Kennedy Talks “Star Wars” Toxic Fandom

The other day, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced that she is stepping down from that position, with Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan taking over as co-Presidents.

In the wake of that announcement, Kennedy gave an interview with Deadline talking about the current state of the various “Star Wars” projects in development at the company.

Now, in a separate part of the same interview, she was asked about her time serving in her capacity as President of Lucasfilm for the past decade and a bit – namely, the entire Disney-era of “Star Wars”.

Asked what the ‘worst lows’ during her time were, she replied:

The lows are that you’ve got a very, very small percentage of the fan base that has enormous expectations, and basically they want to continue to see pretty much the same thing. And if you’re not going to do that, then you know going in that you’re going to disappoint them.

I’m not sure there’s anything you can do about that, because you can’t please everybody. All you can do is try to tell good stories and try to stick to the essence of what George created.

I wouldn’t do that any differently and I wouldn’t change anything that we’ve done over the years. I understand why some people may like certain things more than others, but that’s not going to change why I decided to do certain things and why I decided to work with the people that we worked with.”

Kennedy has also faced vitriol and some misogynistic attacks from the worst parts of “Star Wars” fandom, along with other women who’ve been part of the new era, like actresses Daisy Ridley and Kelly Marie Tran.

Kennedy says she has to be frank with women who come in to play in the “Star Wars” sandbox – both in front of and behind the camera – to be aware they will be targeted:

I’m honest, especially with the women who come into this space because they unfairly get targeted. I don’t try to sugarcoat it. And I emphasise that it’s a very small group of people, with loud megaphones. I truly do not believe that it’s the majority of the fans.

And I think we’re also in this weird world where bots can affect things. You have to develop a tough skin. That is exactly right. That’s what you have to do. You can’t make it go away. All we can do is put our heads down and do the work and believe that we’re doing the best we can, telling the best story we can.”

She also says if she does has a regret it’s over putting “wonderful actor” Alden Ehrenreich in “an impossible situation” to step into the shoes of Harrison Ford’s Han Solo.