Have we slipped into an alternate universe? Another dimension? Surely we've entered the Twilight Zone! Or rather, "The Kennedy Zone!" Forget about merit, ability, experience, canon, or history...so long as you are a wopoc, you need not even be a fan of a franchise or story. How dare "they" take a once sacred, beloved story/franchise/myth and pervert it so? How dare "they" get people who are not NARRATIVE film makers or writers nor even fans of the story. Have 'they" even seen it? I have nothing against Sharmeen doing what she's apparently good (great?) at doing...documentary film-making. She got an Academy award or two for it. (I, nor most of the world, have never seen those docs.) Why would a studio head ever "point" that at a 300 million $$$ budget visual effects laden narrative motion picture? It makes zero sense...at least in the original (or my) space-time-dimension/zone. I would never have a podiatrist perform cardio-vascular surgery. I wouldn't have a plumber do it either, as talented as that person might be. What am I missing here? Oh, in this "zone" it's all about identity and nothing more. 'funny how the identity of Star Wars has suffered the consequences. What happened to the most magical mythical story of modern times? It changed my life...not in some obscure or abstract way. After I saw Star Wars in the summer of 1977 on a huge screen in a single movie theater, I ran out and bought a Fuji, Single-8 movie camera. (You few insiders will know what that is and how great it was!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-8 Unlike 8mm or Super8mm cameras, the film-maker could rewind the Single-8 film...to do Visual effects!! I made space-ship models and nearly burned down our house, twice, filming fire and explosions. I studied computer graphics at Purdue (with at least one famous PIXAR peep) and robotics for motion control. I headed to Hollywood and within a few months I was doing visual effects for every network and many TV shows at the time. (Dinosaurs, Outer Limits, X-Files, Buffy, etc.) It was a dream come true. I was a diehard Disney and Star Wars fan (and I've worked for Disney in many graphics and visual effects capacities), but, when I heard Disney acquired LucasFilm/Star Wars, "I had a bad feeling about this!" I was standing in line at Disney's California Adventure (The Cars Ride) at the time with my 5 year old son. 'call it a premonition, or just a hunch that two great things don't necessarily always work great together like chocolate and peanut butter. And I never really took a liking to any of JJ Abrams earlier stuff. When Episode 7 finally arrived, It was, as I expected, DOA, but I had to mumble that in quiet whispers because "everyone else" seemed to think it was great. But by the time Rian ruined Episode 8, I had many more allies, and "the jig was up!" Although I was comforted that I now had company in my disdain for the sequels, I was crestfallen by the horribly disfigured story that "I grew up on"... they epic, hero's journey that changed my world. Now, it's so relentless in its rush to the bottom of story making and rush to the top of wokeness and D.E.I., I feel like I'm in some weird, bizarro, perverted dimension. Why are "these" film-makers "getting to" direct and shape Star Wars? I now entertain myself (and hopefully others) using my VFX/GRFX skills in film-making satires that poke fun at the "using woke as a weapon" warriors. It's both fun and sad. Lemonade from lemons? I'd rather be enjoying epic, mythical stories that alter my life in truly evolutionary, "progressive" connecting ways. Who decided "we" needed to insert activist messages into films? True film and stories and movies and theater in the hands (minds and hearts) of experienced, talented writers/speakers/performers have ALWAYS moved the world "towards the light," even if they were dark/horror films. Solid story is something civilization stands on and builds up from. Now, it's all remakes, reworks of great works, or "tear downs." It's not civilized at all. It's maddening that it lurks and grows in the shadows of victim hood rather than the light of triumph.
