hey everyone how are you doing welcome
to today's video
today we're going to talk about
something a little more serious this is
going to be an interview that was just
released with the british gq with john
boyega
there's going to be profanity in this
video there are going to be
racial themes in this video so if you're
sensitive to all that turn away
but for those of you who want to dive
into it and really understand what this
brilliant man went through keep watching
or go to the link down below which has
this full interview so you can read it
for yourself i'm not going to cover the
whole thing
i'm just going to focus on the parts
where he discusses star wars because
well that's what this channel is all
about
so in this video we're going to go over
a few different things now if you didn't
know
john boyega's character as finn was
completely bullshit
that's not a subjective comment it is
objective it is the way it is we all
know it
and even he knows it and that is the
theme of this article this video
and the issues he is coming out with and
raising awareness of
now there were a lot of things that he
had to deal with whether it was from the
fans racially or
even from apparently what we can see
here
was disney racially and what they did
with this character
now there's a lot of interesting stuff
with his life i implore you to go read
this article once again
now let's jump to what pertains to this
video which is the star wars stuff
and him getting cast in the force
awakens well now enough is enough
almost after a decade in the business
after the life-changing overwhelming and
at times
stifling reality of operating within the
sprawling death star of franchise
filmmaking
he is just about done abiding by any old
rules as a certain nigerian boat captain
can grimly attest which
if you read the full article he almost
died because someone tried to scam him
for
money john boyega is not really the man
you think he is
and now he is finally ready to let the
world know for boyega 2017 was a year
thick with opportunity
if capturing the role of finn in 2015
star wars the force awakens
represented the professional equivalent
of an enormous poker win
then this was the period when he
effectively staggered to the cashier
window with an armful of chips
having already wrapped ryan johnson's
sequel the last jedi
he also made catherine bigelow's detroit
founded his own company upper room in
order to produce and star in pacific rim
uprising and by spring he was headlining
a revival of a bruising german tragedy
witsek and the old vic in london
in the continued afterglow of that first
franchise defibrillating star wars film
he continued to notice a stylist he'd
hired when he first started doing press
cringing at certain clothes i wanted to
go for
the hairdresser who had no experience of
working with hair like his
still had the guts to pretend and he
decided that he could no longer grin and
bear it
like a grateful competition winner
during the press of the force awakens
i went along with it he notes and
obviously at the time i was very
genuinely happy to be a part of it
but my dad always tells me one thing
don't overpay with respect
you can pay respect but sometimes you'll
be overpaying and selling yourself short
with the lucasfilm branded elephant in
the room acknowledged
it is even harder to ignore this is
boyega's first substantial interview
since finishing the franchise
his first since last year's the rise of
skywalker tied a highly contentious
hurried ribbon on the 43 year old space
saga how does he reflect on his
environment and the way
the newest trilogy was concluded it's so
difficult to maneuver
he says exhaling deeply visibly
calibrating the level of professional
diplomacy to display
you get yourself involved in projects
and you're not necessarily going to like
everything
but what i would like to 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 aside it's so
difficult to maneuver he says
exhaling deeply visibly calibrating the
level of professional diplomacy to
display
you get yourself involved in projects
and you're not necessarily going to like
everything
but 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 push to the side it's
not good
i'll say it straight up he's talking
about himself here
about the character of finn the former
stormtrooper who wielded a lightsaber in
the first film before being somewhat
nudged to the
periphery but he is also talking about
other people of color in the cast
naomi aki and kelly murray tran and even
oscar isaac
a brother from guatemala who he feels
suffered the same treatment
he is acknowledging that some people
will say he's crazy or making it up but
the recorded character hierarchy of the
last jedi was particularly hard to take
like you guys knew what to do with daisy
ridley you knew what to do with adam
driver
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
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 he's on a
breathless roll now
breaking his long corporate omerta to
touch on the unthinking systemic
mistreatment of black characters and
blockbusters
they're always scared they're always
freaking sweating and what he sees as
the relative salvage job that returnee
director jj abrams performed
on the rise of skywalker everyone needs
to leave my boy alone
he wasn't even supposed to come back and
try to save your shit
even though he also acknowledges that it
was an amazing opportunity
and a stepping stone that has
precipitated so much good in his life
and career
he is palpably exhilarated to be finally
saying all this
but to dismiss these words as merely
professional bitterness or paranoia
is to miss the point his primary
motivation is to show the frustrations
and difficulties of trying to operate
within what can
feel like a permanently rigged system he
is trying
really to let you know what it feels
like to have a boyhood dream
ruptured by the toxic realities of the
world
other directors agreed and in 2014 he
found himself brought into the star wars
fooled by j.j abrams
cue his reveal is a conflicted
stormtrooper once known as fn2187
an observed attempted boycott the fourth
highest grossing film of all time and
laterally the millions that enabled
boyega to surprise his parents with
their own brand new house
three years ago yet again this is
another instance when voyega seems keen
to revise the public record
on how something really played out
whereas previously he responded to the
fragrantly racist commentary that
greeted his
casting in the force awakens with
bullishness
get used to it as his since deleted
instagram response post
had it now he is keen to discuss the
lasting psychic wounds that an ordeal
like that leaves i'm the only cast
member who had their own unique
experience of that franchise based on
their race
he says holding my gaze let's just leave
it like that
it makes you angry with a process like
that it makes you much more militant
it changes you because you realize i got
given this opportunity but i'm in an
industry that wasn't even ready for me
nobody else in the cast had people
saying they were going to boycott the
movie because they were in it
nobody else had the uproar and death
threats sent to their instagram dms
and social media saying black this and
black that and you shouldn't be a
stormtrooper
nobody else had that experience but yet
people are surprised that i'm
this way that's my frustration all right
so i'm going to stop here and i want to
cut in and say that you know i i know
that there's tons of racism that goes on
in the world
but to see it come from within and to
see what they did with this character i
mean we all knew it we all saw it it's
not like we're
stupid these are things that i've been
saying all the time there's things that
we i always talk about on rule of two
with mark
and mark has even said that he thinks
that finn was the most interesting
character i mean a rogue
stormtrooper stormtrooper that turns
into a good guy
and becomes a jedi becomes a force user
becomes force sensitive
that's such a unique story that we
haven't seen before
and for them to click bait the shit out
of
john boyega out of finn with the force
awakens trailer with him holding the
lightsaber
him doing that for maybe two seconds
getting his ass kicked by kylo ren
and then his entire character was just
reduced to
rey that was it i mean he's an actor
he's paid to read lines and act a
character and those were the lines that
he was given so what's his fault
there is no fault the fault is with the
directors or the writers who wrote that
and obviously he is tight with jj abrams
and keeps saying
i liked how he said don't blame my boy
he wasn't even supposed to come in and
save your shit because he knows how
messed up it was and how they
completely pardoned my french fucked the
franchise
it's true you did you guys ruined it and
now you gotta pick up all the pieces and
you gotta
hire john favreau and you gotta put dave
flony where he should have been from the
very beginning
and now you got oh god
i get so much pent up frustration with
this stuff because i got my own stories
about things behind the scenes uh
nothing like this you know but it means
just just just shady shit like this
it's just so weird it's so weird
especially from a company where you
think everything is so all-inclusive and
this and that it's like
why would you use his character and you
look at that
that poster which was a big twitter
thing
um the north american one versus the
chinese one
and you see the complete difference and
john boyega shared it
and he's like why am i this tiny little
character in the poster whereas in the
north american i'm
a proper size according to my role
what is this and and you click bait the
crap out of me with the lightsaber and
the poster it's like
just just to be pushed aside at the very
end this has got me pretty riled up
i want to know what you guys think in
the comments please go read the full
interview down below
um this is the kind of bullshit that
needs to stop don't click bait
characters
just based on color to be all inclusive
and this and that and then
push them aside once you get your
revenue
and uh reduce them to
rey that's it like
there's a lot more you guys can read
it's a very great interview about his
whole life
and all his experiences with everything
so i'm going to link it down below
i'll catch you guys next time
