It’s getting kind of tedious, isn’t it? Every time that people have objections based on the quality of a artistic project (movies and games especially) that happens to include some kind of protected class, then suddenly the fans—which is another word for ‘their best customers’—are labeled racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever.
John Boyega, who played Finn in ‘Star Wars: The Original Movie Again But Slightly Different The Force Awakens’ has become the latest to join this chorus. Apparently in a documentary to air on Apple TV+ called ‘Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood’ he basically called Star Wars fans racist:
Star Wars actor John Boyega attacks fans of the franchise as racist white elitists pic.twitter.com/s9zxszFwiR
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 1, 2025
For our money, we actually enjoyed his character in Star Wars 7. We were also amused that he more or less says ‘molon labe’ in that movie.
Did you catch when Finn more or less said this? @hale_razor pic.twitter.com/ChNDl4v3Az
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) January 23, 2016
Of course, the actual words are ‘come get it’ but its pretty much the same is as the famous Spartan response.
As for the rest of the series, we think Boyega is right to feel kind of shafted. He was set up as one of the big three characters in the series, but got badly sidelined in the last two movie.
And maybe the real person he should be complaining about is Rian Johnson, who nerfed his character and generally made him look ridiculous in ‘The Last Jedi.’ Or maybe even Disney itself for reducing his prominence on posters for ‘The Force Awakens’ in China—which is a famously racist country, especially towards black people.
Star Wars' Finn (who happens to be black) and Chewbacca (happens to be Wookiee) get shafted in China. HT @asmuniz pic.twitter.com/ATpvcd51L6
— ray 鄺羡華 (@raykwong) December 1, 2015
(Remember that when Disney says that they won’t compromise their values to cater to American audiences. They absolutely will cater to the racists in China.)
If he complained about those things—especially if he called Johnson racist—we’d think he might have a point. But trashing your customers?
By contrast, we will always remember when Henry Cavill was promoting ‘The Witcher’ on Netflix and he had a brilliant response when asked about toxic fans:
That is an absolute masterclass of an answer from Cavill for how to handle fan criticism.
On to reactions:
"John Boyega says some fans are only okay with Black characters in #StarWars because they’re 'the best friend.'"
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) April 1, 2025
It's so weird to act like this is directed at Star Wars fans when, obviously, it's directed at Rian Johnson, who is not a fan and hates Star Wars. https://t.co/Hta68s1zco
We have come to believe that Johnson was intentionally sabotaging Star Wars with 'The Last Jedi' and we drew that conclusion when we finally saw ‘Star Wars: We’re Screwed… Okay, Do Some Quick Retcons And Maybe the Fans Will Forgive Us! The Rise of Skywalker.’ As you might remember, Carrie Fisher died after ‘The Last Jedi’ was shot but well before it was released and Johnson made the decision to let General Leia survive to the end of the film. After all, it would have been the simplest thing in the world to make it so she died. There was a moment where it looked like Kylo had killed her, but then she did that weird ‘Mary Poppins’ force thing and saved herself. But she wasn’t significant in the plot going forward. So, all they had to do was make it so she actually died, do a couple quick reshot scenes where they say she died and problem solved.
But instead, Johnson left her alive and forced the next director—who turned out to be Abrams, again—to try to deal with her being alive. And you realize how hopeless it was when you watch ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ because there just wasn’t enough footage to recycle to make it look like she was actually in the movie. And we are convinced to this day that this was deliberate sabotage on Johnson’s part, probably because he just hates blockbuster movies or something. ‘Let the past die. Kill it if you have to’ and all that.
We’re not saying this is the only reason why 'Rise of Skywalker' was an underwhelming movie, but it is a big part of it.
Vader & The Emperor Discuss John Boyega Calling Star Wars Fans Racist 👨🏿👨🏻 pic.twitter.com/rRMuyTE1gD
— @stevenvoiceover (@stevenvoiceover) April 2, 2025
Ahahahahahahahahah!!!
Most white people are racist.
— Seth Hunter Bashore (@sethbashore) April 1, 2025
Okay is this a satirical comment? Because that comment seems kind of racist to us. But we could believe he is just making a meta joke.
Sounds like he’s had a “problem” with Star Wars for a long time
— David (@vadeansonder) April 2, 2025
Though showing his true self here, Boyega did well considering he was in the worst Star Wars movies ever made and actually wasn’t what made them terrible
Too bad he’s got a terrible perspective
I think most of us didn't care that the lead roles were a woman and a POC. Replace the actors with two white men and we'd still hate it. The sequels were trash films cause the story was trash. Kylo, a white dude is a terrible character.
— Eric Polino (@aluink) April 2, 2025
We saw some people object to seeing a black storm trooper but we never thought it was racism per se. For one, we think a number of people assumed that the Empire was racist and indeed species-ist. Up until Disney took over Star Wars, the officers were almost always white male humans. So based on all that, one might have assumed that the officers were the same demographics as the troopers—white, male and human. Plus, the term ‘stormtroopers’ was a direct reference to the Nazis, and the Empire often used Nazi-like imagery so that a person might assume the Empire was a bunch of space Nazis. So they might have assumed that the Empire was racist and therefore objected casting Finn as a trooper for the same reason most of us would object to a black guy playing a member of the Klan in a remake of Mississippi Burning.
But we have also seen this objection from more casual fans:
storm troopers are CLONES
— Zen (@ZenNicCage) April 1, 2025
literally clones of an ambiguous light brown dude
it’s cannon
And this is wrong, but we can understand how he would get it wrong. As you might remember, in ‘Attack of the Clones,’ we learned that every Clone Trooper was a clone of Jango Fett, who was played by Temuera Morrison, who is pacific islander (specifically Māori). Those casual fans assumed that when the Clone Troopers were replaced by Storm Troopers, that they were still clones of Fett. What those casual fans don’t know is that the clones were eventually replaced by natural born recruits. But if you don’t know that they were replaced by natural born people, you might have wondered ‘why doesn’t this Storm Trooper look like Temuera Morrison?’ The mistake there isn’t racism, but ignorance of the lore—and frankly we just aren’t the type of people to get upset about that kind of ignorance.
love how 💩 actors always blame race rather than skill
— GurzaX (@NewcombeAn77444) April 2, 2025
how about stop being such a one-dimensional character in all movies you've ever been in bro.?
Personally, we are impressed with his acting. He managed to hide what a tool he could be through three Star Wars movies and whatever that Pacific Rim sequel was. That takes talent.
Speak to any white actor these days and they will tell you that they won’t even be seen for jobs based solely on their skin colour.
— Laurence Fox (@LozzaFox) April 1, 2025
So forgive me for not sobbing in sympathy to one the prime beneficiaries of show businesses new, woke and profoundly racist casting imperative. https://t.co/qv9uhkJwu8
What an awful take. Proves how disconnected John Boyega and the rest of Hollywood are from audiences.
— BaggageClaim (@BaggageClaim11) April 1, 2025
Star Wars fans absolutely HATED how his character was treated and essentially sidelined to just yelling "Rey" every once in a while. We were rooting for you. Good job destroying… https://t.co/1nhpHaykRo
The cut off text:
Good job destroying your career harder than even Disney could have managed.
Some of the biggest names in our sphere went to bat for Boyega because Disney did him dirty. Too bad Gary, Az, both Jeremys, Ryan, Odin, Disparu, Critical Drinker, most of EFAP, and the like are all white, and Theory isn't black enough.
— Sheepsidian - COMMISSIONS FULL (@Sheepsidian) April 1, 2025
Boyega is truly racist. https://t.co/nQZHQuzCcd
Honestly, Boyega sounds a bit like a bitter divorcé. Like have you ever known a person who went through a rough divorce and he or she gets that sexism that comes from having your heart stomped flat? They get bitter and say stuff like ‘all men are pigs’ or ‘women just want to destroy you.’ That’s what Boyega sounds like to this author and we think someday he’ll regret saying all this.
Ideas like that are why we canceled our Disney subscriptions and the new Snow White failed miserably.
— Infidel (@Infidel247365) April 1, 2025
You’re a millionaire and a lot of us loved your performance.
But your necessity to be a victim when white people made you a famous millionaire?
You aint a victim. You’re a mouth…
The cut off text (with mild censorship):
You aint a victim. You’re a mouth piece.
You need to talk to Denzel, Samuel, Forest and others a pop your head out of you’re a**.
Seriously, we are old enough to remember when the best-selling action figures from 'The Phantom Menace' were Darth Maul and Mace Windu, and it wasn't even close. The notion that Star Wars fans is racist really needs to go the way of the dodo.
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