J.W. Rinzler's new book, Howard Kazanjian: A Producer's Life, has just been released and it features insights from veteran editor Marcia Lucas, George Lucas' ex-wife. She made a name for herself working on movies like Taxi Driver and American Graffiti (the latter would earn her an Oscar nomination), and later won an Oscar for Star Wars: A New Hope.
After also working on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, it's fair to say Lucas knows her way around that Galaxy Far, Far Away. Despite praising current Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy as a "wonderful woman" who is "really smart and really bright," she's not a fan of the direction the Star Wars sequels took the iconic franchise.
"Now that she’s running Lucasfilm and making movies, it seems to me that Kathy Kennedy and J.J. Abrams don’t have a clue about Star Wars. They don’t get it," Lucas stated. "And J.J. Abrams is writing these stories...when I saw that movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious. I was furious when they killed Han Solo. Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. I thought, You don’t get the Jedi story. You don’t get the magic of Star Wars."
"You’re getting rid of Han Solo? And then at the end of this last one, The Last Jedi, they have Luke disintegrate. They killed Han Solo. They killed Luke Skywalker. And they don’t have Princess Leia anymore. And they’re spitting out movies every year."
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Lucas went on to make it clear that she wasn't on board with Rey's portrayal as a seemingly all-powerful Jedi. "They think it’s important to appeal to a woman’s audience, so now their main character is this female, who’s supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don’t know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is. It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me."
It's one thing for fans to tear into the movies, but the Academy Award-winning editor of the original Star Wars? That's quite something. For what it's worth, Lucasfilm appears to have taken these criticisms on board, and while too much fan service proved to be a bad thing in The Rise of Skywalker, it's hard to fault what we've seen on the small screen in The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars.
The former even appears to be explaining some of the mystery behind Supreme Leader Snoke's creation, though there are still plenty of unanswered questions that have yet to be addressed.
Where do you think the Star Wars sequels went wrong?