Oft-maligned by the online Star Wars fandom, yet beloved by other still, Pablo Hidalgo of Lucasfilm decided on Friday evening to tell his side of the story. We’re happy to relay the message.
How did you spend your Friday night? I was supposed to be watching the Robert Downey, Jr. Sherlock Holmes with my family. It’s a classic that can be very easily overshadowed by RDJ’s success the previous year with Iron Man, but if you haven’t had the chance to watch it, you should check it out.
I say that I was supposed to be watching it because the movie was on, but admittedly I was distracted by my phone. Why? Because Pablo Hidalgo was blowing up my Twitter. Granted, my family does not understand who that is (proving at least one point Mr. Hidalgo would later make), so if they are reading this, here is a rundown — along with my apologies for the distraction.
Pablo Hidalgo is a creative executive working in the Lucasfilm Story Group. The manner and scope of the Lucasfilm Story Group is a matter of some debate in the fan community ever since it was founded around the time that Kathleen Kennedy became the head of Lucasfilm. He’s well known for his extensive knowledge of Star Wars, which is presumably what allowed him to become the “ascended fan” we know him as.
He’s also a person of some controversy. Some of his Twitter comments in the past have been taken as mocking fans, with an incident involving the massive YouTube channel Star Wars Theory garnering so much attention that it was covered in Variety.
Last week, Kamran Pasha reported on his Patreon that he had a three-part scoop about Lucasfilm. We have covered the scoops in more detail in other places, but the relevant scoop to this evening was that according to Kamran Pasha, he has in his possession a list that came from “Iger’s people” of personnel within the Lucasfilm Story Group that will be let go if they do not leave of their own accord when Kathleen Kennedy ends her tenure as the head of Lucasfilm. The list is reported to have the names of 75% of the personnel in the Lucasfilm Story Group, Pablo Hidalgo included.
This is also not the first time that Pablo Hidalgo’s employment status has become and object of contemplation to That Park Place.
Before noon on Friday, Pablo Hidalgo changed his Twitter bio to “content creator creator” and posted a tweet with a screen cap of our That Park Place video article:
Pablo Hidalgo: It’s that time again.
He also updated his Twitter bio to “content creator creator” which is most likely a reference to previous articles and YouTube videos that have spoken negatively about him in the past.
In the interest of brevity, we will fastforward to later in the day. At this point, we were being questioned by others about how a Disney hiring freeze and layoffs would affect a Lucasfilm employee. Also, it was pointed out that Hidalgo’s tenure at Lucasfilm is more than two decades.
As we noted the parade of high-profile terminations and exits from the company, we pointed at that ostensibly no one at the Walt Disney Company is safe. Peter Rice, Bob Chapek, Kareem Daniels, and Susan Arnold were all high level management or board members before they were walked out the door, so why would anyone at WDW be safe?
At this point, Pablo Hidalgo decided to engage with us directly from his public-facing Twitter account:
[The following is consolidated from an hours long Twitter conversation between Pablo Hidalgo, Jonas Campbell, WDWPro, Valliant Renegade, and several commenters not associated with That Park Place involving many branching threads. We plan to release the conversation in a more comprehensive form later. It has been edited down from its nearly 3,000 word exchange here for the sake of flow, clarity, and ease of consumption and the very best efforts have been made to represent what was said in an accurate way. If anyone has questions about this process, you are welcome to comment. Mr. Hidalgo, if you are reading this and take issue with any of these edits, we will be glad to make updates.]
PH: Honest question – Do you think I’m at the same level as those execs? Is this what your research has uncovered? I’m genuinely curious as to why you’d think that. 1) Chairman 2) Chief executive officer 3) Chairman 4) Chairwoman. And… me?
Jonas Campbell: No. Certainly not. You are a creative executive as [LucasFilm] as far as I know. I just think the claim this guy made that anyone at the Walt Disney Company could be considered 100% safe right now is… tenuous.
PH: I am not at the Walt Disney Company, though.
Valliant Renegade: No, your paycheck doesn’t say WDW but I’d fathom it has the name of a wholly owned subsidiary on it. I believe that’s all he meant.
PH: I don’t think I could fire an ESPN, Pixar, or Marvel employee, but granted I have never tried.
VR: I don’t believe anyone suggested that, because it would be absurd given your position.
JC: Are we arguing the issue over semantics?
Mr. Hidalgo’s point is reasonable, but ultimately this is a non-issue. We believe that he is fully aware of the reporting structure at all of these companies, but he could have been testing the waters to see if we had some basic understanding of how this corporate structure functions. Either way, he moved on to the content of our reporting and why Pablo Hidalgo himself is the subject.
PH: Okay, then let me ask, why single me out? Why not, say, anyone in V, D or C-suite roles? Where in the hierarchy do you think me to?
JC: Because you are the most well known member of the Lucasfilm Story Group as it’s known… [and we believe] you know there are people who didn’t believe your apology [to Star Wars Theory].
PH: “…Known to whom? Decision-makers? Board members? Does your research or sources indicate the incident you’re mentioning is a subject of such importance that it is a factor of current or future decision making?
If it does, then we’ll agree to disagree. You keep fighting your good fight, and I’ll mind my own business. But my read is that none of this is in good faith, or any real diligence, based on years of similar discourse.
JC: General public knowledge about Star Wars and the current state of LFL. People I know who don’t follow Star Wars know about that incident. I mentioned your name and the said “Oh, is he the guy who…”
I think it ran deeper than you realized… That incident, whether you meant it to be or not, became a representative of how Star Wars fans feel they are viewed by [Lucasfilm]. Like Pablo Hidalgo became the embodiment of despising fans. It’s not fair to you, of course.
Somewhere around this time, Hidalgo changed his twitter bio.
He continued and talked about his understanding of how notable he is to general fans as opposed to the more obsessive ones.
PH: Most fans have no idea who I am, which I’m totally fine with. It’s just this slice of online that is disproportionately aware and usually misinformed by a mix of bad faith and misunderstandings.
WDWPro: What is the misinformation? What should be corrected? …It would be wonderful to bridge the divide.”
PH: The very idea of me being mentioned in the same breath as the president of a company or a major motion picture director is ridiculous. People think I write or shape story. I do not. If I did, I would be credited as such. Yet no one seems to ask why that isn’t the case.
JC: What would you say to the person that reads this rage-filled clickbaity stuff about the “Fandom Menace”? …Variety still has the [Star Wars Theory] article still up on their site…
PH: …I made no specific comment about this creator – I have never seen his content – but rather an unfortunately opaque joke about online culture that ended up being turned into content. I do not know who this person is or his history, medical or otherwise. Please understand that. I am not on YouTube and have no interest in what happens in that space.
JC: Thank you for making that clear.
[this above two interactions in particular were edited together from several different tweets threads for clarity here among some miscommunication.]
WDWPro: Do you feel you were unfairly targeted by the media (professional or amateur) in that situations?
PH: I didn’t think it warranted a story in the trades but it was a pretty slow time. Beyond that I didn’t give it much thought. I’ve not heard mention of it since it happened either professionally or personally – only here in social media as a punchline… The general public doesn’t think of Lucasfilm. They don’t follow the names below the line on credits.
JC: I wish that were true. It’s also a curse of having a distinct and memorable name…
do you have anything to comment on the fan situation?
PH: I don’t know what the fan situation is and any comment would therefore be pretty uninformed. I’m not in these circles and don’t keep up with it beyond the fellow fans I consider friends.
JC: What would you say to the people who are so interested in your employment status when you are not in the C-Suite? That somehow think you are to blame for screenwriter discussions? Or that you are dismissive of fans?
PH: I think there’s been people who’ve conflated my online presence with importance when it’s exactly the opposite. It’s rare for someone with real influence to be so online. Some think I’m in charge of the [Lucasfilm Story Group] and that’s compounded with people misunderstanding what the [Story Group] does.
This statement runs counter to how several contributors at That Park Place understand the function of the Lucasfilm Story Group, so WDWPro decided to push back on this idea a bit.
WDWPro: If you do not help shape story, then what does the “story group” do? Were they not integral, under Kiri Hart, to the development of The Last Jedi? Did the story group not work hand-in-hand, often in a more leading role, on creating Galaxy’s Edge?
PH: The credited storytellers are the authors of their work. It’s a development entity there to support creative(s)… and even with the group there are specific disciplines.
…The idea that I have any authority over an author, screenwriter or a director is nonsense. The crew is there to help them realize their story. I’m a fan. I vibe with likeminded fans and try to ignore those who aren’t unless they’re deliberately misleading or exploiting fellow fans, which is where I tend to get reactive and more human than what is probably wise.
Valliant Renegade chimed in on the alleged leaks of diversity quotas that had made the rounds at Lucasfilm and other Walt Disney-owned production groups.
VR: Who is responsible for ensuring that the storytellers include correct ratios of diversity equity and inclusion? Is that [Story Group] driven [or] moderated?
PH: I do not know of any prerequisites. Sounds like folklore. I think any social conscience brought to the table would come from empathetic creatives.
Another commenter chimed in questioning the motive of the query.
VR: You aren’t aware of Disney corporate mandates on the matter then.
PH: Neither am I. [shrug emoji]
WDWPro: I support empathy and social conscience. Where there is concern is when quotas are damaging storytelling. Ex: I’m told by a high-level executive that Luke was originally the focus in Kenobi, but was overturned in order to balance the gender rep. Thus, continuity errors [with] Leia.
PH: This doesn’t sound accurate at all.
VR: Well perhaps in all fairness we’ve misinterpreted. Would you be interested in sharing… exactly what the story group does and the role you guys play at [Lucasfilm]?
PH: I would not. There are spokespeople who are far better placed to get into specifics. I am not one of them.
[Can I] humbly and rhetorically ask, why in the absence of concrete info do you imagine scenarios that make you angry?
WDWPro: We don’t imagine scenarios. We report on things like Gina Carano exited with a nasty public statement. We report on Kennedy’s inability to get another Star Wars film into real production. When you criticized the sequel trilogy, we had to report it.
This was in reference to a comment made by Hidalgo revealing that in the sequel trilogy, Force Awakens director JJ Abrams wanted Coruscant to be destroyed, but someone at Lucasfilm overrode that decision. Hosnian Prime was used in its place as the primary victim of Starkiller Base. Very surprisingly, Hidalgo lets us know more about his thoughts on the sequel trilogy:
PH: I don’t like many elements in the sequel trilogy. But I’m a fan. Many don’t. Seems odd for that to be that newsworthy.
WDWPro: I agree with you. But when tweets were deleted and sites covering it… I think too, many fans don’t really like the sequel trilogy and they want a way to exit that canon. They want their heroes to go out heroically. So you critiquing it from inside Lucasfilm was a big deal.
VR: That’s fair I think. There’s a lot more that could be done to raise the value of the IP back to the “printing money” days. We agree with you the ST had many elements we didn’t like, but keeping strictly to Business, it was a bad move.
Even more surprisingly, Hidalgo began to comment on the state of Lucasfilm before George Lucas sold it to the Walt Disney Company.
“Man, things were pretty dire in 2012…”
That’s a good place to stop for now, considering this article is hitting above the two-thousand word mark… somewhere we try to avoid under normal circumstance.
For the next part of this conversation, stay tuned to That Park Place. Pablo Hidalgo generously continued to take our questions about George Lucas’s role at Lucasfilm, the merger, canonicity of the Expanded Universe and The Clone Wars animated series, etc.
For part II and our additional coverage follow us here on That Park Place, or subscribe to WDWPro and Valliant Renegade on YouTube. VR hosted a livestream on Sunday where we discussed this in detail along with the WDW v. Nelson Peltz proxy fight. Of course, if you would like to see the tweets yourself for as long as they are available, you are welcome to sift through them. The accounts are WDWPro, Valliant Renegade, myself (Jonas J. Campbell), and of course, the one and only Pablo Hidalgo. Thank you for your time.
