Meet Kiri Hart, one of the women now driving Star Wars

kiri-hartThe Rebels blitz continues, with the Wall Street Journal today featuring Lucasfilm’s Kiri Hart.

Tasked by head honcho Kathleen Kennedy to develop and oversees new Star Wars content, Hart and her ‘team of five’ (the Story Group, ahem) keep a tight rein on the galaxy… Although she does know there’s room for a lot of different things in the franchise:

“I think there are boundaries, but we don’t want to rigidly define them,” she said. “It’s obviously not slapstick comedy, but there’s room for many different stories and genres that still feel like ‘Star Wars.'”

One filmmaker says she is “as close to a Kevin Feige as there is at Lucas,” and in a longer interview she details some of Lucasfim’s recent choices.

On development:

We pretty quickly arrived at a content plan that stretches out for several years and we didn’t go looking for those ideas. Those existed internally. We were in a situation of looking for people to help us execute the ideas we had.

On setting aside the EU:

I’m crazily passionate about this idea of narratives travelling across different platforms. It just feels like a golden opportunity. This is a fictional universe that not only supports [narrative coherence] but invites it.

In addition, we wouldn’t be giving the right green space to our filmmakers if we mandated they stay within the stories that have been told [in books.]

On diversity:

I haven’t experienced “Star Wars” being for boys, because I loved it from seven years old. I was so powerfully influenced by Princess Leia as a kid. I remember being transfixed by her — she was so empowered and smart and funny.

There are a lot of different types of characters. “Star Wars” should be diverse because it’s a big galaxy.

This certainly sheds some light for us on how things are working internally these days!

The Imperial Handbook is Legends

imperial-handbookWe first heard about The Imperial Handbook earlier this year and it was finally officially announced without a word about whether it fits into Legends or the new canon. Well, Mark Hurliman of Star Wars Report got an answer: It’s Legends.

This isn’t a big surprise – predecessors The Jedi Path, Book of Sith, and The Bounty Hunter Code are clearly Legends as well – but with Lucasfilm choosing to leave things vague (for sale purposes?) it’s good to have this nailed down.

First Marvel collection of Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics to focus on the early Empire

marvel-dh-legendsStarWars.com has announced Marvel’s first repackaging of Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics. Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Empire Vol. 1 will contain Republic 78-80, all three Purge minis, Darth Vader and The Lost Command and Dark Times #1-5.

There’s no date yet (I’m hearing April, but it’s not in the official item,) but Marvel’s first reprint, of their own classic content, begins in January. (Which was itself previously reprinted by Dark Horse.) The same month, their own brand new canon comics will launch.