ST Mark Lewis Jones (Captain Canady)

I almost hate that Canady is in the movie because he showed that the writers knew how to make competent villains in the FO. Instead, we get him for all of a few minutes then we have to settle for Space Colonel Klink in Hux.

 

If you take continuity into account, he more than likely was respectful of Rae Sloane and her intentions. Maybe even one of her retinue.

And now he has to put up with Hux, Snoke and Kylo.

 

It’s like the Game of Thrones concept of the types who are willing to go down on the ship, or who follow the protocol, will die and the characters with more self-preservation habits who are weasels likely will outlast them.

 

So FN-2187 learned from observation?????

 

It’s unclear to me what you are trying to imply there? Does it have to do with Canady? Care to elaborate?

 

Yes. You imply autonomous people in the FO, like officers, can be seen as a "Hux like type" and a "Canady like type".


While stormtroopers are subjected to intense training to make them all with a "Canady type attitude"; aka follow protocol to a tee; aka be a meatshield as ordered.

It can be reasonably assumed that stormtroopers, (despite subligation) can witness that differences in behavior of men like Hux and men like Canady, and determine that "Hux style" self preservation is more beneficial. (Simply because guys like Hux tend to survive longer, as per your GoT example)


I'm not saying stormtroopers are dummy ant drones. (Obviously Finn isn't).

But I'm saying that Finn's personal independent instincts, could be learned this way.

 

He gave my chills.

I liked his "short on patience" attitude with the young and inexperienced.

Loved his order "fire on the base!"

 

An underrated aspect of RJ’s direction is the silence slow motion sequence that leads to the climax of the Canady sequence when he tracke the camera in on his face in slow motion amongst other slow motion shots and you just see him shouting “Fire” without the actual audio and then Paige seeing the remote drop. Mesmerizing sequence.

 

"He's not TRYING to penetrate our armor. He's clearing out our surface cannons."

 

"Our bases were designed by Grand Moff Escher."

 

Captain Canady, Tallie, Paige. So many likable new characters just killed off like that. Could have spared some of them, Rian.

 

He was my favourite new character. I guess it probably would have been better to fire on the cruiser first - after all, the base wasn't going anywhere - but as an old school Imperial exasperated by Hux as a leader it was a brilliant little cameo.

 

Same with Captain Peavy this guy is great because he actually seems competent. It’s also interesting to see the old vs new in the first order. A shame he died.

 

“...five bloody minutes ago!”

I was genuinely surprised to hear this in a Star Wars movie. It’s a very British thing to say though, and made me smile.

 

The whole young FO versus older Imperial element is one of the few things I really liked in both the movie and the novel, deserves some more attention - maybe it'll get that in Ep IX, but if not, somewhere.

(Peavey gets quite a bit development in the book too.)

 

Why aren't you blasting that puny ship?!

 

Huh! Cool.
I always thought “Captain Canady” = “Kathleen Kennedy”.

 

There's a lot of "meta" stuff in TLJ, in my opinion, and Canady = Kennedy, as the old guard, could be another example.

 

He was kinda epic.

 

I love his spot in the TLJ Visual Dictionary that points to his face and says "worry lines publicly display private doubts". Lol

 

Not so Meta but you could argue the difference between him and Hux is that Canady is old enough to be old Imperial stock.

That could actually have been an interesting subject to play up more across both sequels for me.

 

Yeah a like a 70 year old FO Admiral who worked for Vader and the Emperor 30 years ago but wasn't at the battle of Endor would have been a fascinating character and a cool tie-in to the OT.

Somebody like Bill Nighy or Charles Dance.

 

I can see it now:

Admiral to the bridge!
Nighy calmly gets up, walks to the turbolift.