With John Boyega seemingly front and centre in the thoughts of Star Wars fans once again this week – despite making it very clear he has no current thoughts of returning to the GFFA – his recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast did bring up some intriguing thoughts, including his view of Colin Trevorrow‘s version of Episode IX, Duel of the Fates.
“Of Episode IX? I can’t read that one, because I would be heartbroken. I had a sitdown with Colin. And that was one of the best Star Wars meetings I’ve ever had. Because it felt like two nerds that were like ‘Yes! That’s what we wanna see!’ And I saw the art, you know? The Stormtrooper rebellion and… That stuff was dope, hopefully Lucasfilm will give him an opportunity down the line to go work on something else, I’m sure they’d love to collaborate with him again.”
With Trevorrow’s IX placing Finn at the heart of the story, Boyega also broached the subject of Finn’s Force potential, something hinted at but ultimately unexplored in the Sequel Trilogy.
“It was a discussion from VII that was kind of bruit, because you didn’t know which way it was gonna go. And then VIII went in another direction, so I think that with VIII going in another direction, when you’re bringing someone for the third, they have to kind of like reshape what’s happened in VIII and still kind of make a narrative of it. J. J. really went… The Force Awakens, the movie that J.J. directed, he was kind of plotting a trajectory, but obviously with the different creatives, [when he came back for the third] he still wanted to force in there… And that’s when you get the moment between Finn and Jannah where Jannah asks him ‘How do you know?’ and he says ‘It’s a feeling’. He just had to get something in there that told you how why there was a Stormtrooper who held his own long enough against a Sith. Or a Sith wannabe, to a certain extent. So it was interesting when those talks were coming in the first stage. And I thought, you’re getting the lightsaber, you start swinging and defending… Last time I checked you can’t even just swing that a certain type of way. When Han was holding it briefly, what did he do? He held it to like get the locks off or something. Like, manual labour. You are using it to defend your friend, you must have something in you. But you know, who knows if maybe down the line they have a young actor or whatever and they have a chance to expand on Finn. Who knows if we get that, what is it about this dude that made him so special?”
