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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by Pro Scoundrel , Jan 3, 2020.

  1. sian1965

    sian1965 Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2020
    Rogue One on TV in the UK.
    How I wish they'd gone this route in TROS.
     
  2. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    But you love TROS deep down. This is all an elaborate prank. I'm onto you ;)
     
  3. sian1965

    sian1965 Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2020
    I wish TROS was a prank.
     
    Blueandwhite likes this.
  4. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    I wish my existence was a prank.
     
  5. sian1965

    sian1965 Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2020
    That bad, huh?
     
  6. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Same as always.

    We're all fine... here ... now... thankyou... how are you?
     
    godisawesome likes this.
  7. sian1965

    sian1965 Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2020
    Signing off before it becomes a boring conversation!:D
     
    godisawesome and HevyDevy like this.
  8. Triad Moons

    Triad Moons Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 14, 2020
    So, @StarWarsUK decided to lump Finn into the came category as mass-murderers Kylo Ren and Anakin Skywalker. In a tweet video about "good and evil is a matter of perspective", their choice was met with immediate backlash and they ended up deleting the video. The lack of optics is staggering, but someone managing that account listened.

    Boyega is Christian himself. How he handles himself, what he does or does not tolerate from absolute strangers, as evidenced through his actions, is probably a reflection of his particular interpenetration of the faith.

    Yeah, Finn ain't Kyle Katarn, that's just a disingenuous statement all 'round. The only thing the two of them have in common is that they're Stormtroopers who befriended rebels and became rebels themselves after realizing the system they were apart of was corrupt. Beyond that, the two characters are practical oranges and apples sharing the same sandbox universe. Kyle is a literal superhero type character doing larger-than-life things (like single handedly stealing Death Star plans) and actually got to become a Jedi on his own terms.

    Finn is one of many children who was abducted and indoctrinated and robbed of their agency, and never had one aspect of his character explored after the first film. Kyle chose to be a Stormtrooper, Finn had zero say in the matter, and no one has been remotely been interested exploring that or how he felt about it like they have with Kylo Ren's revisionist backstory.

    Like I mentioned in the Diversity thread, corporations gain everything by paying lip service to diversity and inclusion and lose nothing by backpedaling or never committing themselves to what representation means for marginalized actors or stories about specific people. It's the first impression that matters the most. I don't think they were throwing around racial slurs and like that guy was, but they didn't have to be to cause harm. LFD worked to minimize Finn's role, and the last two movies, and that scrapped script, are a testament to that.

    The thing is, a lack of optics and sensitivity to the depiction of Black actors, characters, or showing no consideration for your audience, is a form of actual racism. It's how begin/passive racism works. Non-Black creatives can say or do things that won't be widely accepted as harmful beyond the impacted groups until they do something considered unforgivable to the outside party. It's why the insistence to ignore Black critique about Finn (within the context discussed) reinforces the issue.

    Did they mean or not mean to do it? I think ignorance is to harder to argue given the platform they actively sold these films on (diversity/inclusion) and who they ultimately catered to anyway. But ignorance also doesn't make that harm less damaging or absolve it of the aforementioned, it just exposes implicit bias, and becomes a shield of deflection for fanbases to use in the future. Intentional or not, their lack of optics clearly effected how Finn was perceived within LucasFilm once the character became Black by virtue of his actor. "(maybe) It (probably) wasn't intentional" doesn't outweigh the consequences, which is why I never worried myself with their intent whenever I bring up the consequences.

    Since I've been here, I've discussed how Finn was handled specifically through the lens of erasure as it pertains to that term and how LucasFilm has historically demonstrated issues with the portrayal of their Black characters. Other times I've used terminology like "tone deaf", "microaggression", "implicit bias", "racial bias" (conscious/unconscious), "empathy gap" (a whole movie dang dedicated to making Kylo Ren sympathetic while Finn is used as a punchline, denied such sympathy), and "dehumanization" (violent physical humor, drinking out of the trough, treating him like he's an ignorant).

    I've done it here and I've done within the diversity thread with no issue until now. And it's odd that using that term to identify the underlying issues with Finn is more disparaging than calling something like Reylo sexist or abusive as it relates to the female protagonist. It's a product of the creatives, if not a reflection of how unconscious bias effected Rey in particular (as a character they also championed as a feminist figure).

    I don't seek this stuff out, but it's hard to ignore the disparity in how post-TFA writers have approached Finn with apathy in comparison to how they commonly approached Kylo Ren with an abundance of empathy, through said creative's own text, films, or personal dialog. Fandom's post-TLJ sentiments about Finn didn't just spring out of the ether. Those were sentiments that were communicated (if not already shared) through the language of the writers in external material, TLJ, and how they engaged fans on social media. (The constant reiteration that Finn's entire story in TFA was completely about Rey, and that he was selfish, came from writers like Johnson, Hildago, and Fry, and other writers reinforced it. Same thing with "he needed to learn to be brave". It's like none of them watched TFA.)

    During and after TLJ, the writers and external media used the middle-point of the trilogy to hyper-fixate on the so-called "flaws" of Finn in contrast to how they highlight and assume the audience should buy into Kylo Ren's "struggle" or Rey's sympathy for Ren. That video the StarWarsUK twitter uploaded explained so much about how they see Finn, as does that baffling moment in Colin Trevorrow's script where Rey tells Finn she believes "anyone can change" because he left the First Order (as if Finn was out here doing the same things Kylo Ren was).

    Jason Fry (who collaborated with Johnson to write the TLJ novelization) states his disparities regarding Finn and Rose (particularly how he characterized Rose as bitter and jealous) weren't intentional, but he reinforced marginalization of Finn and Rose all the same. Bryan Young's Age of Resistance essays (and those comics in general) demonstrate what I mean about how they see Finn's story vs. Ren's. He appears largely dismissive of Finn as a character, going as far as to hope that Rey is the one to liberate the Stormtroopers and reunite them with their families, while Finn can her help her. A plot thread specific to Finn's narrative is something one of the writers hopes he becomes subordinate in for another character.

    I doubt LFD is going to come out and willingly self-incriminate by acknowledging their biases or prejudices regarding race played a factor in how the character was treated over the span of two films and not particularly handled well in the first. Not anymore than Starz or FOX will admit Orlando Jones being fired from American Gods, or Nichole Beharie's leading/protagonist role on Sleepy Hollow being sidelined (like Finn) then killed, was a result of such bias (both companies deny race had anything to with it).

    Lucas admitted ages ago it wasn't his intention to play into stereotypes with Jar-Jar Binks (and he had Ahmed Best come to his defense). He clearly wasn't considering how the Black audience would pick up on those tropes, but that doesn't mean Jar-Jar stops embodying those problems. Disney/LucasFilm could come out and say the same thing about Finn and Rey, but they don't cease to embody the issues people picked up on and named. And like I said before, "it wasn't intentional" doesn't nullify the nature of their actions. It means the writers have issues they need to (and I hope they) reconcile with/address. It also just becomes a deflection point for the insular fanbase ready to jump Black fans who bring it up using the aforementioned term.

    Kennedy says (at the 11th hour of the trilogy) the films were always about Rey and Kylo Ren (and there's a film and two years worth of pre-TLJ material arguing against that) as Boyega expressed his discontent over the span of five months about what happened to his lead role. Kennedy has historically shown zero consideration for Finn/Boyega's role. (That vague tweet from Phil Lord regarding Solo and what might've happened to its Black characters doesn't help matters either).

    Boyega's advocation for Black creatives behind the scenes, why he feared losing his career for speaking out against racism (at all), and how he's spoken about his role post-TFA, trends toward saying what Jones has been frank about and what Beharie has diplomatically said without naming names. It's why that Polygon article drew parallels to Boyega's real life actions while criticizing the films for leaning into stereotypes with his character, and why Tor.com reckons the franchise won't examine the implications of its allegories with regard to how its Black characters exist alongside them. Obviously, Boyega's suggested he might work with them again, but that doesn't make their lack of optics any less a form of erasure that Black actors have historically had to grin and bear.

    I'm not asking you to reconsider your terms or guidelines. In any other case, I would've let this lie, but it's how your phrasing comes off that rattles me. I am asking you to consider how the phrase was being used (it's specifically, essentially). I haven't been making assumptions, and I'm not attacking/bashing LucasFilm. I've been naming a pattern of erasure as I've seen it crop up throughout this trilogy and as I've seen it appear in other media with Black leads or co-stars (Sleepy Hollow, The Flash, Supergirl, American Gods, HEROES, Doctor Who).

    For me, it's been long enough that I can't dance around the pattern in how LucasFilm/Disney has approached Finn or other Black characters without naming it. I have zero benefit of the doubt or empathy left to offer them. For this particular forum space, especially given the nature of the fanbase, maybe that'll always be perceived as bashing (especially since the company in question associates with this site, so I get it.).

    But for me it's simply recognizing the attitude that springs from learned behavior, passively or proactively. Doing otherwise feels a little too much like asking me to become complicit in the gas-lightning I had to deal with from this fanbase for the last six years whenever this topic or that phrase comes up. Especially with bad faith actors in here using less 'harsh' verbage. That doesn't set right with me, so I'll do the smart thing and step away.
     
  9. JoJoPenelli

    JoJoPenelli Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2000
    ....did I just read that JCF does not allow posters to call anything “racist”? As in, one not only can’t call any individuals “racist” but one can’t even call an action or a thing “racist”?

    Please tell me that’s not what was just said.
     
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  10. EHT

    EHT Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2007
    We have asked a few times that people simply discuss the situation regarding the movies without assigning titles to the filmmakers, such as “racist”; it could simply be that they were unfortunately insensitive to how things might be received by the audience. We cannot know for sure that racism is the reason, even though their decisions may end up coming across that way. It’s simply part of our rules against bashing.

    We have never said that no individuals, actions, or things can be called racist.
     
  11. EHT

    EHT Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2007
    TCF-1138 likes this.
  12. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
  13. JediAce1

    JediAce1 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014
    Jedi Knight Fett and 2Cleva like this.
  14. Bor Mullet

    Bor Mullet Force Ghost star 7

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    Apr 6, 2018
    Perhaps my least favorite style of drawing right there.
     
    Blueandwhite and alwayslurking like this.
  15. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    I’m still confused at why IDW is making any Star Wars comics.
     
    Jedi_Fenrir767 and afrojedi like this.
  16. sian1965

    sian1965 Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2020
    They're aimed at younger audiences, the art often suffers there.
     
  17. obi-arin-kenobi

    obi-arin-kenobi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 10, 2005
    Looks cheap imo.

    Looks like someone changed Aladdins nose and hair and called it a day.
     
  18. Immortiss

    Immortiss Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 10, 2013
    When it comes to rating the ST Boyega’s views are right in line with many others who see its shortcomings as a concluding act. Or perhaps like Hamill he’s just another fan challenged by his predilections of his childhood heroes that the ST shattered as great storytelling (GOTCHA!). Would like just an opportunity to see/hear Lucas, Hamill or even Boyega’s take on the ST.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  19. Daxon101

    Daxon101 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2016
    John boyega says he is ready to move on from Star wars. i just hope he realizes that even if he wasn't happy with how it turned out. Star wars still pretty much boosted his career. i remember when episode 7 was coming out and they were a cast of unknowns. who knew john boyega before Star wars?
     
  20. Korv

    Korv Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Apr 11, 2019
    I did actually. I liked him in Attack the Block, which was why I was excited when he got cast.

    On another note, I take it there hasn't been any post-Rise of Skywalker content for Finn yet? Or any of the characters for that matter?
     
  21. sian1965

    sian1965 Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2020
    I did hear there was a Finn/Rey/Poe comic coming out where Rey is training Finn, but I don't know much about it.
     
  22. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    [​IMG]
    (W) Michael Moreci, Nick Brokenshire (A) Nick Brokenshire, Ilias Kyriazis (CA) Francesco Francavilla
    In Shops: Sep 16, 2020
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2020
    anakinfansince1983 likes this.
  23. JediAce1

    JediAce1 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014
    A lot of people knew him knew him from Attack the Block. It was Daisy that was the true unknown.
     
  24. reyvision

    reyvision Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 12, 2017
    I hadn't heard of him (or Daisy or Adam, I had heard of Oscar and Domhnall), but I did have a friend who had and it was because of Attack the Block. She loved that movie and was really excited about John's casting.
     
  25. Daxon101

    Daxon101 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2016
    Well lets put it another way. when you say the name john Boyega today, many know that name. i very much doubt his name was all that recognizable to a large number after Attack of the block. he probably wouldn't have been cast in Pacific Rim: Uprising as the lead either if it wasn't for Star Wars.

    I just hope he doesn't take that for granted.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2020