ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

I have, and I enjoy them... and I still think his style changes on TLJ are more autonomous reflections of his personal view of Lucas's films than any attempt to line up with Abrams, who he completely contradicts stylistically in terms of mood, tone, and even the drama/humor balance. It's different from his other films because he personally views Star Wars that way, and because he was trying to deconstruct Lucas's films as he perceived them more than Abrams's.

We've all talked about how derivative Abrams and Johnson are of Lucas's work... but Abrams is trying to directly emulate the movies, while Johnson is trying to directly emulate the process. While Abrams and Kasdan are trying to do an updated twist on ANH (personified by Finn, Rey, Han, and Kylo all flipping the script on the OT), Johnson was trying to copy Lucas's method of watching old films he enjoyed and reading books on philosophy for inspiration.

And where Abrams is taking the characters yelling at each other more from a mix of ANH's more breathless moments and his own TV-derived preferences, Johnson is taking his from the old "hokey" inspirations Lucas had... and somewhat tongue-in-cheek mocking their hokiness. In terms of characters making on the nose thematic pronouncements, which again for Lucas came from his process of again looking at old movies... Abrams is actually doing quite a bit more subtle storytelling, as much as I know you and others skip over it; its possible that's a reflection of having Kasdan on TFA and Abrams's own experience from TV narratives, but it's also something Johnson completely lacks because he's also watching old films and can't help but feel detached from most of them, so he paints his story in broad, bold letters everywhere.

Camera movement and cinematography? ...I'll be honest, I actually think there Johnson did a good job once you get past his shyness towards the grandiose nature of Star Wars; I think we've talked about it before, but I definitely see Johnson trying to make more specific and technical visual choices in an attempt to "fancy up" his film compared to Abrams's more instinctual visual design choices gained from his Star Trek films. I think you might just be thrown off by how much more you expected from Johnson, and aren't accounting for his tenseness at dealing with a fantastical setting.

Most of all though... there's a warmth and enthusiastic glee present in much of TFA, especially around Finn, that is entirely different from TLJ, which is much colder, more removed, and vaguely clinical (if still dumb.)

Finn gets a subtle, slower, more methodical story, and hell, part of the reason TLJ's fans are so quick to try claiming TLJ started themes that TFA actually introduced is because TLJ is so much more blunt and graceless.

Where you're seeing Johnson mimic Abrams is actually Johnson trying to mimic the old films that inspired Lucas, and showing he doesn't get them, or how to translate them into something different, while both he and Abrams simply apply more modern camera work than Lucas.

 

I don't think the Luke story ends up so off the mark and out of nowhere if its deconstructing Abrams - its much more a clear misinterpretation and critique of the OT and PT. And it makes up the bulk of his story, while his aesthetic style is definitely different and veering much more towards a cold throwback - the costumes, set designs, and creature creation is radically different between each film. I definitely agree about them both failing to make an impact on a scale sense... but even there, I think for Abrams its about copying ANH, while for Johnson its about not getting that in the slightest.

To bring it back to Finn though, I think it's interesting that most of the treatment of Finn in TLJ was a lot quieter and faster - like Johnson knew he didn't actually have enough strong critiques to use against Finn that weren't biased, so he threw them out quickly and moved on just as quickly and hoped no one would notice.

 

It’s both; Feige’s MCU is dedicated to trying to get greater representation, as is Sony.

Now, in both cases, the companies are acting largely out of mercenary pragmatism, explaining both their pursuit of those goals and their occasional fumbles; they want the greater audience share greater representation will bring them, and are usually still led by white guys.

And LFL has at times tried to be representative too… but they seem stubbornly resistant to using Finn when he’s a proven commodity.

At this point, there’s clearly some denial at play in LFL regarding Finn; some people made the decision to minimize and ignore him after TFA, in their capacity as official decision makers of various sorts, and can’t own up to being wrong.

 

I said this on the other thread with similar news, but I really, really want someone to dish on all the details behind how we went from a set-piece battle starring Pirate Cowboy Jedi Finn With Lightsaber to just Cowboy Finn.

Add in the saber, and an “announcement” of Finn as another Jedi alongside Rey, and that sequence on the Star Destroyer becomes exactly the kind of awesome, if completely bananas, set-piece to fit into the general “We went Blockbuster when Space Opera was taken off the table” attitude TROS had. Remove those elements, and it’s just a bananas sequence that doesn’t have anything too spectacular about it.

Like, I *can* see Abrams talking himself out of it early on - but with Boyega defending him, Abrams seems unlikely as the main culprit. Meanwhile, we’ve got a lot of evidence that Abrams still managed to film explicit scenes confirming he at least still had the Force that somehow got pared down to a shadow of those facts being there, possibly because the confirmation was in a scene focusing on Rey and Finn’s relationship.

It definitely feels like LFL might have started by quietly requesting Finn lose the saber, then later more vocally ordering any scenes that threatened their preferred male lead, either in his chemistry with Rey or just in terms of who got the cooler scene, cut.

Imagine if we exited TROS and could at least have an argument about which dude had a cooler scene - Ben vs the Knights of Ren, or Finn the Space Cowboy Pirate Jedi. I think Ben Solo fans would likely still be happy, but I could see a few being insecure of Finn had an objectively more imaginative scene.

 

I suspect that what was in TROS wasn’t the result of any “new beginning,” but rather remnants of what was meant to be the same type of story Rey got: a completely new character arc meant to try and refocus the story on someone TLJ had neglected and left without a compelling hook worthy of a three film story.

For Rey, that new character arc in “defiance” of TLJ was her being revealed as Palpatine’s granddaughter - rejecting the TLJ idea of her being a purely nominal lean character in what was ultimately Kylo/Ben’s story. For Finn, it seems his TLJ-defying character arc was supposed to be rising as a Jedi in his own right and thus a peer to Rey and Ben - rejecting the TLJ idea that he was a strictly supporting character beneath them and relatively irrelevant.

And Finn’s story than got it’s most important moments cut out, leaving the skeleton of a story behind.

I’ll add that I think making Finn a Jedi does make sense as a reaction against both TLJ’s demotion of him and it’s attempts to cut off other avenues for relevance, avenues LFL might have been inclined to enforce regardless of anything else. Abrams probably left Finn in TFA certain he would be the uncontested male lead and hero, and/or Rey’s love interest - and Johnson’s film wanted him behind both Kylo/Ben and Poe as a character that mattered, and really, very clearly didn’t want him to be Rey’s love interest when that was Kylo’s job. When LFL clearly wanted Finn to not be Rey’s love interest (even preferring Poe as a possibility over him if not Ben himself) and wanted the Jedi to be the only characters that mattered (like in TLJ), making Finn a Jedi is the best way to ensure his place.

…It’s just that LFL turned out to be more scared of Finn having any relevance than likely even Abrams expected.

I’m still 100% convinced that LFL is insecure about Finn’s success in TFA’s reception by the audience, and that some members, like Jason Fry or Pablo Hidalgo, are expressing the denial LFL has towards what they did to Finn and Boyega.

 

The timeline, shows, though, that it likely goes beyond that, and actually quite a ways back - Trevorrow is kicked out and Abrams comes back well before TLJ is even released…

…Which means we should likely consider the most important Reylo and Kylo fans to be those in LFL who were already rejecting Finn as the male lead, romantic lead or character of any major importance, before those fanbases in the audiences even got truly “activated” by TLJ’s release.

Basically, people who already wanted the narrative that many Reylo and Kylo fans would see coming out of TLJ; in particular, people who wanted Ben to get his redemption earlier than he had it in Trevorrow’s DOTF script and who were already pushing for some non-Kylo Big Bad before firing Trevorrow when stuff like Sollony Ren failed to meet their expectations, meaning that Palpatine’s arrival was likely already decided on by Abrams to answer LFL’s demands before TLJ was released as well.

Depending on when those concept arts were drawn up, it’s possible that Abrams was already trying to create Jedi Finn in his earliest notes to artists, and might have lost that battle with LFL before TLJ was even released as well (which would also explain why we don’t see further, more developed art of the scene beyond black and white sketches.)

Similarly, we can probably tell that Finn was barred from becoming Rey’s love interest before Abrams came on thanks to how Trevorrow’s script pushes Poe there instead as the Kylo-substitute; Poe really only makes sense in that role, particularly at that point in the story, if there’s an “anyone-but-Finn” undercurrent at LFL.

I suspect LFL had concocted themselves Finn was a mistake back during TFA’s production, then sought to try and make that a self-fulfilling prophecy throughout the rest of the ST’s development, even after TFA came out and the box office, critics, and fanbase disproved their notion.

 

I also want to see more of them, and wouldn't mind a possible romance…

…But given how Finn was handled in the ST, it might not be wise to place him in any position where he’d come off as her sidekick or subordinate. There *was* a way that could have been done, but given the bias and malice of some of the ST towards Finn, he kind fo needs to be seen as her equal and peer if any romance comes, and I’d argue probably even whenever they’re paired up for a story in the future at all even as platonic friends.

It’s just the dynamics left over from having Kylo replace Finn, by denigrating Finn and depending entirely on the privilege of Kylo’s bloodline and demographic, and how that would reflect on a Rey and Finn’s relationship. Finn shouldn’t be “behind” Kylo in any regards to Rey, nor should we question Rey’s worthiness as a friend and companion… but TLJ and then TROS are all about that.

I’d suspect that Finn developing Jedi skills off screen in the earliest drafts of TROS was likely because of that - Abrams wanted him to be respected first and foremost, when LFL’s preferred story was against that… leading to TROS’s edits inflicting disrespect on him again.

 

Unless Rey fully owns that she was a dumbass in the ST, I think the ship has sailed on any romance between her and Finn, at least in a way that would allow Finn to have any dignity.

However, I would love to see more Finn, treated with respect, apart from Rey.