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JB interview thoughts. A Thread:
I hear what JB is saying about Finn. He& #39;s right. Disney should never have marketed him as the central hero and then make him a side character. The reason it& #39;s especially shit is because black people rarely see ourselves as a main protagonist.
I hear what JB is saying about Finn. He& #39;s right. Disney should never have marketed him as the central hero and then make him a side character. The reason it& #39;s especially shit is because black people rarely see ourselves as a main protagonist.
To FINALLY see a black main protagonist in Star Wars was huge to black people. To promise this and then fail to deliver and leave black people feel stupid for believing it could be their turn is cruel and shows a complete lack of awareness as to what
this representation meant to black fans. Disney saw it as a fun twist and gave no thought to the significance of what a black hero meant to a black fan.
Boyega obviously has a very positive relationship with JJ and enjoyed working with him , however I think he is fundamentally mistaken in his view that JJ did his best to & #39;salvage& #39; IX.
JB clearly had less screen time in TLJ but he had far more character development happen here than either TFA or TROS. I believe JB disliked his storyline in TLJ which completely fair. Some people just didn& #39;t jive with it but I don& #39;t think anything in TLJ pivoted Finn
away from having a serious role in TROS. If anything, it was setting Finn up to lead a revolution. Unfortunately for JB, the pay-off for Finn& #39;s development was intended for TROS.
Now, based on the fact that pretty much the entire Reylo fandom saw a stormtrooper rebellion coming, it seemed like a dynamic place to take Finn. It gave him his own battle, his own stakes, it could have been equally as impactful as the Rey/Kylo storyline.
So why did we not go there? I get the sense that JB thinks the problem was that TLJ derailed Finn but I would argue that Rian& #39;s writing was doing a lot of leg work to make sure that Finn actually had his own story and his own goals.
The problem is that his development ended with TLJ. JJerrio did not advance his character and actively walked back his development. There was no effort put into giving Finn the things his character needed to become whole. He needed a sense of purpose and a cause to live for.
He needed to lead others to freedom and show others like him the love he was never shown as a child. TROS could have done all of this but it was overstuffed with new characters and non-essential plot.
There was nowhere near enough room for both Finn and Poe to have satisfying storylines in TROS, let alone any of the new characters who were added.
Poe should have died in TFA, period. I love Poe and Oscar Isaac but the original plan was for him to die and I feel like Poe surviving knocked everything off kilter. Both Poe and Finn& #39;s characterisation suffered as a resullt
As for JJ himself, I don& #39;t see evidence that he tried to salvage anything in terms of representation. The screen time given to Kelly was nothing short of an insult. This was hardly subtle. Rose was given less time than a talking megaphone. This was calculated and an attempt to
placate actively racist fans. I will never excuse these actions or seek to justify them. This was wrong on every level imaginable. Oscar, similarly had little to do and the spice runner storyline which JJerrio wrote for him was at the very least culturally insensitive and
demonstrates once again, the total lack of care taken with regard to the way POC are represented on screen. I do not believe that Disney ever set out with the intention of telling a story centered around the character of Finn but I absolutely believe they wanted audiences
to give them credit for being progressive. If Disney did originally envision Finn as a lead, they must have turned tail when they realised how pervasive racism is within the fandom and changed their plans. Either way, I think we can agree that their
behavior was cowardly and motivated purely by profit. Clearly JB was told he had a lead role so either a) he was straight up lied to by JJ, b) Disney backpeddled and requested changes the story after the racist outcry over his casting or C) JJerrio are just bad at writing.
Actors of colour in the ST were sidelined, they were deceived, disrespected and gaslighted. I& #39;m not sure if this was intentional or in response to the racist abuse thrown at them by this fandom but in both cases it is indicative of racism at the heart of LF and Disney.
So, although I have vehemently disagreed with things JB has said before now. I support him 100 percent in his assertion that his experience in Star Wars was defined by his race.
Excuse all of my fucking typos, thanks
