I think it was, you’re just not looking in the right places.
And as far as people being overlooked, it was Kathleen that brought him over to Mandalorian after she fired Josh Trank and hired Favreau. Mandalorian started as the unproduced Boba Fett movie. Kathleen pulled him to help develop it as a series with Favreau before Star Wars Resistance, and that’s why he was overseeing but not show-running that series. That’s also why he learned to direct from Johnson, because that’s how long ago they were working on season 1.
Like, everyone wants to demonise her or blame her for what they don’t like, but then they don’t credit her for what they do like. She was getting Mandalorian off the ground prior to firing the directors of Solo.
But at the end of the day, as with any film, the director has that final say on set. If you wanna complain about films not getting things right, blame them. Abrams is the main culprit, even if you hated TLJ Abrams signed off on that while he was still shooting TFA.
I just feel like we’re always looking for excuses to blame the woman for what the men do wrong and not to credit her for her astute decisions. Filoni is great, don’t get me wrong… but he’s not the messiah. Film and TV aren’t ever made by just one person.
You’re making a lot of assumptions again. I never mentioned Kennedy by name, nor Abrams or Johnson. I’ve only vaguely criticized the ST in a very general way and I appreciate it if you didn’t compare me to certain angry fans simply because of some very superfluous similarities. I don’t think they’re awful movies, there are many elements that I actually liked, but I’m just not particularly impressed by the overall trilogy and how it concluded.
I stand corrected on several production details though. I didn’t know they were “preparing” Filoni for live-action as early as TLJ. I will say though that I’m somewhat tired of the “film and TV aren’t made by one person” argument. Yes, its true that many people make movies/series great, but directors and show-runners are there to keep all that talent together and keep their input within a cohesive framework so that the final product fits within his/her idea of what the movie/series should be. Filoni’s obviously not the only reason TCW, Rebels or The Mandalorian are good, but he’s obviously one of the main contributors to all of them.
He is. That’s why he was brought in for story meetings prior to TFA. That’s why Kathy brought him over with John to rework the Boba Fett movie into The Mandalorian.
I’m tired of people who don’t work in this industry creating messianic figures out of people. Dave is exceptionally talented, but there was a lot else going on on those films that Filoni could not have fixed, even if he were president of Lucasfilm or CEO of Disney itself.
I agree, and I also think the “put him in charge everything” arguments were silly. I doubt he’d be interested in the job even if it were hypothetically offered to him.
I do however think its important for the fans to have a person to look up to as the “visionary” as it were. That’s obviously quite corny, and as you said can often lead to a form of veneration. But after Lucas sold SW and dropped out of the franchise I don’t blame people for wanting a new creative anchor. And there’s something to be said for him being that guy, not for everything of course, but creating a little pocket universe for Filoni’s ideas is, I think, a clever move. If Filoni’s stuff doesn’t appeal to some people, then there’s the ST, RO/Andor, whatever the Acolyte turns out to be, etc. But there is that somewhat self-contained Filoni-saga, “-verse”, whatever they end up calling it, that will hopefully end up feeling consistent. This is the big danger with a franchise like SW, eventually someone is going to make something that a lot of the fans don’t like and then other people will have to incorporate that into their stories for the sake of continuity. Since one person can’t carry the whole thing on his/her back, I think breaking it into semi self-contained “clusters” of content with only the movies as the core skeleton. But then you again end up with the Lucas saga vs ST argument. I don’t blame Disney for making the obvious decision to cash in on their humongous purchase and make more movies. But when one person was in charge of the previous six films there’s some huge shoes to fill when continuing the saga and I think it was domed to cause a stir either way. Heck, even Lucas caused a stir by his continuation of his own stories. But I do think live-action and animated EU stories is the way to go forward. It’s safer and there’s so many possibilities.