ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

I think it’s as much a possibility as almost anything else romance related for any of the ST characters…

…But I think the optics of doing that in literary form in part because they’ve pissed off Boyega so much he doesn’t trust LFL to not be racist would be very poor, and thus it’d be unlikely for it to happen.

It would be a bit in poor taste to give Finn a relationship with anyone (Poe, Rose, Jannah, Rey) confined to a book format anyways, but limiting the first “lead character is gay or bisexual” in Star Wars reveal to that would be worse - and you’d want to sell Finn as a lead character rather than the supporting character LFL tried to demote him to, or else risking some very bad optics. No one wants to hear “Disney was most comfortable pushing a homosexual male relationship once it was off screen and once the main character in it was demoted out of a prominent role… and he was the first lead black character too.”

If I had to guess, Finn is probably even more “on the shelf” for the foreseeable future than other characters - LFL’s only really going to want to deal with him if they feel they can get Boyega back on their side, and that’s only of they want him on their side in the first place.

 

Yeah. Especially considering that the fanbase for the bearing was born out of the chemistry of the two actors on screen - much like the other favored relationship of Rey and Finn) - and that the next two films both tried to stubbornly introduce different romantic relationship options instead - again, like with Rey and Finn… except with Poe and Finn, there’d be the added issue that an LGBT+ relationship with such prominent characters *should* be an “event” of some kind.

I think that would qualify as a kind of half-hearted, conservatively hidden bit of “queer baiting”, a topic that’s about as problematic as Finn’s treatment with Rey post-TFA.

 

As much as I think that Rey and Finn have the best chemistry, and that a better ST exists where they’re the romantic pairing (and that TFA likely *was* setting that up)… I doubt LFL does that. They’d both have whatever motivated their mild panic into separating Rey and Finn in the first place and now they’d also have the old excuse of “no attachements” that they periodically trot out whenever they don't want a Jedi character to have an explicitly romantic or familial attachment to someone (even though they also periodically discard it when they feel like it.)

Plus, again, I don’t think Finn’s really going to be in anything major until or unless either a)there’s a cartoon featuring the characters in a more serious manner, or b) Boyega is convinced to come back.

Now, if Boyega did come back, I’d say the chance increases slightly for Rey and Finn, just not that much, and it might still be under the chances of literally almost any other relationship for Finn - I think LFL invested too much energy and reputation into running away from that and towards Reylo in the ST.

I’d say Rose is likely about the same likeliehood of being paired with Finn as Jannah or Poe:

Poe had the most chemistry with Finn and has a better concept than Rose, but Disney isn’t nearly as progressive as their marketing deprtament or their enemies claim they are, which *does*, sadly translate to cold feet towards a major homosexual relationship much like the black guy/white gal relationship of Rey and Finn (which does somewhat exist in LFL, to my view.)

Jannah had the smallest role, and in the least cared about ST film, but she’s also got a much better concept than Rose (since she’s basically “Rey of she’d been a Stormtrooper before being a scavenger, and maybe Lando’s daughter), and because yeah, she’s a girl.

Rose benefits from the having a higher profile film than Jannah, and also being a girl, but has an intentionally underwhelming character concept that *Johnson himself* sort of admitted.

No, they perceive it as racist that TLJ tried to gaslight the audience into thinking Finn only cared about Rey and not the Galaxy as a pretext to argue he cared about Rey too much, and then made it clear they thought Rey would find Kylo more attractive in a way that suggested Adam Driver’s race excused them from actually trying too hard to explain that.

And we actually see black men and Asian girls more than we see black men and white girls in pop culture because of the old racist trope of the “We gots to protect our white women!” thing that often lurks especially around Hollywood executives.

That *is* actually the point to an extent, albeit we need to all acknowledge that this is Star Wars, and background characters can become someone important if the writer wants it to happen.

Finnks problem was that Rose seems to have deliberately been written to be a more background character based off Johnson’s memories of unpopular girls at school, and he then reinforced that aspect both in the final script and in his stated reasons for cutting out a more interesting story for Finn and Rose.

Johnson easily could have made Rose more interesting, whether form the moment she was introduced or over the course of the film, like Abrams had done with Finn himself in TFA. But he didn’t, and that’s why Rose isn’t nearly as popular either as Finn’s love interest or as her actress; Tran being a bigger deal than her breakout role is actually a bit of an indictment of how overqualified she was for a thankless role.

 

Finn was definitely caricatured in a racial manner and it would not surprise me if some at Disney/LFL felt they needed to cater to the racists by steering clear of an interracial relationship.

 

Indeed, more men and women will have platonic friendships than romances…

…But Rian Johnson and LFL being so scared of *any* relationship between Rey and Finn to the extent he forbade them from talking at all and sought to paint their attachment as “wrong” shows that even a platonic relationship was something they didn’t want to be important to both characters, and likely reflects a fear of even a suggestion for intimacy between them either because of paranoia about Kylo being overshadowed, or racism of various flavors and levels.

Yup.

It’s not racist to have Rey and Finn be platonic friends with each other.

But it definitely seems like LFL and Rian Johnson were so afraid of them being costars and of their chemistry even as friends, that any romantic possibility was swept off the table and firmly countered by creating Rose and wasting Tran in the role, and that even when a platonic relationship was selected, LFL wanted to keep them from being confidantes or share the screen alone ever again.

Now, I *do* think insecurity about Driver’s acting style and Kylo’s characterization might have caused just as many issues as race; Boyega as Finn is a far more immediately charismatic, charming, and effectively pursues chemistry with every cast member, while Driver as Kylo is a self-obsessed introvert projecting an even more apathetic exterior. Finn is naturally going to be more likable than Kylo, and any relationship he has with anyone is going to seem deeper, more positive, and more engaging. It’s easy to see LFL or Johnson panicking at that.

…But they went above and beyond that, and I’m 100% certain some executive-type at least floated “our audience is going to be racist enough to be uncomfortable with Rey and Finn being close given she’s a white girl, so we should avoid offending them” - that type of “unnecessary” institutional racism that hides more conventional privilege.

 

The best Star Wars romances are not in the films but in books and TV shows. Thane and Ciena (that’s how you do an opposite sides romance, not Reylo). Kanan and Hera. In the old EU, Anakin Solo and Tahiri.

I thought Finn and Rey had a lot of potential, starting with “You looked at me like no one else has.” Whether the writers ever planned for it to work out or not, it’s sad that it didn’t.

 

The best romances are written as relationships first and as attraction second, focusing on the characters and how their personalities can interact to create a desire for intimacy that then grows into a genuinely intimate relationship.

That is also, not coincidentally, how you need to write people to become friends, even in “belligerent” romantic relationships - as much as people joke about the “friendzone,” or see arguing and even fighting between characters as a greater sign of flirtation than friendship, the best “belligerent” romance and enemies-to-lovers stories all inevitably reach a point of the characters being (possibly vitriolic) friends who trust and care about each other beyond secretly wanting to do the horizontal mambo together.

Which, to me, is probably part of the reason why Johnson and LFL were even nervous about Finn just being BFFs with Rey; Boyega had been cast alongside Ridely because of their chemistry, and then they’d had the on-screen relationship created by reshoots designed to emphasize their chemistry… and of course, both characters had become intimidate confidantes by the end of the movie.

LFL didn’t want someone to be that close and connected to a Rey if it wasn’t Kylo, and that likely opened the door for other people, more motivated by outright racism or expectations of racism, to subtly encourage moving hard against Finn to the extent that he doesn’t even seem like Rey’s BFF in TROS.

And it’s compounded by how there is no observable intimacy between Rey and Kylo - the films say there is, but repeatedly demonstrates there isn’t any, especially on Kylo’s end.

 

I get what you’re saying, but I think your first sentence belies what was actually in TFA.

TFA really wasn’t subtle in portraying them as much further towards romance than Luke and Leia in ANH - where ANH would back up you claim isn’t in saying that Rey and Finn had fewer romantic moments, but instead that Luke and Leia were eventually juked away from that and toward siblings afterwards… even though everyone can tell that was nowhere near the first plan.

Rey and Finn become close confidantes making mutual emotional pleas to stay together, periodically practice gazing into each other’s eyes, Finn clearly displays attraction to her akin to Han and Luke towards Leia in ANH, and Rey becomes physically affectionate and deeply emotionally invested in Finn, she wears his jacket like a 50’s movie signal for character going steady… and no, her kissing his comatose form on the forehead does not come off as a mere platonic “clearly this is a friendzone situation” display.

What TFA had is a relationship that either puts Finn as The Love Interest or as the Not Love Interest for a Rey who’s just not going to have anyone she’s closer to than Finn; TFA’s writing makes a “sexless” Rey with Finn as her heartfelt BFF occupying a romantic interest’s place far more probable than a Rey attracted to someone else, and more likely romantically drawn to Finn… which is likely what set alarm bells off for LFL and why they seem so paranoid about the two characters sharing a private moment.

It's also another contributing factor to why Rey became such an empty shell after TFA - if she’s not allowed to hate Kylo and to love Finn (one way or another) then over half her prior characterization is removed.