ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

Ah I see. Nonsense.

 

I don't know why he thinks or does what he's doing. To me, it's like he doesn't see the character beyond the archetype idea of them. Poe is a hotshot pilot, so this must mean he's a hotheaded sexist, even though he takes orders from women already and even TLJ itself writes his story with him making choices that end up, or would end up in comparison to Holdo's, assisting their survival.

I think it's kinda imilar with Finn. TFA established him as having a comedic relief within the first half of the movie, with a dramatic drive for his character. And even though that element sifted out of his character by the second half of the movie, for the most part, TLJ starts him off like he's still where he was in the middle of TFA.

I've said before that I can understand the mindset of thinking, "Okay, Finn didn't decide that he'd aligned himself with our heroes yet, so let's have him get there", but I think you do that using the character's drive and getting there within a more understandable time within the movie. Instead, it spends a whole movie getting him to that place, using handwavey and already developed for the character means (also not using the one meaningful character based element that the character has, cutting out that scene), when I think the character was, at least, more than halfway there by the end of TFA.

 

What was Finn's rank and position in the First Order? I'm watching these clips of TFA where Kylo Ren and FN-2199 are screaming "TRAITOR!!!" at the top of their lungs, and I'm thinking "why would you care or even notice that some lowly stormtrooper betrayed your cause?"

 

Pretty low-ranking - but in the tie-in book Before The Awakening, FN-2199 was part of the squad that Finn did his training in. The squad is portrayed as something of exceptional quality - a lot of Phasma's prestige is invested in making sure they succeed.

So, FN-2199 is close to Finn, Phasma sees him as a protégé - and Kylo, who dislikes Phasma, has reason to be watching her protégés closely as well, so if they do fail he can use this to undermine her.

 

I think at the time I assumed it was because Kylo was a crazed zealot.

 

Oh, so if Finn was Phasma's protégé and part of an elite squad, then he would have been of some importance, even if he didn't have te official rank to show for it.

 

The relevant novel scenes:

After Finn goes back for an injured fellow cadet:


“You have concerns?” Hux raised an eyebrow. “Speak them.”
“These stormtroopers will be the finest the First Order has ever produced,” Phasma said. “I have overseen their training at every stage, from induction to deployment. This class is exemplary.”
“Yet you have concerns, Captain. I would hear them.”
“Not for this class.”
Hux sighed, at the edge of annoyance.
“FN-2187,” Phasma said, “has the potential to be one of the finest stormtroopers I have ever seen.”
“From what I just observed, Captain, I agree.”
“But his decision to split the fire-team and return for FN-2003 is problematic. It speaks to a potentially…dangerous level of empathy. You heard him.”
“‘You’re one of us’?”
“Yes, sir. While I am entirely in support of unit cohesion, General, a stormtrooper’s loyalty must be higher, as you know. It must be to the First Order, not to one’s comrades.”
Hux glanced back at the window, surveying the empty simulation room.
“I trust you to remove any impurities from the group, Captain,” Hux said. “Wherever they may be found.”

...

“You have great potential, 2187. You are officer corps material. Your duty is to the First Order above everything. Nothing else comes before that. FN-2003 must stand or fall on his own. If he stands, the Order is strengthened. If he falls, the Order is spared his weakness. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“I sense hesitation.”
“No, Captain. None.”
“Then it will stop.”
He swallowed, then nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
“Then that is all. You are dismissed.”

...

After Finn starts to have an inability to fire on civilians in the process of taking out hostiles, in simulations:


Captain Phasma watched FN-2187 on the monitor in her quarters. He’d stopped firing, stopped even moving, and was just standing amid the ever-changing field of moving figures.
She sighed. She’d had such hope for FN-2187. He had shown such remarkable promise. He had shown the capacity to be special.
She picked up the orders on her desk and reviewed them once more. They’d already made the jump to hyperspace, and she knew it would be less than an hour before they reached their rendezvous point to take on their new passenger. Kylo Ren had already transmitted the coordinates for where they would be headed next.
On the monitor, FN-2187 had turned away from the still-running simulation. Harmless blaster bolts from Republic enemies peppered his back, hit after hit. Over the speakers, she could hear the computer in the simulation room declaring the scenario a failure. FN-2187 didn’t seem to notice, didn’t seem to care. She watched as the holographic images faded, as the room emptied to one lone stormtrooper, and then as FN-2187 walked out.She switched off the monitor. He’d be part of the detail when they reached the landing point on Jakku, she decided. Perhaps when someone was shooting back at him, he would understand what it meant to be a real stormtrooper, what it meant to serve the First Order, body and soul.
She would give him one more chance, Phasma decided.
One last chance for FN-2187 to decide his fate.

 

Finn and Kylo made perfect archenemies, yet we get stuck with Rey fighting her abuser while trying to save his soul, because they are “space soul mates” turned cousins/siblings.

You would think that the amount of hatred Kylo had towards Finn would be continued. Kylo the Prince of Darkness being consistently foiled by this nameless expendable slave that turns out to be force sensitive.
How dare this traitor show up with the father of the Master of the Knights of Ren and his grandfather’s lightsaber then leave the darksider scarred for life?
The force awakens with this “Number” and then continuously and successfully infiltrates FO bases resulting in their destruction, yet the grandson of Vader suddenly can’t sense this guy like he did in the village on Jakku enough to keep him spoiling their plans to take over the galaxy?
You’re telling me that Kylo would rather continue to seduce and attack Rey than to seek revenge on Finn?
You’re telling me that the great supremacist Kylo Ren and the FO would go around the galaxy putting up wanted posters for some girl that rejected him and not the Stormtrooper that’s literally destroying their little club house?
Kylo is an absolute narcissist and he’s going treat Finn like a non-factor when he is “The” factor? Finn who was robbed of his birthright and raised from a baby to die serving only to evade his slave owners and enemies, take what they need and return with everything necessary to defeat them?

Finn and Kylo had all the potential to have one of the top 3-5 greatest rivalries in Star Wars. It really hurts both characters by not having any sort of confrontation after that.

 

@Artorian_Stormtrooper ,

good point but I guess Kylo delegated that arch-enemy-ship to Phasma. It would be more existent, if Finn was more around Rey to compete with Kylo for her attention, but we know why that didn't happen and because of whom.

BTW: I like your username, we definitely need some prequel stories about Artorias during Empire time.

 

I disgree, there is nothing about Finn thats worthy of being an arch enemy. He was a former storm trooper. Like finding out one of your sheep escaped and deciding your life will be depend on finding that one sheep to kill it. And also to turn it into a petty ah you escaped us and got involved with family and that makes me want to obsess over you! Is not really what Kylo Ren was. Finn is no threat.

Rey makes sense because of obvious dark and light rivary that been part of the force for decades. its all about balance of the force. Its about power. Except that one side usually has to go to be seen as balance oddly. And it was always going to be Rey that was the Luke Skywalker of the trilogy.

Rey is a threat because she can become more powerful. And its all about power.

 

That's not a character based reasoning.

 

Its about as character based reasoning as Vader obsessing over Han and Leia over the destruction of the first deathstar. GGRRR Han came in and stopped my attempt to stop Luke! Agh! Leia made me look bad by getting the deathstar plans out there! There is no character-based reason. They didn't matter. At the start of episode 4 you can hear Vader himself isn't happy even calls out Leia as a traitor. But this doesn't become an obsessive driving force for him. They don't matter.

 

@Daxon101 ,
Only in Star Wars Lego "The Empire strikes out". :lol:

 

I disagree with this. Finn is everything an archenemy should be to Kylo. LFL can tell anyone to believe whatever they want. I pay attention to the flow of the story. If they didn’t want Finn and Kylo to be archenemies, they should not have been set up that way.

From the moment Kylo sensed the force awaken in Finn, Finn became an instant threat to Kylo and the FO. Finn escaped the clutches of the FO with their prisoner, found BB8, found Rey, found Han, met with the Resistance, held on to Anakin’s lightsaber, told them how to destroy and infiltrated SKB, faced off with and injured Kylo. Everything they wanted/needed, Finn had and used against them. Finn and Kylo have opposing beliefs and personalities. Finn represented the ultimate good and positivity even when things seemed uncertain. Kylo represented ultimate evil and sought power. Even committing familicide to achieve it. They despise one another. That is literally what an archenemy is.

Rey and Kylo’s rivalry is absolutely redundant. If the only reason anyone can come up with is “oh because light vs dark” that argument is as flat and useless as wet paper. First they wanted you to believe that Rey was only powerful, because she was leeching off of Kylo. Then they came up with this dyad nonsense. Rey was easily enticed by the dark side and literally attacked her mentor because Kylo said “boo hoo, my uncle hurt me”.

Finn has far more light side qualities than Rey. LFL just loved the concept of Rey representing the light and thought the answer was to give her all the powers you could have including ones better suited for X-Men and have everyone give her all of their stuff, because apparently everyone just had to love and have faith in Rey without earning anything at all. Rey is only as powerful as the writers allowed her to be, just as Finn is not because the writers allowed it to be.

People can argue about power and balance and what the plan was for Rey all they want, but that’s not the story that was shown to us no matter how much you try and make sense of it. Rey didn’t balance Kylo. She enabled him. Finn and Kylo were rivals all the way to the end. It doesn’t matter if Finn was a novice or a master of the force. Finn being the underdog to overcome nearly impossible odds is a way more compelling story than what was pushed onto us.

 

But it wasn't set that way. How was it set that way? What because Kylo walked past Finn and sense something was a little off? Which personally i assumed was because he sensed something was a little emotionally off with Finn. Which doesn't come up again, so it shows how little it mattered. Or are we talking about because he was shot in the leg, bleeding out, abit emotionally destructed and called Finn a Traitor while not looking all that concerned by him?

Apart from Rey who he, and Snoke do show interest in because she is shown to be very powerful and a potential threat. And lets be honest, the "there has been an awakening" life was not about Finn. It was about Rey. It was all about Rey. Finn with the saber... about Rey, as she had to refuse an be reluctant the journey to accept it later.

I mean alot of that sounds like reaching to try and find ways Finn can be a worthy archenemy. But really none of it matters.

Its like Finn standing infront a First order bulldozer in protest. Well then he can die with the rest of them. He isn't a threat that needs to be chased down. Again going back to how Leia also helped destroy the deathstar and messing up Vaders Plans. she was not his archenemy either.

People really want Finn to be a rival to Kylo so he can be more a match with Rey. But he never was. Its not about Oh Finn walked away from being a bad guy while Kylo wants to be a bad guy so equals!

 

Not remotely comparable, because Luke is Vader's son. That's why Vader is obsessing over finding Luke.

 

The issue here is that you continue to minimize Finn’s accomplishments and view his character from an obscure perspective. My post explains how they are archenemies. Neither worthiness nor how powerful a character is has absolutely anything to do with the basic concept of archenemies.

You also don’t need power to be a threat. Finn’s actions, from the beginning of TFA, was a direct threat to the plans of Kylo and the FO. This is exactly the kind of conflict needed to create archenemies. You have to be able to understand it from both a literary and cinematic standpoint. Not based on assumptions as you’ve mentioned. Not because “oh because light vs dark”. Not because “well LFL said they planned…”. Finn and Kylo are framed cinematically with the classic stare down right after Finn becomes conscious.

Nothing that I mentioned about Finn’s accomplishments were a reach. They are cold hard facts that are in the film. It has also been mentioned time after time that Snoke and Kylo felt an awakening in the force only after Finn becomes conscious in the village. This is backed up by Finn revealing in TROS that it was the moment he felt the force. You both see and hear in TFA that something powerful happened. Finn didn’t just go “screw this, I’m out” like you and others minimize that moment to.

Rey didn’t have her awakening until she saw Finn walk away after deciding not to go with him. Regardless of LFL saying “oh the story is about Rey”, The force that Snoke and Kylo felt had nothing to do with her at that point in time. Finn was the only one that experienced the force.

(And yes, believing in the force is the beginning of how the force works). That was exactly what Luke needed to learn in ANH. Not power and a bunch of fancy Jedi tricks. As far as the comparison to Leia is concerned Leia is not set up as Vader’s opposite. Luke clearly was. The moment Obi-Wan revealed that Vader killed Luke’s father is what created the personal conflict that made them archenemies. Kylo’s order to slaughter the village is what awakened Finn. Kylo works along side the organization that enslaved him. Finn is directly responsible for the chain reaction that lead to the defeat of Kylo and the FO. That’s their personal conflict. The same can’t be said for Rey and Kylo. There is no personal conflict with them other than poor attempts by LFL to try and create one. There isn’t a single defendable reason for those two to fight. You can’t just try to copy and paste the conflict that Luke and Vader had onto Rey and Kylo while completely ignoring how the characters are structured in a story. Archenemies don’t seek a bond, turn on their allies to save the others soul, have pseudo-sex, nor get rewarded with a kiss in the end. That’s not how that works.

 

I think with that logic you could find a way to make anyone into someones archenermy. If you stretch these aspects kylo probably would have 5-6 archenemies.

Phasma made the most sense for Finn, because she exists to be important to the storm troopers stuff. She obviously had more of a connection to Finn than Kylo could ever have.

 

I must admit that I watched the Sequels a few times, and I never recognized any scenes where Finn has discovered or wielded the Force. When Snoke spoke about the Awakening in the Force in TFA, I had no doubt it was about Rey and nobody else.

Can you please give me the scenes, in which it is clear that Finn has the Force or is about to discover it?

 

There’s only one, In TROS. He was definitely not force sensitive before then, even going back to the earliest scripts.

 

Basically because of False marketing where they were clearly trying to hide that Rey was the force-sensitive one. They thought they were being clever lets be honest. But people have stuck with this marketing idea that Finn was the force-sensitive one, even though the film doesn't show it. People have almost taken the marketing as plot points rather than the huge red herring it was meant to be