ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

So, remember how I said that Ben & Jerry apparently put their money where their mouths is?

Yeah, turns out that I didn't realize just how much that applied to the real Ben and Jerry.

The founders of the company, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, were arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest.

 

Are you motherofpearl1 on a different forum?

 

Yep!

 

So it’s of your belief that John is only using the black lives matter movement as a way to further his career?

if that’s what you really think why do you continue to post in this thread? Why are you here?

 

Because it's a free country, and because Mr Boyega behaving like a five year old on social media caused me to lose a lot of respect for him.
I do however respect #BLM and George Floyd's family, especially his amazingly dignified brother who has urged peaceful protest.
And because until I'm officially banned I have the right to express my opinion, just as people have the right to peaceful protest.

 

Your opinion is just you spewing hate.

you already said that you lost all your respect for him and yet here you are talking about him and making hateful accusations against him.

 

Okay, not engaging.

 

Everyone play nice in here. Discuss the topic, not other posters.

Also, this:

 

You should tweet JB--maybe the tweet will make his next highlight reel.

 

You sound like you got issues. I have to say, anyone who thinks boyega is protesting to further his career, has some deep seated hatred against the man. This is the type of sick garbage I can always expect from shippers.

EDIT: alright. I just saw the warning. I'll just block and be done with that ugliness.

 

A couple months ago, I guess when his discontent was at its most apparent, a user asked or suggested he could star in a superhero movie, and he all but stated he was more interested in pursing films that weren't giant tent-pole films (and maybe, to some extent, not being managed by Disney). It's definitely not impossible, but I get the sense Boyega wants a break from that nonsense at the moment.

 

It would be amazing if Disney would decide to continue the story with Episode 10. Seeing Finn being a Jedi Knight in a live-action movie(s) as one of the main stars would be everything they seemed to promote leading up to TFA. I believe a continuation of the story with the sequel characters is plausible seeing how they boxed themselves in by saying it would be a trilogy (7,8,9). 3 movies probably wasn't enough to give all the characters and storylines justice, in my opinion. Very hopeful thinking we can eventually see Finn, Rey, Poe, etc. return for more.

 

No. (Jedi) Finn failed to draw more than 12% African American audience for TFA in the first 10 days (read: interest based on marketing and non-spoilery WOM, not on spoilers). This demo can do much better (Transformers Age of Extinction drew 22% in 2014 and IM3 in 2013) but 12% is below their average of 15-16%. So if your character/actor fails to improve the attendance of the demo that he was supposed to improve, he is not going to get more prominent in the future but less. It's just the way business works.

Moreover, Disney has no reason to look at their SW era as a diversity failure because they increased representation in major roles, including 3 major black characters (one of them a woman) in TROS which never happened before. It's just that this forum is super focused on Finn/Boyega to exclusion of everything else when it comes to measuring diversity success/lack thereof, so your optics of ST are that of diversity failure because Finn didn't meet your expectations. But objectively speaking, they met their goals which is more inclusion both by gender (women are both prominent and part of the universe outside of just main roles) and ethnicity (aside already mentioned black representation, they increased number of East Asians and Latinos).

 

Like I said, first 10 days of movie release create interest based on marketing and non-spoilery WOM. So people saw Jedi Finn on posters and in spots/trailers and...didn't really care. That had nothing to do with how he was written and handled in the movie. Decision to see the movie was based on previews and bare minimum WOM of "see it or skip it" without spoiling why.And they didn't rush to see the movie.

Also, statistics refute your point because your point means that racists complains resulted in reduction of Finn's role, while statistics show that demo that his character was supposed to interest in SW wasn't interested. SW has always been predominantly a franchise attracting white male demo and Disney tried to attract other demos with inclusion. However, the franchise remained white and male mostly in about 60%. You can't build new fanbase overnight that's really all that is.

 

yes people have different taste and therefore different things in previews attract different people. And since this forum is very vocal about wanting to see characters who look like them (translation: not white male) that's also marketing thinking that different demos want to see characters who look like them. So depending on how much they like someone and context that target them primarily (there are always secondary, tertiary etc audience cause no product is without crossover with other demos), they are going to rush more or less to see the movie and that will be reflected in the audience share. And 12% share in on the lower side for African American demo who contribute to blockbusters with 15-16% on average and in rare cases such as Black Panther with 35%. So realistically speaking, Disney was probably hoping for anything between 16% (Jurassic World) and 22% (Iron Man 3, Transformers 4) just to name a few blockbusters closest to TFA release and without a major black character, but got only 12%.

Point being, I understand that you like the narrative where vicious racists robbed Finn off his leading role because Disney wanted their money, but reality is that AA audience didn't back him up because previews didn't scream must-see. Numbers don't lie because they are not subjective. They are what they are.

 

Why are you basing Boyega's success in the Star Wars saga solely on how many African-American moviegoers he drew to the movie theaters? Do you base Oscar Isaac's success in the franchise on how many Latino moviegoers he attract? Or focus on how many women moviegoers Daisy Ridley attract?

 

Because studios increase diversity in movies in order to increase diverse attendance. It's a known thing. It's about money. You want more people to buy tickets so you look for ways to attract them and one way is appeal to ethnic background, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc by having them represented. Also, because this forum repeatedly stated that what was done to Finn disappointed black kids. I'm merely showing there weren't that many black kids to be disappointed because market share was lower than average blockbuster share for this demo. Dinokino and capekino have larger share, so do Transformers. And I didn't mention this detail but TFA (and all other Disney era SW) skewed adult so fewer kids from any demo showed up comparable to some other franchises. point being, it seems to be the franchise thing in that SW simply isn't big with this demo overall, no matter who they cast, unlike some other franchises that achieve average and above average audience share.

Since their share was larger (15%) and increased for TLJ (18%) while AA decreased (11%), I'd say that correlation between studio decision to increased Poe role and increased Latinx audience share is very likely. Studio wanted to keep the character already and increased audience share supported that they should expand his role.

They went on the record that they wanted a female lead to increase their female audience share. The franchise still attracted about 60% male audience in the first 10 days (when studios make most money in USA). That's a standard ratio for most blockbusters too. Even Captain Marvel had larger male attendance than female through Wonder Woman flipped it in female favor. But hey, I remember critique around here that Rey was sidelined in TLJ in favor of Luke and Kylo so maybe that 60% male share had something to do with it? It would make sense.

@anakinfansince1983

Because I'm presenting audience share by ethnicity as reported by MPAA's Annual Theme Report. They didn't break down ethnic audiences into audience by age, gender, income, etc. They also have gender breakdown (male or female without further breakdown by age or ethnic background). I'm just the messenger, don't shoot me, Ranger Rick.

 

Which Finn, in many ways, ended up doing.