John Boyega goes off on Disney over how his character was handled in Star Wars
John Boyega goes off on Disney over how his character was handled in Star Wars
GQ Article: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/john-boyega-interview-2020
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They Took out chewbaca Completely!" I Uh suspect…That because uh uh-he may resemble a certain King of uh..um ehemm a Simian ah-ah.. Nature….(Jeff Goldblum anyone?!)
This guy just didn’t work. No charisma at all!
He should have been the jedi hands down. Rey could have been the sith apprentice in waiting who Finn could have saved at the end. I would have paid to see that.
Boyega got screwed by Disney, plain and simple. He's a good actor and he handled the role of Finn in "TFA" pretty well, though there are questionable moments which I think he was directed to do or say. When I saw the first trailer for "TFA" and Boyega's character popped up, I was intrigued to see that there was going to be an "under the helmet" (to borrow it from this video) of a stormtrooper. And I actually thought Finn WAS the main protagonist since he was featured prominently in the first couple of trailers. How Disney and Rian Johnson handle him in "TLJ", well, the less said about that the better. He was simply written as reverting back to his run away from danger ways that his arc showed he'd come through in "TFA". They made his character a joke, and that's what he became. He actually had the best arc of the newer characters and Disney simply wasted Boyega's potential. Good for him that he's not taking it lightly and I hope he gets great roles moving forward. He is a good actor, he did a great job in "Attack the Block" and "Pacific Rim: Uprising" (not a great film, but his performance was good) as well as a great performance in "Detroit", a very underrated film. The point is, Disney doesn't care about quality. They want to check all the boxes and unfortunately for Mr. Boyega and the rest of us, we got taken…
As much as I love watching a Jedi grow as a person and kick ass, but to honest we've pretty much seen it a million times at that point. So it would have been interesting to see the character arc of a simple stormtrooper of the empire becoming a better person then turn against his former masters. They certainly did a dirty to Finn, fuck, they did a dirty to the whole Star Wars universe.
It's not really that it is worse because of their race, just that it is kind of a result of the tendency to downplay characters so much that have relationships with race in Hollywood, whether intentional or unintentional, that it #feelsbadman. If feels EXTRA bad when they go out of their way to pretend they have Honor but then they let go of that honor the millisecond it loses them money. He is not angry because it was racist, but because it went out of their way to PRETEND it was extra not racist. It is extra stupid when you consider the topic is sensitive these days and instead of at least be careful with the subject they just threw the character under the bus. Poe was a victim of stupid writing too, but Poe was just that, another character that for better or for worse didn't represent a real world discussion (regardless of your feelings about the real world situation).
Yes, the only cause of it was incompetence but it is baffling that they are so sensitive to these topics yet execute upon them so badly.
It is also a direct result of going out of their way to put Race based characters on SECONDARY roles (or even downgrading them to secondary or tertiary over time), pretending they are more important than they are, then forgetting about them the second it backlashes. They are SECONDARY, so they are disposable, thus you now have TWO angry audiences instead of a partially angry audience. That is why there is so much rage against Whitewashing, not simply because they substitute characters that have race-based personal stories, but because they imply that those stories are not a big deal – THEN they go out of their way to PRETEND AND INSIST they are paying respect to the source material. It is frankly insulting. And don't get me wrong, I hate when they do it the other way around too and for the same reasons. It is a double whammy of insulting AND patronizing moralizing shit, the worst of both worlds.
And here is the thing: substituting is not a crime by itself. The moment it turns into a problem is when you do it poorly AND insultingly. Like that s*it with Scarlett Johanson in Ghost In The Shell – if you are going go do it DON'T F*CKING CALL HER MAKOTO AND PRETEND SHE IS ASIAN YOU IDIOTS. SHE COULD BE JUST "MAJOR" AND IT WOULD'VE WORKED. Not ONLY did they substitute the Asian character with someone who is not – and in a scenario that THEY HAD REASONABLE DENIABILITY -, but they PRETENDED that she was. It's insulting.
i did not enjoy the 3 squeals either lol
Sorry bro.. I don't think somebody should be spotlighted or discarded if they are another race or gender. I don't hate them (I'm NOT saying that for anybody who thinks I do) I'm just saying treat them as equals as everybody else.
I might not agree with 100% of what he said, but I completely understand why he feels that way given all the circumstances.
I don't care about JJ Abrams. He is sloppy and a piss poor writer.
What a narcissist. They screwed up the entire sequel trilogy with all the characters and storylines. Poe got done wrong. Rey got done wrong. Finn got done wrong. Luke got done wrong. And the list goes on and on and on.
I think Luke, General Hux, and Finn were the most f***ed up beginning with The Last Jedi. Boyega just comes across as a crybaby using the race card to blame Disney for a bad character. How about blame Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy for the total ruining of the sequel trilogies?
Taking from me African-American who loves Star Wars and that I do I did not get any impression that fin was going to become a Jedi he was just a storm trooper that wanted to get away from being a storm trooper
He isn’t the main protagonist it has nothing to do with race he didn’t get the same treatment because he wasn’t as major as the other characters.
That was eerie man. It's like you were reading everything I thought in real time.
It's not the same as what happened with Snoke though. The issue as I see it is that they essentially used him as a prop, a draw to attract black audiences. "Look one of the main leads of the new Star Wars is a black man!" And then after the force awakens they shoved his character to the side since he had served his purpose. That's fucked up
Honestly would have liked it if finn was the main character. No rey. No marry sue shit. Finn's skills would have been believable.
Yeah! John Boyega is a great Actor, who deserves better! I understand him completely!
I don’t know why they made him all goofy. But I guess it’s par for the course all the characters were awful, goofy and undercut themselves with terrible jokes every sentence. The entire trilogy was about as emotional as a bologna sandwich.
Kennedy needs to keep her hands off things.
Disney just didnt realize what they purchased. It makes me laugh and also makes me sad. Childhood is completley mind fucked by hollywood dollars…