XPost: alt.fan.starwars

Wow! Completely f'up an entire franchise and get given a Queen's Honour
award ... makes you onder what JarJar Abrams will be getting for
f'ing-up multiple franchises!! :-(


From VanityFair.com ...


Galactic Ruler Kathleen Kennedy Receives Royal Honour
-----------------------------------------------------
From Raiders of the Lost Ark to the new Star Wars films,
the Lucasfilm president was recognized for contributions
to the British film business.

The Star Wars universe is now being led by an actual
commander.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy was made an honorary
Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British
Empire on Thursday night for her decades of work bringing
film projects to the United Kingdom.

The private ceremony was held at the home of British
diplomat Michael Howells, Her Majesty's Consul General in
Los Angeles, and attended by a small group of filmmaking
luminaries. "I appreciate there's a little bit of
competition in the garden tonight, so forgive me, but this
is my opinion: Kathleen Kennedy has produced, I think,
pretty much all of the most well-loved and impactful
films," Howells said in his introduction. "It's maybe a
measure of your genius, Kathy, that all of those films
they feel somehow as they were made just for me."

Among the guests were Star Wars composer John Williams,
The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens screenwriter
Lawrence Kasdan, and The Last Jedi writer-director Rian
Johnson. They were joined by director Deborah Chow, who is
working on the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series, The Mandalorian
directors Rick Famuyiwa and Bryce Dallas Howard, and
The Rise of Skywalker second unit director Victoria Mahoney,
producer Michelle Rejwan and screenwriter Chris Terrio.

Other attendees included Disney CEO Robert Iger, Disney
studio chief Alan Horn, and Marvel Studios president Kevin
Feige, who recently signed on to produce an upcoming Star
Wars film, and Tomi Adeyemi, author of the fantasy novel
Children of Blood and Bone, which Lucasfilm and Fox is
producing as a feature film.

Befitting someone who just made an alliance with the Empire,
Kennedy began her speech by asserting dominance.

"I want to make sure that I follow protocol here, but the
first thing I'm going to say is there's several of you out
there that have not been treating me with the proper
respect," she joked. "I mean, on occasion I would mention
that I was getting this, and there would be a lot of
laughing. So I just want it to be a little bit more somber."

It is not specifically a knighthood, but she does share the
CBE with a Jedi. "I never imagined that I would grow up to
become an Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order,
and to stand alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sir Alec Guinness,
who first received this honor around the time I was born,
I have officially exceeded my dreams," Kennedy said.

Howells said Queen Elizabeth II selected Kennedy for
recognition for the impact her films have had both
culturally and economically in their country. "I've lost
track of the number of projects that you've brought to the
U.K., but it is a source of great pride to me and millions
like me," the Consul General said. "Not the least of which,
Pinewood [Studios] and Star Wars will be forever
synonymous."

That's where all the current Star Wars films have been shot,
but Kennedy's filmography is full of other titles that were
created in the U.K., among them Young Sherlock Holmes (1985),
Empire of the Sun (1987), and War Horse (2011) among others.
"Having lived and worked in London for almost 40 years,
I have friends and relationships that are just as important
to me as my family and relationships at home," she said.
"I've now worked with generations of filmmakers and crews,
many whose children and grandchildren now work on Star Wars
today. I share this honor with all of them."

Her first film in England was also one of her first movies
ever - working as an assistant to Steven Spielberg on Raiders
of the Lost Ark, where she met her future husband, producer
Frank Marshall.

Kennedy closed her remarks by invoking the phrase "the
special relationship," made famous by Winston Churchill as a
way to describe the United Kingdom's cultural and political
alliance with the United States.

"If that special relationship were to be defined by
storytelling, and not military or economic money, then maybe
we could just make sense of the world today," Kennedy said.
"Story, at the most basic level, is a fiction designed to
unify people."


<https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/10/kathleen-kennedy-star-wars-royal-honor-cbe>

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