It seems like we can never really avoid talking about Star Wars. Even the recent debut of The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s teaser trailer provoked a lot of conversation, both about those characters and about where the franchise has gone in recent years.
It has also made a lot of people think about the recent “Sequel Trilogy” of movies: either being astonished at how long its been since they wrapped up with 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, or beginning to feel nostalgia towards its highs and lows. John Boyega, who starred as Finn in those movies, has coincidentally joined in on that conversation in an interesting way.
During a recent panel at Florida SuperCon 2025 (via PopVerse), Boyega was asked how he would personally “remake” the Sequel Trilogy, free of the various creative ebbs and flows that it endured. Unlike a lot of usual convention-friendly soundbites, he had a pretty in-depth answer, arguing that “if I was a producer on Star Wars from the beginning. You would have had a whole completely different thing.”
“It would be mad,” Boyega shared. “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. Our new characters will not be OP’d 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,” Boyega continued, “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 in within the respective boundaries that stay true… 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.”
A New New Era
There were obviously a multitude of offscreen reasons for why the Sequel Trilogy turned out the way that it did: Carrie Fisher’s sudden passing in 2016, J.J. Abrams replacing Colin Trevorrow on what would become The Rise of Skywalker, and just the festering state of toxic Internet discourse are easily on that list. But purely on a creative level, Boyega does make some good points about what could’ve been done differently.
As shocking as Kylo Ren killing Han Solo was in The Force Awakens, it did immediately take the trilogy’s approach to its legacy characters into an uneven territory. The fact that Luke, Leia, and Han never even shared a single frame across the three movies still feels like an oversight, with Luke and Leia not even crossing paths again until his final moments in The Last Jedi. In a world that now feels bloated with legacy sequels and original characters returning to the audience’s thunderous applause, it is wild in hindsight how restrained the Sequel Trilogy was in that aspect.
And to Boyega’s other point: folding in Old Republic and Force Unleashed lore could have been promising, as well. It is still shocking that the Old Republic era is so unexplored onscreen (despite a Knights of the Old Republic movie being put into development almost half a decade ago), although maybe James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi movie will start to change that. Granted, this is all easy to argue with hindsight and outside of the actual creative process of making these movies, but given just how many times the Sequel Trilogy introduced lore that went absolutely nowhere (hello, Knights of Ren), it’s definitely a fun thought experiment to have.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios)
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