{"id":420465,"date":"2026-01-18T04:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T04:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/420465\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T04:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T04:07:08","slug":"rian-johnson-addresses-kathleen-kennedys-bizarre-comments-about-his-star-wars-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/420465\/","title":{"rendered":"Rian Johnson Addresses Kathleen Kennedy’s Bizarre Comments About His Star Wars Trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a long-awaited transition, for better or worse, Kathleen Kennedy is handing over the keys to the Star Wars<\/a> kingdom to super-fan-turned-creative Dave Filoni<\/a> as Chief Creative Officer and Lynwen Brennan, who will be taking over the business side of things. But that transition didn\u2019t come to fruition before she made a few strange comments about Rian Johnson and his potential Star Wars trilogy, as well as his reaction to the firestorm that The Last Jedi caused on the internet.<\/p>\n

Sitting down with Deadline to speak about her departure<\/a>, Kennedy was asked about a potential return to the Star Wars universe for Rian Johnson. She said, \u201cOnce he made the Netflix deal and went off to start doing the Knives Out films, that has occupied a huge amount of his time. That\u2019s the other thing that happens here. After Shawn and I started talking about Star Wars, Stranger Things kicks in, and he was completely consumed for a while by that. That\u2019s what happened with Rian.\u201d She added, \u201cAnd then I do believe he got spooked by the online negativity. I think Rian made one of the best Star Wars movies. He\u2019s a brilliant filmmaker, and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actor say to me, \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen?\u201d They\u2019re a little scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was Rian Johnson Spooked by Online Reactions?<\/p>\n

In short, no. He responded to the quote on X<\/a>, saying simply, \u201clol zero spooked, sorry.\u201d It\u2019s no secret that Johnson\u2019s The Last Jedi was a controversial film, with certain fans frothing with hate over it, and other fans thinking it was the one film that had the same heart and gumption as the original trilogy. The comments under Johnson\u2019s tweet were, predictably, a cesspool of fans arguing over who, exactly, murdered the Star Wars IP, with one fan chiming in<\/a>, \u201cDon\u2019t let the losers crybaby fanboys bother you, king. You the best director to ever touch a Star Wars movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also no secret that Johnson was deliberate in his choice to \u201cshake the box\u201d with his Star Wars film. Speaking to Polygon last month<\/a>, he said about The Last Jedi, \u201cI was hoping for that \u2014 I wasn\u2019t afraid of it per se. Having grown up a Star Wars fan, I know that thing where something challenges it, and I know the recoil against that. I know how there can be infighting in the world of Star Wars. But I also know that the worst sin is to handle it with kid gloves.\u201d He continued, \u201cThe worst sin is to be afraid of doing anything that shakes it up. Because every Star Wars movie going back to Empire and onward shook the box and rattled fans, and got them angry, and got them fighting, and got them talking about it. And then for a lot of them, got them loving it and coming around on it eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on Kathleen Kennedy\u2019s comments about Rian Johnson? Let us know in the comments, and then check out the ComicBook forum<\/a> to see what other fans have to say.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a long-awaited transition, for better or worse, Kathleen Kennedy is handing over the keys to the Star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344,22577,172498,31331],"class_list":{"0":"post-420465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-regular-news","13":"tag-rian-johnson","14":"tag-star-wars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}