John Boyega would have made huge changes to the Star Wars sequels if he produced them himself.
The 33-year-old actor played Finn in 2015’s The Force Awakens, 2017’s The Last Jedi and 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, which brought popular new characters into the fold alongside those played by the franchise’s original stars Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill.
When asked what he would do if he were to remake the Star Wars trilogy he starred in as a producer, Londoner Boyega said the movies would have been ‘completely different’.
And one of the three major changes he would have made to the films’ plots included not killing off Han Solo (Ford) in The Force Awakens or Luke Skywalker (Hamill) in The Last Jedi, who as characters, he was insistent, deserved ‘way more’.
Appearing at Florida Supercon 2025, Boyega told the audience: ‘If I was a producer on Star Wars from the beginning, you would have had a whole completely different thing. 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 fulfil their story, fulfil their legacy. We’re going to make a good moment of handing on the baton.’
Boyega, who previously criticised Disney for the way they handled his role’s development and that of other diverse actors in the franchise, said the new characters – including Finn – in his version of the films would also face more challenges.
He branded new characters, including his former stormtrooper alongside Daisy Ridley’s Rey as ‘overpowered’, such as when they were able to create a lightsaber against Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).
He added, as per Popverse.com: ‘Our new characters will not be OP’d [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.’
Boyega would also have ‘look[ed] to’ stories from Star Wars’ online video games, The Old Republic and Force Unleashed, to expand the film franchise’s universe ‘and see what we can add to the continuation of that’ while still ‘respecting the lore’.
‘If we’re expanding the lore, we have to do it in within the respective boundaries that stay true.’
But ultimately, the Attack the Block actor said he would not kill off Luke Skywalker.
Boyega declared: ‘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.’
In September 2020, Boyega famously called out Disney for how his and other characters – including Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose – were sidelined as the trilogy progressed with thinner storylines, after receiving racist backlash from internet trolls.
‘What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side.
‘It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up,’ he told GQ.
‘Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know f**k all.’
The Small Axe star added that ‘they gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley’.
‘Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.’
Boyega Later confirmed that a Disney executive reached out to him following his comments and they shared ‘a very honest, very transparent conversation’.
‘There was a lot of explaining on their end in terms of the way they saw things. They gave me a chance also to explain what my experience was like,’ he revealed to The Hollywood Reporter.
The actor added that he hoped his openness about his career ‘would help the next man, the guy that wants to be the assistant DOP, the guy that wants to be a producer’.
‘I hope that the conversation is not such a taboo or elephant in the room now, because someone just came and said it.’
Boyega currently has multiple films in progress, including the long-awaited Attack the Block 2 and Otis & Zelma, where he plays Otis Redding opposite Danielle Deadwyler as the singer’s wife Zelma.
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