ST John Boyega (Finn) in the ST

I would kill for Finn to have half the things that Han gets.

But those things went to Rey and Poe this trilogy, sadly.

 

Some of your fellow members have been banned for continued bashing in this and other threads. If you don't wish to join them I suggest the current trend in posting ceases immediately.

 

I think where a lot of confusion and angst comes from with Finn's character is that they down play what he's supposed to be good at (soldiering, shooting , tactics) in favor of big flashy hero moments through dueling (when he does get hero moments) yet he's not even force sensitive/ a Jedi, and perhaps even more importantly not rewarded the same attention or emotional stakes as the actual force sensitive characters. So what's the point?

Why continue to keep his blaster MIA? Finn's the only Stormtrooper who melee fights more than shoots at stuff and it's strange if they're never gonna take it anywhere.

 

JJ cares more for Finn than RJ, so I hope Finn doesn't take as much of a backseat story-wise compared to Rey, Kylo and Poe in Episode IX as he did in TLJ.

It's as easy as Finn comes up with the idea for starting a revolt. He tells Poe about it, who's on board with it and selects Finn to lead the mission. Finn and Rose find recruits to help out, also find stormtroopers wanting to revolt. Maybe even bump into DJ again and Finn convinces him to help out. Maybe even add Maz in there for more assistance.

Something like that. Just anything where people don't feel like it has no importance to the plot or if it were taken out of the movie, it wouldn't make a difference.

 

I'd rather Finn put a hole through DJ's skull

 

Wait. Continued bashing of what? The movie, Finn or other members?

 

All of the above.

 

All of your Han examples occurred in the third film of the trilogy. Everyone recognizes that Han sucked in RoTJ. It has been talked about for decades. His unimpressive storyline came about in part because Ford didn't want to do a third movie, he wanted Han to be killed off. But Lucas and everybody wanted him to return for a third movie.

Okay now here comes the important part. You know why people desperately wanted him back for RoTJ? Because Han was arguably the most compelling, the most charismatic and the most popular character of the franchise at the time and therefore neither TPTB not audiences could imagine a third film without him. This is not the same scenario for Finn, a character many, many people believe has been aimless and weakly portrayed/written. So your attempt at comparing Finn favorably to Han comes across to me as disingenuous or very misguided.

And it's not like there haven't been those of us here who pointed out how strong Han was in the first two movies while acknowledging his relative weak turn in the third part. Are you ignoring that? Do you think giving us now illustrated guides to go along with cyclical talking points is going to change people's minds?

 

It's not only ROTJ though. It starts mid-Empire from the Exogorth moments where he walks out of the Falcon and continues right through to Lando hitting on Leia, and this long, drawn out pretend "Go on and get comfortable" situation that leads to him becoming art work. And I disagree that "everyone knows Han sucked from _____ to _____" because if they did they'd be a lot more forgiving of Finn's storyline in general. It's perspective on the saga as a whole in the hopes that it may help some of you get out of this downward spiral you're in over how hard done by Finn was.

If these kinds of storylines can happen to (to borrow your phrasing) the most compelling, the most charismatic and the most popular character of the franchise at the time through 1.5 films received... where he is just basically screwing up, being double-crossed, captured, turned into art by his enemies, rescued, captured, rescued, captured, and then being outdone by teddy bears and Wedge/Lando, who newer audiences would have seemed less invested in than Han, within close to half of the 3 OT films then in what way is Finn being hard done by in TLJ? It's par for the course within Star Wars past ANH in comparison to the Force arch.

Finn gets heroic moments and the biggest non-force hand-to-hand combat showdown in the saga's history, where he is able to help devise a daring and risky secret mission with hacking and deception and courage (in comparison to running to Cloud City) where he returns to a place that could get him killed, beats and kills the physical representative of the child slave program, along with a clear old-school hero moment on Crait, along with being one of the smartest people in the room who realizes the Crystal Critters have found a way out. He begins willing to abandon the cause to find Rey and ends willing to die for the cause even if it means he'll never see Rey again. He receives the only on the lips kiss of the ST so far, as well as Star Wars first interracial kiss in history, and ends the film with two women who like him. It's not like he's made out to be this loser who nobody likes. It's not like Han or Luke had to choose between two women who both might be interested in them.

It sometimes feels like anything short of him becoming the Luke Skywalker of this trilogy is going to result in not only some Finn fans seeing everything he's involved with as glass half empty but entirely empty. Oh well. Can't please everybody with this saga and some people have their own ideas of how and what they want certain characters to be. Thankfully, I suspect a lot of people with less head cannon ideas, including younger fans, do genuinely like Finn and are happy when he's on-screen. Even if he isn't a Force user.

 

Finn proved himself as somebody willing to risk his life on risky or suicidal missions to help the Resistance. If that doesn't get utilized in Ep9, I'd be incredibly surprised.

 

Trying to figure out if Rian retconned Finn's reason for fighting Kylo Ren at the end of TFA. Based on what Rose said, was he fighting him because he represents everything he hates in the First Order, or to protect Rey?

 

I think unfortunately

Good point. I don't know that Rian thought to "retcon" that scene specifically. I do think though there's a scenario now to think Finn picked up the lightsaber to fight what he hates vs picking up Rey, and trying to out run an injured Kylo to bring her to safety. He was trying to avenge her in anger at that moment. Obviously overthinking it but it's fun.

 

I'd be crying praise if Finn even got half of what Han got in ANH

 

So would he. Any actor would kill for Han in ANH. You're talking about one of the best anti-hero archs in the history of film there. Han Solo in ANH is as iconic and perfect as a grey character gets.

 

Right, which is the point. It's too bad the writers can't do something equivalent for Finn.

 

It's to indicate that there's a balance between both that will win the war. He started only caring about himself and Rey. He ended willing to kill himself for the cause. Rose is saying the way they will win is somewhere between those extremes and protecting what they all love (people, values, life goals, hopes, dreams) and not only letting anger drive the war.

 

Sure. Nobody really has though in 40 years. Many have tried to create the same type but they all just feel like carbon copies to Han. Because the magic of Han was initially in the grey and the questions over what really drove him. We meet him and he's a cowboy willing to shoot first. He also started with the kind of wisdom and knowledge that Luke lacked and came off more like an older brother to him. Harrison Ford obviously also deserves a ton of credit for bringing him to life and as well written as Han is it's entirely possible that another actor may have made him less iconic. Once Han has developed the heart of gold though and there's less grey in him then he's just a romantic heathrob with a ton of charm and comedic timing and missing a lot of the danger and question marks that made him so compelling out of the gate. Harrison's so amazing in his prime in the 80s though that he could literally be tied up an entire movie and just making faces trying to get out and most of us would have loved it. He was the male star of male stars back then.

 

I truly liked Finn in The Force Awakens. He is the standout character for me in that movie. So I don't view it as a 0-2 scenario that most here do. I didn't like how there was too much humor at his expense, and tbf that was mostly fixed in this film. Rian did address criticisms of Finn in this film. I was surprised to see that outside of his reintroduction, Finn was mostly handled seriously, and outside of Luke and Kylo (the only two characters to get real development), portrayed the least stupid in a film full of out of place humor. He wins a melee fight, and was pleasantly surprised to see Rey mentions him and not just the other way around.

Considering this movie failed most of the characters, they actually in a way succeeded more with Finn than they did the other characters who either had little development (Rey) or were "upgraded" to a really stupid role (Poe). Finn at least has an actual character arc, even if a lot of it is repetitive and sends a weird message. The on-the-surface lack of relevancy to the main problem is the main area they failed with.

There was a lot of wasted potential with Finn's story but I don't feel like Finn was singled out because this whole film was full of wasted potential. Rey had a few good character moments in this film but it's based around her relationship with Kylo (which can I say was never as interesting as Finn vs Kylo. This dynamic seems to just be 'cause they both have superpowers). Like with Finn it ends in a cool melee fight but in a way there is even less payoff for her than Finn. Finn's sacrifice attempt ends up pointless but it at least resonates unlike Rey's lifting the rocks moment 'cause this movie made the force uncool.

One problem unique to Finn that is clear though is that they went out of their way to make him unimportant to everyone other than Rey and Poe. Kylo doesn't know or care what he's doing (shame 'cause again most interesting dynamic in the saga). Snoke never cared that this defector was doing more to ruin his plans than anyone else. Finn's story doesn't involve the other main characters at all; the only supporting characters his story really include aside from the ones made for it in this film are BB8 and Phasma lol.

They had an interesting direction for Finn set up for them it's amazing they failed to fully deliver. Why invent this dumb hyperspace tracking thing just to ruin your own film? There's no need to invent that to "give the other characters something to do" when their path is already set up for you. The Resistance plot could have been handled in a few key scenes pre-Crait, and we did not need to keep cutting back to ships being shot down or Peo/Hux/Holdo antics. This film needed a sense of time passing, and should have put the two protagonists, Rey and Finn first, and Finn's plot could have been about sabotaging the First Order's finances (Canto Bight) and military capacity (Supremacy) without the false urgency created by hyperspace tracking, allowing fleshed out character moments and greater plot relevancy to occur for Finn.

But still, the film failed everyone except for Luke and Kylo, not Finn individually. Not excited for Episode IX but I can only hope it succeeds and makes this film seem better retroactively.

 

Yeah. Not having an OT in his corner hurt Finn's arc compared to Poe and Rey.

Their stories are already boosted due to inclusion of Luke and Leia.

 

I don't remember if it was posted here or not, but I recall there was a poll done not long ago, and Finn turned out as the most popular TFA character.


https://morningconsult.com/2017/12/...ones-favorite-and-other-star-wars-statistics/

I have to imagine the results have fallen after TLJ. I hope not by much, but it's still not ideal.

 

The thing that I think is most interesting about this survey is it's of average people, not SW fans. This survey shows that for the average person, the classic heroes outweigh the newbies by a lot. It also undercuts the idea prominently portrayed online that Kylo and Rey are the most popular characters of the new cast. Rey is very close to Finn here, such that I would put them about equal, and in other surveys Rey might be ahead. But Kylo is back a ways. Just because online people are super into Kylo Ren doesn't mean that he has the mainstream appeal.

If I was LF looking at this, I would be worried about the future of SW at the box office in light of this. I would also put Finn back in the co-protagonist position, which is where he should have remained.

 

I thought he fought against Kylo because of Han's death, Rey and everything Kylo and FO done. Luke also wanted to face Vader in ANH

 

I really don’t know who these general warnings apply to. But let me speak for myself.

These films, such as they are, don’t tend to allow more than one black character per trilogy in any sort of substantive role. As such, I think I feel quite justified in expressing my concern when that character is loaded down with traits that are not only negative but stereotypically so.

I try to be reasonable. I’ve engaged in what I think is fair back and forth with people who see things differently. But I am appalled if the standard for bans has become “expressing disappointment about a characters portrayal.”

 

I don't think anything was retconned. Finn's motivation for trying to fly into the cannon was born of his journey in TLJ. In TLJ Finn evolves into a rebel and he approaches it at first with this attitude that he's not going to let the FO win (AKA destroying what he hates). At the end of TFA and the beginning of TLJ, Finn isn't interested in being a rebel. He wants to save Rey and get away from the FO.