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- Jun 25, 2017
(Special thanks to @The Gangster Computer for the following):
Alan Horn, Kathleen Kennedy, Bob Chapek and Bob Iger were instrumental to the decline of Star Wars as a major franchise. Each one contributed a unique brand of self-destructive egoism and conflicting ideals that resulted in a metaphorical nuclear meltdown that started with a bright flash that was mistaken for awe-inspiring light but was really just the blast before the shock wave.
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Alan Horn (chairman of WD studios and later creative officer) was all about deconstructing the franchise and remaking it into something completely unrecognizable because he supported the idea that Star Wars should focus on appealing to those who didn't care about Star Wars and whose decisions were what you would expect from an out of touch ivory tower boomer.He was essentially a guy who had never delved into the franchise or understood anything about George's mindset or mythos. One of his earliest acts was to question everything by claiming stuff like "What is the Force?" "What are the Jedi?" and following it up by somehow rationalizing it that it was their turn to finally explain everything and really create a non-existent conclusion to a franchise that had already given more than enough closure and fanservice material. He and Kennedy also orchestrated (presumably with Iger or Chapek's blessing) the downsizing of Lucasfilm and the complete replacement of most of its old staff with fart-huffing "new age creatives", even getting rid of many Lucasfilm veterans and only keeping a few of the concept artists who had been working in the studio since the prequels, as well as a few infamous ass-kissers like Pablo Hidalgo and Matt Martin.
Alan Horn effectively replaced most of the staff with Hollywood pr people or fresh-out-of-college "visionaries" who had no prior experience with Star Wars or even sci-fi, fantasy or space operas (or even writing) while completely undermining everything George and his writers had ever set up. And there's the achievement of the "Creative" officer. Alan Horn and Kennedy adherence to his ideas ultimately resulted in further conflicting directions which resulted in the disjointed narrative that has been following Disney "Canon" since its inception.
By the way, the only reason he deconstructed the whole thing just to glue it back together into a soulless OT rehash was to sell Star Wars to China.
So he decided that remaking the OT but disguising them as sequels were the best way to sell Star Wars to China at the cost of reducing all the classic characters to losers and completely unraveling everything except Filoni Wars because of contractual obligations and because the merch still sold well among zoomer coomers. Its also why the setting feels like its been in a dreary pause for 30 years so it would be easier for Chinese audiences to swallow as noted as far back as 2013 when Alan Horn shamelessly bragged about his stupid plans over on Variety and in interviews, including his idea to have SW films and media be released annually.
And what did pandering to China accomplish? Absolutely nothing and Disney Wars shit is still getting banned over there, and the stuff that isn't doesn't sell, and the few Star Wars nerd cliques over there fucking hate all the new crap with the exception of the first Disney Thrawn book. Yet Disney went along with this bullshit because Horn convinced them it would be more profitable because of them big ol' Michael Bay Chinese bucks.
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Pablo Hidalgo and Matt "Porgcuck" Martin (story group and former website managers that were needlessly promoted) in their own way also contributed to the division in the fandom by sowing seeds of conflict and making up reasons for the fanbase to fight via twitter and on forums as well as looking for reasons to claim why everything from George's era was dumb, or even making false claims about the state of the franchise which they even backtracked on a few times, as well as betraying old fellow employees when they demanded royalties or misleading them by claiming that they would still have their media published in Lucasfilm.Leland Chee was another asskisser but who contributed less to the decline and division than Martin and Hidalgo, and acted more as a doormat who no one listens to and doesn't dare go against the grain, with his only purpose being to seemingly try and calm the flames the other two kept feeding, but he even failed at that, much like most of his tasks that required more assertiveness. His and Hidalgo's lack of assertion and competence were also the main reasons for so many continuity errors in Disney and the final days of old Lucasfilm.
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Kennedy and Horn also served as the greatest roadblocks for creativity and adherence to George-era star wars, even meddling continuously in the productions of the new films, most especially their spinoffs, resulting in not only unnecessary budget costs but in large amounts of footage, sets, props, costumes, scripts and even directors constantly being replaced on petty whims to make sure everything adhered to some moronic "new vision" of Star Wars.Overall Kennedy's role in the company has been a relatively useless one that has been mostly self-serving and adhering to the whims of men rather than her own, and her actual decisions have all been flabbergasting or ignorant, even dismissing classic costumes from past films as "not being like Star Wars" and having a bizarre obsession with tentacles and sea monsters, and even hiring just as many incompetents as Horn, most of which were only hired to appeal to investors who wanted a more "progressive" image for Lucasfilm and were made up of soap opera writers for the story group or more inexperienced college interns. It was all a shameless ruse that took advantage of shameless consumers, the politically obsessed and brainless investors who can't tell when they're being manipulated, all in a bid to obtain more money and influence for the greater company, the whole supposed 'feminist' angle was also a method to attract reactionaries against them in order to play the victim card and make their faux feminism look genuine and sentimental, which was at first exercised through cringe tweets by JJ claiming all criticism was racism or sexism and Lucasfilm's bragging about Phasma's armor to attract GamerGate medias which at the time were also in the midst of a feud regarding female armor in games.
It was all a cleverly orchestrated market strategy based around a faux illusion of altruism to increase publicity and it resulted in the birth of the uselessly idiotic Fandom Menace youtube movement which only helps to boost interest in Disney rather than discourage it, with noteworthy examples like Doomcock and Geeks&Gamers who seemingly criticize Disney at every turn yet encourage their viewers to continue watching and buying Disney Wars material, basically making them more crypto shills who are too stupid to realize they're being used for publicity with their useless takes.---------------------------
Bob & Bob
He brought about the largest economic growth for the Walt Disney company by turning it into an even bigger corporate monster hellbent on controlling everything around it.
@Godzilla@1989 provided a summary of his career:
This growth proved to have little benefits for the employees within the company, as even Abigail Disney (an actual disney heir) has pointed out Iger's corruption regularly, his and his executives habit of giving themselves raises on a regular basis while denying their employees even basic necessities and taking advantage of others willingness to work for the company, as well as how their substantial greed has resulted in a lack of money going to areas of the park and company that really need it.
It was Iger's decision that the original treatments for George's sequels be completely ignored, preferring to target a new demographic, mainly those who had no interest in Star Wars and who fittingly enough moved on from it as soon as the sequels disappeared, with the only ones sticking around being old school addicts and your typical disney fanboys who will lap up whatever has the disney logo on it.
Bob Chapek (Chairman of Experiences, Parks & Products as well as Iger and Everyone's primary buttkisser) was the royal cheapskate of Disney and the one not only responsible for the unimaginative blunders that were the star wars park expansions and hotel, but was also the one who was most fixated on taking the cheapest routes for max profits. Since taking the CEO position, his current management of the Star Wars brand has also been one of cheapest alternatives for max profits resulting in even lower quality blunders than usual.
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Dave Filoni
Originally a storyboard artist who rose to prominence after serving as director for several episodes Avatar the Last Airbender's first season, Filoni was scouted by George Lucas to head his new animated series based around the Clone Wars era of media (acting as a pseudo-spiritual successor to Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars miniseries from 2002) in hopes of attracting the same level of attention to the new series as A:TLA, a decision that would ultimately give rise to a rather chaotic age that would begin as George's misguided informant and creative lead to usurping George himself, to the point of even denying George's desire to kill off one of Filoni's pet characters, and ultimately replacing him within Disney's Lucasfilm years later while never even bothering to adapt George's original Underworld series (the main reason he even sold SW to Disney in the first place), a rather ironic turn of events as George had originally intended to mold Filoni into his successor after his own children refused to take up the family legacy, with things only being made worse by Filoni not only moving attention away from George's own creations but Filoni putting all focus on his own creations instead to the point where some of his creations now hold more prominence and importance than most characters that came before, even the original trilogy protagonists, with Filoni's most notable creation Ahsoka now being seen as the new face of the franchise.
At best the only Clone Wars episodes that really mattered to George and had any major direct input from him for the script were the final ones with Yoda and the Mortis arc, but even those received further changes from Filoni once it came time to give the scripts form. George was barely involved as it was in the writer's room outside of pitching ideas and initial scripting since George in his usual weird mindset only cared about Filoni Wars as a vehicle to showcase how far you could push the limits of CGI animation on television and showing what Lucasfilm was capable of, as George above all else had become more of a man of visuals than story by this point.
Even the scripts, once they went into production, became drastically different than what the writers and George intended, as noted by JW Rinzler the writer for The Disappeared arc of Filoni Wars, who explained that the writing process involves George pitching an idea like "I want an episode where Padme has to solve a murder mystery", "I want an episode where bounty hunters kidnap senators or do an Ocean's eleven", "Do something with Maul" or "I want an episode where Jar Jar has a girlfriend and is revealed to not be as dumb as he wants people to think", and once a writer finished the script, George would give it the okay and pass it on to Filoni to direct who would then make the script almost completely unrecognizable from the original product beyond the superficial idea pitch and George really wouldn't be involved beyond checking to make sure if the animation looked as good as it could be. Resulting in Filoni Wars being an inconsistent mess and receiving its own continuity ranking outside of both the EU and the films that made it barely fit in either. Filoni lived in such an echo chamber that he constantly ignored input from the story keepers whenever he wanted to do something that went against pre-established rules, and would go off and whine to George that he needed to change this and that in order for an episode to get done, essentially undermining them, especially when Filoni wanted to bring a character back from the dead for no reason; he would later even grow arrogant enough to undermine George's own decisions.
Even the final episodes with Yoda seeking immortality which had scripts directly overseen by George were altered heavily by Filoni once it came time to adapt them as he was now overseeing the animation process alone since George had now moved away from Star Wars by this point in 2014, resulting in a bigger excess of cameos than usual and designs that are just constant references, with even Bane getting Filonified to look more like Vader and represent the new discanon going forward. A slightly similar thing happened before with the Mortis arc. Even George's daughter Katie Lucas who was involved with Filoni Wars had to quit since Filoni constantly changed her creative decisions, undermined her ideas and those of others or took credit for things he didn't do.
As well as in Aladdin Rebels in how Thrawn was handled, with Filoni bringing in Zahn to "consult" on how to manage Thrawn, only for Zahn to reveal in a later interview that he had zero creative control over the character beyond overseeing lines and Gilad being reduced to a two second offscreen cameo, and Zahn not even being allowed involvement with the new live action Thrawn. Making it clear that bringing back Zahn and Thrawn was just a publicity stunt to boost ratings.
He's also the one along with Kennedy who butchered the script for Kenobi on Disney+ for being "too similar to his ideas" and focusing too much on Obi-Wan and Luke despite originally being based on the Kenobi novel, since even Filoni himself has made clear on several occasions that he's not a big fan of anything that's not his cartoon beyond animal, weapon and droid references or even Luke for that matter beyond using him for guest star fodder as seen with his involvement with TLJ and having Rian only watch his fucking cartoon for influence.
https://ew.com/tv/obi-wan-kenobi-grand-inquisitor-rupert-friend-interview/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...replaced-during-creative-overhaul-1235108192/
Dave Filoni's efforts throughout all his shows have been notable for not only his very weak writing style, which has been compared to pointless sidequests or macguffin chases seen in video games, but he has also been noted for his inability to portray realistic battle scenes and his inability to maintain consistent continuity and characterization with not just past films and material (even turning Obi-Wan into a Jack Sparrow expy and Anakin into a stereotypical swashbuckler with none of the nuance of Genndy's re-imaginings) but even his own creations, with errors even occurring multiple times within a single one of his many shows' seasons.
His wolf-fetishism aside, Filoni is also noted for his unrelenting favoritism towards characters he becomes attached to, being unable to kill any of his favorite creations and giving them the most ridiculous methods of survival, even reviving a throwaway spider alien multiple times because of his preference for him. At one point, Filoni even wanted to revive jedi master Plo Kloon, a character who was clearly blown to smithereens during the events of Revenge of the Sith, with some of his arguments for his survival getting so bad that George had to outright state that if Filoni ever brought him back he would just kill him in a more horrible fashion. To make up for this, Filoni overexposed the character in his first animated series and even initially planned to have him back for the Mandalorian which some tried to poorly pass off as a "prank". His most notable obsession though is Ahsoka, a character he grew feverishly attached to and has her become the ultimate lynchpin of the franchise, being involved in many of its major events and even having her be the only pre-Disney character, alongside the bastardized versions of Chewbacca and Lando (now known as Landonis), to survive past Disney's sequel trilogies, even comparing her to the likes of Tolkien's Gandalf, a role he previously reserved for Yoda.If any doubts persist, you can learn more about the details in the video and links below.
Video:
Links:
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/star-...ise-of-skywalker-spoilers.32492/post-10994752
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/star-...ise-of-skywalker-spoilers.32492/post-10995717
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/star-...ise-of-skywalker-spoilers.32492/post-11080195
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/star-...rise-of-skywalker-spoilers.32492/post-6048222
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/star-...ise-of-skywalker-spoilers.32492/post-11450032
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/star-...ise-of-skywalker-spoilers.32492/post-11104330
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This budget issue became a more serious problem when George grew interested in making a new series of films, something Lucasfilm at the time (as well as the costly budget of a certain show among other things mentioned) just couldn't do, resulting in George ultimately trusting Kathy and Iger's suggestions to sell Lucasfilm to Disney in hopes that their large assets and connections would allow for the new films and new media to continue unhindered with the hope that due to their long standing "friendship and trust" they would honor his work and continue his vision, aaaaaand you know the rest. George's involvement to this day is mostly for public image and supposedly due to some sort of agreement which keeps him from actively criticizing Disney, with the few instances that he has having been backtracked or erased, with the exception of a few and some production visits for the Disney+ shows which really don't amount to anything beyond cameos.
Ultimately, this can all be traced back to around 2010, but 2011 is where you could already see many changes start to occur presumably to accommodate or appeal to Disney whose deal would be made official in 2012, such as an abrupt number of cancellations, the complete overhaul of the official SW.com website, the Lucasfilm website also receiving a complete overhaul where it eventually resemble a shopping network website, the databank being deleted (despite containing a plethora of concept art, production info and setting lore), the disappearance of the EU and Infinities labels (Canon would be introduced around 2014 iirc), the sudden removal of many non-Filoni Wars merchandise from lists (as well as the cancellation of Filoni Wars which was finalized in 2013 due to contractual disputes with FOX and CN since Disney wanted full ownership of all SW media going forward), the disappearance of many recognizable labels, many producers, employees and authors suddenly going silent and most notably the shut down of the official Star Wars message boards, a massive loss since it was a place where Lucasfilm employees, Star Wars writers, authors, etc and fans all came together and expanded on the mythos and even contained info on unreleased media and background information on the films, George's notes and other productions, including info and images that otherwise went unreleased in any official magazines or guides, and which too many morons were too lazy to archive and because many didn't know about archive.org or the site's eventual demise (this was a forum that had been active for almost 10 years since 2001).
The only thing that is presumably still under George's influence (although the full extent is uncertain) is the original versions of the OT which Disney has not yet released (although George had permitted their screenings at film festivals completely unaltered), including newer edits being made to them such as the infamous 'maklunkee', but again the full details of this are unknown.
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