John Boyega Interview in GQ

[regnak]

They should not have given Rey both the Jedi and Han Solo skill sets, she should have had one and Finn the other, that gives 2 legendary heroes instead they went with a goddess and a disappointment.

[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.

[Anthony W]

Finn was done dirty there is no doubt about that. They literally did nothing of interest with him since the first movie. His appearance in Rise of Skywalker was so forgettable and meaningless he might as well not even have been there. Finn's wasted potential is yet another big reason why I detest the Sequel Trilogy.

It's not the Sequel Trilogy. It's the Disney Trilogy.

[godisawesome]

There’s a reason why the film that even treated Boyega half-decently as the male lead made $700 million more than TLJ in spite of TLJ’s hype, and that’s because the legs of the film were earned by Boyega being an MVP in a role that, for all its flaws, still had serious drama and efficacy on the film... and because if I can be blunt, Boyega made a better co-star for Ridley playing a better written Rey instead of an anemic and underwritten role for Driver predicated on writing Rey badly and kicking Finn as far away from the main action as possible.

No TFA wasn’t perfect... but that part of the interview where Boyega defends Abrams a bit *is* something I think needs to be reckoned with as well as the systemic accidental or insidious racism Boyega dealt with coming from his employers as well as hostile “fans.”

TLJ screwed over the main characters. All of them. But especially Finn. Rey got screwed too, but LFL almost certainly nailed shut Finn’s coffin to protect their hipster Diet Anakin Clone so that he could be the pathetic male lead dragging everyone down because no one had the balls to say something like “Rey should be a Skywalker, Finn’s her love interest in a Stormtrooper revolt, and Kylo’s the punk trying to drag them down to his level.”

[Starter Set]

Can't understand Disney, finn is one, if not the, of the best thing about the farce awakens. And then, they trow him away to just focus on reysus christ and her good friend, captain emo kid.

Ah well, it just feels like beating a long dead horse at this point. Wish the best to Boyega, it deserves way better than that.

[Derek Metaltron]

Can't understand Disney, finn is one, if not the, of the best thing about the farce awakens. And then, they trow him away to just focus on reysus christ and her good friend, captain emo kid.

Ah well, it just feels like beating a long dead horse at this point. Wish the best to Boyega, it deserves way better than that.

Agreed, of the main cast he seems most at risk of being Mark Hamill’d since even Oscar Isaac had secured himself as reasonably well known before Star Wars. Disney runs the risk with their next trilogy of people being quite hesitant about being supportive characters if the same things happen.

[Aahz]

Looking back at it, it's obvious that Lucasfilm didn't have any concrete plans for any character in the new trilogy except Rey and Kylo.

It is pretty save to say that even for those two they didn't had concrete plans (or changed them with every movie they made).

[Derek Metaltron]

It is pretty save to say that even for those two they didn't had concrete plans (or changed them with every movie they made).

Yeah Kylo wasn’t even supposed to have a redemption arc.

[thwhtGuardian]

Yeah Kylo wasn’t even supposed to have a redemption arc.

I call BS on that, it was telegraphed hard in Force Awakens. They literally hit you on the head with a 4x4 with that idea when they had him give that speech before he killed his father.

[Derek Metaltron]

I call BS on that, it was telegraphed hard in Force Awakens. They literally hit you on the head with a 4x4 with that idea when they had him give that speech before he killed his father.

If you read the Duel of the Fates script it’s clear that they originally wanted to keep Kylo as the big bad. What JJ expected in 7 doesn’t really mean anything since Rian threw everything out the window anyway.

[Aahz]

The "Duel of the Fates" script basically proofs that there was no plan that they followed.

[thwhtGuardian]

If you read the Duel of the Fates script it’s clear that they originally wanted to keep Kylo as the big bad. What JJ expected in 7 doesn’t really mean anything since Rian threw everything out the window anyway.

A script from an unproduced film doesn't mean that Kylo was never meant to be redeemed...it's set up right there in Force Awakens which actually was produced.

[Derek Metaltron]

A script from an unproduced film doesn't mean that Kylo was never meant to be redeemed...it's set up right there in Force Awakens which actually was produced.

It’s your choice whether to ignore something written to blatantly have Kylo ad the bad guy but whatever.

[BeastieRunner]

It’s your choice whether to ignore something written to blatantly have Kylo ad the bad guy but whatever.

So an unproduced script trumps the movie?

I guess that means Han Solo is a green extra-terrestrial, no a flamboyant pirate, no a deformed alien, no [insert one of GL's other 7 ideas] and my eyes lied to me all these years.

[Castle]

When I saw The Force Awakens I thought Finn was gonna be a jedi and I was super excited when I saw the ex-stormtrooper pick up Anakins lightsaber. I was so disappointed when I saw the next two movies when Finn didn't get the screen time and importance his character deserved.Finn's character's treatment remind of that of Yuzu Hiiragi from Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V. Both characters were first introduced with lots of potential, but at the end they were just clickbait characters, as after certain time, they were ended being below the shadows of their former selves, only served as damsels on distress, and saying the main characters' names, ~sighs. I wish better luck to John Boyega for his career.