ST Diversity in the Sequel Trilogy (see warning on page 11)

Not many characters in TFA were more interesting than Maz. I was really disappointed that she had such a small role in TLJ and Rey's growth in that movie; yet another thing I hope JJ takes care of in IX.

 

And also about why Maz, a civilian, wasn't used more in TLJ

 

What? No my comment had nothing to do with Maz being a civilian or her screen time in TLJ. Galadriel was barely in LotR after Fellowship, but her characterization and the purpose of her role remained consistent. That's what my comment was about.

It's weird that you're trying to tell me what my point was.

 

During the time of the War of the Ring, the fading of elvendom was well underway, and Galadriel was indeed inclined to go West and flee from darkness, rather than openly fight it. She defended her realm for a long while, lent material and spiritual aide to our heroes, but remained hidden, and later, hopped on a big boat and floated off to the Undying Lands.

Maz plays a similar role, but is sketched in a half-mythic, half-mimetic light (Galadriel being full on mythic) so I can accept that her retreat is of a more mundane sort. Union halls instead of elven glades.

 

Nothing in the actual films points to that however. And since the films are the only thing that most people saw, that's what's most important. Same with Maz, she's goes from "we must fight them, all of us" to "oh I cannot help, unexplained union dispute" out of nowhere. Rian, oops.

 

Yeah, I’m aware of nothing like that being explicitly stated in the films. It’s just a twist on an archetype. In most films with archetypes there’s usually not an intermission each time one appears to describe its mythic or historical origins. Monty Python and the Holy Grail being an exception.

Yoda also advocates for fighting the Empire. But he stays hidden in his swamp. These are old tropes, is all I was saying. Johnson’s version may not be as successfully-executed as Lucas’ in ESB, but it still doesn’t require an explanation IMO.

 

The difference, which some people seem to forget, is that there's more context for Yoda to do that. The Empire is all powerful across the Galaxy and committed to hunting down the Jedi. And Yoda is an old man, so him not revealing himself makes sense. However, there is a backup plan, namely Luke. And we DID NOT have a previous movie with Yoda going "must all fight the Empire we must, all of us that is," only to go "cannot help you can I, in the middle of fight with swamp creatures am I, too bad it is." Also Yoda argues AGAINST running off to face Vader and Sheev right way, he was looking at the bigger picture. So yeah, completely different context there.

If people are going to bring up the OT to justify this nonsense, then they can at least bother to remember what actually happened and the context in those films.

 

And she said all that before her establishment and all her possessions were destroyed.

For all we know, the union dispute was a result of her trying to get more supplies and equipment.

You can't exactly "fight them" with nothing.

 

Bolded is key. You have to write for the film to make it work.

Finn had a better excuse to flee. He's a child in comparison to Maz, raised in a murderous cult he just escaped when Maz shamed him for "wanting to run."

But the point to me is her role in the story. Maz was a wise force guide in TFA that dwells in a bar. She was on the good guys team clearly, as Han went to her knowing she could get him to the Resistance. She was invested in Finn and Rey and the roles they would play, just like Galadriel with Frodo. She saw the future victory in them, and she guided each of them on their path spiritually, at a deep character level. In TLJ, suddenly her role is to provide intel on a hacker because she's busy with personal stuff that has, as far as we can tell, nothing to do with the one fight against the dark side. It's narratively inconsistent, and jarring.

 

What did you want her role to be?

Rey is already getting Force tutelage from Luke, away from everyone else, on Ahch-To.

The only plausible thing Maz could do spiritually, was give Leia advice, similar to what Yoda did the Luke. And while Leia and Poe didn't see eye to eye at the beginning, similar to Luke and Rey, it didn't appear that Leia needed guiding.

 

You do realize there's more to giving guidance in Star Wars than force tutelage, right? I mean she did also guide Finn in TFA to take up the fight against the First Order. So it's not like not having a force using "student" is a requirement for her to be a part of the story.

 

As @Troopa212 correctly points out, she was and could have been again a guide to Finn. Moreover, Rey didn’t get any-character-based guidance from Luke and she received hardly any force-based guidance from him. There was definitely a gap there.

At the end of the day, RJ is the writer. He chose to do what he did, and I’m criticizing what he did. In no way am I convinced by the total fiction that he had no choice but to write what he wrote. Could Maz have spoken to Rey through the force in the cave perhaps? Sure. Could she have provided some needed mentoring to Finn? Of course. She could have had the same two minutes of screen time and done either of the above in a meaningful way, the way Galadriel did later in LotR. And either way, it would have enriched Rey and/or Finn’s stories, because both had horrendously shallow character journeys.

 

I love Maz.

I have no issue at all with her getting caught up in a labor dispute. One of the things we know about Maz from TFA is that she's caught up in a lot of things, she's got connections galore. Being caught up in a dispute, one I doubt she originated, doesn't suddenly mean her priorities for the GFFA disappear. That's like saying I can't help feed the poor if I need to pull overtime one night at my job.

Having said that, I hate that she was in TLJ so little. I don't know if that was because Lupita, a very busy actress, didn't have the time for more. Or if RJ couldn't imagine a role for her in light of Luke and Yoda, the older, wise Force users essentially filling the spot she had in TFA. Which makes sense, seeing as Maz was created to fill Yoda's old role, and the role many fans expected Luke to play in TFA.

 

Rian created the longest SW film and completely ignored the possibilities Maz had to offer the protagonists. Any given character can have other things going on in the GFFA, used as it was in TLJ, it was a device to cut that character out of the film.

With Leia gone, I hope Maz and Lando provide guidance to the new protagonists (and not leading or ordering them around) allowing them to become the type of heroes the OT crew were. That was another issue I felt hampered TLJ, the new crew 2/3 through the saga are still under wing.

 

I feel like pointing out that in SW we have seen human+robot before a simple gay couple.

So kids might not be ready for man+man but they are actually ready for man + robot, providing that the robot has a female voice...

 

Just popping in again real quick

 

Rian wasn't that interested in Finn's character, its obvious even listening to him talk. I mean his being maimed in TFA is not only completely brushed aside, but the very first scene with him after waking up from his coma makes him to but of THREE different pratfall gags/body humor jokes in rapid succession. And his injury has no bearing on the plot whatsoever, nor does Rey ever bring it up when talking to Kylo (despite Finn getting it while trying to protect her from Kylo).

Compare that to Kylo, where Rian makes his face scar smaller and moves it to a different spot so that he looks less disfigured and it gets two separate emphasis shots on it.

Also Finn gets shuffled off to the C-plot, which is basically him being lectured and humiliated the entire time, and then is the one character who's "heroic sacrifice" is intentionally written to be wrong, as opposed to Paige, Holdo, and Luke. And he accomplishes nothing and if anything was a hinderance rather than a benefit.

Yeah you can see Rian's apathy for Finn's character up on the screen.

 

The weird thing to me about RJ’s apathy to Finn’s character is didn’t he ask JJ to have him end TFA unconscious? I thought I read that somewhere. Such a request would imply that he had a plan. Apparently his plan was just for Finn to wake up leaking fluid? Except not really because originally Finn was going to be conscious in a bomber at the start of TLJ.

What’s so sad about Finn’s character in TLJ to me is that JB is a star and he was totally wasted. TFA established him as the co-protagonist (not Kylo, RJ, if you were wondering). TLJ demoted him in narrative importance, and that demotion wasn’t deserved. Sometimes characters stink and therefore are used less in succeeding films in a franchise, but that wasn’t Finn. He had the start of a hero’s journey in TFA played by an actor that oozes charisma. It shouldn’t have gone that way.

 

Well he also asked Claudia Gray to include some things in the Bloodline novel as well. But it ended up being irrelevant to TLJ in the end, so who knows what Rian's "vision" was?

 

Yes, definitely.

I mean I like Adam Driver, but John Boyega is hella more charismatic and I feel like he is a bit wasted as comic relief. He had all the potential to be one the of the most – if not the most - dynamic and dramatic character of the story, but alas, that didn’t happen.

 

If I pretend I'm some great writer or director and I have an opportunity to make Episode VIII, or any part of any series of movies...I wouldn't take the job unless I was really excited for and had great ideas for ALL the major characters. I wouldn't take it just to live out my fantasies for one character. I wouldn't take it if I just didn't care about Finn. I have to care about Finn if I'm going to do a movie in the series. (I also wouldn't take it if I found myself completely twisting the actual main character to fit my plot, robbing the main character of any agency/reality at the same time) If I somehow found myself making VIII and finding that I just don't care about Finn, I would force myself to take an interest in him and give him his proper place in the story, even if I didn't particularly enjoy it.

Then again, I simply wouldn't want anything to do with making Star Wars after TFA. It's not a universe I'd want to play in.

 

It's not over yet.

 

It's 2/3 of the way through and barely anything has progressed. I'll believe it when I see it at this point.

 

Well, yeah. I think we'll all believe it when we see it. Especially as IX hasn't been completed yet. I personally can't believe that a film is a certain way until it's completed and I see it.