There's no way Iger is stupid enough to let #releasethelucascut become a thing. I am suspicious that there are three competing cuts of the film, that Iger even has the time to cut his own (he's the fucking CEO of Disney, not a Lucasfilm producer), and that Kennedy would agree to put her credibility to a fan vote by attaching her name to an individual "cut" of arguably the most important film of her career.

Has the film been screened to insiders and friendlies? Probably. Do I think Lucas helped guide the story before, during and after production? Sure. But despite the fallout from Solo and TLJ, do I think Disney would run a "bake off" between three extremely powerful egos and risk catastrophic backlash? No I don't.

Filoni is definitely the creative future of Star Wars. I’m not sure he has the experience to run Lucasfilm, but IMHO, he’s the single person that both carries Lucas’ DNA, whilst being progressive enough to explore the medium of Star Wars (artistically/creatively) for the future.

The mistake with Kennedy, in my opinion, was the belief she could have some creative control. She’s a truly talented producer, but she isn’t a filmmaker. This is why both Abrams and Johnson were allowed as much room as they had, and I think that’s been a hugely detrimental thing for the sequels... to the point where Lucasfilm don’t even know what to do with a new film.

Of all the endless possibilities that the Star Wars galaxy allows... several years after Disney’s acquisition, we have a rather mixed sequel trilogy (and I’m being kind), a Han Solo origin film and a film about stealing the Death Star plans.

I’m shocked that the most miserable fan base on Earth would create vicious rumours about a movie screening, including making inferences about individual responses, especially famous people who they don’t and will never know.

I agree with JJ here. He is doing the best he possibly can I have no doubt.

However, there are people that live to hate. There are literally those who just want to watch the world burn. They will hate because they can. They aren't even SW fans even though they try to pass them self off as such. Fake news the lot of them.

Apparently hating on SW on Youtube bumps your channel up the rankings. Who knew..?

I feel Disney, and Abrams, actually went out of their way to stoke ‘fandom menace’. They used it. They consciously talked down Lucas and the prequels to build their own little take on Star Wars, and it’s rightly kinda backfired. Pretty much everything Abrams says or writes comes across as very disingenuous to me.

I do agree that the creative team, and Kathy in particular, have really used the "it's all practical" mantra specifically in an attempt to win back the prequel-bashing fandom. It was definitely overkill how much they'd talk about it, and it was disingenuous to suggest this was a production that would be made as if it were produced in the 80s. The BTS video in particular was eye-rolly in that regard. However, I do recall JJ repeatedly talking about how many thousands of VFX shots there are in TFA and how incredible ILM's work on the picture was. His commentary was basically "yes, we are using sets, locations and practical FX, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking this isn't a show largely run in a computer."

But can you really blame Disney for taking that PR line back in 2014-15? From a business perspective, saying "this isn't going to be like the PT" was a perfectly reasonable position to take. Outside the fandom, Star Wars didn't exactly leave the cinema landscape on the best possible terms (especially if you take the horrible CW movie into account) and the brand needed to reassert itself using nostalgia. LFL pushed the angle that this would be just like the OT because they needed the dialogue around Star Wars to become respectable again...and it worked. Put yourself back into pre-TLJ 2017: Star Wars just had back to back critical, fan and box office hits and it was never cooler to be a fan.

All of that said, I probably would have trusted the public a little more and leaned into the original cast coming back, continuing a story from thirty years ago and not really using the PT as the anti-Star Wars, but I'm already a day one ticket holder. Whatever.

All of that aside, and irrespective of how well-made the Disney-era films are (I'd argue they all generally are despite Solo having absolutely nothing to say or add), royalguard96 is right: this entire ST venture will all be creatively shallow if it doesn't provide a strong reason for why the Skywalker story had to continue post-ROTJ. I haven't read the reports and so I'm still hopeful that it will. I do think TLJ made JJ's task way, way harder than it needed to be because of how little Rian Johnson seemed to care about answering that question. I want JJ to stick the landing and I'll be rooting for him when the fanfare blasts this Thursday.