Once Emma figured out the lay of the land at Lucasfilm, she realized she had been brought in to do a lot of grunt work on behalf of Derek, a well-connected man who, in her opinion, didn’t know what he was doing. He would get the glory if the project was a success, and it sure felt as though she would get the blame if it wasn’t.
Executives at Lucasfilm, Emma said, treated Derek as more important than her, even though he reliably generated chaos, subpar scripts, and other problems. His management skills were questionable when they were not entirely absent. The executives supervising the project listened to Emma’s complaints about these serious, ongoing issues, and more often than not, she told me, they agreed with her. But their promises about changing the situation came to nothing. “They back their creative people fully—the people they see as creative,” Emma said. And Derek was the person they backed.
“It took a long time to cut through the doublespeak and figure out what was really going on,” Emma told me. She had thought—and had been told—that she was going to have real creative influence over this major piece of IP. That was not the case. And Derek, thanks to his powerful connections, was essentially untouchable. Emma slowly realized that her job was to “channel” Derek’s creative vision and turn it into filmable content. “I can’t speak to whether it was intentional or not, but really, what they wanted me to be was a well-paid babysitter,” Emma observed. “I was in this double bind where I was both accountable to them and also not creatively empowered. It just puts you in this position of feeling like the janitor.”
At Lucasfilm, in Emma’s view, preference and precedence in the TV arena is given to those who have credits in the film world.
In any event, Emma wishes she’d known up front what Lucasfilm really wanted. She would have said no to the job, or something like, “Call me when you’re ready to fire him and give me the job. And if you’re not going to do that, then great—it’s all on him.” She did eventually leave the gig, exhausted by the constant chaos and the fact that nobody made any meaningful moves to stop it.
Maybe the powers that be at Lucasfilm didn’t feel they needed to. Before Emma took the job, a friend in Hollywood told her that Lucasfilm didn’t particularly care about going over budget. Emma was gobsmacked by her friend’s observation, given the penny-pinching ways of her previous employers. “But I saw it up close—that it doesn’t matter how many mistakes are made or how incompetent some people are,” she said. “Our budget doubled, and I’m sure it went up after I left*. I’ve never seen anything like it.*”
At Lucasfilm, it’s not hard to figure out why the money might flow a little more freely: the company and its offshoots have had massive success in the realms of film, television, theme parks, and merchandising, among other ventures, since the first Star Wars film came out nearly half a century ago. And in Emma’s view, the worldwide success of shows like The Mandalorian just reinforces the internal belief that the company can do no wrong.”

How to watch and odds

• Date: Saturday, June 10 Time: 3 p.m. ET
• Location: Ataturk Olympic Stadium -- Istanbul
• TV: CBS Live stream: Paramount+
• Odds: City -225; Draw: +360; Inter +600 (via Caesars Sportsbook)

🔴Watch Now Full Fight :UFC 289 Live stream

Once Emma figured out the lay of the land at Lucasfilm, she realized she had been brought in to do a lot of grunt work on behalf of Derek, a well-connected man who, in her opinion, didn’t know what he was doing. He would get the glory if the project was a success, and it sure felt as though she would get the blame if it wasn’t.
Executives at Lucasfilm, Emma said, treated Derek as more important than her, even though he reliably generated chaos, subpar scripts, and other problems. His management skills were questionable when they were not entirely absent. The executives supervising the project listened to Emma’s complaints about these serious, ongoing issues, and more often than not, she told me, they agreed with her. But their promises about changing the situation came to nothing. “They back their creative people fully—the people they see as creative,” Emma said. And Derek was the person they backed.
“It took a long time to cut through the doublespeak and figure out what was really going on,” Emma told me. She had thought—and had been told—that she was going to have real creative influence over this major piece of IP. That was not the case. And Derek, thanks to his powerful connections, was essentially untouchable. Emma slowly realized that her job was to “channel” Derek’s creative vision and turn it into filmable content. “I can’t speak to whether it was intentional or not, but really, what they wanted me to be was a well-paid babysitter,” Emma observed. “I was in this double bind where I was both accountable to them and also not creatively empowered. It just puts you in this position of feeling like the janitor.”
At Lucasfilm, in Emma’s view, preference and precedence in the TV arena is given to those who have credits in the film world.
In any event, Emma wishes she’d known up front what Lucasfilm really wanted. She would have said no to the job, or something like, “Call me when you’re ready to fire him and give me the job. And if you’re not going to do that, then great—it’s all on him.” She did eventually leave the gig, exhausted by the constant chaos and the fact that nobody made any meaningful moves to stop it.
Maybe the powers that be at Lucasfilm didn’t feel they needed to. Before Emma took the job, a friend in Hollywood told her that Lucasfilm didn’t particularly care about going over budget. Emma was gobsmacked by her friend’s observation, given the penny-pinching ways of her previous employers. “But I saw it up close—that it doesn’t matter how many mistakes are made or how incompetent some people are,” she said. “Our budget doubled, and I’m sure it went up after I left*. I’ve never seen anything like it.*”
At Lucasfilm, it’s not hard to figure out why the money might flow a little more freely: the company and its offshoots have had massive success in the realms of film, television, theme parks, and merchandising, among other ventures, since the first Star Wars film came out nearly half a century ago. And in Emma’s view, the worldwide success of shows like The Mandalorian just reinforces the internal belief that the company can do no wrong.”