This was a fantastic post. A quick question; you say that KK would have been a part of the creative process - would that mean in terms of being an actual "idea person", or merely greenlighting/quashing others (writer/director) ideas?
Both. In development it's not unusual for there to be several EPs involved in brainstorming sessions. Here's the transcript I was talking about-- Kennedy wasn't in this one, but you have Spielberg as director, Kasdan as writer, and Lucas as EP.
http://maddogmovies.com/almost/scripts/raidersstoryconference1978.pdf
This is how development meetings go, and there will be several of them. When Kennedy was looking for somebody to do Episode 8 I'm sure she met with several people. Ahead of the meeting, they were likely told what was going to happen in TFA (at the time) and then each writer/director would come in and give their take. Rian came in, and pitched his general ideas, where he wanted to take the characters, etc. After getting the job, but before writing, there would be several development meetings to iron things out. Generally, a writer will go from their pitch, to a more detailed treatment, to a revised treatment, to a detailed outline, with notes and meetings from producers between each step. So before Rian has written a single word, Kennedy, and likely Abrams and Kasdan and Kinberg, would all offer up notes. Notes can be anything from "you should give that character a sibling that dies in the first act" to "what if we killed off this character here?" They could be the tiniest of details, or huge changes to the arc. When you hear about movies in "development hell" they are stuck in this phase where the EPs are never satisfied and continue to give notes to the writer who generally gets burnt out. So before a single script page is written, the EPs are essentially workshopping the treatments with the writer, so it's 100% a creative job. And as workshops go-- maiking small changes a nd ideas can often lead to bigger idea. This is how TV writer's rooms work generally.
And would she then be involved in "on the fly" decisions? As a hypothetical example: <After a hallucinogenic dream, RJ awakens and thinks "Oh man, I should have Leia, like, channel the force after being blown into space, and totally force-drift back to the ship. Duuude, this is going to be epic">...would he be expected to "check in" to have something like that okayed? (Assuming it didn't affect the overall narrative - if, say, the script at that point still had her surviving the blast, regardless - but it's merely a moment of "optical" significance)?
It depends to some extent. I don't know if she is on set for the entire shoot, or portions of it, or what. I was working on a movie at Pinewood while TFA was shooting. We were literally next door to their offices and stages and despite that I ever saw a damn thing... except for Kennedy's golf cart parked outside of my office window. So I know she was there for a good portion of it. It seems like, for better or worse, her jam is to hire people she thinks she can trust to go with the flow. A director has free reign generally try different things, but with Star Wars, when everything is tired to set-pieces and FX sequences that have an army of people already working on them, you have to be pretty locked into the script.
If she's not on set, there's a producer there whose singular job is to report back. This is how the original Solo directors were let go. They were straying from the script too much.
In general, most of the time a director will get coverage for what's in the script, and then a lot a little time for alternate takes, improving, or experimenting (time permitting). This is how we got the "I love you..." "I know." moment. Big changes always have to be a call with the EP and/or studio if they aren't there.
Just curious as to how closely the folks up the ladder are tied to the details. Only using that example because it's a polarizing moment in a film; not trying to pile on TLJ or anything (it's just easy). And as far as that goes, it sounds like she has had a good track record for a long time (which I only know from your post!); do you think being part of a team (with great creative minds around you), is a much different animal than if you're the point-person for a project? Maybe even just in terms of a "blazing your own trail" kind of thing?
On the average film there's always a producer on set protecting the studio's interest. Directors are generally hired for their ideas. On a ,movie like Star Wars, with so many moving pieces and so much money on the line, there's not a ton of room for experimenting and Kennedy wouldn't likely be taken by surprise by anything.