You may not know the name Marcia Lucas, but if you’re a longtime Star Wars fan you know and love her work. The Academy Award-winning editor of A New Hope, and former Mrs. George Lucas, has left an indelible mark on the franchise with her work all the way up through Return of the Jedi. While she hasn’t worked on a “Galaxy far far away” since, she’s got some opinions. Ohhhhh boy does she, about the current state of affairs under the guidance of Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy.
In the pages of J.W. Rinzler’s book, Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life, Lucas cut loose with both barrels on the direction of the Star Wars franchise under Kennedy’s guidance. Let’s just say, she ain’t happy…
“I like Kathleen. I always liked her. She was full of beans. She was really smart and really bright. Really wonderful woman. And I liked her husband, Frank. I liked them a lot. 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. 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?’”
She continued, “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. And 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…J.J. Abrams, Kathy Kennedy — talk to me.’”
As you probably figured out, these comments aren’t fresh. Lucas made them in-between Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi and Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker, so she hasn’t seen everything yet. Lucasfilm would actually stop “spitting out movies” around this time, after Solo: A Star Wars Story underperformed. Further, she clearly has no idea about the fate of Rey and who she turned out to be. Granted, I don’t think anything would have changed Lucas’ mind. She doesn’t crap on Johnson, either, when his take on these movies was far more radical than Abrams. Plus, no mention of the Disney+ shows which have really taken over.
To me, she seems like so many other Star Wars fans I know and that’s slavish to the original stories. I completely get it; she worked on this stuff and what she did will live on forever in movie history. She feels a devotion to it and rightly so. But the franchise has moved on without her and they are doing things differently. You know me; I was certainly no fan of the recent trilogy but moving on from the past was not the problem.
