John Boyega

[Deleted]

There was just so much potential for Finn that was wasted in TROS. He could've led a stormtrooper rebellion, he could've shown himself to be Force sensitive and started training to be a Jedi, there's so much they could've done with the character.

But no. Disney & Co. were so scared of pissing off the butt-hurt fanboys who hated TLJ that they completely kowtowed to them and erased all the character and plot development that Rian Johnson added to the franchise. I've bought every single one of the new SW movies on Blu Ray, even Solo, but not TROS. And I never will.

If Carrie Fisher were alive, I like to think she would've called them out on their BS in spectacular fashion.

[Binky]

Finn was enormously wasted in TROS (and frankly also in The Last Jedi, though at least he got a subplot in that. It was just pointless.) John Boyega was fabulous in that series, but the series was also a complete narrative mess. I would love to see more of Finn.

I do think Disney cratered to neckbeard racists, but I also think the writers likely had no real idea what to do with Boyega that wasn't retread of the trilogy, which did not have a Boyega. And yes, race surely played a part.

[Mutagen]

Personally, I put the blame squarely on The Last Jedi. The Force Awakens ended with Finn's incredibly heroic sacrifice standing up to Kylo Ren. The Last Jedi immediately turned that into a joke by having Finn's awakening from his coma be played for buffoonish comedy. It was just so disrespectful to the character and completely cheapened the powerful moment he'd just had in the previous film. I think it was especially noticeable that Kylo Ren who took a much LESS significant injury had that played up for drama/sympathy in contrast. John Boyega is absolutely right to point out the racist framing of that -- black pain is funny, white pain is tragic. It set the tone for the rest of his arc, which was also fairly demeaning and irrelevant. 

TROS didn't cover itself with glory either by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it was just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. TLJ was the iceberg.

Edit: Also, the racist fans in this case were not only neckbeards. The Rey/Kylo shippers, the vast majority of which are female, have been disgusting towards Finn and John for years.

[angelaudie]

Supposedly, Disney didn’t to do a basic outline for story beats for the new trilogy. So it was basically, “Here ya some money JJ! Make whatever! Oh hi Rian! Nah, don’t worry about what JJ did with his movie! You do you! Oh ya back JJ? Didn’t like Rian’s movie? Just ignore it then!” Why no one at Disney thought some semblance of storyline consistency for one the biggest franchises of all time is anyone’s guess. It is especially infuriating when you see how thought goes into the MCU.

As far John, he’s right! Poor planning only explains some of what happened. After all, Disney did their best to give Rey, Kylo, and Poe something resembling a storyline that has a beginning, middle, and end. Not necessarily well but an attempt was made.

[kostgard]

Sept 2, 2020 19:00:38 GMT -4 angelaudie said:

Supposedly, Disney didn’t to do a basic outline for story beats for the new trilogy. So it was basically, “Here ya some money JJ! Make whatever! Oh hi Rian! Nah, don’t worry about what JJ did with his movie! You do you! Oh ya back JJ? Didn’t like Rian’s movie? Just ignore it then!” Why no one at Disney thought some semblance of storyline consistency for one the biggest franchises of all time is anyone’s guess. It is especially infuriating when you see how thought goes into the MCU.

As far John, he’s right! Poor planning only explains some of what happened. After all, Disney did their best to give Rey, Kylo, and Poe something resembling a storyline that has a beginning, middle, and end. Not necessarily well but an attempt was made.

I am still amazed that with this billion dollar franchise, no one sketched out what the trilogy should be and what it should accomplish. Like, sketch it out and let the individual directors color in the lines. Don't do what they did, which appeared to be, "Hey, Rian Johnson! Do whatever you want! Wait, not THAT!" And then they were rushing the third movie so much that they were basically like, "film a scene, walk it over to an editor who is right over there to edit it because they gave us about two weeks to make this." Why? Take your time! It will still make money!

But yeah - that doesn't explain how Fin and Rose got completely swept to the side. I mean, just for the optics and to stand up for her, they should have given Rose some kickass stuff to do after the neckbeards freaked out about a WOMAN who is also ASIAN all up in their Star Wars. Let them know that they can just suck it. Instead Rose was barely in the movie and I'm sure the neckbeards saw that as a win.

Fin started out so great (Though, yeah - the first trailer to TFA got a reaction of "A BLACK Stormtrooper?! IMPOSSIBLE!") and had so much potential. Even though the second movie started out with comedy, he still got heroic moments (and his trying to run away paralleled Han leaving in the original trilogy). But by the third film he was just chasing Rey around (and she was only focusing on Kylo Ren, so don't worry about any potential interracial couple, folks! We'll get a real nice black girl to come along for Fin!), he had a big secret that there was some tension about him telling Rey about it, except...the movie ends and he never brings it up with her. Oh, hey, Neckbeards, I know you get real mad about people suggesting putting THE GAY into your movie, so here's an ex-girlfriend for Poe, so you don't have to worry about that any more! We'll just have two random ladies kiss in the background to appease the SJWs. Plus two chicks, amirite?!

So, honestly, this is refreshing. Oscar Isaac has been semi-vocal about the less-than-great experience he had, but I like that Boyega isn't trying to sugarcoat it. He's just all, "Look, the fan reaction was awful and the filmmakers had no idea what to do with my character, so yeah, it sucked."

[technicolor]

Yeah, that they didn't have a storyline worked out for the sequels is laughable. So Abrams did whatever, Johnson did whatever and no one made sure any of it made sense. TLJ stuffed Finn into a sideplot, TROS continued that nonsense. TROS erased Rose's existence in answer to the racist backlash the character and KMT faced. It is all quite shameful and falls squarely at Disney's feet for perpetuating that BS, not having a clear idea for the sequels, sidelining POC characters and not protecting the actors.

But it's Disney. They will probably skate as they always skate. They will ignore, pretend that everything is fine and knock out the next lucrative movie/franchise. And that will be that.

[lea1977]

Rogue One and Solo were better than the three films Abrams and Johnson put out. We watched all three this past weekend and it is sad how characters were just wasted or maybe there were just too many of them.

[angelaudie]

The odd thing is I do like new trilogy films individually but as trilogy of films. As in each these films are good movies but they just don’t work together as a unit. For all the issues I have prequels the movies do work well as a unit. The character development, for example, does feel organic. I can’t believe I just paid the prequels a compliment.

I need Hollywood to make romantic comedy action movie starring John Boyega and Oscar Isaac. Think something like Romancing The Stone except two dudes get together in the end.

[Ladybug]

“It’s so difficult to manoeuvre,” he says, exhaling deeply, visibly calibrating the level of professional diplomacy to display. “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.” He is talking about himself here – about the character of Finn, the former Stormtrooper who wielded a lightsaber in the first film before being somewhat nudged to the periphery. But he is also talking about other people of colour in the cast – Naomi Ackie and Kelly Marie Tran and even Oscar Isaac (“a brother from Guatemala”) – who he feels suffered the same treatment; he is acknowledging that some people will say he’s “crazy” or “making it up”, but the reordered character hierarchy of The Last Jedi was particularly hard to take.

He is on a breathless roll now, breaking his long corporate omerta to touch on the unthinking, systemic mistreatment of black characters in blockbusters (“They’re always scared. They’re always fricking sweating”) and what he sees as the relative salvage job that returnee director JJ Abrams performed on The Rise Of Skywalker (“Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your shit”).

I think Boyega's beef is with Rian Johnson and the way he upended everything JJ Abrams established in The Force Awakens. Perhaps they didn't have the entire trilogy mapped out, but there was no doubt that Abrams established a clear story arc with TFA and Johnson literally flipped the script. Rey and Finn are a potential romantic couple? Nah, let's give her a cosmic connection with Kylo Ren and send him off with a character no one even knows with barely a backstory. Poe is a brave hero? Nah, let's make him a mutinous crybaby. Leia is a brilliant general? Let's put her in a coma and bring in another new character no one knows with no backstory (Holdo) to be the general. So yes, Abrams had to do a relative salvage job with the third movie. He brought back to the center the three characters from TFA that he established as a main trio.

Oh, and I'm also po'd that Johnson did away with one of the best characters from TFA - Captain Phasma, who was a great villain and foil for Finn. I think Abrams established so much good story in the first film, and it was a mistake to let Johnson have free reign to do whatever he wanted. There were some things I liked about TLJ, but to me it's where this story went off the rails. I wish Abrams had made some different choices with TROS (I wish he would've binned the Rey/Kylo romance, and the Palpatine thing was crazy), but I agree that it was a salvage job.

[Mutagen]

It's also very aggravating when you read about some of the things that were almost done in The Last Jedi. For example, Finn and Poe were originally planned to go to the casino planet together, but Johnson decided against it because he couldn't write any dialogue for them that wasn't "interchangeable." Like... these two spawned a massive outpouring of fanfiction from people doing it for free, but a guy getting paid couldn't think of non-interchangeable dialogue between an ex-Stormtrooper and a diehard Resistance man? That's just openly not giving a fuck about either character. Alternately, Finn's connection with Rose was going to be that he witnessed the heroic death of her sister aboard the gunship, but Johnson didn't feel like paying it off because the movie would "come to a stop." But the self indulgent Reylo crap or green titty milk scenes didn't do that at all. Mmmmkay.

Sept 3, 2020 9:32:14 GMT -4 Ladybug said:

Oh, and I'm also po'd that Johnson did away with one of the best characters from TFA - Captain Phasma, who was a great villain and foil for Finn.

I so desperately wish Phasma had been given Benicio del Toro's role -- after she betrayed the First Order to save herself in The Force Awakens, I feel like the story could have been very easily reworked to have her play both sides. What a waste of Gwendoline Christie.