ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

One of the primary reasons I think there have been no stories with Finn's involvement could be due to the fact that any attempt at doing so would stand in stark contrast to how anemic and shallow his portrayal was in much of the trilogy to begin with. It's kind of like how the tone between how he's shown in the first 15 minutes or so of TFA doesn't really fit with the rest of the film, much less the trilogy. When you're in the shoes of just about any creative at this point for any novels or TV dealing with Finn, you're basically going to be in the first position of ripping the Band-Aid off by having him be a deep character with his premise actually taken seriously unlike the films he originated from, which can be intimidating.

After all, TFA was starting out taking that risk of having Finn be a traumatized child soldier and then promptly gave up before the film's plot even got rolling so anyone picking up the pieces of that would need some courage going forward.

 

I wonder how different Finn would have been written if he were played by Jesse Plemons (who was up for the role).

Or a higher profile actor like Michael B Jordan. I can’t picture him only being given “Rey!”.

 

Actually you can say that also about Rose Tico, General Hux, both depicted very blandly in TRoS. Have I forgotten someone on the list? Admiral Holdo was also developed better in the Leia-novel by Claudia Gray than by Rian Johnson in TLJ.

Star Wars Resistance tried to get together some shards left by Abrams, connecting the ST more with the previous trilogies by including some well-known species, but ... well ... with that attitude outlined by you no more spin-off series of the ST would come ever - and so another franchise opportunity is lost.

Remnants - reading this word reminds me so strongly on the Force Heretic trilogy by Shane Dix and Sean Williams, the vols 15-17 of New Jedi Order, where Nom Anor went into hiding after he already tried to flee his own people in Traitor, which was thwarted by Vergere, like Rose thwarted Finn's second try of fleeing in TLJ, Rey his first one in TFA, because both men had to fulfill a certain mission yet. But while Nom Anor successfully wrecked the Yuuzhan Vong society from within from Remnants until The Last Prophecy, Finn's mark and message are yet to come. Beside "Chewieeee!" on Pasaana, I don't remember a really moving scene with Finn in TRoS and even his outcrying then proved to be wrong, when I already feared Chewie to have met his demise like in Vector Prime.

 

There are higher profile actors in Star Wars who had even far less of a role than Boyega.

 

I don't really know if I necessarily agree. I think Plemmons isn't a conventionally attractive male lead, less so attractive looking than Finn. I don't see a lot for the characters direction necessarily. Maybe I'm not correct in that. Maybe it could've worked, but I'm not sure about that race angle so much, like that. But even with Adam Driver, who I don't think is really that nice looking, I think he has more going coventionally physical appealing wise than Plemmons

 

I don't think Star Wars is guided by looks. and if it did alot of Star Wars would be very different. People only seem to point out Adam Drivers look as if he is was 2016,2017,2018, 2019's hottest guy of the year. Anything decisions with the character had nothing to do with Drivers appearance. Decisions in Star Wars have nothing to do with how the actors look.

And if it had anything to do with celebrity profile. Then they certainly wasted Gwendoline Christie by deciding they would never show her face and also not actually have anything to do with her character.

 

It's not necessarily about their levels of attractiveness. It's moreso the unfortunately reality that white actors and actresses no matter how attractive they are by conventional standards in comparison to their poc peers are taken more seriously as love interests and heroic leads. That's due in part to the majority of the Western population being white and pushing themselves as the standard. With fandoms especially, there is a tendency to latch onto the nearest white character as a possible love interest or hero even when poc main characters are intentionally and clearly placed in those roles. This is especially true when their potential love interest happens to be white. You'll get all these comments like "I don't see them that way".Or in the case where the character has to grow into a hero like Finn, "They haven't done anything, they should sacrifice themselves".

 

I would have quite liked to have seen Plemons in a Star Wars film... but that's an aside. If he'd been cast as Finn, I think Finn still would have been mishandled as a character, as I believe the underlying issue here is that DLF didn't really know whom should be the focus of the story. They were trying to recreate the OT, but without the understanding of (or acknowledgement of) how the inter/intra-character dynamics would and should play out through a 3 act play.

I also think the characters would have stood a much better chance if the ST had been set 100 years after the OT, and if it had never required Luke, Han or Leia to be involved (maybe Luke as an ancient sage in a single scene or something similar?). That was the single biggest issue as far as the characters were concerned (IMO) i.e. trying to integrate them, and the story, with the OT. Personally speaking, if I'd have been making the ST, it would have absolutely been focused on Luke, Leia and Han... they would have been much more central to the narrative/thematic thrust of the entire ST (plus Anakin as force ghost), with Rey, Finn, Poe and Ben Solo being much more supporting characters, whom would come to prominence, and lead Episodes X, XI and XII. That's when their story should have taken place.

As far as Jordan is concerned, I think if they were casting him now, they'd absolutely be casting him as the lead, and the films would need to be shaped around him. But yes, if he'd been cast at the same time as Boyega was, he'd face the same challenges.

 

Maybe once upon a time. It doesn't mean that's not the thought process under Disney's gloved thumb, for these.

 

Before the ST, there had been written novels and novel series of Star Wars with new characters introduced properly and with enough play field - that were good novels and TCW and Rebels were good series too - without that you have to make Luke weak by any means, sending him away into some solitude, which even was enough space given to Finn and to others to develop without the super-presence of omnipotent and all-known heroes.

Nope, that was Abram's and Johnson's fault or of those people behind him, afraid of a really strong and deep-layered Finn. I don't know, what devil has ridden Johnson to let Snoke being executed like this, before the guy got developed more. But there are too many things I could tell, which where just cheap borrowing from the OT where I felt it as a kind of parodic farce like the lifted up x-wing by the force-ghost of Luke. I know, Abrams thought that to be a circular element in his Star Wars interpretation, but like this it was downgraded to a running gag.

And Finn's character was the gravest victim of a lack of understanding Star Wars, reasonable character development and not least lack of courage, covered by overacting and weird dialogue stutter-fire trademarked Abrams.

 

They had Keri Russell who i wouldnt call ugly. And they covered most of her face up. If not all most of the time. It has nothing to do with looks.

 

She's not a main character.

 

If they base things on looks then it does not matter. If they are that shallow, which only seems to apply to adam driver and no one else apparently. then it applies to all of the work.

I mean some would use the excuse that its for the horny girls out there to get off on that Adam was cast. But what about the horny guys huh? Its all an excuse to justify something, and it ends up sounding shallow, desperate and disconnected from the rest of the franchise.

 

I think, a main "problem" here is, that Rey as the lead character of the whole ST is white and that LFL was reluctant to give her a black mate. It would had been interesting if for instance not Daisy would have made it, but Naomi Ackie, who played Jannah in TRoS. Would Jannah also have ended up as Kylo Ren's love interest or are there - for a POC woman - more choices, when it comes to film-liasions in just entertaining movies, not social problem film tragedies like in Paul and Virginie? Would Finn had have more chances as a romantic partner with Jannah as a trilogy lead or would he have been denigrated again, because LFL decides, that people want an amour fou with partners from opposite sides like lightside/darkside instead of a romance between people belonging to the same fraction? I mean in Spiderman Homecoming you have Liz as POC dating Spidy and Liz's parents are such a race-mixed couple. So that shoudn't be a problem anymore. In Sonic the Hedgehog you also have an interracial couple with an afro-american woman and a white guy. But maybe the other way around in gender and race was a problem for LFL/Abrams/Johnson?

 

See i don't think it had anything to do with Sexiest man of the year Adam Driver. I think its the desire to justify why Finn was moved over to side plots in the same way Han and Leia were in the OT. Its a way for people to justify that Finn was awesome but mistreated due to (enter shallow or racist reason here). Because any other reason thats not shallow or racist would reduce Finn as a character rather than reduce the studio making the decisions. And no one wants to reduce Finn.

For example its obvious no one knew what to do with Finn. When people say he should have been a Jedi, thats more due to wanting to make Finn cool but not having the creative thought to think of anything beyond the part everyone remembers about Star Wars. The Jedi.. its a break glass if you are out of ideas scenario. And thats not a good sign for a character, if he needs charity to make him cool. and in the end, i think the force reveal in TROS did feel abit like that.

 

I know the line here is that Kylo Ren is disgusting, but I would prefer a black actor in Adam Driver’s place to a more prominent Finn. Finn as a character was inconsequential and unfortunately never conceived as a serious deserter storyline. I think the romantic male lead being the brooding dark sider is a good idea, and was obviously more evocative than a generic guy with a gun that Finn was in the early concept . but Rey and Kylo should have both been POC.

alternatively write the deserter story with Finn as protagonist, and axe Rey as she’s as inconsequential to that story idea as Finn is to the Rey/Kylo story

 

The problem is that there's nothing about Finn to reduce, is there? Given what we had on-screen from the six films prior to TFA, he was a rather novel concept. He had the most intense introduction of likely any Star Wars character on-film. Not to mention that he has actually deep, intimate ties to the antagonists of the trilogy that don't need to be contrived at every turn like was the case with Rey. That's a lot of potential narrative and thematic ground which was, of course, all squandered. That's not the character's fault. The blame lies on the people writing him. People should point out how he's conveniently sidelined as the one character from all the protagonists being played by a black man. This isn't a strange line of reasoning or grasping at straws. It's a rather distinct contrast to the others. One could say the same for Kelly Marie Tran and Rose as well.

This is complete nonsense since the suggestions on this forum alone as to what could have been done with Finn vary wildly. People weren't just jumping on him being a Jedi as if that was somehow the only option to give him the depth that he deserved. A lot would have been fixed by, you know...treating his origins with some consistent gravitas throughout the film and making it relevant to his actual characterization rather than his status as a former First Order infantry drone only being important for when something needs to be blown up. Sure, no one knew what to do with Finn. However, that has nothing to do with Finn at all. Again, it has to do with the people in charge of writing the script who completely gave up on making him vital to anything.

As far as Finn being a Jedi is concerned, you're completely watering down the discourse on the matter. I see it this way. If all the writers were going to do with Rey was have her entire story be a rote Chosen One plot in all but name, then why not just replace her with the much more compelling character in Finn that the film already introduced? Or at the very least, have him also take part in the grand Force drama that's taking place so that a character with some potential substance is present. With this in mind, are you really surprised that the idea of there being racial bias in this is being talked about? I'm definitely not.

 

Who decides that? I think that's drawing an arbitrary line to suggest that that'd matter to them, in that way, for a minor character.

 

Because
1. It was time for a female hero. Since if we ignore Anakin, then luke was still a dirty dirty white male.
2. People would have complained just as much as if they made another male the hero instead of the female. it would then be called sexist bias. But they were obviously more focused on a female hero this time. While Finn wasn't written to be a black character, so his character could still have ended up the same even if it was Tom Holland in the role. But then neither was he written to be anything more special than what people feel sorry for the character for.

Finn wasn't that compelling. What made Finn compelling? I seen a video on youtube. Well i ain't watched it but i see the thumbnail and its someone arguing that Migs Mayfeld from the Mandalorian is what Finn should have been. And its hard to argue with that. Finn was just not set up as that character. He was stripped of all of that early on just so he could be an underdog character. He is a character you want to succeed because he is an underdog.

 

Yeah, and much of that focus was either tone-deaf at best or bordering on misogynistic at worst so clearly, making Rey a protagonist didn't exactly turn out the way you thought. Besides, if Holland were in the role, none of these problems would go away. People would still be rather critical of it. The fact that John was cast to play this role at the end of the day is what exacerbates everything.

Literally all the reasons I outlined in my last post, man. Relative to most of the new characters, he's far more interesting on premise alone.

I mean...yeah. He's a formerly indoctrinated drone trying to break free from a tyrannical military junta and claim some semblance of identity after having been effectively a slave soldier for much of his life. That would sort of make him an underdog in some capacity. I'd certainly want someone in his position to succeed. As for him not being set up to be that kind of character, the first 10 minutes or so from when Finn is introduced definitely suggest otherwise where tone is concerned.

The problem is that Finn's place as an underdog of sorts is constantly watered-down because the story seldom, if ever, comes to grips with why he's in that place and how it truly affects him. That is never a concern and it's less that people feel sorry for the character more than the trilogy just having a lot of room to build on that but refusing to. Instead, it focuses on useless subplots, throwaway characters that take up screen time that could be dedicated to building on his character, etc.

 

I was just reminded of this post and I wonder if: 1) Anybody noticed this in the first place because I sure as hell didn't, and 2) What you guys think about it.


It could be nothing, but I do find it incredibly fascinating that the line seems to be ADR, and I would love to know how the speculation surrounding their relationship would play out had the kiss just been fully left up to the audience's interpretation. This single line was so destructive within the fandom that it spawned one of the first sequel "memes" about Finn being stuck in the friend zone.