ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

As of TLJ they are all about as interesting as watching paint dry. I thought they all had a lot of potential post TFA. Since then I can’t wait for something new and better so we can forget the whole ST business.

 

Nothing wrong with saving who you love, I get that. And him caring about her before other things in TFA. I guess I'm not seeing why is it negative that he did? They bonded after their Jakku escape, it's natural he cares for her well being?

 

Fair enough... Maybe he did "absolutely nothing" for me because they did "absolutely nothing" with him haha. You know what I find absurd? That they actually tried to market him as the Jedi (See the poster etc) ...somehow I knew all along he wouldn't be! I knew Rey would be the one right from the get go. I guess that's why the ST got so silly. Making the main star of the trilogy a Skywalker was just expected. It's not creative or witty to make a film where you are introduced to suspects in a who dunnit only to turn around at the end and go "Ha - it was the next door neighbour all along!" Really? We only saw him twice and had zero clues onscreen...that's just annoying!

The PT - Grandfather
The OT - Father
The ST - Daughter (tries to find yellow lightsaber...can't)

But no, let's make her a Palpatine...???

Sorry, back to Finn... Um, nah I have nothing more to add.

 

A new update regarding Boyega’s career. A recent announcement was made of another film he is set to star in called “The Test”.

https://deadline.com/2020/09/john-boyega-gavin-hood-payman-maadi-eone-drama-the-test-1234579543/

Entertainment One is soon taking out a package, an adaptation of the Sylvain Neuvel novella The Test. John Boyega and Payman Maadi star in the Gavin Hood-drama about a soft-spoken immigrant (Maadi) taking a citizen evaluation test, and a brilliant young behavioral psychologist (Boyega) supervising “the test” confront a terrorist group lead by a far-right fanatic. Hood, who directed Tsotsi and more recently the tense drone drama Eye In The Sky and Official Secrets. He wrote the script. Erwin Stoff will produce with Zev Foreman and Ilda Diffley overseeing for eOne.

And this is a perfect opportunity to use the resources of Deadline to lay out reminders of other post Star Wars films he is attached to.

First there is “Naked Singularity” which has already been filmed:

https://deadline.com/2019/04/olivia-cooke-john-boyega-scott-free-naked-singularity-1202591129/

Olivia Cooke has signed on to star opposite John Boyega In Naked Singularity, the heist fil helmed by first-time feature director Chase Palmer, who also penned the screenplay with David Matthews. Scott Free Productions is producing the pic, which is an adaptation of the same-titled novel by Sergio De La Pava.

The story centers on an idealistic young New York City public defender burned out by the system and in the middle of a mental breakdown. Seeing signs of the universe collapsing around him, he gets suspended and decides to rob a $75M drug deal off one of his clients.

He is cast as the lead as well in Jeremy Saulnier’s next work (Saulnier is one of the best young filmmakers to emerge from the 2010s). Its title at this point is “Rebel Ridge” and it has a pretty good cast”

https://deadline.com/2020/02/don-johnson-james-cromwell-john-boyega-rebel-ridge-netflix-1202868126/

Knives Out and Watchmen star Don Johnson has been cast alongside John Boyega in the Netflix film Rebel Ridge from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. Also joining the cast are Erin Doherty (The Crown), James Badge Dale (Mickey and the Bear, Hold The Dark), Zsane Jhe (Underground Railroad, Good Trouble) and Oscar Nominee James Cromwell (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, American Horror Story: Asylum).

The pic is described as a deeply human yet high-velocity thriller that explores systemic American injustice in the context of bone-breaking action, ever-coiling suspense, and pitch-black humor.

Another one coming our way is the intriguing sounding “Borderland” with another strong cast:

https://deadline.com/2020/07/john-b...ynor-star-ira-thriller-borderland-1202974762/

IRA thriller Borderland is set to feature an exciting cast of John Boyega (Star Wars), Jack Reynor (Midsommar), Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim) and Felicity Jones (The Theory Of Everything).

The film will follow an Irish paramilitary, Michael (Reynor), who witnesses the shooting of his pregnant wife at the hands of an SAS sergeant named Tempest (Boyega) when a border ambush goes wrong. When Tempest is sent back to London to lead a covert counter-terrorist operation, Michael joins a ruthless active service unit (ASU) wreaking havoc in the capital. For Michael, the mission is personal – to hunt down Tempest – and he’ll stop at nothing to avenge his wife’s death.


And with the humorous sounding “They Cloned Tyrone” he has just been joined by two other heavy-hitters:

https://deadline.com/2020/09/jamie-...e-teyonah-parris-john-boyega-cast-1203027407/

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris, who stars in the upcoming Candyman reboot, have come aboard They Cloned Tyrone. The pair join previously announced lead John Boyega in Macro and Netflix’s sci-fi feature film, which will mark the directorial debut of Creed 2 scribe Juel Taylor.

Taylor penned the screenplay with Tony Rettenmaier. The plot follows a series of eerie events that thrusts an unlikely trio (Boyega, Foxx, Parris) onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy in this pulpy mystery caper.

Macro secured rights to They Cloned Tyrone in a bidding war, developed it and sold it to the streamer.

Of course there is still the “Small Axe” anthology work by the great Steve McQueen that I posted about last time. It will start airing on Amazon Prime (in America at least) in November.

And there’s more. Boyega will be doing something different, a ten-part sci fi thriller done in podcast form. I can't wait for this to be available for downloading:

https://deadline.com/2020/08/john-b...ted-podcast-iheartpodcast-network-1203002901/

EXCLUSIVE: iHeartRadio, FlynnPictureCo., Psychopia Pictures and UpperRoom Productions have defied the pandemic to complete production on There Be Monsters, a 10-part narrative sci-fi thriller podcast. Starring are Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘s John Boyega and American Crime: The Assassination of Gianni Versace‘s Darren Criss. There Be Monsters is produced by Beau Flynn of FlynnPictureCo., Dan Bush of Psychopia Pictures and Boyega’s UpperRoom Productions, and it will be available later this year on the iHeartPodcast Network.

Boyega plays Jack Locke, a mysterious hero with a vendetta who infiltrates a Silicon Valley body hacking startup run by an enigmatic CEO Max Fuller (Criss), whose highly secretive creations promise to enhance human biology in incredible ways. Of course, every drug has a side effect.


Finally he has signed a deal with Netflix as a behind-the-scenes Hollywood player:

https://deadline.com/2020/03/john-boyega-netflix-movie-slate-east-west-star-wars-1202878183/

Star Wars actor John Boyega is teaming with Netflix via his UpperRoom banner to develop non-English language films focusing on west and east Africa.

UpperRoom said it “will develop film projects based on stories, cast, characters, crew, literary properties, mythology, screenplays and/or other elements in or around African countries.”

“I am thrilled to partner with Netflix to develop a slate of non-English language feature films focused on African stories, and my team and I are excited to develop original material,” commented Boyega. “We are proud to grow this arm of our business with a company that shares our vision.”

So from the looks of things he will be quite busy and his career appears to be taking off. That may come as a disappointment to those who have been saying since TLJ that he would have the least remarkable career post Star Wars of all the new cast ( some refer to it as him having a Mark Hamill type of career following his Luke Skywalker days post Return of the Jedi). And of course there have been those who were very vocal that he wouldn’t get work again following his criticism of the sequel trilogy as well as his being outspoken on social issues. We’ll have to wait for the final results of these projects but it can’t be denied that his plate is full. Go, John!

 

I wouldn't have an issue with RJ having him remain reluctant to join the Resistance if Rian was interested enough in his storyline to give us a good and worthy development out of it. Going back to long ago discussions Finn, despite (or because of ) what he had seen and done, may have been more interested in staying clear out of the conflict altogether and finally putting his life ahead of any cause or fight. Nothing wrong with that. But what he experiences on Canto Bight must shift his thinking and finally lead him to making a moral stand. That shift however needed to be something that could be legitimately convincing to us as viewers. Frankly that's not what we got. If Finn had witnessed something emotionally jarring like the transporting of children who were to be new child soldiers for the First Order and that the rich folks of Canto Bight had been financing and facilitating this form of slave labor, then I could see that being the final straw. He needed to experience something that reminded him of that pain he went through, what he did not need was having someone like Rose tell him what he should be thinking and thereby leading him in one direction. That's boring.

Of course it would have helped if he was portrayed in TFA the same way he had been in toy merchandise a year leading up to the release : a trained warrior. Also if he had had some blood on his hands by participating in earlier battles and if he had been perhaps more sullen and guarded around others while also being the kickass guy I thought we were going to get, that may have made his hesitancy to join the Resistance more acceptable to some viewers. The opportunities were there; TPTB failed him.

 

Boom! Well stated. You hit it on the nose, the bolded part in particular which were my initial thoughts after seeing the movie. Can't go without saying that in my estimation Reylos talked up Rose on social media for a similar reason. She was merely a tool to ensure that Finn would not be an obstacle to Rey & Kylo. But outside of that they had no real use for her nor did they devote energy talking up her story and any potential character arc in store for her. No, she was just cover. Like Rian intended.

 

Is anyone else bothered by Finn teasing Poe about being a former Spice Runner and being a bit judgemental about it? I mean, Poe never gave him a hard time about being a stormtrooper, yet the second Poe is no boy scout, Finn is judgemental and slightly disrespectful.

That reaction also leads me to believe that he will be pissed that Rey kissed KYLO REN of all people and "wanted to take his hand".

 

Mace Windu's memory and reputation was ruined posthumously. I don't think they care about criticizing the dead.

 

I liked the deleted scene where we find out Finn and Poe were former Spice Girls.

 

This is one of the (many) reasons I hate Reylo so much. It basically requires Rey to live on her own little plot island. If she has any meaningful interactions with other characters, the ridiculousness with the way Rey is being written can no longer be ignored.

 

I can't see Rey or Finn or Poe ever discussing it in any significant detail, lol. At least not any time soon. It seems like an area LFL will ignore. They killed him off right after the kiss because they obviously didn't want to deal with it. It's very having their cake and eating it, too.

 

Kylo Ren died because he then read all the negative reactions to the kiss on Reddit, and then he died laughing.

 

Yup. They've already skipped past that, that's what the no-dialogue Trio Hug was for. "All is well and nothing else matters because we're a family" and all that stuff.

The character writing in this trilogy is a joke, and TROS is the punchline. Rey spends the whole movie dunking on Finn, but all he is allowed to do is follow her around like a loyal puppy, trusting Rey to a fault even when she pushes him down, heals his mortal enemy (leaving him free), and bails out with the last Wayfinder.

Poe at least got to be pissed about Rey immediately stealing a boat from people they just met and potentially getting herself killed with it.

 

There's also the death of Han and Finn's reaction to it.

The thing is, that I think they didn't have to do what they did to do this. They could've delved into the stormtroope thing for the character and began building that more into the DNA of the character.

I wouldn't go as far as say Finn sees Kylo as his mortal enemy as far as the movie's have shown. And I see her pushing him down as a way to keep him away from the fighting. I don't remember her dunking hon Finn really.

 

why then didn't JJ threw back the ball to Finn court in TRoS? He could do whatever he wanted leaving Rey's attempt to reach Kylo in TLJ as just that, an attempt. In fact there never was a better suited moment to turn it back around than post TLJ's Rey's closing the door on Kylo. With that, JJ had open narrative to do that which you claim was his original intent in TFA was, making Finn the lead. Yet, he didn't do that...I wonder why.

 

I actually liked when Rey knocked Finn down. I thought she did it to protect him. Would it be nicer to let Kylo kill him? That fight was the highlight of the film for me.

 

he could have stepped down if he disagreed with it. Or have it both, make Kylo Rey's trophy wife with Finn still being the second to Rey lead with the bigger part in the story.
I think, if ST had shortcomings, it was definitely too broad of the scope of characters introduced in TFA with not enough time to give the proper spotlight to all of them throughout the trilogy.