Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?
That's the point of "forced diversity." Gain attention and recognition for race or gender or whatever, love it when it vaults you into the spotlight in a positive way, then play whatever card you used to get that attention for any --no matter how valid-- criticism comes your way.
Diversist - "We need diversity to help create a dialog. To break down walls and get the mesage out that close-minded, intolerant people exist."
Someone *not* consdiered diverse -- "I just wanted a good story. That character, regardless of their superficial difference, really dropped the ball on..."
Diversist - "Hater! Silence them."
The real problem is a lot of people hide behind the "I just want a story" defense when really, they are just mad over seeing a thing that gets their knickers in a twist.
Example-- the latest E3 video for Last of Us 2. In it, the lead female character kisses another woman. Some people are losing their minds over it, using this same excuse. Here's what they didn't do: talk about being lesbians, politicize it, and/or make a statement against somebody's beliefs with it.
Just two people kissing.
The EXACT same scene with a hetero couple kissing would have sparked ZERO upset. This is the point of diversity in entertainment. It's not about making political statements, it's about changing what is considered "normal." We have a long way to go as a society when any movie, video game, TV show, or whatever that doesn't feature a straight white dude as its lead will always get some sort of criticism.
A gay couple kissing is considered an agenda or politicized by so many just because it isn't the norm. If a gay couple kissing, sans any sort of rhetoric, in your favorite story gets somebody worked up, sorry, but the problem is them.
I think I'm piecing together the what went on. We know that George gave them story treatments for episodes 7-9. We know that George said that Disney had decided not to use them and do their own thing. Bear in mind he said this before TFA had been released, and is simply saying what he was told. We also know that team making TFA said that they did want Luke to show up until the end because they were afraid and rightly so, that Luke would steal the show. And we have evidence that suggests that Luke's state of mind and where he was hiding was something established by George. So I think what happened was, George's story treatments for TFA are discarded due them not wanting Luke in the picture yet. And what was provided for 7 becomes the outline for 8? This fits with both sides of the story.
The art happened on both sides of the deal. I had a friend who was asked to do art very early on. She could say nothing about it, save for that it was an illustration of a middle aged Mara Jade. Everyone in my friend circle was fighting over it-- NO WAY THEY'D GO THE EU ROUTE! THEN WHY IS SHE DRAWING IT!?
Later, after it was said and done, she said she was more or less just commissioned by Lucasfilm to do a few bits of sample art with the direction "Star Wars, 30 years after ROTJ, no canon limitations." They enlisted a bunch of artists. They never said to her what the plan was at that stage, I suspect it was just idea iteration.
While I bag on Lucas with his Midichlorian vs Whills innerspace battle, I'm sure that was only part of it. I'm sure some piece of his ideas were still grounded in the known SW universe. Seriously, look at interviews with him talking about the PT, he always changes his story cause he has 300 ideas.
Anyway, this process was going for a good time before JJ or the sale was announced. After it was, that process continued, but it started to be honed down from freelance illustrators to known production artists who would eventually form the art department. They had free reign and pitched ideas until Arndt started to share details from his draft, then they switched to refining things.
So I'm sure Lucas threw them ideas in the early days. The idea that Luke being a cranky hermit was Lucas could mean a lot of things. It could be anywhere from him having a rough draft with Luke as we saw him in TLJ all through episode 7, or it could have been a simple "Hey, what would Luke look like if he'd gone the Yoda hermit path? Let's see a drawing of that."