'A New Hope' editor thinks Disney's 'Star Wars' sequel trilogy 'sucks'
- Marcia Lucas won an Academy Award for editing "A New Hope" in 1977.
- Lucas has criticized Disney's sequel trilogy of "Star Wars" movies, calling them "awful."
- Lucas also hit out at Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and director JJ Abrams.
A key member of the original "Star Wars" team has hit out at Disney's sequel trilogy and its makers Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams.
Marcia Lucas, who was married to "Star Wars" creator George Lucas from 1969 to 1983, edited both "A New Hope" and "Return of the Jedi," although she also did uncredited work on "The Empire Strikes Back." She won an Academy Award for best editing for "A New Hope."
Now, in an interview with film historian JW Rinzler in his new, posthumous book about "Star Wars" producer Howard Kazanjian, Lucas has criticized the sequel trilogy of "Star Wars" movies, which were produced by Lucasfilm president Kennedy.
Lucas said that she "always liked" Kennedy and thought she was always "really smart and really bright," as reported by The Independent. However, Lucas is not a fan of Kennedy's vision of "Star Wars," and feels the same way about JJ Abrams, too, who directed "The Force Awakens" and "The Rise of Skywalker."
"Now that she's running Lucasfilm and making movies, it seems to me that Kathy Kennedy and J.J. Abrams don't have a clue about 'Star Wars.' They don't get it," Lucas said. "And JJ Abrams is writing these stories - when I saw that movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious. I was furious when they killed Han Solo. Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. I thought, You don't get the Jedi story. You don't get the magic of 'Star Wars.'"
Lucas went on to bemoan the fact that they killed off Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia. Furthermore, Lucas isn't a fan of Daisy Ridley's Rey, who serves as the primary protagonist across the sequel trilogy.
"They're spitting out movies every year. And they think it's important to appeal to a woman's audience, so now their main character is this female, who's supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don't know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is," Lucas said.
However, this interview did take place before the release of "The Rise of Skywalker," so it's unclear how Lucas feels about the final installment of the Disney trilogy and, indeed, the entire Skywalker saga that began way back in 1977 with "A New Hope."
But, it's clear, Lucas is simply not a fan: "It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me... JJ Abrams, Kathy Kennedy - talk to me.'"
"The Force Awakens" earned decent reviews from both critics and audiences, and garnered a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The second movie, "The Last Jedi," which was directed by Rian Johnson and deviated greatly from what Abrams' set up in "The Force Awakens," was a much more polarizing movie, however.
"The Last Jedi" received a healthy critics score of 91%, but a miserable audience score of 42% on Rotten Tomatoes. The trilogy, and "Star Wars" in general, hit new lows with "The Rise of Skywalker," which only managed a critics score of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, although it did get an 86% audience score.