ST John Boyega (Finn) in the ST

I don't recall Finn ending up in a coma from his Phasma confrontation. Like he did with Kylo in TFA.

 

True.

His leaving the First Order at all is more progress than he makes in TLJ though.
Rey gives him a reason to fight.
He goes to SKB to rescue Rey, after that you kind of assume if it wasn't for the coma he would have joined the Resistance anyway.
At least I did, like has been said it would be like the fact that Han is with the Rebellion at the start of ESB.
In TLJ it is still kind of a weak repeat of him at first wanting to find Rey, then genuinely joining the fight.

 

Finn’s coma amounted to some squirting suit jokes. It has nothing to do with Finn’s characterization. Finn ended up unconscious after his first heroic suicide attempt, and he dragged someone else’s unconscious body after his second heroic suicide attempt (which was also the third time he proved he would die for what he believes in).

 

If TPTB believe that's a suitable arc, I completely understand their bewilderment with regard to toy sales.

 

Nah. Kylo fight was kicking-him-out-of-the-A-plot-stompdown-warmupshow-for-the-grand-Rey/Kylo-duel.

Finn couldn't even be allowed to be awake at the end of the movie and get apotheosis, like the other characters.

 

Uhhh... that’s not how A Plot/B Plot works lol. Finn is 1/2 of the A Plot in TFA. Losing a fight at the end of the film isn’t a demotion.

Meanwhile, if being awake is the criteria for “apotheosis,” TLJ can have it back. Finn has no dialogue in TLJ’s epilogue, no point of view, no promise of further growth (which is what the coma offered). He’s shuffled to the side, just like he is for the entire plot of TLJ.

 

What would you have Finn do in the Kylo fight though? He couldn't have defeated him, and he held his own for a period without any training.

 

Not the fight.

Just be awake at the ending, and having agency. Saying goodbye to Rey. Acknowledging Rey leaving and coming to terms with it. Deciding whether or not he's staying with the Resistance and why, like Rey at the end of TFA.

We see Finn's POV at the end of TLJ. He's helping Rose settle in. And no longer hanging off of Rey's every word like she's the greatest thing since sliced bread. He's no longer putting Rey first at the expense of everyone else in the galaxy. That's apotheosis.

 

What? Rey at the end of TFA has zero dialogue, just like Finn in TLJ. Her agency is nonexistent. The audience has no idea the “why” of any of her choices, including joining the Resistance or going to Luke.

Finn was never hanging off everything Rey said. When he had agency in TFA, he chose to leave her. She begged him to stay, and he walked away. He stuck around to save her life, not to follow her around.

The characterizations of Finn so often don’t match the actual scenes at all. As far as the end of TLJ, real agency for Finn would involve him having a POV not wrapped up in a girl at all. Like maybe a scene of Finn and Rey, newly reunited with their emotional reunion, declaring their joined commitment to the cause.

 

Rey's coming off an emotional roller coastal and needed a scene with Leia acknowledging Luke passing on.

I'm glad it wasn't Rey and Finn talking and then Leia coming over to take Rey and have a private conversation with her about Luke. It would make Finn look inconsequential.

It shows Finn's life isn't just as a supporting character for Rey.

 

Rey is coming off an emotional roller coaster? Umm... what was Finn’s suicide attempt? Chopped liver?

You seem to have a real problem with Finn and Rey having a bond. I can see why TFA wouldn’t be your favorite movie and why you might prefer TLJ.

Rey had no relationship with Luke. Once again, the writer got grief wrong. Leia should have been talking to anyone else that actually knew and cared for Luke over Rey. Luke’s death has nothing to do with Rey’s characterization. It should barely impact her, beyond gratitude for his help at the end. The emotional beat for Rey would be with her friend, the person she has an emotional connection to as depicted in the actual films. Not the person she has to have an opinion on because he’s the Skywalker and she’s the protagonist, despite the fact that they were strangers that disliked each other during the two days they knew each other.

 

I like Rey-Finn just fine when they're on a more even keel. TFA did established they each have their own hero's journey to be on. When they intersect and support the other's journey, that's great.
It's when one is used as a jobber for the other (Rey saving Finn from Rathars, Finn as a warmup for the Rey-Kylo fight) that I don't like.

Only Rey and Leia have the Force, so only they know and understand that Luke passed on.


You're underestimating Luke and Rey's relationship

 

Luke's death has so little to do with Rey that not only does she not get to actually see it, but he makes no effort to seek her out and try and bury the hatchet or have one last quick conversation with her, or anything.

And Rey and Leia interacted for like a minute tops in TFA, and none at all in TLJ up until the end. So seeing them talking about Luke is weird. It'd have made more sense for Rey to talk to Finn and Leia to talk to Chewie, you know Han's best friend for most of his life.

And again "they have The Force" just further emphasizes how poorly that concept has been used in the ST. It's a cheap plot device/writing excuse/Deus ex Machina for the writers to try and justify things. Instead of ACTUAL characters dynamics/buildup, just say "well they have The Force" and that's it. It really cheapens The Force as a concept and makes the characters and their dynamics feel really shallow.

 

Grief is an emotion. Force use is not. Leia is a human being that deserved to grieve with someone that loved her brother too.

No I’m judging Luke and Rey on their history and interactions, not on shallow stuff like they both have the force.

So did you like Finn and Rey when Rey begged Finn to stay and Finn chose to leave anyway?

 

It showed Finn being cowardly but at least he was finally honest. And Rey was no longer being dense, falling for his lies.

 

Oh that’s right, we’ve discussed this before. You think Finn is a coward if he doesn’t immediately want to die for a group of strangers the day he escaped the cult that raised him. Yeah, I think I’m pretty clear on your POV at this point.

 

As a sacrificial anode. We agree on that.

Yes it sets him and BB-8 as the heralds of Rey's story

Yes. He's a herald who warns Rey. But it's her that mostly gets them off Jakku.

Agreed, because in his words "I need a pilot."

I agree with you here. This is a part of his journey that doesn't involve Rey always saving him.

Yuk. Through comedy where Finn needs to be told to calm down and where Chewie does all the having lifting. No thanks. This is the moment I started smh in TFA. (Aside from drinking from the trough)

Agreed. It's part of his journey.

It shows him as the alley oop man while Rey gets the slam dunk.

He's finally out of Rey's shadow.

 

I get so confused by contradictions on Finn. Finn is in Rey’s shadow, and when he’s clearly walking away from Rey because he wants freedom to live his life by his own terms, it doesn’t count toward him having an independent story because he’s just a coward. Finn choosing to risk near certain death to escape the murderous cult that raised him because he refuses to murder for them, he’s just heralding Rey’s story.

If Finn doesn’t get any acknowledgement of the beats of the story that are about him and his story by itself, the criticisms sound disingenuous and agenda-driven.

Meanwhile, TLJ is good for him just because he’s away from Rey? I mean, that makes sense on a gut level if someone really dislikes Rey, but the bottom line is that TFA established Finn and Rey as jointly emotionally bonded. Dropping that connection derails the trilogy. It just makes everything look like a disorganized, heartless mess.

Why invest in anything in this trilogy? From one movie to the next, motivations and relationships change at the drop of a time. Rey and Finn are each other’s first friends in life and their bond was established as life changing for both of them.

 

I don't dislike Rey. But you've made it clearly known you hate her in TLJ.

 

Yeah, I dislike her a lot in TLJ. I didn't say there's anything wrong with disliking a character. I said I can understand prioritizing Finn being away from her if you dislike her, but in terms of the narrative, that doesn't work. It's a gut/emotional thing that is a dead end story-wise.

 

Neither are written extremely well, but at least JJ (I believe) cares about Finn's arc in the saga as a whole. I think JJ saw TFA as both Finn and Rey's introduction into a larger 'world'. RJ didn't want to implement any of JJ's treatments for VIII, and it's clear both characters suffered, but Finn, being in a coma could have gone anywhere. I also still think the Hosnian Prime timing was left in the same way the Knights of Ren and Rey's Force Visions were left. In the end, I personally feel that RJ got hyper focused on ReyLo and let a lot of things fall by the wayside that could have made for a great 2nd act..

 

This is again one of the fundamental writing mistakes of the ST: you need your lead characters to have motivations that make then want or need to take part in the story. Both Rey and Finn have motivations that take Them OUT of the story. They get around it with Rey by saying: the Force needs you to be a part of this story, which basically means that the Plot needs her to be a part of the story. That’s why her plot line feels so empty and lifeless.

They get around it with Finn in TFA by making his motivation Rey; and in TLJ by saying that his motivation being Rey is selfish and evil. Now he has no motivation that makes sense. So you know, progress.

 

I totally agree that this is a problem with this series, although I don't think they've gotten out of it with Rey at all. The girl has no motivation whatsoever to be the protagonist in this story. My personal theory is they have only gotten away with it because she's female, and people are still unsure how to judge female protagonists. I just can't think of any male protagonist in a successful, popular adventure genre film with such pathetically non-existent motivations.

I think Finn can have an organic motive to take out the FO based on his history with them, but that really was not his story in TLJ, the movie that supposedly developed his motive in joining the Resistance. By the end of TLJ, I feel like he joined the Resistance because he was shamed into it. I don't feel like he's on a personal mission to, for example, protect other kids from what happened to him, or to make sure that the organization that shaped his life in such a negative way is stopped from spreading their evil across the galaxy.

Finn's motives should have been the easy part. It's Rey that they've deprived of every possible personal motivation to be a part of this conflict.