Five
days a week, in the foggy hills of San Francisco, 11 writers and
artists discuss the minutiae of storm troopers. This is the Lucasfilm
story group, and its members hold the keys to everything “Star Wars”:
Under their guidance, the franchise’s narratives are linked no matter
the platform, whether it’s television, games, theme parks, publishing,
merchandise or, of course, film. With their ideas shaping each character
and setting, they don’t see themselves as gatekeepers but as partners
furthering the stories their creators want to tell.Kathleen
Kennedy founded the group in 2012 when she succeeded George Lucas as
president of Lucasfilm, putting Kiri Hart, a former film and TV writer,
in charge of the unit. Ms. Hart’s first move was to make the story group
entirely female, starting with Rayne Roberts and Carrie Beck. Both
women had experience in film development but had also worked in other
arenas — Ms. Roberts in magazine publishing, and Ms. Beck with the
Sundance Institute.Their
other qualification: a shared love of “Star Wars.” Ms. Hart, now senior
vice president of development at Lucasfilm, grew up in Los Angeles a
passionate fan of the first “Star Wars” film and especially Princess
Leia. “She was doing a bunch of things that women in movies didn’t
usually do,” Ms. Hart said.In
Los Angeles, before they made the move to the Bay Area, the three women
sat around a fire pit in Ms. Hart’s backyard, along with John Swartz, a
producer at Lucasfilm, and talked about their hopes for the future of
“Star Wars.” They wanted to tell beautiful stories, fulfill the
expectations of loyal fans and create meaningful female characters.“As
a writer I was very hungry to create female characters who felt real,
and I was interested in telling stories from an outsider’s perspective,”
Ms. Hart said, recalling Hollywood in the early 2000s. “There wasn’t a
lot of receptivity to the things I really wanted to write about at the
time. I think there is increasing openness to those things now, which
makes me really hopeful.”Today,
the Lucasfilm story group is a diverse outlier in Hollywood: five of
its members are people of color, and the team includes four women and
seven men. This is a rarity in 2017, where women account for 13 percent, and minorities represent 5 percent,
of all writers working on the top-grossing films. In addition to
maintaining the continuity of the “Star Wars” universe, they aim to
increase its diversity. This goal has sometimes led to struggles over
their female characters.Early on, the story group fought for the character Ahsoka Tano,
a 14-year-old girl created by George Lucas and further developed by the
director, producer and writer Dave Filoni. Not initially popular, she
had a high, whiny voice and all the self-control of a bratty teenager
when she was introduced in 2008 in the animated film and subsequent
series “The Clone Wars.” In his review, Roger Ebert called her “annoying,” and angry letters and emails flooded in from fans.Yet
Mr. Filoni and the story group were insistent that there was more to
Ahsoka Tano. Even after the series was canceled in 2013, the team would
not let her die. Instead they included her in a new animated series,
“Star Wars Rebels,” taking her on a journey from adolescent to
compassionate 30-year-old adult, one whose nuanced arc reveals flaws in
the Jedi order and insight into Anakin Skywalker’s descent. She now has a
considerable fan following, including many young women who treasure
their “Ahsoka Lives” T-shirts.
The Women Who Run the ‘Star Wars’ Universe
Published
Mooncustafer 