It’s so funny to see Kathleen Kennedy pushing her full agenda as she prepares to exit the studio. No, she won’t be making any big deal about it at Star Wars Celebration. But she will be throwing everything and the kitchen sink at The Force Is Female.
Star Girls
The whole world now knows what those who read and watch my content have known for months. Rey is back for the next Star Wars movie. The sequel trilogy is not only reaffirmed but the destruction of the original content continues unabated. It wasn’t Luke who rebuilt the Jedi order… it will be Rey. But you’ve all already known that.
I’ve been struck watching this Star Wars Celebration at just how much Kathleen Kennedy has been able to get pushed through during the chaos at Disney. Using the turmoil of leadership changes and structural alterations within the company, Kennedy has managed to transform the future content of the brand into something that looks even more feminine than what Marvel attempted with their Phase Four slate. Now, there’s nothing wrong with feminine content — far from it! Both the masculine and feminine should be respected and lauded in entertainment. But as I’ve now said over and over, with the help of merchandising and programming contacts who say the same exact thing, taking a brand that was primarily driven by masculine heroes and transforming it into something distinctly female-in-masculine-archetype-roles is a task fraught with issues.
It also gives savvy fans the chance to finally enact their revenge on Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm. Yes, they may still yet push Baby Yoda in the Rey movie (only with Jon Favreau’s blessing), but I’m not sure it is enough to convince people to see a Rey movie.
Daisy Ridley to Reprise Role as Rey in New ‘Star Wars’ Film https://t.co/OlwEC1NtAD
— Variety (@Variety) April 7, 2023
But it’s not just Rey. The Acolyte and Ahsoka are the next big Disney+ series for Star Wars. Both are headed by female leads, one with a character that is beloved and one which is set in the High Republic subcategory of the IP: one that up until this point has been a unilateral disaster. And then there’s also The Mandalorian where many have noticed that Bo Katan has become more of the star than The Mandalorian himself! Although… don’t be surprised if something dramatic happens at the end of this season… no spoilers here, folks. Then there’s the issue of the Young Jedi Adventures preschooler show where we suspect there’s a genderific reveal just around the corner.
All of this is to say that Kathleen Kennedy has fully implemented The Force Is Female concept into Star Wars. Every major series on the way is essentially led by a female character. The original story with Luke and Anakin has been decimated so that Rey and her Palpatine heritage are the true saviors of the story. And any attempts to retcon the sequel trilogy all seem to have been fully neutered at this point.
There’s still no hope for Kennedy. As I’ve said before, she’s at the very end of her tenure at Lucasfilm. The market will react poorly to these efforts. It is already reacting poorly. This is just icing on a cake made of no substance that nobody wants to eat. But at least we must stand back in awe and admire that even when audiences have abandoned Star Wars, even to the point of abandoning Disney at large now, Kathleen Kennedy and her cronies will only harden their hearts even more.
It’s truly something to behold. Unlike Star Wars.
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Disney’s maneuvers with Star Wars are almost too tiring to talk about anymore.
One memory just popped up in my head. I recall when Disney bought Star Wars, analysts were gushing over what a brilliant move it was. Disney already had a firm grasp on the girl’s market with their Princess franchise, and Star Wars was going to give them a similar grasp on the boy’s market. It made complete sense.
I look at what they have done and continue to do and shake my head. I don’t think many eight year old boys are putting Rey or Ahsoka at the top of their Christmas lists. The best selling Star Wars toys and merchandise continue to be from the original trilogy, despite Disney not promoting it in years. Baby Yoda is the only character outside the originals that has captured fan attraction.
It’s just a train wreck I’m tired of watching
Well… RIP Star Wars. It’s official. There’s no hope for this franchise, all ends lead to Rey Palpatine, and it’s time for us to make our own magic. Our own legend. Our own Star Wars.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Given Lucasfilm’s track record on movie announcements at this point we are in ‘the boy who cried wolf’ territory. However, given that the state of Hollywood over the past 10 years or so is do exactly the opposite of what the audience actually wants, it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually went through with it this time. Calculate this Disney: If people are massively checked out of the only show that actually created a surge of interest back into Star Wars, how successful do you think it’s going to be for a character that was widely disliked by a significant percentage of the (merchandise buying) fan base such that her films actually made less money in each successive chapter?
So only these had feature men in the lead roles you would have been fine with it. lol
Try again. Swapping the masculine or feminine in brands that are primarily targeted at the opposite… is a dumb financial move. Barbie wouldn’t succeed if you tried to make it appealing to men. Star Wars doesn’t work if you focus it on the feminine instead. Same thing.
The problem is not that they feature women prominently but that they invariably feature only one type of woman – a modern feminist power fantasy where women are always more capable, smarter and wiser than men without having to pay any dues in life. They are masculinized to the point where they go out of their way to avoid showing women in traditional roles of nurturer, care-giver and peace maker. These are now anathema in Hollywood. No – every woman has to be a bad-ass to the point where she never needs help from anyone especially not a man who she can resoundingly trounce in physical combat despite being 1/3 the size. Here’s the contrast between ‘problematic’ male appealing story elements and modern female story elements:
1) Male fantasies (as expressed in film and popular story telling) largely consist of being a hero who saves people from threats (even to the point of self-sacrifice) especially virtuous women and/or avenges/rights some wrong against people again, especially virtuous women. There are many permutations of this some more direct than others but much successful storytelling taps into this vein.
2) Modern Female fantasies seem to be about showing that they are more capable than men are and can live without them. Moreover they feature men and masculinity generally as the problem to which they are the solution.
Interestingly, probably most women do not really relate to the latter and many have been so brainwashed that they are essentially raised to deny their nature. In a personal example most of the women in my family/friend circle are of the traditional variety and they generally seem happy as mothers and wives and in traditional nurturing roles. There is one exception to this – a childless professional woman (ironically in the teaching profession – so still more of a female area) who is frankly a wackadoo who takes a variety of anti depressants and flies off the handle at the most trivial sorts of things. This trend has held in my professional life. – all the more ‘modern’ or pink haired or childless women are invariably angry, entitled, or just generally make life in the office miserable for everyone. Sure that’s just one man’s experience but I’d be willing to bet it is mirrored out there far more than the forces of modernity want to hear.
What happened to all the rumors that SW Celebration would be a grand send off for KK? What happened to no new SW being green lit? Darn it for ONCE can’t the rumors be true that KK is *gone* and powerless??
Those rumors did not come from here. We reported on the person declaring them, and we were very clear that our sources did not corroborate those rumors.
If it ends with Mary Sue Rey Palpatine, it’s over folks.
Most hard core Star Wars I know have walked away.
You did it KK, you finally killed Star Wars.