Over the course of the past decade, the inner-workings of what has been going on at Lucasfilm have remained largely a mystery. The team charged with continuing the expansion of one of the largest franchises in all of pop culture, Star Wars, likes things secretive. However, in the wake of a massive power shift, with longtime leader Kathleen Kennedy stepping down, some of that mystique has been pulled back thanks to extensive interviews. For the first time in years, fans are gaining clarity on what has actually been happening behind the scenes with the monolithic franchise… or at least Kennedy’s own perception of it.
In an exit interview with Deadline, the subject of Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi was inevitably broached. The 2017 sequel earned the franchise its best reviews since 1980, made over a billion dollars at the box office, and was adored by fans and general audiences alike. However, it also got caught in the crosshairs of a violent, vicious, and outright lunacy-fueled faux culture war campaign, at a time when the radicalization of young men through such internet-based means was still in its infancy. As such, when asked about The Last Jedi and why Rian Johnson has yet to return to the galaxy far, far away despite an entire new trilogy of films created by him being announced shortly before The Last Jedi’s release, Kennedy said that in addition to the time commitment of Johnson's Knives Out films for Netflix, she thought the backlash to The Last Jedi pushed him away.
"I do believe he got spooked by the online negativity," Kennedy said. "I think Rian made one of the best Star Wars movies. He's a brilliant filmmaker, and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actor say to me, 'What's going to happen?' They’re a little scared."
Whereas most of what Kennedy has revealed about the sprawling franchise in these recent interviews have gone entirely unchallenged, presenting them as the definitive facts from the perspective of an authoritative inside source, the same cannot be said about this take on The Last Jedi and Rian Johnson, as the filmmaker responded directly to this quote on Twitter, saying, “Lol zero spooked, sorry.”
It’s worth noting that throughout everything, Johnson has remained extremely engaged online, and has been incredibly forthcoming about his own personal journey with Star Wars. He speaks openly and frequently about what a great experience the film was for him and how proud he continues to be of it. Since The Last Jedi, Johnson has made three films, Knives Out, Glass Onion, and Wake Up Dead Man, all of which were not only commercial and critical successes, but also films that directly addressed the racism, misogyny, and bigotry that drove so much of the radical online response to The Last Jedi.
Pair this with how reluctant the Disney-owned Lucasfilm has become to not only take big creative swings ala The Last Jedi, but also how routinely they have failed to stand up for the creators and performers they employ who have fallen in the crosshairs of the same vocal minority since then, and a starker picture comes into focus. It wasn’t Johnson who was “spooked by the online negativity,” it was Disney and Lucasfilm themselves. To this day, the companies are busy capitulating to the demands of the most bad-faith critics online, and the Star Wars franchise has been left stagnant as a result.
Here’s hoping that with this changing of the guard, the higher-ups at Disney and Lucasfilm can all be a little bit less “spooked” by such online voices and instead focus on making great work. The exception to the rule over the past five years in Star Wars is, of course, Tony Gilroy’s Andor, a show which absolutely would not have been made had anyone involved been worried about what online naysayers might say about the radical and politically-charged series.
Projects like The Last Jedi and Andor reinvigorate the franchise and bring fresh creative blood to it, as well as new audiences. Creators like Johnson and Gilroy deserve to be applauded for their work by Disney and Lucasfilm, rather than ostracized and thrown under the bus for it.