Kathleen Kennedy's Disney Contract Quietly Renewed?

It's being reported through various sources that Kathleen Kennedy's contract at Disney has been renewed. Kennedy was pretty much the hand-picked successor of George Lucas to guide the Star Wars franchise into the future. I don't believe that George would have wanted Kennedy to be in charge of Star Wars had he known what direction she would take things. This has been the source of a bitter divide in the Star Wars fandom. Whether you are on one side of that debate or the other, I think most people would agree that the rift in the fan base is not a good thing.

There are fans of the original Star Wars trilogy who feel very strongly that the storyline has been ruined thanks to Kennedy, and there are those who feel the Disney Star Wars trilogy sequel did justice to the franchise. Again, this is a matter of opinion. It could be correctly pointed out that the profit margin of those three movies as well as Rogue One were huge and signaled success, but others will maintain that the storyline has been severely damaged.

Whether you like the Disney era of Star Wars or not, it's successes and failures can be put squarely at the feet of Kennedy. She might not have been involved in every creative decision, but she's the one who made the ultimate decisions. Give her credit or give her the blame, whatever your view might be. There are going to be people who claim that the renewal of Kennedy's contract is an endorsement of all of her efforts. That may be true, but it may be more nuanced than that.

Kennedy is not just some Hollywood chump. She's been involved in some of the biggest movie successes in the history of cinema. I don't care that some of those successes might have been attributed to other producers. She was involved in those projects as well. In the business world it would be disrespectful to say that she never brought anything to the table. It would also be disrespectful to publicly fire her, shame her or otherwise because a segment of fans weren't happy with the Star Wars trilogy sequel.

What's the point here? If she has been renewed, that can mean several things. Based on the successes she's had throughout her career, she's earned the respect of going out on her own terms. Therefore, one final renewal of her contract isn't a big surprise. Does that mean she's being rewarded? This depends on your perspective. Financially, the Star Wars trilogy made money. That's a fact, whether you liked the stories or not. Facts exist despite your feelings.

On the other hand, the storyline of Star Wars has been damaged, and there's no getting around that fact. You can like those movies. That's a matter of opinion. Same can be said if you hate those movies. The original six Star Wars movies told the story of the Skywalker family in which Palpatine was ultimately defeated when Darth Vader came back to the light and joined his son. At that point, the story was done. One can even argue whether the prequel trilogy needed to be made or not, but one can't argue against the fact that the story fit into the larger story.

It's basically been shown that there was no road map to where the Disney sequel trilogy was going. From one movie to the other, the directors seemed more interested in doing their own thing and one upping each other. Therefore, you had plot threads established in the first movie that were basically ignored or destroyed in the second movie. To try to save the trilogy and make an attempt to stick the landing, Palpatine`s character was brought back as the main bad guy in the third movie. The ending served to upset the long time fans as well as some new fans.

Long time fans were upset because Palpatine had been killed at the end of Return of the Jedi. The story was over. By bringing him back and having all of the Skywalker family dead, it's pretty much shown that Palpatine won. His granddaughter lived, but the Skywalker family was all dead. Newer fans were unhappy, because they enjoyed the romantic undertones of the Kylo Renn/Ray relationship. They didn't get the payoff they wanted in the end, and that led to some very unpleasant scenes witnessed in some movie theaters.

If this was viewed as a success, it's a certainty that an Episode 10 would have been planned. It would be on the drawing board, and we'd be getting updates. Weather a 10th movie was announced or we were just getting hints and rumors, the ball would be in motion. Why wasn't it? Kennedy was at the helm of this ship. She's deserving of any credit when it comes to the profit margin, and she's also deserving of the blame for storyline issues that have damaged the franchise.

This brings us back to the question. Why is she being rewarded if it was a failure? One should consider that her lifetime of work in the industry and the fact that each of the three trilogy sequel movies made 1 billion dollars or more at the box office is reason enough. Even if the storyline didn't go where a segment of the fan base wanted it to go, the cash registers were functional and profits were made. We are talking billions of dollars of profits from the billions of dollars of investment Disney made to buy Lucas Films from George Lucas. It wasn't a financial failure.

That's not to say that Disney itself is happy with her leadership. They may not want Kennedy to be making the big decisions in regards to the Star Wars franchise, but they can't publicly shame her and call her out on the problems with the story itself. What they can do is halt production of a 10th movie as long as she's the one in charge. Some will say her contract renewal is rewarding failure, and some will say she deserves it. The bigger question to ask is one that the people who didn't enjoy the sequel trilogy are asking right now.

Does this mean that Kennedy is in charge of Star Wars going forward for the next few years? At the moment, some projects are being canceled and others are being delayed. It's almost as if Disney wasn't happy with the direction the franchise was being taken. Kennedy may be back, but that doesn't mean she's going to be making the big decisions concerning where this franchise goes in the future. The indicator of what sort of power she holds is simple enough. When the 10th movie is announced that continues from where The Rise of Skywalker leaves off and Kennedy is the one making the calls, you'll have your answer. Until that time, everything is talk.

It's a sad time that we live in where people who are fans of long time franchises are not happy. They've looked at several different IPs and watched them get taken in a direction that goes contrary to what made these things popular in the first place. This has caused a divide in the fan base of these franchises, including Star Wars. People are picking sides and hurling insults at each other. People are trying to position themselves to be the ones who are right in the argument. It's sad that the majority of the people aren't just sitting back and talking about the product that was produced. It's almost as if being a fan doesn't just mean enjoying something anymore. You have to take sides and almost get political about it.

Kennedy had an opportunity to do good things with the Star Wars franchise. George Lucas even handed her a treatment of where the sequel trilogy would have gone under his leadership. Suddenly, people are pointing out how George was so wrong about everything. The reality is we wouldn't be talking about Star Wars in the first place if not for George. He must have done something right, but everybody now thinks they know better. Kennedy chose to use Star Wars as a platform to make her own political and social statements, rather than telling a story that united the fan base.

Therefore, this is more credit that she deserves. She might deserve credit for the profits being made at Disney via the Star Wars franchise. She might also deserve blame when it comes to where the story ended up going. Unfortunately, you have to point a finger at her when it comes to the divide in the franchise. She stirred the pot on this. Some will label the people who don't like the current franchise with negative political descriptions. This has nothing to do with politics. It's about whether people enjoyed the movies or not. Love it or hate it, Kennedy was in charge, and she deserves the blame here as well.