In a recent interview with GQ Magazine, John Boyega spoke about his experience on the new Disney ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. It wasn’t a good experience according to Boyega. He claims that the film sidelined his character due to his race, or at least, that it had a part to play.
In the interview from GQ, he said,
“What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”
Boyega obviously brings up the fact that he feels he was pushed to the side. This is due to the lackluster character development and writing that has been criticized since episode 7 in the new Disney trilogy. In fact, a huge part that fans weren’t thrilled about was the story.
Many fans believed that Luke Skywalker wasn’t even the same character they had grown up with, and in fact, his character did a 180. It wasn’t due to his race, it was because of poor writing and not understanding what fans wanted.
Are John Boyega’s ‘Star Wars’ Complaints More Nuanced Than Race?
I do understand the idea that in the beginning, the studio marketed Finn like he was the main character or at least one of them. Though as time went on, they did seemingly write him out of the equation as the main story between Rey and Ben. Boyega goes on below,
“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he says. “You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”
What I will say about his comment above is, while it’s true the writers paid more attention to Driver and Ridley’s characters, they were the main characters! Trans, Boyega, and even Isaac’s characters were the side characters. Of course, they wouldn’t get as much story or development as the two main characters the story centers around.
The fact is, the story isn’t about Boyega’s character or Isaac’s character. It’s about Ridley and Driver. It’d be like going back to the original trilogy and wanting the story to revolve around Lando or even Han Solo. The story is about Luke and his father, Darth Vader. Han is even a side character to the journey.
However, all of this comes down to lazy writing and not knowing what they were doing. True, Finn and the other characters fell to the waist side, however, I don’t believe it’s because of race, it’s because of the story and how they had to turn their attention to the main characters to try to connect the disaster of a trilogy.
What do you think? Do you agree with Boyega or is it more nuanced than race? Let us know in the comments below.
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