Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm (after 2021)?

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Greenie said:

It says Star Wars on the box. That’s all some people need.

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Unfortunately. But even if this hadn't been Star Wars, even if it was a completely different movie with all of the identifiable Star Wars ideas removed, it still would have been an objectively terrible movie.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Here we go again with the people who don’t understand what “objectively” means... :lol

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Jagjaguwar said:

Here we go again with the people who don’t understand what “objectively” means... :lol

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How is he not using it correctly? Sounds correct to me. He means techinique, pacing, writing, dialogue, story, effects, etc.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Snikt said:

How is he not using it correctly? Sounds correct to me. He means techinique, pacing, writing, dialogue, story, effects, etc.

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Because all of those things are subjective, not objective.

Think of it like this: if we were to say that it’s true that a film could be judged as “objectively good” or “objectively bad,” then there would be definitive aspects we could point to that would show this to be the case, right? It would be like scoring a test that had only true/false answers on it. Anyone looking at that test would score it the same.

But this isn’t how films work, is it? Two professional film critics don’t necessarily agree, let alone two ordinary viewers. If films were really able to be categorized as “objectively good” or “objectively bad,” then every review of a film would be the same (just as a test with one set of “correct answers” would be graded the same by different people.) The fact that film critical or fan scores are NOT all either 0% or 100% shows that this isn’t the case (here I’m referring only to the polls of “Like/Dislike,” not the sort of numbered scores we see on Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer and elsewhere. For those scores see below- if films were objectively good or bad then all those scores would be the same.)

The fact that two people can watch the same film and have entirely different opinions about whether it is “good” or “bad” is proof that “objectively” doesn’t work. Whereas if someone had a test with 10 true/false questions, and 2 answers were incorrect, everyone who graded (judged/reviewed/etc) the test would come up with the same score, 8/10. If a person grading the test came back with a score of 7/10, someone else could point to the test and show exactly where the grader got it wrong. This doesn’t happen with opinions about films because every single person puts a different value on all the different aspects that make up a film. Could anyone really argue that all people watching films are judging them in the same way? Or that all people watching a movie put the same value on story, or visual effects, or acting? If this was all objective we’d have definitive ways of judging a movie, like: “20% of the overall score is for acting, 30% is story/plot, 10% is visual effects...” As far as I am aware there is no such “grading rubric” that exists across all film reviews.

A film can’t be judged as *objectively* “good” or “bad” any more than any other piece of art can. Various aspects of subjective things can make it so that more people tend to like something or not, but even then it’s all still dependent on the opinions and personal interests of the person viewing it.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Also, the fact that our opinions about things aren’t facts doesn’t mean that they have less value, or anything like that. It just helps to explain why two people can feel entirely the opposite way about the same film that they both saw. It doesn’t mean that there’s no point in discussing what people think about something, just that there’s no “ultimate truth” to be found as far as whether something is definitely, ultimately, “good” or “bad.” It’s much more nuanced than that, and in my view that serves to make everything much more interesting.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Jagjaguwar said:

Because all of those things are subjective, not objective.

Think of it like this: if we were to say that it’s true that a film could be judged as “objectively good” or “objectively bad,” then there would be definitive aspects we could point to that would show this to be the case, right? It would be like scoring a test that had only true/false answers on it. Anyone looking at that test would score it the same.

But this isn’t how films work, is it? Two professional film critics don’t necessarily agree, let alone two ordinary viewers. If films were really able to be categorized as “objectively good” or “objectively bad,” then every review of a film would be the same (just as a test with one set of “correct answers” would be graded the same by different people.) The fact that film critical or fan scores are NOT all either 0% or 100% shows that this isn’t the case (here I’m referring only to the polls of “Like/Dislike,” not the sort of numbered scores we see on Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer and elsewhere. For those scores see below- if films were objectively good or bad then all those scores would be the same.)

The fact that two people can watch the same film and have entirely different opinions about whether it is “good” or “bad” is proof that “objectively” doesn’t work. Whereas if someone had a test with 10 true/false questions, and 2 answers were incorrect, everyone who graded (judged/reviewed/etc) the test would come up with the same score, 8/10. If a person grading the test came back with a score of 7/10, someone else could point to the test and show exactly where the grader got it wrong. This doesn’t happen with opinions about films because every single person puts a different value on all the different aspects that make up a film. Could anyone really argue that all people watching films are judging them in the same way? Or that all people watching a movie put the same value on story, or visual effects, or acting? If this was all objective we’d have definitive ways of judging a movie, like: “20% of the overall score is for acting, 30% is story/plot, 10% is visual effects...” As far as I am aware there is no such “grading rubric” that exists across all film reviews.

A film can’t be judged as *objectively* “good” or “bad” any more than any other piece of art can. Various aspects of subjective things can make it so that more people tend to like something or not, but even then it’s all still dependent on the opinions and personal interests of the person viewing it.

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Where have I heard this before...?

Oh. Oh, that's where.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

mcoractual said:

Where have I heard this before...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6I4zZNk76M

Oh. Oh, that's where.

View attachment 838940

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I must say, at about the 10 minute mark of this video I looked at the clock and thought, “what exactly does this have to do with anything?”

At the 11 minute mark the guy does discuss what I have been talking about, but then says it’s nonsense because his criticisms (his opinions) are not “subjective experiences,” as he calls them. He says this is because of something about “setting a standard” and “comparing things to that standard.” But he never explains things beyond this vague notion, and never explains why his opinions aren’t still just opinions, even if he says they aren’t.

”You CAN say that one film is worse than another, is less effective than another, it’s more poorly made... there’s lots of things you could say are good or bad and are not subjective!” he says, while not explaining these vague ideas any further beyond saying something again about “trying to compare against a standard,” whatever that means. Maybe this dude has the “grading rubric” I was mentioning? :lol

Then he admits that yes, everyone’s personal experiences color their opinions.

Then, he comes up with the idea that criticism (not further explained) is somehow more objective than an opinion, and says that criticisms “move out of the territory of pure subjectivism and into a realm where you are making good comparisons.” No explanation as to why comparisons automatically make a subjective opinion more objective...

He then admits that “it’s not as objective as measuring the temperature,” or in other words, it’s not objective. He says it’s some sort of partially objective, partially subjective hybrid. (At this point he still hasn’t explained why an opinion with justifications is not still an opinion.)

In the end, YouTube guy seems to be confused about what an opinion is. Is an opinion with justifications (his “standards” or whatever) any more “factual” than an opinion with no stated reasoning? Or to use an example, if I say that Saturday is the best day of the week (my opinion) because I don’t have to go to work, I get to sleep in, and I don’t have to worry about going to work the next day (my justifications), do those justifications magically make my opinion more “factual,” or more “objective”?

No, they don’t. They certainly help to explain my own personal feelings about Saturday, but they don’t apply to anyone else necessarily.

As for what’s ironic about this video, I’m a bit at a loss, based on what I understand “irony” to mean.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Cephus said:

Unfortunately. But even if this hadn't been Star Wars, even if it was a completely different movie with all of the identifiable Star Wars ideas removed, it still would have been an objectively terrible movie.

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Indeed. The SW branding does not entitle anything to a free pass.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Jagjaguwar I get what youre saying, but I dont exactly agree. Take cinemtography for example. What movie uses it better, the Dark Knight, or The Blair Witch Project? Which one could you say is objectively of better quality, skill, pleasing to watch, framing of shots etc?

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Snikt said:

@Jagjaguwar I get what youre saying, but I dont exactly agree. Take cinemtography for example. What movie uses it better, the Dark Knight, or The Blair Witch Project? Which one could you say is objectively of better quality, skill, pleasing to watch, framing of shots etc?

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That's actually an interesting debate cuz as far as quality... you're getting into technical or or visual...

I only bring this up cuz I'm actually RIGHT NOW working on a sequence that is using the shots from various parts of the Blair Witch because they are SO ICONIC for that "found footage" feel that they're INSTANTLY recognizable.

And I'm not saying this to sound argumentative (cuz this may be the point you're making)...but I'm trying to think of a shot in the Dark Knight that you could mimic that would be AS recognizable. is there?

And I LOOOOOOOVE everything about how Dark Knight was shot and edited.

Thoughts?

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Snikt said:

@Jagjaguwar I get what youre saying, but I dont exactly agree. Take cinemtography for example. What movie uses it better, the Dark Knight, or The Blair Witch Project? Which one could you say is objectively of better quality, skill, pleasing to watch, framing of shots etc?

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This is a good example- are both films trying to accomplish the same thing with the cinematography? I feel like they aren’t. In my view (opinion) both accomplish what they set out to do pretty well. Though I should mention that I have not seen Blair Witch in years. But from what I remember it did the “found homemade footage” aspect quite successfully.

Basically, is there a way that we can all agree to measure cinematography? Blair Witch certainly isn’t what I’d call a “pretty” or flashy film like Dark Knight is. It’s rough, it’s shaky, grainy, etc. But the argument could be made that that’s exactly what the filmmakers set out to create. Everyone might not agree on that, I suppose. For some, technical proficiency will always trump any sort of purposeful imperfections that might be done for aesthetic purposes.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

I think a better comparison would be Blair Witch against some other "shakycam"/found-footage movie -- say, Cloverfield. I would vote Blair Witch because it pretty perfectly captured the entire range of what was happening: Student filmmakers making a documentary, including BTS shot by them. Their documentary footage was on tripods and with stabilizing rigs, and were steady, professional-looking shots. The BTS footage wasn't as stable, but they tried to hold the cameras as still as possible, the way real people do. Cloverfield, on the other hand, had quite a few shots where the actor/cameraman was deliberately waving the camera around more than a real person would, even though there are other shots that are more accurate executions of "how people really use their phone cameras". I see a lot of filmmakers do this to convey "amateur" camera work, when actual "civilians" tend to do far better.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Inquisitor Peregrinus said:

I think a better comparison would be Blair Witch against some other "shakycam"/found-footage movie -- say, Cloverfield. I would vote Blair Witch because it pretty perfectly captured the entire range of what was happening: Student filmmakers making a documentary, including BTS shot by them. Their documentary footage was on tripods and with stabilizing rigs, and were steady, professional-looking shots. The BTS footage wasn't as stable, but they tried to hold the cameras as still as possible, the way real people do. Cloverfield, on the other hand, had quite a few shots where the actor/cameraman was deliberately waving the camera around more than a real person would, even though there are other shots that are more accurate executions of "how people really use their phone cameras". I see a lot of filmmakers do this to convey "amateur" camera work, when actual "civilians" tend to do far better.

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Of course, the problem with both films, in fact, the problem with ALL found footage films, is that nobody in their right mind would ever film like that. Anyone being chased by a monster isn't going to be filming it. That's really where found footage movies instantly lose me, because they make no sense and kick me out of the movie.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Cephus said:

Of course, the problem with both films, in fact, the problem with ALL found footage films, is that nobody in their right mind would ever film like that. Anyone being chased by a monster isn't going to be filming it. That's really where found footage movies instantly lose me, because they make no sense and kick me out of the movie.

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I know what you're saying, but Youtube is stock full of people filming throughout tsunamis, floods, fires etc. As crazy as it seems, some people can't put the camera down even during times of extreme peril.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

I'd say Blair Witch did it perfectly in that they weren't just picking up a camera to do a friends B-day party in Mahatten, they were there to SHOOT what's happening.

It's more like the camera guys on COPS.


NOW we're off topic.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

I would say that this discussion and all the others on the internet are proof that whether or not a film is good or bad is very subjective. Some say it's bad, some say it's good. Particularly when comes to things like pacing, tone, and cinematography. Since every person in the world is unique and has slightly different tastes in movies, two people can see the same film, and one could think it's bad, and other could think it's good.

As an example. Here's the reaction from me and a friend and two films.

Film 1-"Arrival"
My reaction: Whoa! One of the best films I've ever seen!
My friend's reaction: Meh to slow

Film 2- "A Quiet Place"
My reaction: Meh. Very predictable, and saw every single jump scare coming a mile off
My friend's reaction: Whoa! One of the best films I've seen!

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Joek3rr said:

I would say that this discussion and all the others on the internet are proof that whether or not a film is good or bad is very subjective. Some say it's bad, some say it's good. Particularly when comes to things like pacing, tone, and cinematography. Since every person in the world is unique and has slightly different tastes in movies, two people can see the same film, and one could think it's bad, and other could think it's good.

As an example. Here's the reaction from me and a friend and two films.

Film 1-"Arrival"
My reaction: Whoa! One of the best films I've ever seen!
My friend's reaction: Meh to slow

Film 2- "A Quiet Place"
My reaction: Meh. Very predictable, and saw every single jump scare coming a mile off
My friend's reaction: Whoa! One of the best films I've seen!

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This is the smartest thing you've said in 7 months.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Is there any indication this is actually happening, or is this still just a general purpose gripe session about the state of Disney/Lucasfilm/Star Wars?

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Well we gotta fill it with something until the big day arrives. Disney`s putting more time in to this script than Johnson did with his first and only draft.

Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?

Mr Webber said:

Well we gotta fill it with something until the big day arrives. Disney`s putting more time in to this script than Johnson did with his first and only draft.

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"...Rian Johnson submitted his third draft of The Last Jedi's script on December 11, quickly followed on December 16 by the European premier of J.J. Abrams Star Wars: The Force Awakens..."