It isn't too far of a stretch to admit that the current state of the Star Wars franchise has been shaky at best. The sequel trilogy and many TV shows haven't garnered as much love and respect as the previous entries for various reasons. The main person that people blame for this is Kathleen Kennedy, the now former president of Lucasfilm.
Many online forums and videos have been made en masse about her poor leadership of Star Wars, with many of them cheering when she recently decided to step down as president. Now that the franchise is no longer in her hands, its time to have a look back at what Kennedy has accomplished since 2012 and see if she truly deserves all the backlash.
The Light Side
I think it's important to first go over the good things that Kathleen did for the franchise during her tenure as president. The first few years under the Disney umbrella went smoothly. The popular TV series Rebels went on to be well-received by audiences, as did The Force Awakens and Rogue One. The franchise was getting a lot of attention, partly because of Kathleen's approach to its creative direction. There were always different directors and writers for each new project.
Sharing control like this did lead to good additions to Star Wars, like The Mandalorian and Star Wars: Visions. However, this approach also caused problems, which we will go over momentarily. Kennedy should also get credit for being the one to spearhead the push for the live-action TV shows on Disney+. There's no denying that most of these shows wouldn't exist without her involvement.
The Dark Side
Now we arrive at the controversial aspects of Kennedy's presidential tenure. The main component of people's contempt for Kennedy is that neither she nor Disney had any clue where to take this franchise. With directors and writers coming in and out of projects like a revolving door, there was a lack of consistency across additions. There was also not enough time between releases, which likely led to fatigue among the franchise's showrunners and crew, and rushed productions.
This direction was especially bad for the sequel trilogy, with director JJ Abrams being replaced by Rian Johnson after The Force Awakens. Although Johnson claims that he was in contact with Abrams before he made The Last Jedi, the finished project feels very disconnected from the movies before and after, making it the most polarizing film in the saga. This led to Abrams coming back to make The Rise of Skywalker and trying to "fix" what Johnson did in The Last Jedi.
In the end, the sequel trilogy ended with a whimper, rather than a bang. Even if Abrams wasn't the right fit to direct the movies, I'm certain that the trilogy would be looked at more positively if he directed the whole thing. The same could be said for the shows, as some of them are either okay or downright awful. I think Kennedy put too much trust in the wrong people and focused on the wrong things, to Star Wars' detriment.
The Verdict
Overall, I would say that while Kathleen Kennedy's reign over Star Wars could have gone better, but it also could have been worse. There is a lot to not like with what she did with the franchise, but it wouldn't be fair to blame it all on her. The excitement for more Star Wars is still there for a lot of people, so not all hope is lost. With Dave Filoni now taking over Star Wars, there's no telling what will happen next!