An argument can be made that it was not derivative enough, but here goes…
Interpreting “originality” broadly, no PC for the sake of PC. We are already getting “Black: check. Hispanic: check.” everywhere and with everything.
I thought Ridley, Boyega, and Isaacs did a fantastic job, Ford couldn’t have carried the production to 2 billion by himself, but this series is supposed to be essentially a '30s-'40s adventure serial. Also, it was white male characters and white male fans that carried the franchise to greatness. The Black Panther movie is in production. Imagine how distracting it would be if they decided the lead was black for too darned long and there needs to be a white lead to demonstrate inclusion. I can’t wrap my head around a black guy as 007 for the same reason. To top it off, there’s just no way to divorce this kind of thing from the element of “Yyyyyeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!!! Now we’re really sticking it to whitey!!!” Unpleasantly distracting. They’re lucky they had a lot of watercooler buzz.
On the business side, I don’t believe for a second that sales would have suffered if Finn and Po were fair blue-eyed white guys, all else being equal. Without the distraction, if anything, they would have blown past Titanic to threaten Avatar. Titanic and Avatar had white male leads, Jurrassic World had whites as the three principle males, and Avengers had all but one male as white (though an Italian American for Bruce Banner instead of Hulk was a slight switcheroo.)
I’m tired of the nasty, and even downright hateful attitudes that inevitably get attached to these PC efforts, and I feel the greatest problem with the PT was the refusal to be consistent with the OT in every way possible.
I still hope that the screenwriters will find a way to satisfy most everyone with this, but I’m still looking for that shamelessly '30s-'40s serial SW movie.
Edit: Where the hhheeeeeeelllllll are my indents?!?!? I need indents!
I'm saying that principal characters in an upgraded Golden Age adventure serial should be white, Black Panther should be black. An actor's ethnicity ALWAYS influences the overall character of the production. It's the most obvious aspect in the visual medium. I've always admired GL's subtle but powerful inclusion of other races in his Flash Gordon series. 3PO and R2 as loyal companions facing discrimination in cantinas and treatment as third-class, Chewie as fierce and constant co-pilot, Yoda as wise oriental.... In fact, I did think that ESB Lando was pushing up to the limits, but adventure heroes have always sailed off to exotic "lands" and encountered tribal chiefs and bosses. It was ROTJ Lando that went over the top as an allied general in what was, in part, a WWII propaganda feature. He could have served as a Tuskeegee squadron commander. Ackbar was better as an allied naval commander.
So am i seeing from your posts is that you believe its ok to have aliens portraying other ethnicities as long as there are no blacks included? And that any lead actor have to be white? And how the hell does someones race influence the character of someone in a bloody space fantasy? Both Finn and Poe were written without the character being of a “certain colour”. The fact that John Boyega ended up in the role was because JJ loved his performance in Attack the Block and NOT because he was black.
The racism in your posts is quite clear. Welcome to the real world where there are other colours apart from white. You must really love the prequels with its racist portrayals of characters.
I love that the fact that Star Wars having a black lead actor brings out all the blatant racists. It makes it easier to uncover the type of people you don’t want any form of associations with. Is this really the type of person we want associated with these boards?