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John Boyega hasn’t been shy about his complicated feelings regarding his role in Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy.
The actor, who played stormtrooper-turned-rebel Finn in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, has been vocal about his frustrations with the series, including how his character’s arc was handled and the terrible way some fans treated him and his non-white co-stars.
During a recent appearance at Supercon Florida, the Attack the Block star revealed the specific changes he would have made to the sequel series had he been a producer on the films.
One of the major changes he’d make? Not killing off Luke, Han, and Leia, for a start.
“If I was a producer on Star Wars from the beginning, you would have had a whole completely different thing,” Boyega said.
“It would be mad. First of all, we’re not getting rid of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, all these people. We’re not doing that. The first thing we’re going to do is fulfill their story, fulfill their legacy. We’re going to make a good moment of handing on the baton,” he continued.
The actor insisted he would have added more “struggle” for the characters, and incorporated lore from the fan-favorite 2008 Force Unleashed video game.
“Our new characters will not be [overpowered] in these movies. They won’t just grab stuff and know what to do with it. No. You’ve got to struggle like every other character in this franchise. I’d do that. I’d look to the Old Republic stories, and see what we can add to the continuation of that. I would definitely want to see Force Unleashed stories in there. I would try to expand the Star Wars universe as much as possible while respecting the lore. If we’re expanding the lore, we have to do it within the respective boundaries that stay true,” he explained.
“But Luke Skywalker wouldn’t be disappearing on a rock. Hell no. Standing there and he’s, like, a projector? I would want to give those characters way more, way more,” Boyega reiterated.
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In August, Boyega shared at Fan Expo Boston that he initially believed Finn would become a Jedi alongside Rey after his character briefly wielded a lightsaber in 2015’s The Force Awakens, but that never happened, and he felt his character was ultimately pushed to the side despite being marketed as a lead.
“I think I assumed he was Force-sensitive from The Force Awakens’ script or at least by the time I got to the end of The Force Awakens’ script. I thought they were planning dual Jedis. I actually thought that they would Obi-Wan and Darth Vader us a bit. That we would turn against each other or something along those lines,” Boyega admitted.
Boyega was met with vile racist backlash online from some fans when the trailer for The Force Awakens was first released in 2014.
In 2020, he told British GQ that Disney gave “all the nuance” to Rey and Kylo Ren, the white lead characters, but that the company didn’t know what to do with Finn, a Black stormtrooper.
In 2025, he said that for some fans, Star Wars as a franchise is “so white that a Black person existing in [it] was something.” Still, he maintains he’s a big fan of the franchise despite the way he was treated.
The next Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, will release in theaters on May 22, 2026.
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