ST Bond Between Finn and Rey Going Forward

My prediction for ep IX: Rey and Ben will be revealed to be brother and sister, Ben was just lying. Rose will get another boyfriend who hasn’t been introduced yet. Finn and Rey’s friendship will get time to develop and turn romantic in the third act.

 

I can see the point. On the other hand, in regards to the latter, I do think the scene was well handled as was in terms of composition and placement. I'm not sure what else could be added to it.

Well, the movies have shown him using his knowledge of the First Order to their advantage, but I take it you have something else in mind.

On one hand, one could argue that those moments were in service to TFA's story and had already amounted to something. An underlying thread in TFA and the tie-ins is that both Finn and Rey were very much alone and wanted to be connected to others, which they do with each other over the course of the movie. Irregardless of whether they're going to be a couple or not, I think that Rey and Finn do love each other and the castle scene is the first indication to us that they mean more to each other than friendly acquaintances. All this pays off in part in the rescue operation at the end. The coma scene I think contrasts where they are now from where they were at the beginning of the movie.

I also think that those bits did impact TLJ. While they didn't have a lot of screen time, they did have an impact on each other's stories. Finn is extremely tunnel-visioned in regards to what happened to his friend and how to protect her during the opening acts (his trying to desert to help her kicks off his part in the movie). Rey specifically asks Chewie to get an update on Finn if he's able to contact the Resistance while on Ach-To and later asks the Wookie to give him a message from her if she doesn't make it back from her mission to convert Kylo. That's all stuff that stems from their scenes in TFA. Also, when they do finally reconnect at the end, it's pretty clear that that's the happiest either of them have been since the movie began and I'd argue that it acts as something of an emotional climax for the final act, which is largely a downer in many respects (kind of allowing us to catch our breath and get a bit of a release from all the drama we've witnessed by seeing something really go right).

How exactly the duo's relationship will play into Episode 9 remains to be seen, of course, but I think it has been used already and I would assume that it would impact Episode 9, too. (I mean, TLJ made a big deal about them being separated and reunited, so it's clearly something that's important to both their characters).

While Rian Johnson has gone on record that the Episode 9 production team does maintain the right to decide whether to take his answer to Rey's parentage as truth or retcon it into a lie or mistake, I think revealing Rey and Kylo to be siblings would be a difficult setup; Kylo is a good ten years older, for one. While the tie-ins might not be honored by Episode 9, there's never been any indication that Han and Leia had a daughter that was lost or presumed dead. Pablo Hidalgo has also gone on record on Twitter that the two are not related. While all these could be overturned if wished, I'm not sure that they would.

It's possible, although I think it's hard to guess what will be done about her feelings for Finn given that we don't know exactly how Finn feels about her yet; he does clearly consider her a friend and care for her on that basis at the minimum, but I don't think there's any indication in TLJ that he saw her in a romantic light or to disprove that that he didn't or couldn't. Logically, TLJ must resolve the plot that Rose's confession would start before starting another and until we get an inking if it's going to be about her being in love with someone who isn't in love with her, two people trying to figure out a relationship, or something else, I'm not sure what we can use to base a conjecture on.

While this is a tricky question, given that Rian Johnson set up Rose's confession but won't be involved with concluding that story, I do have to wonder why that scene would be put in the movie if the next one would shift Rose's attention to someone else. My thinking is that Episode 9 will answer the question that Rose's confession poses, but I'm not sure if there would be enough time to then start a new relationship for her.

That could indeed be the case. I would actually be in favor of that development. However, it does seem like (novelizations notwithstanding) that the Powers That Be haven't exactly been onboard with this idea. While I think they do have a decent starting place to go this route, I do think that Episode 9 will have to do some heavy lifting to make it happen. That's also assuming that they'd want to answer a question like this in the next movie and not save it for other movies or tie-ins.