John Boyega reveals he had an honest talk with an unnamed Disney executive after his Star Wars criticisms went public. Boyega is best known for his role as the disgruntled former Stormtrooper Finn in all three of Disney's Star Wars sequels. When Finn's character was introduced in 2015's The Force Awakens the potential for his character arc as a Black lead in the sequel trilogy was incredibly promising. However, Finn continued to be sidelined further and further in 2017's The Last Jedi and 2019's The Rise of Skywalker.
Since then, Boyega has criticized Star Wars' handling of Finn. He has pointed out that Star Wars handled storylines for other characters of color in the sequels quite poorly. For example, Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico was another character introduced with such promise in The Last Jedi, only for her character to be in 76 seconds of The Rise of Skywalker. In addition, Boyega has had to deal with racist, toxic Star Wars fans in real life ever since Finn first hit screens, but Boyega finally shut the trolls down on social media, saying he wasn't going to put up with them anymore. On the bright side, Boyega's Star Wars co-stars fully supported him talking about his frustration with how Finn's character was handled.
In a new interview with THR, Boyega revealed that a Disney executive reached out to him following his Star Wars critiques. Boyega sounded hopeful about the conversation. Check out Boyega's take on his talk with the Disney executive below.
"It was a very honest, a very transparent conversation. There was a lot of explaining on their end in terms of the way they saw things. They gave me a chance also to explain what my experience was like. I'd hope that me being so open with my career, at this stage, would help the next man, the guy that wants to be the assistant DOP, the guy that wants to be a producer. I hope that the conversation is not such a taboo or elephant in the room now, because someone just came and said it."
It's great that Boyega hopes his overall Star Wars experience will help others wanting to get their foot in the door of the movie industry. However, it's frankly unacceptable that Boyega had to deal with such adversity in a franchise that should be all about celebrating diversity. As a whole, the Star Wars sequels were an ambitious enterprise, with a lot of good ideas that ultimately were underdeveloped and underutilized.
Finn's character is the embodiment of this as a Force-sensitive Stormtrooper who defied his role as a faceless soldier in order to be a vital leader in the rebellion, a leader that was instrumental in defeating Palpatine and the First Order. Boyega did a fantastic job playing Finn, but it would've been great to see Finn become a Jedi and a fully-fledged hero in his own right in spectacular Star Wars fashion.
Boyega had every right to criticize Star Wars for how Finn was handled. Hopefully, as the actor noted, his outspokenness on the matter can help actors of color in the movie industry overall. Ironically, Boyega has become the character Finn should've been in the movies: the hero fans needed to make Star Wars more inclusive and inspiring for all.
Source: THR