John Boyega has explicitly revealed his not very good experience working on the sequel trilogy with Star Wars. He played the Stormtrooper-turned-Resistance fighter Finn in the trilogy.
He keeps track of everything that Lucasfilm delivers after The Rise of Skywalker. He has most recently shared his thoughts about Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, he often looks back at his time with Lucasfilm with not many fond memories.
He is scathing about the lack of meaningful representation in the trilogy. He even compared it to recent Marvel movies that did a better job on this front, both on Disney+ and in theaters. While things could not go as planned in the Star Wars movies, Boyega still has reservations about 2015’s Episode VII The Force Awakens. It is almost universally regarded as the best film of Lucasfilm’s last trilogy.
Boyega’s first movie ended by hinting that Finn might have chosen the Jedi route. He was shown using Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber during a brief duel with Adam Driver’s Kylo ren. But, according to Boyega, this was something he didn’t feel natural in Episode VII.
John Boyega, a Star Wars actor, spoke with Josh Horowitz from MTV about Finn’s Jedi moment during Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.
When asked, he expressed his initial uncertainty about how Force-sensitive material was presented to him in Episode VII. However, later everything changed in the next movies.
He claims that J.J. Abrams, the director, wanted Finn to be Force-sensitive. When things altered in Episode VIII, the director still “wanted to…just force” it in Episode IX.
He looked back to the moment between Finn and Jannah, admitting that he had to figure out how to make it work with the story.
He compared it to “when Han (Solo) was holding it briefly” and had so much difficulty working the lightsaber, noting that Finn must have had something in him to be able to use it. And while he most likely won’t return to the role, he’s curious to see if this plot point is revisited with a younger actor down the road.
He recalled the moment between Jannah and Finn when he said that he needed to find a way to make the story work.
Despite all the success of The Force Awakens, the Jedi tease about Finn and Rey at the end caused a lot of confusion. Especially since it was mostly ignored in Finn’s character development. The Rise of Skywalker attempted to undo the previous events with its switch from J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson. This only made matters worse.
Boyega expressed disappointment over the way his story ended. He felt he was overlooked while Kylo ren and Rey were the stars. He hopes that it will be rectified in the future. However, the Jedi twist will always remain a problem for Boyega as he won’t get to see the full story.
The entire trilogy is available to stream on Disney+.
