Finn is a Jedi

[Ironman]

Tried to Google your post and this was all that came up. You sure you weren't reading fan-fiction?

You just googled some whole nother shyt

 

[Stop_It_5]

Tried to Google your post and this was all that came up. You sure you weren't reading fan-fiction?

 

[The Prince of All Saiyans]

every time i see this thread

 

[MajesticLion]

John Boyega: 'I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race'

We meet on a late July day, in the privately booked upstairs of a lightly boujie restaurant, owned by one of Boyega’s friends, in London’s St John’s Wood just as the city edges towards another post-lockdown heatwave. There is an introductory elbow bump as two alcohol-free Mojitos are ordered (he is a long-term teetotaller; it seemed polite to join him) and time to take in a physical transformation that, in its own way, is as dramatic as the philosophical shift he has clearly undergone in recent years. Mostly gone is the puppyish, kinetic figure that many first met during the extended press jamboree of The Force Awakens. Though he will occasionally oblige with a pitch-perfect impression (Boris Johnson garbling evasively at a press conference, say), his resting expression is a determined, all-business smoulder; he now possesses stillness and the gym-thickened build of a Depression-era heavyweight; and there is a high decibel, pulpit-ready passion and ferocity to the way his sentences unfurl and crescendo with unblinking eye contact. His hair too – grown out for the past two years and worn today, as it is in his GQ cover shoot, in tightly plaited, swishing braids – is, it turns out, of almost Samsonian significance to him.


“When black men grow out their hair it’s a very powerful thing,” he says. “Culturally, it stands for something.” In fact, it was what Boyega saw as attempts to control his appearance – allied with the smothering feeling of his packed diary leading into 2017 – that caused him to question his place in the sausage machine of big-ticket moviemaking, that made him wonder if there was actually room for someone who looked like him to exist on his own terms in an industry generally built to white standards and white norms.

In the continued afterglow of that first, franchise-defibrillating Star Wars film, he continued to notice a stylist he'd hired when he first started doing press “cringing at certain clothes I wanted to go for”, the hairdresser who had no experience of working with hair like his but “still had the guts to pretend”, and he decided that he could no longer grin and bear it like a grateful competition winner. “During the press of [The Force Awakens] I went along with it,” he notes. “And obviously at the time I was very genuinely happy to be a part of it. But my dad always tells me one thing: ‘Don’t overpay with respect.’ You can pay respect, but sometimes you’ll be overpaying and selling yourself short.”

With the Lucasfilm-branded elephant in the room acknowledged, it is even harder to ignore. This is Boyega’s first substantial interview since finishing the franchise – his first since last year’s The Rise Of Skywalker tied a highly contentious, hurried ribbon on the 43-year-old space saga. How does he reflect on his involvement and the way the newest trilogy was concluded?


“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.

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he says. “You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fukk all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

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 shyt”). Even though he also acknowledges that it was an “amazing opportunity” and a “stepping stone” that has precipitated so much good in his life and career, he is palpably exhilarated to be finally saying all this. But to dismiss these words as merely professional bitterness or paranoia is to miss the point. His primary motivation is to show the frustrations and difficulties of trying to operate within what can feel like a permanently rigged system. He is trying, really, to let you know what it feels like to have a boyhood dream ruptured by the toxic realities of the world.

 

[Ziggiy]

John Boyega: 'I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race'

Said it the first time I saw that awful Force Awakens and nerds and white boys couldn’t deal with it. Well there you go, straight from the horse’s mouth.

 

[Kenny West]

Said it the first time I saw that awful Force Awakens and nerds and white boys couldn’t deal with it. Well there you go, straight from the horse’s mouth.

Everything we've said about this trilogy...is right here.

-Finn's character being a bait and switch
-The film producers 100% focused of worshipping Rey that the rest of the cast (all of them) were thrown to the wayside
- Disney having no other purpose for Finn (and rose) once they got him to prop up the white girl as planned.

fukk these movies

 

[Wiles]

Everything we've said about this trilogy...is right here.

-Finn's character being a bait and switch
-The film producers 100% focused of worshipping Rey that the rest of the cast (all of them) were thrown to the wayside
- Disney having no other purpose for Finn (and rose) once they got him to prop up the white girl as planned.

fukk these movies

This

 

[SCJoe]

Everything we've said about this trilogy...is right here.

-Finn's character being a bait and switch
-The film producers 100% focused of worshipping Rey that the rest of the cast (all of them) were thrown to the wayside
- Disney having no other purpose for Finn (and rose) once they got him to prop up the white girl as planned.

fukk these movies

As much as ppl front on Tariq he called this a week after the first movie came out.

 

[Rekkapryde]

these movies do no exist to me

 

[Kenny West]

As much as ppl front on Tariq he called this a week after the first movie came out.

My friend is a @Bryan Danielson level Disney stan and he swears up and down it didnt happen

Forwarded this interview with the quickness

 

[Bryan Danielson]

My friend is a @Bryan Danielson level Disney stan and he swears up and down it didnt happen

Forwarded this interview with the quickness

Your friend not that high of a stan then


Probably not the point or example you was trynna make.


Now if you was to say @Still FloW level DC stan

I think this seals the point you’re trynna make.

Still have time to edit your post and correct it if you like, we’ll wait

 

[Stone]

I remember being so disappointed about 30 minutes into RFA when I realized Finn wasn’t gonna be the main character.

I had only seen one trailer up to that point and that was the one that mainly centered him

 

[Ziggiy]

I wrote this right here on The Coli the NIGHT I saw Force Awakens


Now we're in and they've captured Phasma, and Finn gets his Kevin Hart on and hams it up for a couple minutes, while the cool Han Solo has to tell him to dial it down. A dangerous mission in the enemies base me you've got time to clown? fukking ridiculous, but still this is Finn's moment righ? His chance to rescue Rey and set it right, after all she did save him from the Alien earlier on right?

Nope, the ever resourceful Rey with her new found Jedi Powers has already escaped. Girl Power style!

Finn and Rey watch Han die by Kylo's hand. A very good and touching sequence I might add.

They flee into the snow. Kylo pursues them


And now the moment of truth. Finn's LAST chance at a truly heroic moment. No more running, no more hiding. The girl you've been jonesing for is knocked out, Kylo just called you a filthy traitor.


Your eyes steel

You grasp the lightsaber with determined vigor

You prepare to take Kylo Ren head on. This is your "destiny awakens" moment.

You lose.

Not ONLY do you lose, but your put in a coma.

This ends your chapter in The Force Awakens...


Poe Dameronn gets to heroically destroy the Star Killer

Rey wakes up, grabs the lightsaber, and having learned she has the force all of 24 hours, proceeds to kick Ren's Ass like she's Xena the Warror Princess.

Hell even BB8 gets to complete his mission and show the way to Luke Skywalker.


You Finn are in a coma.

No heroic moment, no redemption, no future arc for your character.]

The Black Male "Lead" ladies and gentleman



He gets not ONE truly heroic moment in the ENTIRE GODDAMN FILM

He's saved EVERY SINGLE TIME

Leia got saved less throughout the entire OG trilogy

The FIRST human character in Star Wars cinema to wield a lightsaber and not be force sensitive

A liar, Coward, wise-cracking side kick. He literally spends the rest of the film after Han shows up as Either a victim or Rey's courier.

Rey is to chosen one, the new Jedi. Poe is the hotshot pilot, the best in the Resistance.

Finn...is in a Coma...

It's extremely insulting to say, that after Han shows up, you could've replaced Finn with Jar Jar Binks and gotten the same damn results. Finn's character was NOT treated with respect or dignity. They stripped him of what it looked like they were trying to give him in the beginning, the ability to exist as his own character. He's there to tell jokes (and be the but of them) voice reluctance and fear, and get saved to show how badass the OTHER characters are.

And you can already miss me with the "bu bu but...he'll GROW in episode 8!". Luke, Han, and Leia could ALL grow in episode 5 without being completely demoralized in ANH. Luke got his hero moment, so did Han and Leia, all were PROVEN that he possess heroic qualities. Finn was never allowed to PROVE my heroic qualities. Everything he attempted was accomplished by someone else....


The movie itself was a 7/10. Finn was a 4/10 and I'm giving him the 4 based on the promise he showed in the beginning, and BOYEGA's clear talent as an actor. He REALLY did his best with what he was given, he deserved better.


Black Characters deserve better.


I will not be looking forward to Episode 8. Unless they do an EXTREME makeover of Finn's character I won't be watching future installments. Disney took a great opportunity to make a black hero and flushed it in favor of the same stereotypes we've been told over and over that Hollywood is looking to change.

These are stories by white people FOR white people. The character of Finn is our nikka Wake Up Call that it will remain so for the foreseeable future.

I should've known better.

 

[Red Shield]

Everything we've said about this trilogy...is right here.

-Finn's character being a bait and switch
-The film producers 100% focused of worshipping Rey that the rest of the cast (all of them) were thrown to the wayside
- Disney having no other purpose for Finn (and rose) once they got him to prop up the white girl as planned.

fukk these movies

yep

 

[Red Shield]

As much as ppl front on Tariq he called this a week after the first movie came out.

yeah.. hell didn't him and Boyega get in to it a few years back