ST John Boyega (Finn) in the ST

I think it’s an extrapolation formed by people who found something “off” about TLJ’s portrayal of Finn’s flaws there; there’s just a lot of ways for someone who doesn’t like Finn’s arc in TLJ to ridicule even the basic concept in some fashion. *No one* defending TLJ’s Finn story has ever said that TLJ’s lesson for Finn was “Finn stops selfishly caring for other people”... but the actual TLJ premise for Finn’s arc is weak enough to fall prey to such comparisons.

I mean, inherently, TLJ is trying to walk a tight-rope in defining Finn’s flaw: that he’s not cowardly for his own skin, but is somewhat selfishly willing to abandon the Resistance to try and save Rey from what e thinks is a hopeless situation. There’s a lot of suppositions and caveats in this idea that can strike doubters pretty badly and doom the entire concept pretty quickly:

- On an emotional level, the audience is being asked to view a major highlight and positive from TFA in a more negative light ; even executing the idea perfectly isn’t going to endear it to some fans of TFA.
- On a starting level, the film is also presuming that Finn *cannot* have already moved on to the big picture during TFA, so it’s going to insist on a literal yet expansive reading of Finn’s “I’m just here for Rey” line and for downplaying and dismissing the circumstances of Finn running back to Han and prioritize the mission above Rey on SKB. Not exactly the most graceful and organic move.
- On an execution level, the film also moves through the broad strokes and general arc very quickly; Finn’s effectively made the transition to big picture, “fight for the Resistance” level thinking when he agrees to go on the Canto Bight mission mere minutes after his “flaw” was introduced and it certainly seems completely wrapped up well before they reach the Supremacy. It’s just not a very long and drawn out plot at all, which can make it feel superfluous and unnecessary.
- On yet another execution level... Finn’s decision that Rey shouldn’t come back to the ship because it’s doomed and unsafe for her needs to be proven wrong in order for his decision to be wrong. And that means the concept is relying on... the kriffin’ stupid Space Chase, and the heated argument that Holdo is written as a competent commander. Every flaw people find with the Space Chase and Holdo’s story thus makes Finn look like he was making an intelligent decision, aka, the exact opposite of the story's intention.

The entire excercise can make the character arc for Finn seem false in some way. And thus, you get guys who say the film’s message for Finn doesn’t make sense and is contradictory (I.e, “Finn stops selfishly caring for other people”) or one slike mine: I feel like Rian Johnson’s message was “Finn cares about Rey too much, Rey doesn’t care about Kylo enough, and Kylo is beautiful just the way he is!”

 

I’d actually argue that a quicker but much more nuanced character arc for Poe could have been done just using the opening fight against the Dreadnaught and cutting out most of the rest of his subplot... and giving that time and significance to Finn’s story.

Leia could have chewed out and demoted Poe for the loss of all the bomber-wing’s personnel, pointing out that they were all capable of pulling out with their own hyperdrives when she ordered him back. Just having her make him face the number of people who died killing the Dreanaught and having Issac act out that hurt could have done 90% of RJ’s intended arc further character in just the first half of the film.

Now, this does mean you’d probably have to ditch most of the Space Chase, play Holdo in a more straight-forward manner where her being competent is never obfuscated or gambled on with dubious characterization choices for dramatic reasons... and probably reworking Finn’s entire story’s context... which I’d be totally okay with.

 

I think Johnson was overwhelmed by the responsibilities of writing an ensemble film that was also part war epic and space opera; I think he felt confident he could handle the Force story, and I’m pretty sure that’s what he was most interested in, thanks to Luke and Kylo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he found he was prioritizing the other story lines well below it and was struggling to come up with storylines he felt confident in.

And I think that’s why Poe and Finn’s stories seem to follow the same rough formula, have similar endgoals, and suffer from similar problems. At some point, Johnson either consciously or subconsciously removed them entirely frontman he central conflict he was personally invested in, and he wound up falling back on his deconstruction idea at full force for both guys... but while also limiting their efficacy as characters upon the plot. And even the way they domimoact the plot ends up only being because of bad writing creating redundant moments in a poorly thought out Space Chase.

I mean, the Space Chase’s connections to Poe’s Story and Finn’s Story are both kind of loosely “taped on:” the storyline reasoning for Holdo and Leia’s plan failing (Poe giving away information) actually makes less sense than more logical suppositions that the film avoids (that the First Order will be curious about a planet they’ve been chasing the Resistance towards for 18 hours/they’ll look out their windows at the cloaked-but-not-conformed-to-be-invisible-at-all transports leaving the Raddus), and Finn’s entire plotline only exists because the film is showing that people can hyperspace away from the Chase without any problem, and then jump back in, kind of making the Chase even more superfluous.

Neither storyline thus is really required for the Space Chase to work out the way it does, and to some extent, they even sabotage the premise of the Space Chase simply by existing. Which leaves their actual reason for existing: ostensibly, since they can’t imoact the plot that much, they need to be extremely character driven stories...

...Unfortunately, Rian Johnson has some skewed priorities and variable passion for those character driven stories. At some point, he became convinced that Poe’s story really needed to be told and that his perception of the character from TFA needed to be deconstructed, even though I think the plotline is clearly expendable and probably shouldn’t be taking time away from the other stories. At the same time, there clearly was at least some apathy towards Finn’s story on his part, and a lack of imagination as well: you don’t admit your reasons for cutting out a character based conflict between Rose and Finn were because you didn’t want to write it unless your apathy is very real for that storyline.

And of course, both plotlines depend on extremely critical and limited reads of Poe and Finn that arguably aren’t very organic int he first place. Poe is a great pilot in TFA, but he’s also a responsible and mature leader, so trying to make him “Maverick” from Top Gun is dubious. And Finn, of course, had to have a virtue of his redefined into a vice and certain aspects of TFA ignored for his story to happen... and it still wasn’t really worth calling a “character arc,” since it was over in minutes after one scene.