Actor John Boyega took to twitter on New Years Eve to take one last shot at ‘Star Wars’ in 2019, implicitly critiquing the (SPOILER ALERT) Rey/Kylo-Ren romance, depicted in ‘Rise of the Skywalker’.
Boyega’s character Finn, who once appeared to be the apparent love interest of the lead protagonist Rey, was relegated to a smaller role in the previous Star Wars film, ‘The Last Jedi’, when writer/director Rian Johnson froze Rey and Finn’s romance in carbonite, by setting the groundwork for a relationship between Rey and series villain Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver), and simultaneously shipping off-Finn with a peripheral character, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran).
Boyega tweeted four pictures of Rey and Kylo Ren, each showing the two character’s violent encounters throughout the new trilogy, with the caption “Star Wars Romance”. The photos showed Rey as Kylo’s captive, from ‘The Force Awakens’ and three pictures of the two fighting. One of the photos also included a spoiler, showing Rey stabbing Kylo Ren.
Star Wars romance 😗👀🙂 pic.twitter.com/ngB6XEMMS2
— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) December 31, 2019
Boyega, no longer under contract with Disney, has had his force (and tongue) unleashed, and has recently freely expressed his opinions regarding Star Wars and other topics. Boyega issued an apology a few weeks back, after comments he made, stating that social media is a hard place for people who are not “mentally strong”, was taken by some to be a slight to his Star Wars co-star, Kelly Marie Tran.
Tran made news following the release of previous Star Wars installment, ‘The Last Jedi’, when she deleted all of her Instagram posts after she was bullied by some Star Wars fans on the platform.
During his rounds promoting ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, Boyega has hinted that he did not like the decisions made by the writer/director of ‘The Last Jedi’, Rian Johnson, as it related to Finn. Boyega told comicbook.com that, with regards to ‘The Last Jedi’, “the story just wasn’t here for me with Finn and Rose.”
In a separate interview with Hypebeast, Boyega wistfully recalled where the trilogy began, saying, “the Force Awakens I think was the beginning of something quite solid. . .”
Echoing many Star Wars fans, he continued, “The Last Jedi, if I’m being honest, I’d say that was feeling a bit iffy for me.” He concluded, “I didn’t necessarily agree with a lot of the choices in that…”
Neither did I, John, neither did I.
One can imagine that now as the decade, and another Star Wars trilogy, comes to an end, Mr. Boyega may be contemplating all that could have been, in a time lang syne, and a galaxy far far away.