Pablo Hidalgo Responds to Lucasfilm “Leak” from Kamran Pasha

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One of the most interesting persons working at Lucasfilm is hitting back at That Park Place for a YouTube video analyzing Kamran Pasha’s latest rumor.

Hired in 2000 to be build up the StarWars.com website for George Lucas, Pablo Hidalgo has made quite the name for himself. An unrivaled source of Star Wars facts, Hidalgo was promoted to Content Manager and later a member of the Lucasfilm Story Group. But controversy seems to follow Hidalgo wherever he goes and whatever he does. Now, a rumor from Kamran Pasha — a man who recently had the world-first exclusive report on the Disney hiring freeze — says that Hidalgo and much of the Story Group may be out of Lucasfilm in the future when Kathleen Kennedy transitions out of the studio.

But Hidalgo may not be too keen on that reporting.

Before getting into his responses, let’s take a look at some of the controversies that have been in Hidalgo’s orbit.

First, there was the incident in which he seemed to mock a cancer survivor who also happened to be one of the most visible Star Wars fans on the web. Star Wars Theory shared his emotional reaction to seeing Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian. Perhaps unbeknownst to Hidalgo, Star Wars Theory is a channel run by a man who used Luke Skywalker as inspiration to overcome his cancer challenge.

Toos posted to Twitter that he’d noticed that Pablo Hidalgo, a top executive in Lucasfilm’s story department, was commenting on a thread that was ridiculing Toos’ emotional reaction to Luke’s appearance on “The Mandalorian.” Because Hidalgo’s account was private, however, Toos couldn’t see what the exec was saying.

“I’d hate to believe he would join in [the teasing] as a Lucasfilm official,” Toos tweeted to his 101,000 followers, asking anyone with access to Hidalgo’s account to send him a screenshot of his tweets.

That’s when he learned what Hidalgo tweeted: “emotions are not for sharing.” Toos was outraged, interpreting Hidalgo’s remarks as indeed piling on the mockery of his genuine emotions. By that point, Hidalgo had deleted the tweet, but, rather inexplicably, he also put a screenshot of it as the banner over his account; Toos took it as more trolling. “You’re telling people it’s not ok to have emotions about the work your company produces, and you make fun of them for crying?” he tweeted. “Not ok.”

— Adam Vary, Variety

Hidalgo’s apology came later though it deflected any direct blame (this tweet may have been deleted):

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/1343685985041694720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Another controversy came when Hidalgo made critical comments of the sequel trilogy, thereby negatively depicting what went on with JJ Abrams and his Bad Robot company.

In a now deleted tweet, Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo talks compromises with Bad Robot on The Force Awakens. As said, the post, which certainly caused a bit of a story when it went live has now been deleted. Therefore the Link Here, actually goes nowhere currently.

However, what can’t be deleted easily is the fact I read it myself. So here is what it actually said in relation to why Coruscant wasn’t the center of the Republic in The Force Awakens.

“Basically BR (Bad Robot) wanted it blown up; LFL didn’t. Hosnian Prime was the unsatisfying middle ground. It happens.”

Hidalgo then went on more in another comment. I cannot quote this one exactly any longer. However Hidalgo basically intimated that the Star Killer base idea as a whole was a bad call. He made no mention of who’s idea using Star Killer base was. Therefore we cannot say for certain this was something J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot company wanted or not? My guess is that this was also a Bad Robot (Abrams) decision.

— Campbell Clark, LRM Online

There have been other instances of Pablo Hidalgo garnering special attention. In one such case, he praised the Star Wars social media team at the same time it appeared someone behind the account was dogpiling a random Star Wars fan. The crime of that random fan? Asking for Star Wars to be apolitical.

All of that said, clearly Hidalgo is an asset for Lucasfilm in many ways. It’s only a shame that he sometimes takes very newsworthy actions, even if he likes to suggest he is neither newsworthy nor significant. How many other Lucasfilm employees have seemed to mock a cancer survivor or criticized the sequel trilogy? There can’t be that many. Yet none of us is perfect, we all have our flaws. In the end, everyone here at That Park Place only wants the very best for Mr. Hidalgo, for Lucasfilm, for fans of Star Wars, etc. We’ve said so many times, including when we recorded a video discussing the latest rumor from Kamran Pasha about Hidalgo potentially leaving Lucasfilm.

Now, Hidalgo is responding to both That Park Place and WDW Pro:

https://twitter.com/pabl0hidalgo/status/1613574073405280257

No, we're analyzing a report, from someone not working for us, who claims you and 75% of the LSG will be gone once Kennedy transitions out.

The individual making the report had the world exclusive leak on Disney's recent hiring freeze, thus our consideration. Hope all is well. https://t.co/5E0jzoqu2w

— wdwpro (@wdwpro1) January 13, 2023

Despite Mr. Hidalgo’s apparent consternation, we stand by our analysis. It’s our job to cover reports such as what Pasha has put out there, especially given he just scored one of the biggest exclusives of 2022 in entertainment news. Now he’s making a claim that we can’t verify, but we also should be covering and discussing considering the gravitas he just earned. If he is wrong on this one, we’ll cover it. But also, it should be noted that Mr. Hidalgo isn’t necessarily denying what Pasha is reporting — and how could he? We suspect that if Pasha is correct, personnel at Lucasfilm would likely not be given notice that they would be let go or transferred when Mrs. Kennedy leaves the studio.

As always, we’ll keep reporting the news and covering leaks and rumors. We’ve earned quite the track record at this point. At the same time, Mr. Pasha doesn’t work for That Park Place and isn’t affiliated in any way. We’ll see how he does with this one, and we wish everyone included in this article very well.

For all the latest news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place. As always, drop a comment down below and let us know your thoughts.

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