Official Finn Episode VIII thread

You're right, though. The Asian audience doesn't really care about representation in Hollywood because most large asian countries have their own thriving film industry. To be quite honest, most film-goers from Asian countries watch "American" movies to see "American People" which is basically to say- white people. There's a very specific view of America that people have here in Asia that they don't really like seeing it changed.

Also, adding an Asian character does little to boost ticket sales unless that character is played by, like you said, an established FEMALE celebrity. Chinese female film stars, KPop Idols, Bollywood female stars and such. This is especially the case in Japan for some reason.

Colourism is a huge issue in Asia and has always been. Sure, it's improving a bit with the younger generation but I wouldn't call that change significant at all. Rap and other traditionally African-American genres of music have been accepted by Asian people but mostly within a small subculture. If it's widespread, the whole genre is largely white-washed and repurposed for mass consumption.

It's really sad but change is happening, however slow it is in coming. So there is hope, I guess.

 

Nice catch EW hadn't released Finns blurb online yet ( probably later today) I like you think Finn is going his own way after this adventure and I don't take for granted it will be the Resistance.

 

Really? Why? Why do you envision them traveling together afterward? Is there an organic reason or do you just think that JJ will construct the next portion of the trilogy so that it happens that way? Their travel together made sense in TFA. Now that they're separate, on separate pathways, working towards separate objectives (seemingly) and have separate adversaries, and quite possibly separate priorities and next steps... I don't see why they would travel together.

I kind of feel like TFA was high school for them, TLJ will be college, and Episode 9 will be life. People grow apart. It didn't have to be this way mind you, but with Rian Johnson setting the trajectory as he has, I don't think there's a naturally occurring reason for Finn and Rey to be saddled with one another unless she also chooses the Resistance and I don't see that. They could always write a smart story which people still enjoy in which it happens, but it would definitely be one that's manufactured deliberately IMO.

 

It depends on how much of a time gap between TLJ and Episode IX.

I mean Episode IX could be about them going on one last adventure (mission) together after years of being apart.

@BrotherRoyVA While the article is new, it's nothing we haven't heard in the last 2 months.

 

They could most assuredly write that story (doing one last mission) but I would assume it would be a situation where they deliberately tie the stories together by some new but artificial circumstance. Though Luke was able to straddle both worlds for a time, it seems that Resistance Fighter and Committed Jedi Warrior are generally mutually exclusive careers.

 

I mean taking a classic story and trying to be overly relevant by Black-facing, Indian-facing, insert-ethnicity-here-that-is-not-white-facing a classic white character from the original source material just to represent a particular ethnicity especially when there are characters available of said ethnicity within the original source material of which creative minds could successfully utilize and employ in their project. Or furthermore, especially when there is an overwhelming roster of characters of said ethnicity that exist under the creative license of say a Marvel, DC, Image or whatever of which creative and supposedly progressive minds could pick from to popularize in said character's own project. Why turn a white character another ethnicity when you have a ton of non-white characters already available to use and don't give me the numbers game. It makes no sense. It's not like Marvel or DC don't have a whole lot of non-white characters to pick from. So this is forced representation, in other words unnecessarily changing characters that are already popular instead of popularizing characters that are non-white in bigger projects.

To me, it's more demeaning to turn an already white popular character non-white than simply putting in the work in the non-white character and elevating them. It shows a laziness to create new characters or use existing ones and make them work. No, see this popular white character over here, we want to appease the black people, so let's just turn her/him black and be done with it...they're already popular anyway.

Think about it.

That's what I mean and I don't mean to come off snarky, arrogant, upset or anything like that about it.

Edited to add: I see it the same with gender and sexaual orientation swapping.

I was mostly thinking the end of TLJ, after the big fight and all that. Maybe they end up back together on something. It'd be organic if they're already together and it's expected they would be back together by the end of the movie. I wasn't thinking the entire TLJ film. Technically they did their ESB at the end of TFA and from what it sounds like, the majority of TLJ. However, in ROTJ, Luke, Leia, and Han weren't constantly together. Luke did go off and face Sidious and Vader by himself. Ultimately, his actions coincided with the Rebellion's actions as well.

I don't really see it working any different for Rey, Luke, Finn, Poe, and company. Their actions, albeit maybe without them being in the same physical space, will coincide with each other.

But back to the point about Rey and Finn. It really all depends on where they end up at the end of TLJ as to how it could work. Whether she ends up feeling she needs more training, whether Luke ends up capable of training her, whether Finn feels he needs more training, whether that can be done together or with them both in a relatively close proximity to each other. Whether they both go off to discover something, a mission, or if the Resistance takes a big blow and they're all fleeing together. The possibilities are really endless with a creative mind my friend.

It's possible she doesn't choose the Resistance, but I seriously doubt she wouldn't. Once Rey figures things out, unless she gets seduced by the dark side, then her moral character is still in place. She idolized the Resistance to the point of trying to convince Finn to stay and fight so I can see other things being more important to her like escaping Snoke, learning about the Force, etc. Still, as we know from ESB, life tends to happen even in SW and Luke didn't hang around Dagobah forever trying to pull an X-Wing fighter out of the swamp and facing off against illusions in the night. Nope, he took off and joined the Rebellion because he sensed his friends were in danger.

Point being, it's hard to be dogmatic on any one aspect of what may happen. Emphasis on may here. It's entirely plausible Rey reconnects with the Resistance if Luke reconnects with them and I suspect Luke will connect with them. I haven't seen a SW movie where the main Force users aren't attached to the main "good guy" or "bad guy" group for the majority of the film aside from special missions, personal agendas, or individual arcs they have to work out.

In every SW story there's a major conflict between two opposing forces with the Force conflict in the midst of it meaning the Force users are never far away from their representative organization.

TPM, ATOC, RTS - started off Naboo (with silent backing from the Republic & Jedi Council) vs Trade Federation then elevated into the Republic vs the Separatist which elevated into a coup.
ANH, ESB, ROTJ - Empire vs Rebellion all throughout.
TFA, TLJ, Episode 9 - Resistance vs The First Order so far.

I don't see Rey or Luke straying far from this pattern. Kylo and Snoke (and whoever else is hiding offscreen waiting to be revealed) are with the FO. Rey and Luke are Resistance representatives. They won't be far from the conflict, or as mentioned above, their conflict will coincide with the overall conflict. Thus, it would be organic for Rey and Finn to end up together a time or two throughout or simply remain together or not that far from each other working towards the same agenda. (Luke arriving in front of Jabba the Hutt, Leia already present undercover as well as Lando, for example.)

 

we really desagree about Peeta. I don't see him like you see him at all. But it's not an hunger games board. Peeta is my fav character and not because he is just only in love with Katniss, he . Far from that. He is a lot more than that. A lot more. All the details are written . He is more complicated than you think to my opinion .

To me , compared Finn to Peeta is not an insult far from that.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 22, 2017, Original Post Date: Nov 22, 2017 ---

I read , i'm scared now that Rose will be smarter than Finn and with his logical and methodical 's way, will save Finn from being again a fool. Sigh.

I just read on another board, that dj could also be Cardinal too? ( theory ) if it's true , it could affect Finn no?

and last, because we need to remember

He[Finn] was, as far as the training cadre and his peers were concerned, one of the best stormtroopers anyone had ever seen.

Before the Awakening

 

Two things

I'll disagree with you some on the Forced Representation angle as it relates to SW (even though it wasn't originally directed to me). I think this is an instance of adding new characters who could be of any demographic, that they aren't exclusively white males does not represent a "force fit" in my mind. I personally was happy to see more diversity among the First Order. Just real rap, every good guy isn't white, but every bad guy isn't white either. It should be a reasonable expectation to see other folks sprinkled in everywhere... with people of virtue, with people who are sketchy, with people who are degenerate. Everywhere. There was a time when this was not so, when neither the heroes or those fighting for the Empire were anything but white and predominantly male. That should change. That means some of the villains need to be women, need to be black, need be Asian, or some other under represented minority otherwise you start to convey another erroneous message that evil and wrong-doing is the exclusive province of white people; it simply isn't so. We all have the capacity for good and for evil and that should be born out in the movie IMO

Second, I don't disagree that smart writing could prevail, it just appears that they may be boxing themselves in unnecessarily. If Finn chooses the Resistance I don't see that as him saying, "I'm in... until Rey needs me, then all bets are off" and I really don't see Rey joining the Resistance... there is no Jedi Corps or Force Users Squadron in the Resistance, they really have always been 2 separate things even when they have interacted. The way that Han, Leia, and Luke floated around together never seemed contrived because Han had no allegiance, and Luke had spread allegiance (Jedi and Rebellion). Maybe the movie and characters will be more nuanced than what they are suggesting through interviews and marketing because the movie posters themselves suggest that this movie really is about the Force Users with the Resistance/FO conflict as a back drop. And that's fine, it just raises logical coherence questions that perhaps wouldn't need to be answered if they took a different approach. But I guess we'll see where they collectively end in the movie and see what (if anything) they set up for Episode 9

 

I'll leave it alone. The character means a lot to you and you're right that this isn't the appropriate place. Agree to disagree.

 

Honestly, I don't disagree with anything here about diversity in general, but to give clarity and a response.

What bothers me is rewriting original content just for diversity's sake. That's lazy. If you want diversity then go about creating it in new content or use what already exists that meets the requirement. That's the point. Plus, nobody is truly responsible nor obligated to represent you, me, pink unicorns with rainbow horns, or green martians either. Nobody. Most usually do it because they want to or they feel forced to by the social-political climate.

Another point. I'm a creator, I write stories, and as a black man who grew up around predominantly black friends, my stories tended to start off with an all black cast most of the time and then evolve as I see fit. My children grew up in rural suburbia, like myself and their mother, they are creative, they write stories, they are black, yet their cast mostly starts off white with some color sprinkled in. Who am I to come along and kill their initial creativity simply to force diversity into their original creation? Who are you? Who is anyone else? As a creative person who writes, draws, illustrates, I come at this from a not so social-political correct angle, but at an angle of wanting true equality. A White person should be allowed to create what they want without worrying about the color spectrum until they start to feel the need to do that, like I do and visa versa.

Secondly, as I said, I don't mind some villains being Black, women, East Asian, or simply non-white and some heroes and heroines equally. What I do mind is when it's done lazily just for the sake of forcing the representation of diversity. I don't mind people feeling the need to represent minority characters, I respect that. Don't have a problem with it when it's done right and it's done fairly and without stealing creative concepts from already existing material just because that material is already popular in people's minds. That's not equality, that's not fairness, that's not hard work, that's not showing we can tell just as good stories with people who look like us, think like us, believe like us, etc. That's, as I said, "Well this White character has been around for decades and is a symbol of strength, whatever, and popular so let's just turn them black, into a woman, have them question their sexuality, whatever, because that's easier than putting in the time and work to make a character which represents this or take one that already represents this and do it." To me, it's way more telling when a person or company spoon feeds a particular community a swap just to represent and pacify them.

Dude, what have I said? Star Wars, the movies, has always been about the Force Users. That's a given fact. No way around that.
With that said, again, Luke officially joined the Rebellion. He is very similar to Rey. Late bloomer, was out of the galactic spectrum up until, what, his early 20's? Dropped in on the whole situation and still had his whole "I need to figure out how to be a proper Jedi and use this Force stuff properly" thing going on.

Thus, I'm not seeing the disconnection. We have an example from the OT of how Rey could fall in with the Resistance. Let's do some more comparisons:

Luke was eager to get off Tattooine | Rey was eager to get of Jakku.
Luke was enamored with Ben Kenobi because of the old rumors he heard | Rey was enamored with the Resistance because of rumors she heard about them.
To Luke, Kenobi represented freedom | To Rey, the Resistance represented the same in many ways - a liberation from what she knew (as well as other things most likely).
When things went down, Kenobi dragged Luke initially into the Rebellion after informing him he was Force-Sensitive and needed to be trained | When things went down, Finn and Rey were dragged into the Resistance while Maz informed Rey she was Force-Sensitive and needed to be trained.
Luke helped the Rebellion with their first on screen battle in which he confronted Vader in a space battle | Rey, through circumstance, ended up assisting the Resistance in their first on screen battle through confronting Kylo.
At the end of the first movie, Luke had to go to Dagobah to train with a Jedi Master | At the end of the first movie, Rey had to find Luke on Ahch-To in hopes that Luke will train her and help her get a handle on the Force.
In ESB, while in training Luke sensed his friends were in danger and despite Yoda's disapproval, left to rejoin the Rebellion | We have not gotten to this point with Rey yet...it seems to be forthcoming.

Granted, this assumes the creative minds behind TLJ are following this pattern, but given the history of Star Wars as I pointed out, there seems to be little reason to think they won't. It's plausible their statements about "twists" and "turns" are indicators they are breaking from SW patterns. Highly plausible. But even in that there are possibilities by which Rey, Finn and company can be interactive with each other on a consistent basis while following their personal agendas and meeting the overarching story goal of confronting the First Order.

I personally think you're trying to hard to find a mechanism in which this can work out satisfactorily without embracing that it's "Because of the plot" and I can respect that, but I also think it might hinder reasonable allowance that the story is potentially already allowing for this to go down:

Finn no longer likes the FO, it's obvious he will fight with the Resistance.
Luke and Rey will have issues they have to work out with Kylo and Snoke, leaders of the FO
This puts Luke, Finn and Rey in the line of sight of each other, organically, at any given time depending on their physical location in the galaxy in reference to each other.

 

Hmmm, think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one (which is fine, it's not the first time right LOL). This is somewhat separate from the Star Wars issue because Star Wars is anthology, not like Spiderman or other Marvel products that seem to routinely get rebooted and have characters swap outs. 50 years from now, they're not going to have Black Jewish Lesbian Handicapped Luke Skywalker.

I don't care for lazy writing or logic holes, I HATE logic holes. But I don't see that these studios are doing what they're doing merely or even principally for diversity. They're going after specific branding and dollars, virtually all media outlets are. When they did that Wild Wild West remake with Will Smith as Jim West, it wasn't a diversity strategy it was a marketing one; they were banking on his box office appeal (didn't work but they tried it). I don't think Robert Neville was originally black in the book I Am Legend, but there was Will Smith (actually they changed a lot around from the original book as I understand it, the Darkseekers were actually vampires in the book). There have been some other conspicuous examples of a male character being switched out for female one (example Starbuck in BattleStar Galactica reboot), but I view that as I view most of what you would apparently view as forced representation... an appeal to a branding that gives them access to an emerging market. Not to just sell advertising but to sell merchandise (which obviously Star Wars has traditonally done well with).

Look at the NFL. We don't really believe the NFL is doing anything but a marketing campaign towards women when it does Breast Cancer awareness month or some of the other programs and products aimed at women. The NFL is not "progressive" in any truly ideological sense and generally speaking women don't watch football in the same numbers as men. These products, programs, and marketing campaigns are aimed at going after an untapped market.

From a creative stand point I agree with you that you should create what you create. I think there is a little more context that could be woven into the conversation about who ultimately is represented in those creative works that hit the Big Screen, because it's not like film doesn't have an established pedigree and history in America. But at the local level, as an individual, I agree with you, write what appeals to you, everyone should. There are going to be some markets receptive to it and some that are closed off to you as a result, but as long as you accept that, I see no issue. I always thought it was weird that people complained there were no black people on Seinfeld... not because there were but because I was surprised they watched it. I mean if that show isn't for you, why do you care if you're on it or not? I do get what you're saying, I just see the issue overall as more complex than just decrying "forced representation"

It only becomes problematic for me when they insert under represented minorities in these positions to "deify" them, to super power them beyond what was traditionally there and to innoculate them from flaws that are traditionally there with everyone else. We are not BETTER than anyone else, nor are we worse than anyone else, we're LIKE everyone else. So we should be powerful as others have been powerful and we should be flawed, as others have been flawed. We should have conflict just as others have conflict, make mistakes, redeem ourselves... we should simply represent a slice of human experience that should resonate beyond race.

But that said, if we take at face value that selected Boyega because he was the man for the job, I defy anyone to tell me if they had had more black voices in the room when they were coming up with the story and overall strategy that they would have made the mistakes that they made (even though some of them I believe were out of ignorance not malice). For me it will never simply be, the SJWs are ruining things... the thoughts and ideas (even if admittedly poorly executed at times) have merit and they didn't spring forth from a vacuum. So we agree, but we disagree, but we agree as usual LOL.

 

back to star wars ^^

 

You're right, Star Wars is a different monster. Its story reaches across millennia in a fictional timeline and houses an untold number of fictional races, some of which mimic ethnicities (or skin-colors) from our own reality. It is a prime of example of a project where say, some Black creatives coming into the franchise and focusing on, say characters that look like Finn and making it work without, in 50 years, turning Luke into a Black Jewish Lesibian Handicapped person LOL.

And, I dunno about that man, in 50 years some may want to do that...LOL.

This may sound contradictory, but I didn't mind Will Smith taking over Robert Neville because they did it with respect and as you say below about other instances, he wasn't deified or forced for diversities sake. There had been other "I Am Legend" like adaptations of The Last Man on Earth, the 1954 novel as the story influenced many similar post-apocalyptic one man surviving stories as well. So I could give you this one that it may have been more to capture Smith's marketability, but I would argue this is not always the case. It's not always about star power and the draw they bring to the box office.

I cringed at Starbuck because that's an example of what I'm talking about. It was done for the sole purpose of creating diversity and being controversial. Not only did they change Starbuck's gender, but they changed the character altogether as well as the entire Battlestar Galactica story. I have a love/hate relationship with the remake, it worked in some areas and in some areas it didn't. Still, I know for a fact they had supposedly progressive minded persons working on it like Ron Moore, who wrote in even one of the Star Trek movies the absurdity of men and women being called "sir" for the sake of gender equality. He did it in BSG too. So the Starbuck gender swap is an example of what I mean. An already popular character forcefully changed to represent something else. Boomer suffered this as well. (Edited: And it's an example of the pendulum swinging back as the original Boomer was black and a male). And it's not like they didn't create female characters who became popular and impactful to the story in their own right. So it was like, what was the point? But it was apparent from their interviews that this was their reason for doing this. To be culturally forward thinking and relevant and all that. More on this below.

Edited for clarity: I was trying to get thoughts out before leaving the office and fighting traffic to go home. Point being, I am Legend is a remake of a remake. If you tell me it's a remake, re-imagining, remix, I come at it differently. If you tell me you purposefully turned a White character black, male to woman, for diversity's sake in a first adaptation of say a comic book or novel then that's when I have an issue.

You make a good point about the marketing angle and I'll give you that. Sometimes it could be that, but for the most part when you read their interviews and reasons for doing it...it's no where near that. It's because of the social-political climate and certain people groups coming along crying about lack of representation or cultural appropriation, etc. Then these entertainment companies, supposedly being progressive minded, react and then do things to attempt to appease the crowd or they double down and don't because they want to respect their original creative vision. This leads back to, as I said, in reality, nobody else is truly responsible or obligated to represent another ethnicity in their own creative work. They do it because they want to or they feel forced to.

I don't really see a difference. Why does it suddenly become different because the project reaches more people? It shouldn't. If you want the black creator to have the same opportunity to, let's say for arguments sake, have their creative work with an entire black cast to be appreciated then you should want the same for anyone else without sort of flip flopping their moral obligation to represent someone based on geographic and/or the demographic reach of the project.

Let me also put it this way. A good creator, if they are creating a story in say multicultural New York is most likely going to represent that although their main character may represent their idea of a main character. You can't crucify them for the latter. You kill creativity no matter what scale it is presented on, local, national or global.

We don't get mad at the Chinese for only having Chinese in their movies, nor the Russians for only having Russians do we? That'd be absurd because their demographic is predominantly made up of their own people group. Thus, I don't understand why we want to toss accusations at White people who create what they know, believe and is reflective of themselves and think they should be obligated to represent us. No, get out and do it yourself. There are creative people within each people group capable of doing this and I don't buy the claim everyone in Hollywood oppresses this, but I'm not naive either. There are existent avenues to get it done and don't get me started on some of the nonsense that does come from Black producers that reinforces stereotypes, etc. Whole different topic, but related. In any case, demographically speaking we can't necessarily expect equal representation across the board in the creative industries just the same as everywhere else in my honest opinion. I don't think that's something to be ho-humming about. I think it's something to be doing something about without forcing others to do it for us.

As I said, I believe a good creator with life experience starts to realize these things such as "The world is not made up of only White heroes" nor is "The world made up of only Black heroes" etc.

Edited to add: But I agree that certain markets will like it and certain markets won't. That's the point, but diversity, equality and the original meaning of tolerance also means markets of different thought, origins and beliefs will receive a creative work for what it was originally intended to be. May not float your boat, but doesn't meant you need to toss accusations of racism due to lack of representation of blacks unless racism is overtly there. (By the way, not saying this is what you're doing here, just to be clear).

Definitely agree with you here.

Hmmm, dunno. I know you're being facetious here a little, but dunno that black voices would necessarily do a better job. We have examples of black creatives doing poorly no different than whites, etc. I think this statement is representative of what I perceive reappears repetitively in this thread about Finn (and in my opinion elsewhere) that there's always this suspicious working whether intentionally or unintentionally against Finn (and by extension black characters) by white creators. No, I just think they created what they thought was a good thing and would be fun to do unless a creator is creating with the intention to make a statement as some do. As you said, "out of ignorance not malice" but I think this (a group of blacks would've made Finn great idea) contradicts your "We're not BETTER...were LIKE everyone else" statement above in a related sense as I know you were making that statement about character representation, but reflective to reality. Hence, it doesn't necessarily follow that a group of black voices would have made a Finn character which satisfied you and everyone else.

Here's another way of looking at it. Do you think you and everyone else here upset about Finn because you feel he represents you would be this upset about the direction of Finn and claiming if more non-Whites were at the helm then his character would be better if Boyega didn't play him and some White guy did? Just curious, not trying to imply anything here.

But yeah, we agree to disagree. Definitely not the first time.

 

I posted in the dj thread. But I'll do it here too. I read that DJ could also be Cardinal ( it was a theory ) if it's true, that means, DJ knows fn 2187 , he probably was his boss when he was kid. it could affect Finn and even DJ no? Any thoughts?

 

I'm sorry but this sounds way too close the idea that America=White. That probably wasn't your intention but it sounds pretty dismissive of nonwhite Americans as representations of the country.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the reason there is no or very little backlash toward Russia and China in this regard is that: 1. Those countries are nowhere near as racially diverse as America is. China in particular is known to be very homogenous and 2. Those films and books are generally not marketed towards Americans so most Americans are not expecting racial diversity in those things in the first place.

 

When Bill Cosby did the Cosby show he made sure to have a black psychologist on board to make sure the representation was not only right, but lessons to be learned. The Cosby household didn't show overt blackness, but they did show they were culturally aware. The painting Claire bought at an auction done by an uncle or something, and had it hanging over the mantle in there living room was one of those touches.

When Disney decided to do a black panther movie they knew representation was important. They were confident and smart enough to realize some stories should be told by those who look like the characters. Bringing in black representation to make sure the audience doesn't have a look of say what is smart in my opinion. People want to be seen, but they also want to take pride in that character. Sometimes in order to do that you need to bring in different voices.

As I have said before. I am not going to see the movie until I hear about Finn's story. Spoilers and all. When Rian Johnson said the movie is mostly about Rey, Luke, and Kylo I immediately got turned off. I can watch almost any movie where the white characters are the central characters. That's nothing new, and it doesn't get me excited to spend my money. They can market the film however they want, but the only ones that got me excited were the ones with Finn. Teasers of Rey not knowing what to do is typical of all these force users.

 

Going to have to disagree with this part. She didn't pick John Boyega, JJ Abrams did.