Marcia Lucas, Oscar-winning editor for 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, has been expressing her dissatisfaction with the new Star Wars trilogy.
A major spoiler for Star Wars: The Force Awakens lies within.
Marcia Lucas knows a thing or two about Star Wars.
She won an Oscar for her work co-editing the first in the series, A New Hope. She was also married to George Lucas at one stage. Furthermore, there’s a theory that some subscribe to that claims her edit saved the original film, turning a clunky, plodding movie that was met with dismay upon early screenings, into a movie beloved by many.
The point here is then when Marcia Lucas has an opinion about the franchise, she’s earned the right to be heard. Alas though, the editor and producer isn’t a fan of the direction that Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm have taken the saga in, since 2015’s The Force Awakens. In an interview for an upcoming book, Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life, Marcia Lucas had this to say:
“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 JJ Abrams don’t have a clue about ‘Star Wars.’ They don’t get it. And JJ 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?”
“They have Luke disintegrate,” Lucas says. “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…JJ Abrams, Kathy Kennedy — talk to me.”
Whilst George Lucas, the series creator, has generally stayed diplomatically quiet regarding the handling of his series, his former editor has no such compunction. Marcia Lucas isn’t the only one to view Disney’s handling of the Star Wars saga as flawed, and the company has retooled its approach to the franchise in the wake of the disappointing Skywalker saga finale, The Rise Of Skywalker, with plans for fewer films.
Next up will be Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron in 2023, which will give Lucasfilm and Disney another shot at finding critical success.
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