Originally Posted by
Ilan Preskovsky
However much Star Wars fans can be genuinely awful people and however much Finn was left adrift in the second parts of the series, bringing race into it is entirely unnecessary. Obviously, no one was complaining after The Force Awakens as it was very much a three-header, which is exactly what JJ Abrams wanted it to be but what happened next wasn't some assholeish attempt to give the shaft to non-white characters - it was purely the result of a trilogy that was very, very badly planned out.
I love The Last Jedi but clearly Johnson was trying to make a significantly different Star Wars film to Abrams - one with a more streamlined plot centring on Rey and Kylo Ren with everyone else as support to these two characters. It was the first theme-driven Star Wars movie, for better or worse, and if that meant that Finn and Rose had to have this whole side adventure that accomplished nothing narratively but plenty thematically then so be it.
But then the fans hated Last Jedi (some for perfectly reasons, some because they're a bunch of entitled bigots) and Trevarrow didn't work out so they went back to Abrams to finish out the series in as safe a way as possible. What resulted was something clearly driven at least somewhat by studio mandate but was mostly exactly what happens when you bring back the original director of a trilogy that went off in a radically different direction with its second instalment SPECIFICALLY to course correct from what Johnson did in Last Jedi. Abrams clearly loved Finn and Poe but trying to do two films in one that also retcons much of the middle instalment meant he had to rush most of his plans, truncate others and drop others still just to do even some sort of justice to what was always the A-story of the new trilogy: Rey and Kylo.
If there is a racial element to it, it must be pretty behind the scenes. Frankly, a company doesn't give a crap about race, one way or another. They care about money. "Diversity" casting was no doubt seen as a prudent business call at first and perhaps less so once the moronic backlash started to happen against Boyega and the others. They also clearly thought that hey, it's Star Wars, those films just print money. Even the mostly hated prequels made a hilarious amount of money so they can just sit back and let the filmmakers do whatever the hell they want to do without any need for internal consistency between creators or a specific plan for where the series was going. This somewhat blew up in their faces - though lets be honest, only somewhat. These movies still made crazy amounts of money and were generally much better reviewed than the Prequels (and, I'm sorry, but rightly so).
Look, BLM is obviously an important cause but is it just me or does bogging down real racial injustice and police brutality in an actor not being happy with the way a gigantic corporation didn't do justice to the character that he played, hurt the cause far more than it helps it? Boyega may be a petulant child or he might be a brave activist fighting for what he sees as the truth (and, make no mistake, I do believe he's the latter) but it doesn't matter. This sort of nonsense only gives more ammunition to those who insist that BLM is basically bullshit and is just about black people whining about their past victimhood. Sorry John, I think your intentions are noble, but making this whole thing a racial matter can only really backfire on you and possibly the whole BLM movement, while losing the message on the real reasons why the new trilogy struggled creatively.
I'm not American but damnit American liberals, would you please cut this politically correct hogwash, wake up, and work on actually winning the real battles than need to be fought and won here. Learn to pick your bloody battles and stop trying to equate the murder of a black citizen by the police with highly paid, famous and largely loved black actors not being nominated in this year's supporting actor category or something. You just end up looking frivolous and stupid as a result and it's really difficult to sit on the sidelines here and watch you lot make the same mistakes over and over again.
Thus endeth my rant. Pretentiously.