ST John Boyega (Finn) in Episode IX

Lol. Maybe Kennedy became woke after she saw John in Woyzeck this past summer. Lol.

Who am I kidding.

 

Difficult to say, JJ's the one that fought for Boyega to be in these films, and he's also the one that re-wrote and re-shot his and Rey's initial scenes so their first meeting was more friendly. RJ's nod to that was Finn's lack of reaction to Rose's kiss when compared to the emotion present in his hug with Rey. It's also worth noting that when Luke is listing things to Kylo Ren each of our three heroes is shown for a specific portion. Poe is shown when Luke says 'The Rebellion is Reborn' and Finn is shown when Luke says "The War is not over". Obviously each director has final say on what they will do, but RJ left a fair number of options on the table.

The Final shot of the group has Finn talking with Nien Nub, so if they need to explain any future piloting skill, that could be used. Finn also put Phasma down, who is the First Order poster child and he did it before an audience, so that could play into things as well. Then there's Hux and DJ both of whom need to be dealt with for their actions in this film....though I think DJ is the bigger issue on Finn's radar. Yes, Hux slap was clearly an insult but one answered when Finn dropped his prized Trooper (Phasma). DJ is not a physical threat to Finn...but the Slicers actions got a lot of good people killed, and I imagine Finn's going to at least want to punch the man's lights out for doing that.

It's honestly going to depend on the overall direction the final film takes and since TLJ seemed...gleefully determined to subvert expectations, and JJ was seemingly inspired by that, the variables we have to work with have increased significantly.

Example:

A Storm Trooper rebellion (or a significant defection) is far more likely now with Kylo Ren running things than it was with Snoke in charge. Then again that could just result in the First Order going to war with itself.

We also have the possibility of the Knights of Ren showing up, since it was stated that other students left with Kylo Ren. I could see Kylo summoning people he feels are loyal to him to stand at his side during the final film, and that could be a fight Finn get's in on. The Weapons Snoke guard used were effective vs Lightsabers so Finn employing something similar is not outside the bounds of possibility. They could even have Rey and Finn go back to back in a melee fight, show their connection by having them fight in a more complimentary fashion than what happened between Rey and Kylo in TLJ.

We could have Finn leading fighter squads or a special unit like 'Inferno Squad' during the film.

Heck, Finn having the force is also more likely now than it was at the end of TFA. Both Rey and Finn are nobodies as far as lineage goes. Finn is a bug in the system and Rey is the child of drunking scrappers. They are where they are because of the choices they've made and the things they've done, not because 'Destiny' says so...or because their 'bloodline' demanded it.

I find things pretty exciting and scary at the same time for the Final film in this trilogy. TLJ, a film I loved (Only the lack of Rey and Finn interaction brought it down for me), smashed expectation and showed the fandom that our theories are were based on flawed premises. We assumed, collectively, that things were planned out, or that certain things had to happen because that's how this story works. Neither of which is true and it leaves us a little lost, unsure of where we're going...but for me I see so much potential for this final film and the franchise as a whole that I am more excited and optimistic for Star Wars than I have been in years.

 

Poe got more writing in TLJ in comparison to Poe in TFA. His storyline was shared with Finn's, they were helping each other carrying out the same mission for better or for worse, so I can't agree with this at all. Rey is the A-plot as the Force user and Finn and Poe share the B-plot in the Resistance, similar to Luke, Han, and Leia in ESB. It’s true that JJ loved Oscar Isaac for the role, but they're still a trio regardless. A trio where one member (Poe) was so underused in TFA that people thought the trio was Rey, Finn, and Kylo, the central villain. So on top of the Star Wars genre expectations with trios, Poe was naturally going to get a boost in TLJ. It's not writers being more excited for him and bored with Finn but fixing some shortsights from TFA.

A main character who was a defecting stormtrooper is actually what got me to consider giving the Sequel Trilogy a shot because this concept is a novel and innovative. Before I knew who Finn was a character, just the concept was golden.



Stormtroopers have been clones, comic relief, plain evil, or redshirts, but never have we gotten to know a trooper as well as Finn or to explore what it is like to live as one. We never got in their heads. We never had a feel for their personalities, their hopes and fears and dreams. The concept of stormtroopers being kept as essentially slaves and forced to kill, brainwashed from birth, etc wasn't touched on before. For simple world buidling, Finn is huge to Star Wars. He’s a true Star Wars nobody in this sense and EXEMPLARY to the themes explored in TLJ that anybody can be a hero. As a result, the fact that a stormtrooper defects by saving a Resistance fighter is simply interesting. It's weird and cool! Then he goes on to befriend a young scavenger, and I never would have thought to see similarities between people of these backgrounds, but the ST makes it work and a large chunk of that is because of Finn.



For the janitor part, Finn had janitorial duties to carry out when not deployed on missions, simple as that. It’s not unheard of in IRL militaries. He's also a really humble guy who downplays his achievements. We see this when Poe's thanking him for completing the mission and Finn just focuses on Rey. When Poe finds him after waking from the coma, he says Finn must have a million questions, he should probably get some clothes since he's walking around naked -- and Finn disregards himself and asks about Rey. Additionally, he doesn’t understand why Rose saved his life—he doesn’t understand why his life is worth saving, worth living. The list is endless with other examples. Finn is really humble and blind to his own worth. In addition to janitorial duties, as a stroomtrooper, Finn was top of his class and in Before the Awakening, Phasma was courting him for command. It's partly why she was so bitter about him defecting. She lost her prized student, the cadet she wanted to take after her – and she lost him to the Resistance. Plus I’m betting that the achievements Phasma was so proud of involved training to kill innocent people. As Finn said, “I’ve been raised to do one thing.” He’s smart and capable but hates what it represents.So the janitor joke was less about showing how "bad" a concept of a defecting stormtrooper is and rather a character building moment to show Finn is a humble guy who should needs to take a moment to think about himself and what he wants (which is part of the lesson The Last Jedi is teaching him). Besides, janitorial duties are what made him know the layout of Starkiller to help the Resistance to dismantle the sheild. He may have been just cleaning, physically speaking, but his brain was working overtime. He is very observant and used being a janitor to his advantage. That’s really smart of him.

I disagree completely that John Boyega did not hold his own against Harrison Ford. Finn and Han’s dynamic was one of my favorites. Finn experienced something in TFA that Poe and Rey did in TLJ as Poe became Leia's successor as Rey became Luke's successor. In TFA, Finn became Han's successor.



When Han met Finn, he had a moment like Maz who looked into Finn’s eyes and saw someone who wanted to run. Han caught similar vibes and gave Finn the awkward pep talks only Han can give, such as "keep it, kid" when Finn wanted to give Han back the blaster before leaving to the Outer Rim (aka disappearing and keeping his head in the sand, a similar thing Han did after Ben Solo became Kylo Ren). There's also "women always figure out the truth", and the little unspoken banter on the Falcon after the Rathtars when Finn recognizes Han immediately and Han evades it, only then Finn outsmarts him and makes Han fess up. (They're also in constant parallel once Finn leaves Rey. Seriously the dialogue in Han/Leia's reunion and Finn/Poe's reunion are basically the same thing. I don’t want to get into it unless someone’s interested since it gets Stormpilot heavy).



So, in conclusion, Finn held up his own against Han. I think John Boyega did an amazing job as well by playing a humble, frightened stormtrooper who goes toe-to-toe with Han and forces him to admit to who he is. He did chemistry tests, a lengthy audition process (longer than most other characters cast if not the longest), so I think it’s safe to say production thinks he can hold his own against Harrison Ford.



For Phasma, it didn't give Finn a need for existing but it did provide him a lot of character development. By defeating Phasma, he killed some of the last of his demons and allowed him to be more receptive to Rose's message.

 

Well said. TAJ swerved in ways people didn't expect. The military Maverick failed and got a lot of people killed. The attempt to redeem the bad guy failed and only cleared his ascent to power, and the old 'hide as the bad guys' Trick failed. All those things we took for granted failed to work...but our heroes, like Finn, survive and learn from their errors. It will be interesting to see how this changes them all in the final film.

 

Apparently the writers are blind to his worth too, which is why the audience still has no idea what his true worth is. His role is about as undefined as it was after TFA. I mean sure he officially joined the Resistance but he was already helping them in TFA so it's not really a significant step from where he was in that film. Especially, considering the fact that Rey is succeeding Luke, Poe is succeeding Leia Kylo is succeeding Snoke and is on pace to be just a guy. A guy that's only considered relevant, not because of where he fits in the story but because the writers say he is without actually showing it.

 

They're very different. Obviously in the OT, there was a significant difference between the chemistry between Luke and Leia and Han and Leia.

I don't think he got sidelined, exactly. I thought they spent way too much time and narrative fuel on Canto Bight. I just think he got a terrible storyline. And reading the whole thing about Johnson reading about a Poe-Finn buddy version and hating it .... 1) who wrote it, if RJ is the scriptwriter with total freedom, and 2) if they had great chemistry in a short span in TFA, why would they suddenly not have it in TLJ?

 

For it not being clear that Finn's succeeding Han, I think part of it is writing, true, but also people just missing the point. Finn succeeded Han in TFA, but I think people missed that like they did Poe being part of the trio. Plus, since Finn got that in TFA and Poe and Rey in TLJ (where it was the theme of the film), it makes sense that people think Finn was passed up. I wish Han was referenced to Finn a bit in TLJ to connect back to Finn succeeding him in TFA. (If anyone knows about Game of Thrones, Finn reminds me of Sansa since he lost his "direwolf" early on and had to find his path... solo i'm so sorry i couldn't resist). Finn being "just a guy" is similar to Han too since Han felt like he was just a smuggler, a speck in the galaxy who wasn't strong enough to fight against the Empire, but he overcame that by returning at the end of ANH.

 

I hope he gets killed at the start of ep9. The movie should start with Leia's funeral, of course, but then after that, have FN be sent to spy on the Empire (FO will bring back the Empire), then he gets killed.

The rest of the movie is about the Rebellion convincing more planets to join them until all out war that forces Emperor Ren to sign an armistice. But then he commits an honor self life sacrifice instead of surrendering. Ep9 will end on a victorious, but somber note.

FN is just an uninteresting and unappealing character. He should have never been included in this trilogy as anything more than a peripheral character.

 

Phasma, is that you??

 

Too bad that Han never offered Finn a job. Or that Finn can't pilot or maintain the Falcon. Or speak Wookie.

Finn can only succeed Han at his failures and not his accomplishments.

 

I get this and I agree for the most part. I would add that some of this has to do with the fact that no one ever talks about Han in the context of his relationship with Finn. Every time people talk about Han in TFA it's about him being a father figure to Rey despite the fact that Finn is the new character that spent the most time with him and learned the most from him. So I think that works against the idea that Finn succeeds Han in everyone's minds.

 

Fair enough! I don't read much about Finn on the boards or in fandom (and hearing people say they wish he died on TLJ doesn't really entice me), so that didn't occur to me. I'm hoping once the trilogy is all over and we have everything in context things will be different.

 

Canto Bight was meant to be a big new thing, and having Finn at the center of it was designed to highlight his character and growth. I mean they have an entire book dedicated to Canto Bight, they went to a romantic city to shoot scenes, and it's even the place where the movies final shot is done. Don't forget, "To Catch a Theif" was one of the three movies Johnson sourced as inspiration for this film, and that shows up clearly here. I honestly believe Rian Johnson was trying to give everyone an interesting story arc, even if the major theme of the film is failure, and learning from it. This is WHY (IMHO) he didn't just have Finn and Poe going on an adventure. It would've been fun to watch but it really wouldn't have pushed the characters forward, at least not in the way he wanted.

I think Finn's problems, as Rian Johnson saw them, was a fixation on solving the immediate problem, a lack of understanding for the wider factors in this war, and a focus on killing the enemy. All of which you could link back to his time as a Storm Trooper. His training would likely focus him on accomplishing the mission, and not have him worry about the grander picture, that's the job of an Officer. His training also wouldn't be giving him any insight into war profiteering or how the FO military machine feeds injustice and tyranny across the galaxy even in the most glamorous of places. Finally, his training likely would see him focusing more on Offense (considering how the FO seems to work) rather than defense. So RJ set out to have Finn grow or begin to grow past that. For that to work I think RJ figured Poe was a poor companion...because they'd likely just reinforce some of the things he felt both needed to grow beyond.

Poe: "So we blow it up?"
Finn: "I like where your heads at, but no."

In almost any other Star Wars story (and a lot of other Sci-Fi tales now that I think about it) their plan would've worked and they'd be hailed as heroes. However, just like Redemption isn't always guaranteed, success should never be a sure thing...especially on wild plans like this....especially when the Empire's had it done to them so many times. It's on JJ to show that all these characters learned and improved from what happened in this film. If I were writing things, I'd have Poe take a backseat to front line combat, and have Finn step up into something of a field leader role, have him draft and execute a plan that works because of what he learned during TLJ about thinking bigger and defending what you love. Since John Boyega mentioned normal people being able to take on Jedi, and since we have the potential to have the KOR or Luke's fallen students in play I think I'd do the following.

The KOR are in the Rebellions way to accomplishing an objective. So Finn comes up with a plan, and Rey plays bait, drawing them into ground of Finn's choosing. From there the KOR are separated and picked off by Rey and Finn, one by one. You could even have Finn using something similar to the weapons of Snoke's Praetorian Guard to take down a Lightsaber wielding enemy in a mix of cunning and sword play.

But again, it's on JJ.

 

I notice, in Pacific Rim Uprising, the promo's state that they didn't wait for 'Heroes' to fall from the sky...that they saved themselves via innovation. I wonder if that's a theme John is leaning towards in his characters. A desire to avoid super powers, and instead, succeed via ingenuity and cleverness. Since he and JJ seem to get along well, I wonder what that could lead to in their discussions about Finn.

 

Like I've said before Finn using his strategic skills and stormtrooper skills to outsmart and help defeat the KoR or Kylo would be something nice. Or for gods sake a stormtrooper uprising, regardless of how big would still be nice. It would show Finn doing something significant that neither Rey, nor Poe or Rose could do themselves.

 

I don't know about that since he's reportedly trying to develop his own superhero project. As such, I don't think he's against playing super-powered characters he just probably knows that it's not in the cards for him in Star Wars. Him starting his own production company is his way to secure the roles he wants rather than wait on other people only to be given the role of Perry White to someone else's Superman. To be honest, if I was an actor I would very likely do the same thing.

 

To be fair, he did say his would be a different kind of Superhero, so I'm not sure he's going the 'Empower human' route. I mean PRU, seems to celebrate human innovation, and that might just be more appealing to him as an actor. Make sure the human is more important than the super.

 

True, but you can do that with a character with powers, it's not really an either/or situation. There are plenty of characters with superpowers whose civilian identity's are just as important, if not more so than their superhero identity's. One of them being Peter Parker/Spider-Man who John has compared Finn to. Another one is Virgil Hawkins/Static. The creators of these characters have been vocal about the fact that a big reason as to why they work is because the civilian is as important as the hero. I think a lot of people miss that because many of these superhero blockbusters are built on the premise of hero first.

 

Was going through various fashions, trying to decide on a few looks for Finn in Episode 9....when I noticed something.



Perhaps it's just a common pose but....that really does seem similar...and makes me think Finn could easily rock a long coat....in fact...


They considered giving Han one in TFA....Having Finn wear one with a white shirt underneath would be a way to visually set him apart from other characters....and do some fun stuff with the Duster. I mean, have lined with some kind of armor weave, or have it hiding various weapons from sight.

It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.