravenclaw78]

I personally know Ahmed Best, and he still gets letters in the mail from fans expressing how much they hate Jar Jar. It does not bother him too much anymore, but it did years ago. I agree that a gang of schoolyard bullies is better terminology than a hate group because a hate group generally implies its based on someone's race, ethnicity, gender, etc. and generally has worse connotations.

Much of it is based on gender and race, though. The Fandom Menace objects to diverse casting and does not believe it is possible for women to be "real fans" of Star Wars. If I had a dollar for every time one of them insisted that the reason post-Disney Star Wars allegedly sucks is that Lucasfilm isn't being run by a white male...

 

[The Grand Inquisitor]

I personally know Ahmed Best, and he still gets letters in the mail from fans expressing how much they hate Jar Jar. It does not bother him too much anymore, but it did years ago. I agree that a gang of schoolyard bullies is better terminology than a hate group because a hate group generally implies its based on someone's race, ethnicity, gender, etc. and generally has worse connotations.

Wow that's really cool you know Ahmed Best. I never cared for Jar Jar but he seems like a great guy. Tell him the true Star Wars fans love him and reject all of the crap he gets.

 

[Imagineer45]

Much of it is based on gender and race, though. The Fandom Menace objects to diverse casting and does not believe it is possible for women to be "real fans" of Star Wars. If I had a dollar for every time one of them insisted that the reason post-Disney Star Wars allegedly sucks is that Lucasfilm isn't being run by a white male...

There is a difference in objecting to someone because they are of a certain gender, race, etc. and objecting to a character portrayed by someone of a certain gender, race, etc. The problems with the distinction between the two generally arise when a terrible character happens to be of a minority and its supporters label the critics as sexists, racists, etc. and throw them into the same basket as the few who are genuinely sexist, racist, etc.

As a whole, Star Wars fans are generally pretty accepting of anybody if they portray a good character. Ashley Eckstein, a female, is loved by the fans for her portrayal of Ashoka Tano in The Clone Wars, while Hayden Christensen, a white male, is generally disliked by the fans. I would never classify a large chunk of the Star Wars fanbase as a part of The Fandom Menace when they can barely clear 3,000 subscribers on YouTube and 700 followers on Twitter.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

A whole bunch of tent poles have been coming to D+ early, like Frozen II.

Over and over Iger has stated that D+ is number one priority. And the CV crisis has everyone attuned to home entertainment. So... not surprised at all.

So, a more likely scenario is... more likely.

Problem they’ll run into shortly is lack of new tent poles to push...

I get their initial knee jerk to bump their slate back...but I don’t see packed theaters anytime this year and well into next....
Not sure that bank is ever gonna come from black widow

Looks like the same mix of reasonable people having fun and malcontents stirring up trouble as literally every other social media-based marketing campaign ever.

So are you saying everything is going great? No problems?

Open poll question...

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

Much of it is based on gender and race, though. The Fandom Menace objects to diverse casting and does not believe it is possible for women to be "real fans" of Star Wars. If I had a dollar for every time one of them insisted that the reason post-Disney Star Wars allegedly sucks is that Lucasfilm isn't being run by a white male...

Not even close. It has nothing to do with that. Lucasfilm wasn't satisfied in creating diverse characters that were equal to established characters. For Lucasfilm, these new diverse characters had to be better. Not only better, but they had to knock down the established characters to prove that the "new diverse" ones were far superior in every way. See: Holdo, Rose Tico, Rey, what they did to Luke's character, what they did to Kylo Ren's character arc, on and on and on.

People got tired of Disney forcing views and agenda's down everyone's throat....it's like they came out and said "Yeah, Yeah, we know the old SW is great...but our new diverse version of SW is much much better. The old heroes aren't really all that great - here we'll show you how much better the new diverse ones are."

And it backfired.

 

[Dragonman]

Not even close. It has nothing to do with that. Lucasfilm wasn't satisfied in creating diverse characters that were equal to established characters. For Lucasfilm, these new diverse characters had to be better. Not only better, but they had to knock down the established characters to prove that the "new diverse" ones were far superior in every way. See: Holdo, Rose Tico, Rey, what they did to Luke's character, what they did to Kylo Ren's character arc, on and on and on.

People got tired of Disney forcing views and agenda's down everyone's throat....it's like they came out and said "Yeah, Yeah, we know the old SW is great...but our new diverse version of SW is much much better. The old heroes aren't really all that great - here we'll show you how much better the new diverse ones are."

And it backfired.

 

[UNCgolf]

Not even close. It has nothing to do with that. Lucasfilm wasn't satisfied in creating diverse characters that were equal to established characters. For Lucasfilm, these new diverse characters had to be better. Not only better, but they had to knock down the established characters to prove that the "new diverse" ones were far superior in every way. See: Holdo, Rose Tico, Rey, what they did to Luke's character, what they did to Kylo Ren's character arc, on and on and on.

People got tired of Disney forcing views and agenda's down everyone's throat....it's like they came out and said "Yeah, Yeah, we know the old SW is great...but our new diverse version of SW is much much better. The old heroes aren't really all that great - here we'll show you how much better the new diverse ones are."

And it backfired.

This makes no sense to me.

I really dislike the sequel trilogy. Force Awakens was a lazy, mediocre movie that hamstrung any followups. Wasn't a fan of Last Jedi either, although it had to try to claw out of a hole because of the dumb stuff JJ Abrams did in Force Awakens. I haven't even seen Rise of Skywalker because I was no longer interested enough to pay to see it in the theater, although I'll check it out when it's on Disney+.

Absolutely none of that has anything to do with diverse characters or some attempt to make the new characters superior to the old. I didn't get that from the movies at all. That just sounds like people being mad about something and then trying to retrofit it into complaints about the movies.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

This makes no sense to me.

I really dislike the sequel trilogy. Force Awakens was a lazy, mediocre movie that hamstrung any followups. Wasn't a fan of Last Jedi either, although it had to try to claw out of a hole because of the dumb stuff JJ Abrams did in Force Awakens. I haven't even seen Rise of Skywalker because I was no longer interested enough to pay to see it in the theater, although I'll check it out when it's on Disney+.

Absolutely none of that has anything to do with diverse characters or some attempt to make the new characters superior to the old. I didn't get that from the movies at all. That just sounds like people being mad about something and then trying to retrofit it into complaints about the movies.

It's not retrofitting. Let's look at two basic examples: Abrams creates a character in Finn that was decent. Had room to develop. Enter Johnson and Rose Tico and Finn is reduced to a bumbling fool at the beginning of TLJ and needs Rose Tico to set his moral compass by the end of it. Please explain that story arc to me.

Let's look at Poe. Good start in TFA. Almost Han type potential. No, we can have none of that. We'll create Admiral Holdo (who the fans have absolutely no connection to) so she can chastise him for his hot-headed decisions and really put him in his place. TLJ is full of this type of garbage (without having to re-visit CantoBite). Makes a lot of sense to me.

We can get into the utter mess Johnson made out of Luke's character, dropping bombs in space, creating a villain in Kylo that people actually laughed at, the complete misuse of characters like Phasma, Snoke, The Knights of Ren etc. - all so Kennedy and Johnson could tell "their" story.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

It's not retrofitting. Let's look at two basic examples: Abrams creates a character in Finn that was decent. Had room to develop. Enter Johnson and Rose Tico and Finn is reduced to a bumbling fool at the beginning of TLJ and needs Rose Tico to set his moral compass by the end of it. Please explain that story arc to me.

Let's look at Poe. Good start in TFA. Almost Han type potential. No, we can have none of that. We'll create Admiral Holdo (who the fans have absolutely no connection to) so she can chastise him for his hot-headed decisions and really put him in his place. TLJ is full of this type of garbage (without having to re-visit CantoBite). Makes a lot of sense to me.

We can get into the utter mess Johnson made out of Luke's character, dropping bombs in space, creating a villain in Kylo that people actually laughed at, the complete misuse of characters like Phasma, Snoke, The Knights of Ren etc. - all so Kennedy and Johnson could tell "their" story.

I actually like what they did with Luke but you're absolutely right about Rose and Holdo ruining Poe and Finn.

Picking on the "bombs in space" is a bit petty. The Death Star wouldn't have "exploded" in space either, nor would there be any sound in space battles, nor would x-wings fly as if they were in atmosphere.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

That's why the argument that "people don't like Rose because they're racist" is such an obvious non-starter. The primary problem people have with Rose is that she ruined Finn, a black character who people really loved after The Force Awakens.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

I actually like what they did with Luke but you're absolutely right about Rose and Holdo ruining Poe and Finn.

Picking on the "bombs in space" is a bit petty. The Death Star wouldn't have "exploded" in space either, nor would there be any sound in space battles, nor would x-wings fly as if they were in atmosphere.

Granted. Good points. I would have liked the story arc "Drinker" came up with better. But that's a bit of armchair evaluating on my part.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

That's why the argument that "people don't like Rose because they're racist" is such an obvious non-starter. The primary problem people have with Rose is that she ruined Finn, a black character who people really loved after The Force Awakens.

And a lot of people resented Holdo because sacrificing herself like she did was Ackbar job (if they wouldn't have killed him off is such a lame way).

They can't really claim the racist card against Admiral Ackbar (well, I dunno, maybe they can).

 

[Dragonman]

Don’t forget Carrie Poppins

 

[UNCgolf]

It's not retrofitting. Let's look at two basic examples: Abrams creates a character in Finn that was decent. Had room to develop. Enter Johnson and Rose Tico and Finn is reduced to a bumbling fool at the beginning of TLJ and needs Rose Tico to set his moral compass by the end of it. Please explain that story arc to me.

Let's look at Poe. Good start in TFA. Almost Han type potential. No, we can have none of that. We'll create Admiral Holdo (who the fans have absolutely no connection to) so she can chastise him for his hot-headed decisions and really put him in his place. TLJ is full of this type of garbage (without having to re-visit CantoBite). Makes a lot of sense to me.

We can get into the utter mess Johnson made out of Luke's character, dropping bombs in space, creating a villain in Kylo that people actually laughed at, the complete misuse of characters like Phasma, Snoke, The Knights of Ren etc. - all so Kennedy and Johnson could tell "their" story.

This could all potentially be true if Force Awakens was any good in the first place, but it wasn't. I don't see how Rose "ruined" Finn's character when he barely had one to begin with. Poe was also only half a character in Force Awakens (he originally wasn't even supposed to survive the movie). Phasma was awful in Force Awakens. People laughed at Kylo Ren in Force Awakens well before they laughed at him in Last Jedi. Rey was the only character in that movie who was even halfway developed.

Even if I agreed with all of your criticisms, none of what you said has anything to do with making the new characters better or somehow forcing some kind of ideals into the movie. That's where the argument falls apart. There's nothing "SJW" about any of that; it's just that you didn't like the story choices they made. There's not even anything overtly liberal about them.

I didn't like a lot of them either, especially as relates to Luke. Last Jedi wasn't good for various reasons, although it did at least have one saving grace of attempting to make Rey a normal person and not something incredibly stupid like Obi-Wan's secret daughter/granddaughter (until Rise of Skywalker made something even dumber). Like I said, though, Force Awakens put the galaxy in such a lazy, boring place that any sequel was going to struggle mightily. Everything about Starkiller Base was worse than anything in Last Jedi. It's JJ Abrams' fault that the sequel trilogy failed (well, that and the fact that they didn't plan it out from the start).

 

[asianway]

And a lot of people resented Holdo because sacrificing herself like she did was Ackbar job (if they wouldn't have killed him off is such a lame way).

They can't really claim the racist card against Admiral Ackbar (well, I dunno, maybe they can).

There’s a heirarchy that they follow
Purple hair weirdos > Rose > Finn > Intergalactic Squid

 

[WDW Pro]

So just received this info:

One of the reasons Leslye Headland is such a PR issue is because of quotes like these:

"It was so funny and great. When I was working there, that was all I wanted — I would daydream that someday I’ll be making movies and Harvey will buy them and, and he will want to support me. You know, as coworkers essentially. There’s nobody like him. He’s genius. You sit across from him and you’re like, “I cannot believe how brilliant this guy is.” So his interest in me as a filmmaker just makes me feel like I made the right choice to move on." -- https://ew.com/article/2012/02/28/h...ersonal-assistant-writes-tell-all-play-sorta/

You have to understand, quotes like these come WELL after there were many, many, many reports about Weinstein and his predatory, criminal behavior towards women. And while you might think the hundreds of social media posts she had disappear in conjunction with the Variety leak were all lewd things, the truth is they were often loving, over-the-top endorsements of Weinstein.

Additionally, Bob Iger is currently being sued by Paz de la Huerta about Harvey Weinstein (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywoo...erta-harvey-weinstein-lawsuit-disney-bob-iger), which means that not only is he attempting to get out of that situation... but Kathleen Kennedy has brought the fox into the hen house by bringing in Harvey Weinstein's personal assistant, and NOBODY at the top of Disney knows what information she was privy to her in her time working directly under Weinstein. I was curious what the legal issue was that Disney was concerned about beyond the PR issue, but that's the big one I've discovered. You could potentially, although perhaps (?) unlikely, see a situation where Kathleen Kennedy has hired someone who would have compromising information about the CEO, former CEO, and others at Disney.

So now the fact that Lucasfilm hired someone with significant PR issues becomes more intriguing, AND you begin to understand why Disney execs were livid about Headland not having been previously vetted outside of Lucasfilm. So what is Kathleen Kennedy's play here?

 

[WDW Pro]

Evidence of mass social media cleanup prior to Variety leak:

 

[brb1006]

Off topic: I’m surprised that “In the Bag,” “Two Chips and a Miss,” and “Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore” aren’t on Disney+.

Two Chips and a Miss is my favorite short alongside Elmer The Elephant. Surprised Clarice hasn't reappeared since that cartoon. Hope she appears in the upcoming Chip N Dale Disney+ series.

 

[ZoneOfTheEnder]

So just received this info:

One of the reasons Leslye Headland is such a PR issue is because of quotes like these:

"It was so funny and great. When I was working there, that was all I wanted — I would daydream that someday I’ll be making movies and Harvey will buy them and, and he will want to support me. You know, as coworkers essentially. There’s nobody like him. He’s genius. You sit across from him and you’re like, “I cannot believe how brilliant this guy is.” So his interest in me as a filmmaker just makes me feel like I made the right choice to move on." -- https://ew.com/article/2012/02/28/h...ersonal-assistant-writes-tell-all-play-sorta/

You have to understand, quotes like these come WELL after there were many, many, many reports about Weinstein and his predatory, criminal behavior towards women. And while you might think the hundreds of social media posts she had disappear in conjunction with the Variety leak were all lewd things, the truth is they were often loving, over-the-top endorsements of Weinstein.

Additionally, Bob Iger is currently being sued by Paz de la Huerta about Harvey Weinstein (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywoo...erta-harvey-weinstein-lawsuit-disney-bob-iger), which means that not only is he attempting to get out of that situation... but Kathleen Kennedy has brought the fox into the hen house by bringing in Harvey Weinstein's personal assistant, and NOBODY at the top of Disney knows what information she was privy to her in her time working directly under Weinstein. I was curious what the legal issue was that Disney was concerned about beyond the PR issue, but that's the big one I've discovered. You could potentially, although perhaps (?) unlikely, see a situation where Kathleen Kennedy has hired someone who would have compromising information about the CEO, former CEO, and others at Disney.

So now the fact that Lucasfilm hired someone with significant PR issues becomes more intriguing, AND you begin to understand why Disney execs were livid about Headland not having been previously vetted outside of Lucasfilm. So what is Kathleen Kennedy's play here?

She doesn’t care about Star Wars and Fans and she knows she is on the outs (escort her off the property Bobs you are the bosses oh wait they gotta check their own closets) and is poisoning the well.