John Boyega responds to Star Wars fan criticism with homemade music video

Star Wars actor John Boyega, who plays Finn in the sequel trilogy, has posted an Instagram video where he quite literally “destroys” the online hate he’s received since The Rise of Skywalker came out last month.

Some context: Boyega has been stirring up controversy of late online, not holding back in the slightest when it comes to his Star Wars-related opinions. In particular, he’s been rattling the cages of Reylo shippers, fans who are invested in the relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren. For example, he tweeted out images of them brutally fighting in The Rise of Skywalker and captioned it “Star Wars romance”:

More seriously, he replied to an commenter on another of his Instagram posts with some off-color comments about what Kylo Ren’s death in The Rise of Skywalker could mean for Rey and Finn’s potential relationship. “It’s not about who she kisses but who eventually lays the pipe,” he wrote. “You are a genius.”

That reply understandably sparked some backlash, with fans accusing Boyega of being sexist and insensitive. The actor defended himself by claiming that the comment was not referring to women, but instead to the fictional character of Rey, portrayed by Daisy Ridley.

Now, Boyega has made a music video-style Instagram post where he literally chops up critical tweets with a light saber, or runs them over on a scooter, and so on. “Glad I got that out of my system,” reads the caption.

The video got both “John Boyega” and “Reylo” trending on Twitter almost instantly, while the post itself has — as of this writing — over 700,000 views and 200,000 likes.

Is this likely to quiet the criticism? It seems doubtful, although it raise the stakes on production value.

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h/t The A.V. Club