John Boyega criticism of Star Wars

[Don]

https://www.wired.com/story/john-boyega-star-wars/

I don't doubt there's racism in the movie industry, but I thought it's pretty unusual to have a complaint over Star Wars. If you're not a Force user, nobody really cares about what happens to you unless your name is Han Solo or Boba Fett. Nobody cares about Captain Phasma either, and I think she's white, and I say I think because I have no idea what she even looked like. I thought Poe was someone that's going to die pointlessly like Biggs even though he's supposed to be one of the main character because that's usually what happens to pilots that aren't Force users.

[Eric]

If you're not a Force user, nobody really cares about what happens to you unless your name is Han Solo or Boba Fett.

While that's true, his story took a shit on itself after The Force Awakens.

He peaked when he faced down Kylo to defend Rey and used Luke's Lightsaber. Like I get that there was a lot of misdirect with the audience thinking he'd be the secret Jedi character, with then Rey becoming the one to pick it up, but that doesn't mean he's should become a trash character after that. I think a fucking Stormtrooper defecting and becoming a hero is a pretty compelling story if told right.

His arc in that first movie was really strong and instead of building off that he turned into a complete clown in the 2nd film and they just had nothing to do with him in the 3rd.

[Don]

I understand they might have wanted you to think Finn was going to be a Jedi but that illusion didn't exactly last long. After that it was just bad writing and it's not like the story focused on anyone else besides Kylo or Rey after Han Solo died. I'd say most of the character development in the first movie didn't really matter because people are likely just waiting for Han Solo and Luke to show up and Han definitely overshadows everyone that if he didn't die there probably wouldn't be any point to the new guys.

I think maybe they wanted to do like a normal guy in Star Wars but Star Wars is about heroes not normal guys. In terms of non Force users Han Solo and Boba Fett sort of speak for themselves for how awesome they're supposed to be, but even Wedge was someone who survived an encounter with Darth Vader even if it's mostly by luck and he's good enough to be Luke's wingman. All Finn did was reinforce the stereotypes that Stormtroopers really suck at basically everything. I think fans wouldn't mind to see a non Force user that's actually pretty awesome. After all, The Mandolorian was well received so there's definitely room for a guy that relies on a blaster instead of a lightsaber, but Finn just didn't look like that guy. In the whole trilogy the point seems to be that nothing gets done without Rey, and I don't even think Rey was that impressive, so that makes the people who rely on her look like a bunch of forgettable nobodies. Conversely, Kylo Ren is pretty pitiful which again makes everyone that has a hard time dealing with him look bad. Han Solo got stopped by Darth Vader and nobody will hold it against him for being captured by Darth Vader. Kylo Ren was just some dumb kid who thinks putting on a helmet makes him more intimidating. Yeah they hyped up about how awesome he and Rey is, but that just totally didn't work. I got the feeling Han Solo alone could've just pulled out a blaster and shot both Rey and Kylo Ren if he wanted to.

[Eric]

I actually really liked The Force Awakens -because- it set-up a lot. Like I understand it was basically A New Hope rehashed, but it laid a really nice foundation with tons of potential before The Last Jedi came out and said "Everything you like about Star Wars is stupid, lawls."

Finn with the blood over his Stormtrooper helmet after refusing to shoot the civilians was such a striking scene for me, it really laid a foundation for his character, I expected more. He wasn't particularly good at being the hero, but in that first movie he went from fleeing the first order, to fighting the first order to laying down his life to protect his friends. His arc should have gone from laying down life to protect his friend->Laying down life to protect the galaxy->Maybe become really awesome and competent at that at some point.

Instead it went Fleeing First Order->Fighting First Order->Laying down life for friends->Really only caring about Rey-Fleeing first order again->Getting stuck with some weird chick who fell in love with him for no reason->Trying to kill himself because reasons->Really only caring about Rey->Really only caring about Rey->Fighting everyone while only caring about Rey.

[Julius Seeker]

As a whole, I preferred Rogue One as a film by quite a distance, but Force Awakens set up interesting characters; although, I felt the plotting reeked of a contrived basic formula.

Racism or not, Finn got treated poorly. I mean, he was kind of set up to be the Luke Skywalker of the series, the guy that has to learn and work hard to use the force. While Rey was more like a female Anakin Skywalker, someone whose skill with the force was waiting to awaken without much understanding as to why she was able to do what she could do. Finn never got his story really told (I haven't seen the third film yet, not because I don't want to, but mostly because it hasn't been a priority).

It reminded me of Boomer and Helo on Battlestar Galactica. These great characters they built up, and then just forgot.

If I was to point the finger and call someone racist, it's that portion of Star Wars fans who, for some illogical reason, think that having a non-white male lead is a political statement. When you ask them to justify their views, their only argument is "because so-and-so-director-I-don't-care-about is a cuck-faced-feminazi-libtard, blah blah blah blah, George Soros, blah blah blah blah." And they'll go on for several paragraphs listing off all the women and non-white men who don't correctly fit stereotypes. They sound like little Cartmans, but they're probably like aged 57 or something. If racism played a role in Finn getting screwed, I’d guess it has to do with bending to producer market research pressure who got it in their head to go that way because they made the mistake of listening to too much social media outrage culture complainers. That’s the nature of the Hollywood industry, market research and execution.

[Don]

I'd say racism is people who complain about having a black person amongst the main characters and the fact that casting someone whose role is more like Wedge as a black person is supposed to be some kind of diversity. I'm sure if Wedge was a black person nobody would have thought much about it and I think he's a lot more influential in the Star Wars universe compared to Finn (Wedge has like his own series of books in the original extended universe where he probably also saves the galaxy a few times, and Rogue Squadron line is mostly based on him too).

But I don't think there was some racist effort to keep the character Finn down. He's just one of the many characters that went nowhere. I remember a guy said that when you do a Star Wars thing you just can't have force users with non force users because canonically the difference between the two are too big so if they're together the non force users are always going to look like totally useless cardboard cutouts, and it didn't help for some Kylo Ren and Rey both started out strong enough to take out 3 Jedi Masters at once or whatever.

[Julius Seeker]

I guess, bottom line, I don’t know enough about the Star Wars situation to really make any judgment, including anything about racism. It’s not really my place to discount Boyega’s complaint, but it sounds plausible to me. Even if other characters were held back for multiple reasons. I suppose only the writers can comment on that for sure, if it was an honest difference of vision, or if they did get pushback from production not to advance his story.

Anyway. Star Wars conspiracy stuff is a bit tricky. The Star Wars community is RIFE with batshit insane conspiracy theories about the production of the films.

[Don]

I'm sure there is both, as in there's racism and Star Wars also just doesn't care about some guys. The racism might be responsible for the fact that he's not actually a Jedi let alone the main character and obviously we can't possibly know the exact details, but once you get demoted to a former Stormtrooper I don't think there's any special effort to keep you down because that's already a pretty bad spot. Once the roles are settled I'd say he's definitely just the victim of bad writing.