SPECULATION Kiri Hart

Her position (IMO) with Rideback sounds like a passion project.
Hart, herself a minority woman, is now in a position to help other minorities get more and better opportunities to succeed.

Sounds like she is chasing an opportunity to make a difference in a way she wasn't getting entirely at LFL.

 

I don't know what this means for Star Wars supplementary material going forth, because I have no idea as to what Hart's position in the Story Group entailed, specifically regarding things like deciding the priority of stories to be told in the new canon, and what limitations and/or quotas to enforce in regards to major story arcs or genre variety, the two aspects where (in my opinion) the Nu-Canon suffers the most.

I'm extremely skeptical that a lot of the decisions that have made the supplementary material what it is today can be solely attributed to Hart's effort, and think that those decisions are from other people up top in the LucasFilm hierarchy. Therefore, I have no reason to believe that her now-lessened role will lead to any major changes in how the current novels and comics are greenlit/released.

Good news for some, certainly. Less than good news for people like me. Regardless, I hope Ms. Hart finds success in her new endeavors, and whoever replaces her is up to the task.

 

I can't fathom how a person being "fired" (if that's really what happened to Kiri Hart) could be "good news" to anyone, Star Wars fans or not... Or perhaps I'm simply not attuned to this "dog eat dog" wet dream of a world view many have... That could be it.

Anyhow, As a fan, I wholeheartedly thank this lady for her good work and her contribution to SW and, as a person, I hope that she left the story group in her own terms and that whatever she's doing now brings her joy... Because, as we all know or should know, not everything is about money.

 

I don't appreciate this remark because I don't hate anyone nor have I ever said anything even remotely derogatory towards her as a person or spoken negatively in any way about her character.

I think the story group has done a very bad job over the past several years. I have been advocating for an overhaul for quite some time now. Let the record show that I am hardly alone in this opinion. So yes, I am happy that she was fired. I have no doubt that she is very comfortable financially so this is hardly a matter of throwing her on the street homeless. If it makes you sleep better at night to believe that she willingly left a job as Senior Vice President working for a wholly owned subsidiary of the biggest, most prestigious Movie Production Studio on the planet to take a role as part time Creative Advisor for some start up helping writers break into TV then hey, whatever.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 8, 2019, Original Post Date: Feb 8, 2019 ---

You're right. They don't. That's why it is obvious that calling her a consultant is a just a way to avoid the bad publicity of having actually fired her.

At first you tried to convince us this was all nothing more than just a broken link, so perhaps you should not be accusing others of speaking of things which they "know nothing about."

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 8, 2019 ---

I realize we are of different opinions on the matter but it should be easy to understand why a fan of a franchise who hates the direction that franchise has gone over the past 2 years would approve of the firing of one of the lead creative talents that took it in that wrong direction. (Again, keeping in mind that she is not exactly going to be out on the streets begging for her next meal or anything like that; financial security is not going to be an issue)

 

Being fired is an injury to your self-esteem and a stain in your pride and public persona. I would not wish it on anyone. My take is that whoever is glad for somebody being fired is not taking this damage into consideration. Firings happen and do need to happen, but they are not a reason for joy.

As for Kiri's economic status I repeat what I said before: not everything is about money.

 

Sounds a lot like me. I was an IT executive and had chance to continue in the consulting industry, but would keep me away from my family and passions. Hey I loved developing software, financially secure so I said screw it. I became an Independent Consultant, still paid well, but control my own schedule. Take only work that keeps me at home or close to home. Sure I gave up some compensation, title(s), but I dont care about that. I like being home spending time with my boys, my dogs, and living life and travel to see the world rather than for work.

 

Well I am the only one in here that thinks she was fired so let us hope I am wrong and that she left of her own free will. That way I can be happy she's gone because I believe it is for the betterment of the franchise and no one will need to worry about the injury to her self esteem and public persona.

 

I dunno, I was pretty happy when Chuck Wendig was booted out of the creative circles of the Star Wars canon.

The man could barely write a comprehensive grocery list, let alone a Star Wars novel.

 

Well, I think I made my feelings about this pretty clear. What I said above applies.

 

Personally the problem I had with Hart was a. her lack of experience and b. her apparent lack of knowledge of Star Wars. While I think Hidalgo is a jerk, at least he knows Star Wars. Unfortunately she appears to have been replaced by someone with an equally threadbare resume.

The thing with Hart is this: I seem to remember an article somewhere saying she was KK's right hand and could be the one to follow her as head of LFL. Now, personally, I can't and couldn't see Disney replacing KK with someone as inexperienced as Hart. BUT, if she really was very close with KK, then why leave? The whole "consultant" thing means nothing. Plenty of people "fail up" and plenty of companies cover the firing of someone by giving them a title like "consultant" or what not. Will we ever REALLY know what happened? Probably not. But we definitely know this was not a simple case of "broken link."

 

You refuse to accept the obvious reality that Hart was fired, so there's really no sense in explaining to you how it is something to celebrate.

 

He also had a rather bad temper, and his Twitter tirades were nothing short of cringe worthy. I know every author is very much attached to their work, and that receiving criticism (constructive or otherwise) can be a very difficult thing for some, but Wendig's rants were incredibly unprofessional and he should've known better.

Dial it back. You're welcome to your opinions on the matter, but regardless of that this is a person, not Satan. First and only warning.

 

My issue was never his political tirades, honestly---I couldn't care less about a content creator's politics, even if they're aggressive about them. My problem is that while authors should only be subject to constructive criticism, and that receiving less constructive kind is certainly never justified (even if one's obligated to be a little more wary of such when entering the Thunderdome that is the Internet), Wendig's problem was not only being a poor writer, his need to defend his bad decisions in the most cringe-inducing ways possible.

When people spotted obvious and blatantly-incompetent continuity errors in his work, the kind of colossal contradictions that people level the Expanded Universe for making, his shield of defense was literally that "nothing is canon, and everything's up for interpretation."

Let me be clear: Wendig is not the first Star Wars author to make contradictions or mistakes that violate not just the canon, but their own previous work, but they all had a shred of professionalism to admit they made a mistake. They know the immense opportunity they've been given to work on this franchise, and they own up to when they make mistakes.

But instead, Wendig planted his feet in the ground and doubled down on the mistake he made, making everything worse. It's the equivalent of the fanfic author who shrieks and croons about people "not being smart or deep enough to appreciate my work."

 

This was always my biggest problem with Wendig. After the mixed reception of the first Aftermath book he could've easily been receptive of even the most polite of critical feedback, but instead was quick to dismiss pretty much all of it.

Again, I can understand the multitude of emotions that come with people being critical over things that he spent years of his life writing, but his knee jerk reactions and need to feel as if he had to defend *every decision* he made, good or bad, was his great fault, that he ultimately paid for.

 

Not sure how this has anything to do with what I said. Hart was what, a senior VP and now she's gone to a start up? I guess some see that as some sort of promotion, but that is not a promotion. She was, at the very least, a very highly placed person, if not KK's right hand woman, certainly someone who had KK's ear. Now she's gone to a start up. That is what I was saying.

Wendig really was the wrong guy for that project. Actually, the wrong guy for any project when it comes to Star Wars. Heck, I'd have hired James Luceno myself. His work on books in Star Wars has been excellent, and he knows the GFFA. Actually, if I were KK (trying to bring this back to Hart and the topic at hand) I would have made Dave Filoni and James Luceno prominent members of the story group, if possible.

 

I never knew of Kari Hart until I heard her mentioned on here a week or so ago about her page not coming up. I don't follow LFL ins and outs all that closely, never did.

Since then I've looked into things a bit and here's my take.

For many (some?) don't like TLJ and/or the ST, her "firing" is good because you take it as a possible change in direction, that's taken as a perceived victory, Disney is finally listening to the backlash. So framing it as a firing, which it very well might be, can only mean "better" SW in the future (for those who dislike the ST). It's not an attack on the person, but on the product, and it is seen that she was at least partially responsible for the product that you didn't like. Her reportedly being close to KK could additionally be interpreted that KK (and by extension the elements they don't like) has lost some favor and clout within SW. Admittedly it's all conspiracy theory stuff, but it tracks enough (like most conspiracy theories) that it's certainly possible. The phrasing of things could surely be PR spin, like I said, it tracks as possible.

If you do like TLJ, then Kari leaving doesn't matter because she's only one person on a team that created the content you love. You take the studio at its word and don't believe there's anything said between the lines. Fair enough. There's an equally valid explanation of her moving to a job that she is passionate about and is apparently on good terms with LFL. All is good. There are plenty of other explanations beyond landing a passion job as has been stated for her accepting a lower profile, less demanding, less in the spotlight job, family ect....

My take is this.

I personally don't like the ST and TLJ (substandard imo for SW and most sci-fi I would get passionate about. If it was an independent sci-fi, I would find it "interesting", but wouldn't become a hard core fan of this product), and there are still many elements in place that can keep producing elements I don't like. I don't know how much Kari had to do with the elements I didn't like, so that doesn't matter either. From the complaints I've been able to gather about Kari, most of what is complained about hasn't been high on my complaints about the ST. From what I've been able to gather, complaints about her is her push for diversity, and that's believe to be her biggest contribution to the ST. I have no issue with diversity, I have issue more on how they push it off screen, make it sound like it's groundbreaking. I don't think Kari had anything to do with this element of diversity, ergo, no issue with Kari.

The only positive I can see in her leaving, is that in future endeavors, if she had negative influence on the story it will be gone. However I don't know that she had a major impact on the story in ways I didn't like. So I'm basically neutral. I tend to not give credence to conspiracy theories, don't know enough about her contributions to devalue her work, I have no reason to believe she has had a major impact, positive or negative one way or the other. Put it this way, if she was that influential, Disney would have found a way to retain her services.

As for taking pleasure or sorrow in people's firing, I never much care in Hollywood. It's so far removed and impersonal that I don't care. From my casual observations over the years, talented people seem to fall on their feet easily enough. Rare does someone go from riches to rags. When it does, it usually has more to do with arrogance or bad habits (drugs, alcohol, unacceptable views like sexism, racism ect..) more than anything else. I don't feel bad for people who make bad decisions for themselves. They were free to make their bad decisions and are not immune to the consequences of those decisions. I don't see anything in Kari that would exclude her form work in this current climate (I guess some could argue sexism/racism vs males and Caucasian, but I won't pretend to know her enough to make that argument, and individually as well combined, those views seem to be acceptable these days) thus there's no reason for me to assume her future seems in peril in the field.

So to me when someone tries to chastise others for reveling in the suffering of others when it comes to losing a job in this industry, I can't help but feel like it's something akin to virtue signaling. Unless you know this person on a personal level, there is no reason to assume undue suffering. Even if she did get fired for her views, which I doubt (even along this tangent that she got fired, best I can be assumed is a change in direction), there is no reason I could see her not finding gainful employment in her field of expertise, which is specified that she has. If intelligent, she knew this ride wasn't going to last forever and she put some money away for this eventuality. If not, again, her fault, she's probably still getting a more than reasonable salary and may have to downgrade only slightly in her lifestyle, and she may have learned something. Beyond that, people who work in this field should probably assume changes in work often enough once products change. I have to assume she chose this field of work accepting that reality. If others take pleasure over some perceived event, how does that matter? Let them have their moment in the sun, or discuss the merits of their belief, but why go the route of virtue signaling? I don't cry every time a pro athlete gets demoted, why cry about this? It's ridiculous.