>>8660786I don't know if I'd put it quite as bluntly, but John Boyega's character certainly hurt The Force Awakens. J.J. Abrams deliberately caused a race-baiting stir with the character in my opinion. He cast John Boyega as Finn because of his race, who was intended to be the male lead and have a romance with Rey.
Alan Dean Forster a long time Star Wars author also wrote about the romance plot-line in his novelization for The Force Awakens, but Disney cut it out. Foster hinted it was because they didn't want an interracial relationship.
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/12/star-wars-author-rey-finn-romance-last-jedi-retcon-book-1234607015/>One request that “bothered” Foster while writing “The Force Awakens” was to remove the romance he was setting up for Rey and Finn, played by Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in the film. The two characters are not romantically involved in “The Force Awakens” movie, but Foster said Abrams’ screenplay was “obviously the beginnings of a relationship” between Finn and Rey.>“I expected to see that developed further in [‘The Last Jedi’],” Foster said. “And zero happened with it. And we all know why zero happened with it — and there’s no need to go into it in-depth — but that’s, sadly, just the way things are.”J.J. and the race-bait
https://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-7-racially-diverse/>We have heard rumblings that during the casting process, JJ Abrams has been fighting to hire a more racially diverse group of actors for Star Wars Episode 7 than has been seen in the series before. That’s a move away from the traditional Anglo-Saxon ensemble of the earlier Star Wars movies. Now that the main crew is nearly complete, we have learned that the core Star Wars 7 cast is made up of a few racially diverse actors and actresses.Disney later gutted Finn and J.J.'s ideas for Episodes 8 & 9.
https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/eisnd8/heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/ 