When Lucasfilm became a subsidiary of the Walt Disney company in 2012, its new president Kathleen Kennedy remained in charge of the company and its IP's (intellectual properties; namely Star Wars and Indiana Jones) in much the same way in which Kevin Feige has remained president of Marvel Studios. Taking over the reigns from the former president of Lucasfilm, Micheline Chau (whom had been the companies president for two decades) and its founder George Lucas, it is Kennedy's responsibility to produce more movies using said IP's, and ensure the quality, as best she can, of the movies produced. The disappointment that most fans feel toward the prequel trilogy has helped Kennedy and her team of directors, crew members and cast to steer the sequel trilogy back toward the narrative style of the original trilogy; the preferred trilogy, a point Kennedy was eager to reiterate in a recent interview with Costco Connection via StarWars7News...
“There are people in this company who are like walking encyclopedias. So I immersed myself initially by sitting down with many of them to just talk about what it was we were going to begin to do. And I had George at my beck and call for almost six months. And he did say to me, ‘You know, so much is in my head.’ So I spent as much time as I could just picking his brain and asking him questions and really just trying to understand fundamentally what the values were that George personally brought to Star Wars.”
“The first thing I thought about when I stepped into Lucasfilm was there was such a variety of content being created. Whether it was a movie or a game, electronic publishing or theme parks. And because everything circles the universe of Star Wars it felt to me like the most important thing was to create some kind of institutional knowledge inside the company that would allow for a very organic exchange of ideas and an understanding of what everybody else was doing and how it might connect.”
“What George was trying to explore in his storytelling, [everyone involved, from the Lucasfilm staff to the individual artists is] equally interested in exploring. And then they bring their own personal point of view to it and their own personal passion. Because if you don’t have that, then the decisions you’re making along the way aren’t authentic. So that’s why it lasted, and I hope that that’s why it will continue to last, because that’s the important piece that we are trying to carry on: the legacy that George created.”
"Two types of Star Wars projects are being planned, which Kennedy has labeled “Saga” and “Anthology. The Saga films focus on the Skywalker family saga. The stories follow a linear narrative that connects to the previous six films. The Force Awakens follows Return of the Jedi and continues that generational story. The Anthology films offer opportunities to explore fresh characters, new storylines and a variety of genres inside the Star Wars universe.”
