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So it is official. After nearly 14 years as President of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy has stepped down. Nope, not bait this time. Dave Filoni is taking over.
In the Deadline interview, KK reiterates that she wouldn't change anything:
But does anybody care anymore? This isn't even a twinkle in culture war discourse, KiA's response was total indifference. Despite Iger's comments a few years ago saying that "creators at Disney should entertain first, message second", I haven't seen them walk the walk. Within Star Wars itself, what immediately followed those statements was the wokest Star Wars to date, which got cancelled just one month after the finale aired due to low viewership.
While everyone was memeing about where the bodies were buried, how does anybody even expect to fix the IP at this point? Every year since Rise of Skywalker, they've been dropping a new season of a new live action show like candies. Star Wars ceased to be an "event" anymore. Sequel merchandise don't sell as well as the classics. But does it mean Star Wars is dead in the water? Probably not, Andor season 2 debuted with record viewership numbers. I guess, Star Wars fans are still more forgiving than most people think! Even if the IP may not be as bulletproof as it was during the Clone Wars era. I don't see the "Force is Female" direction being reversed for sure.
So it's really happening at long, long last?
I imagine because they've tanked Star Wars as a property so comprehensively, there isn't even enough of the bones left to squeeze anything more out of, so Kennedy can be cut loose. Nobody is going to bat for her and she can't promise one more big, sure thing to grab viewing figures.
Star Trek is going the same way, with the latest disaster. This Guardian review is something else; "Grange Hill but with phasers" is not immediately enticing. I'm burned out on Trek. You can't keep insulting legacy fans for being legacy fans and not supporting New Thing when you aren't grabbing replacement new fans in sufficient numbers. Same with Doctor Who as well, seems like. The First Big Black Gay Woke Doctor was, somehow or other, bafflingly, not a huge ratings success. What unfathomable reason could possibly explain all this?
Miniscule. Tiny. Too negligible to even bother counting. If they all disappeared, we wouldn't even notice, that's how unimportant they are. Wait, why are our ratings tanking and nobody is purchasing our merch?
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