FEMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Kathleen Kennedy leaves 'Star Wars'; is it too soon for fans to celebrate?
"Star Wars" fans may be celebrating a bit too early when it comes to Kathleen Kennedy's departure.
Kennedy headed Lucasfilm for 14 years, controlling iconic franchises like "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones."
'After destroying a beloved modern myth ... Kathleen Kennedy is finally stepping down.'
Fans rejoiced online as Disney announced Kennedy will be replaced by two executives: chief creative officer Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan, president and general manager. Filoni will be president at Lucasfilm, while Brennan will be co-president.
Director Filoni's pairing with Brennan was described by Variety as a move that suggests Disney wanted to pair a strong filmmaker with a person who has a solid sense of budgets.
However, despite what appears to be good news for "Star Wars" fans, Kennedy's tenure is not exactly coming to a screeching halt.
One to 'Grogu' on
Kennedy will still serve as a producer for two theatrical "Star Wars" films, the first being 2026's "The Mandalorian and Grogu."
This is the same wing of the franchise's universe that fired former MMA fighter and actress Gina Carano for speaking out against mask mandates.
Additionally, Kennedy will produce "Star Wars: Starfighter," which is set for a 2027 release.
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That didn't seem to bother detractors like Babylon Bee editor Joel Berry, who posted, "After destroying a beloved modern myth and replacing it with a 14-year, malice-filled tantrum against the patriarchy, Kathleen Kennedy is finally stepping down. Finally."
Cartoonist George Alexopoulos joked that Kennedy put the franchise "in a grave."
Others screamed from X's rooftops that "Star Wars" is now "free" and is "going to be amazing."
Put a chick in it
X owner Elon Musk even jumped into the mix by simply posting a clip from "South Park: Joining the Panderverse."
The 2023 episode was internationally recognized for hilariously mocking the downward spiral of Disney's intellectual properties at the hands of Kennedy. The episode showed Kennedy demanding the diversification of every character Disney had to offer, changing movies to ensure they had "lame," gay, and female characters, no matter how unsuccessful they were.
The cartoon popularized the phrase, "Put a chick in it! Make it lame and gay!" as a way to describe needless and forced diversity in media.
RELATED: Male 'Star Wars' fans attack women, Kathleen Kennedy says ahead of latest woke series 'The Acolyte'
Your worshipfulness
Disney CEO Bob Iger praised Kennedy in a statement on her way out, saying "We're deeply grateful for Kathleen Kennedy's leadership, her vision, and her stewardship of such an iconic studio and brand."
During her time at Lucasfilm, Kennedy has been criticized by fans not only for her film choices, but for comments that she made toward them.
In 2024, Kennedy accused fans who were unhappy with the show "The Acolyte" of attacking women online.
"I think a lot of the women who step into 'Star Wars' struggle with this a bit more. Because of the fan base being so male dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal."
While adding that she too has been a victim, Kennedy alluded to the fact that some of the fans were bigots.
"I stand by my empathy for 'Star Wars' fans. But I want to be clear. Anyone who engages in bigotry, racism or hate speech ... I don't consider a fan."
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Utah police report claims officer shape-shifted into a frog
There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why, on paper, a local Utah police officer allegedly turned into a frog.
The claim comes from the Heber City Police Department in Heber City, Utah, where officers are reportedly looking to save time on their paperwork, as writing police reports typically takes personnel between one and two hours per day.
'I'm not the most tech-savvy person, so it's very user-friendly.'
In order to save on man-hours, Heber City PD began testing new software that can take bodycam footage and generate a police report based on the audio and video.
The new artificial intelligence program did not take long to malfunction though, as just a few weeks into its trial in December, a police report stated that one of the local officers had shape-shifted into a frog during an investigation. It turns out the software picked up on audio that was playing on a TV screen present during the incident.
"The bodycam software and the AI report-writing software picked up on the movie that was playing in the background, which happened to be 'The Princess and the Frog,'" Sergeant Rick Keel told FOX 13 News, referring to the 2009 animated Disney film.
Keel then stressed, "That's when we learned the importance of correcting these AI-generated reports."
The department reportedly began testing two AI programs in early December, named Draft One and Code Four.
Draft One comes from company Axon, founded by American Rick Smith. On its website, Axon promises to "revolutionize real-time operations," but is responsible for generating the Disney-themed police report. The program reportedly works for both English and Spanish languages — and apparently for princesses too.
Blaze News reached out to Axon for comment.
Sgt. Keel told reporters that he has saved about six to eight hours per week since employing AI to do his paperwork.
"I'm not the most tech-savvy person, so it's very user-friendly," he said.
Code Four, however, was created by two MIT dropouts who are just 19 years old: George Cheng and Dylan Nguyen. That program also claims it can transform "bodycam to reports in seconds."
Code Four reportedly costs $30 per officer, per month.
According to Dexerto, AI policing programs have already caused issues elsewhere in the United States. For example, the outlet reported last October that armed police officers swarmed a 16-year-old student outside of a high school in Baltimore after an AI gun-detection system falsely claimed the boy had a firearm.
It turned out after police arrived on scene that the teen was actually holding a bag of Doritos.
Blaze News reported on the increased use of AI monitoring software in schools in early 2024, when an Arkansas district announced it would use over 1,500 cameras at its schools.
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Does your city feel like Disney? Blame Robert Moses
A single man had near-unending influence over the infrastructure of the largest North American cities.
Robert Moses, born in 1888 in New Haven, Connecticut, helped pioneer large-scale urban infrastructure built around cars and commerce. His top-down planning approach later influenced other controlled, master-planned environments, including those created by Walt Disney.
'An extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework.'
Moses held many titles during his time in politics and city/park planning, including secretary of state of New York (1927-1929), the first chairman of New York State Council of Parks (1924-1963), and the first commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (1934-1960).
Mr. Moses' neighborhood
Moses' influence can be seen all over New York City, and he is predominantly responsible for turning a collection of neighborhoods into the common metropolis that most cities appear as today.
It was Moses' idea to run expressways right through the middle of cities to maximize access to commercial zones. He was responsible for infrastructure projects like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Staten Island Expressway, and the Cross Bronx Expressway. Many bridges that lead into New York City and Manhattan were his doing as well.
FDR Drive, where the United Nations headquarters is located, is also a creation of Moses.
All's fair
Aside from numerous bridges and expressways, Moses also built nearly 30,000 apartment units by 1939, which is discussed in his biography, "The Power Broker," by Robert Caro.
The book describes Moses as "an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives."
It was that influence and power in New York that led him to becoming the president of the World's Fair in 1964. Which, according to a documentary by Defunctland, led to Moses implementing mass evictions in low-income neighborhoods to make way for road systems.
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Moses planned to make at least half of the fairgrounds permanent and openly said that much of the infrastructure was meant to stay as part of his vision of a futuristic park. This plan mirrored Moses' suggestions for many of the city projects he worked on.
Shopping block
At the same time, the fair was more heavily commercialized than any before it. Moses abandoned the visual and thematic consistency of earlier fairs to maximize profit, allowing companies to design their own exhibits in exchange for high rental and repair fees — services that were allegedly monopolized by a small number of favored contractors.
Moses' success in commercialization was noted by Disney, who wished to replicate his overall design thesis when plotting out Disney World in Florida. The two had worked together on the 1939 World's Fair, for which Disney created a special promo cartoon and even licensed a Donald Duck Day.
The first animatronics were created for the 1964 iteration of the fair as well.
Moses' influence goes far beyond Disney, though. He either directly consulted on, or influenced, the planning of at least a dozen North American cities. He is responsible for the infrastructural theory that cities should be focused on commercial centers, not residential housing.
Room for vroom
The idea that cars should move swiftly through cities on expressways took hold in places like Portland, where Moses was hired to help design the freeway network.
In Pittsburgh, Moses put his skills in planning both parkways and parks into practice when he was hired by the Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association to solve congestion issues. He ended up building the Penn-Lincoln Parkway, the Crosstown Boulevard, and the Point State Park.
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Moses acted as a consultant for a "high-speed freeway" in New Orleans in the 1940s and "stressed the benefits of removing vehicle traffic from the crowded streets," according to an article by urban planning expert Jeff Brown.
While most of his suggestions were not taken in New Orleans, they were in Hartford, Connecticut, where he planned another freeway. The city declined his suggestion to build a parking garage in tandem with the expressway, though.
Interestingly, Moses' road was reportedly placed through a slum in order to capitalize on "urban renewal funds" to help pay for the project.
Goin' south
Other cities like Boston, San Francisco, Baltimore, Memphis, Phoenix, and Toronto, Canada, have seen indirect influence from Moses. In the 1940s and 1950s, Moses eventually faced resistance, and many of his highway projects were scaled back or canceled, according to the New World Encyclopedia.
As the desire for Moses' planning skills eventually soured, he and others looked to opportunities in Latin America.
The article "Transforming the modern Latin American city: Robert Moses and the International Basic Economic Corporation" discusses how in 1950, the mayor of Sao Paulo, Brazil, hired a commercial corporation headed by Nelson Rockefeller to design the public works for the city.
Moses was appointed director of studies to work in the "Program of Public Improvements" for Sao Paulo and allegedly caused great controversy in Brazil due to his intentions to import American companies to operate in the country.
Moses' influence is still visible in major cities where congestion is chronic and housing is scarce. Disney World succeeded for a simpler reason: It was designed entirely around consumerism, without the complications of cars, housing, or civic life.
In that sense, Disney World represents a kind of Robert Moses ideal — an urban space devoted purely to consumption, perfectly controlled, and freed from the democratic friction and human needs that constrained Moses in the real world.
Former MLB All-Star calls out Disney Cruise Line for having a 'man dressed as woman'
A nine-year MLB veteran is taking issue with apparent cross-dressing on a Disney Cruise ship.
Ender Inciarte won three gold gloves with the Atlanta Braves while appearing in one MLB All-Star Game before retiring in 2022.
'I don't think it's hate i just don't want to normalize that behavior.'
Now, Inciarte is calling out Disney Cruise Line for apparently having a man dressed a woman speaking to kids.
"Hey [Disney Cruise Line] love your cruises!" Inciarte wrote on X. "Except for the part that there are man dressed as woman ... thought you already got over it."
This immediately drew backlash from some readers, including one man who called Inciarte a "little fragile guy" who "gets upset easily while other people live their lives peacefully without bothering anyone."
The 5-foot-11-inch outfielder replied, according to an X translation, "It wasn't hatred or a personal attack. It was an opinion based on my convictions. I believe in respecting everyone, but also in calling things by their name without mockery or contempt. Living in peace doesn't mean silencing one's conscience. Take care, champion!"
— (@)
A Tampa Bay baseball fan rudely asked the former player, "Have you considered going to Hell, Ender?"
"No. I've been saved from that thanks to Jesus!" Inciarte enthusiastically stated in response.
While it is unclear if Inciarte was drawing from a personal experience or a video he saw online, he explained his reasoning when replying to a reader who said his kids would be traumatized seeing "dudes dressed as women."
The Venezuelan explained, "Where is my hate? All i am saying is having my kid enter a place where a 6ft tall guy is dressed as a woman and acting like one would traumatize my kid on a family cruise."
He added, "I don't think it's hate i just don't want to normalize that behavior."
While Disney has not responded to inquiries from outlets like Fox News Digital to confirm the allegations, this would not be the first time a transgender person or cross-dresser was spotted at a Disney business dealing with children.
In 2024, a family chronicled a transvestite cutting children's hair and applying makeup at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Walt Disney World.
At Disneyland in 2023, the same boutique had a man dressed as a woman working in front of the store to welcome guests and schedule young children for their makeovers.
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Zootopia 2 Teaches Kids They Have Trauma And It’s Their Parents’ Fault
Now Disney seems to be pushing the message that the happiest place on earth is as far away from your family as possible.‘Star Wars’ actor smears Disney and MAGA as fascist
When Disney-owned ABC briefly pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air over comments he made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, "Star Wars" actor Oscar Isaac took it personally.
In an interview with GQ magazine, Isaac was asked what his stance was on returning to “Star Wars” — and while he recently claimed to be on board with starring in the franchise again, things changed after Kimmel’s removal from the air.
“Yeah. I mean ... I’d be open to it, although right now I’m not so open to working with Disney. But if they can figure it out and not succumb to fascism, that would be great,” Isaac said.
“If that happens, then yeah, I’d be open to having a conversation about a galaxy far away,” he added.
“What universe am I living in that now Hollywood is saying that Disney are fascists because, of course, the ABC thing and suspending Jimmy Kimmel? And so now, Oscar Isaac, who, you know, just made, what, $2 million off of ‘Star Wars,’ $6 million off of ‘Moon Knight,’ I’m told,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says.
“Now he has morals and standards,” she adds.
“The funny thing,” BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden says, “is that’s an absolute bait and switch right there, what he was doing, because he knows that the series that he was in was terrible and that ‘Star Wars’ was ruined and nobody likes it.”
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Tragic Kingdom: String of mysterious deaths shakes Disney World
The happiest place on Earth is going through a strange bout of deaths this fall.
In just a matter of weeks, four guests to Florida's Walt Disney World have died, all from tragic circumstances.
'People who ... want to have that one last good happy family memory will go to Walt Disney World.'
The first death reportedly came on October 15 when an avid Disney World fan was found dead hours after she vanished.
Four deaths in four weeks
As the New York Post reported, 31-year-old Summer Equitz died at the Contemporary Resort, one of the theme park's 25 hotels. Equitz even reportedly had a missing persons page posted on a Reddit for Disney fans, with relatives seemingly looking for help to locate her.
"She booked a flight [to Orlando] without telling us, unfortunately," a relative allegedly wrote.
Unfortunately, Equitz died by multiple blunt impact injuries, originally thought to be by jumping onto the monorail; police declared she was "NOT struck by the monorail."
A man in his 60s then reportedly died on October 21 after being taken to the hospital from Disney World. Entertainment Weekly said it was told by the Orange County Sheriff's Office that there were "no signs of foul play."
The man had a history of hypertension and end-stage liver disease.
More questions than answers
This "medical episode" was the most open-and-shut down case of the four, leaving far fewer questions than the next death at the Contemporary Resort.
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The third death came as visitors to the theme park posted a video about a "VERY large law enforcement" presence outside their balcony at Disney's Bay Lake Tower.
Entertainment Weekly confirmed that Matthew Cohn died by suicide on October 23 at the Contemporary Resort, with a representative saying the cause of death was "multiple traumatic injuries."
A fourth death was then reported by TMZ on Tuesday, with the Orange County Sheriff's Office telling the outlet that a "woman in her 40s was transported to Celebration Hospital where she passed away."
The sheriff's office also told the Independent that there were "no signs of foul play."
The woman was reportedly found at Disney's Pop Century Resort, located near Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
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'Weird phenomenon'
Outlets like Fox Business and the New York Post have reported that since 1971, there have been a total of 68 deaths at Disney World.
In those 648 months, that would be an average of about 0.1 deaths per month before the recent four.
The strange phenomenon may be explained by remarks made by Jim Hill from the "Disney Wish" podcast in 2022.
According to Fox Business, Hill told the Post that there exists a "weird phenomenon where people who are severely depressed but want to have that one last good happy family memory will go to Walt Disney World."
Fox Business, the New York Post, Entertainment Weekly, and the Independent were unable to acquire comment from Disney World on these matters. Blaze News has reached out for comment and will update this article with any applicable responses.
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ESPN forced her to get the COVID shot — then fired her anyway
Former ESPN anchor Sage Steele was among those in 2021 forced to take the COVID-19 vaccine in order to keep her job — but after complying and getting the shots, her employer let her go anyway.
Steele was taken off the air following a podcast appearance on “Uncut with Jay Cutler,” where she called vaccine mandates “sick” and “scary.”
“You’ve had this long career, this illustrious career, and it came to a point when truth was on the line, and you took a risk,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says to Steele.
“I had been suspended, punished at ESPN in 2021. As we tape this, exactly four years ago I was suspended and in bed, sobbing and scared to death of what was next,” Steele explains.
“I was suspended for speaking up about being forced to take the COVID vaccine in order to keep my job at Disney. ... I had to be fully vaccinated by September 30, 2021, or else, and I waited until the very last second, and I had prayed about it,” she continues.
While Steele was against taking the shots, the pressure she felt as a mother with bills to pay was too much, and she decided to comply.
“I was ready to walk away, but as the sole wage earner with three kids and an ex and alimony and all those things, I felt like I had to make the choice to do it to keep my job. I still struggle with that. I feel like I caved,” she explains.
“So, I did it, and I complied, and then I talked on a podcast about it,” Steele tells Stuckey, noting that she went on the podcast immediately after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, so she was extra angry.
“I said, ‘I think it’s sick and wrong for any employer to force an employee to do something to their bodies that they don’t want to.’ Pretty simple. I said, ‘But I love my job, and I need my job.’ And here we are,” she tells Stuckey.
“And that was the beginning of the end,” she adds.
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