ST John Boyega (Finn) in the ST

I just want to say I didn’t mean to call you sexist, and I’m sorry that it reads that way. I shouldn’t have worded it like that. I meant the script, that if the movie intended that as Rey’s failure, I think the movie is skirting the line of sexism.

I can speak in detail on Finn’s story in TLJ without omitting his important character moments to make my point. You have ignored entirely in your arguments Finn’s core characterization in TFA, which isn’t about Rey but about Finn discovering a life where he gets to choose his own path for the very first time.

 

I am referring to his motivation not character arc. His motivation before rey was to escape the first order. This actually stayed his motivation over rey until she was captured by the first order.

 

Yes, his motivation to live by his own terms, as demonstrated by his choice to walk away when Rey begged him to stay. He stayed ultimately because he saw SKB’s genocide and he chose to rush and tell Han what he knew, then he chose to join the fight to save his friend from a guy that he knows is a genocidal monster. None of his TFA choices involve following Rey around or being singularly motivated by her. Saving a friend is purely heroic. There is nothing Finn needs to learn to grow from that.

 

Except for the fact that when he realized that the FO had used SKB to destroy the Hosnian System, instead of getting on the ship that was three feet in front of him to escape, his first instinct was to run BACK to Han to warn him about what happened. He didn't have to do that, he could have just escaped, but he chose to give up said chance to escape in order to go back, which says a lot about his character.

EDIT: Apparently AhsokaSolo had the same idea that I did, great minds think alike and all that I guess.

 

Well, actually, he admits to han that he went to skb to save rey. Saving the galaxy was more like a side mission. Unlike han who was the opposite. Finn is reluctant hero like han was not what han becomes. Though i would argue finn has surpassed han as a rebellion hero now though we will have to wait until 9 to find out.

 

This doesn’t contradict what I said. I literally said he’s there to save his friend. Finn is an escaped slave as of yesterday. The expectation that he immediately devote his life to a group of strangers in their war is nonsensical to me. He didn’t escape one cult army and rush to sign up for a different army. His instinct was to flee and live, which is understandable and normal. Frankly, after what I saw in TLJ, I think he would have been better off bouncing. The Resistance doesn’t deserve him.

He is a reluctant hero, and he absolutely was instrumental in the destruction of SKB, which he focused on before looking for Rey. His instincts were heroic in TFA, but he never had a chance to breathe and choose to join the war he escaped five seconds ago.

 

Yet another area where setting TLJ immediately after TFA ends up backfiring on it.

Also if I'm Finn, after TLJ I'm getting as far away from The Resistance as possible. Because wow are they an incompetent bunch whom I wouldn't trust to save a kitten out of a tree, let alone the entire Galaxy from Space Fascists.

 

I agree that finn had no reason to join to the resistance. I think that is the whole point. Han had no reason to join the rebellion. He was in it for the money. In empire it was revealed he stayed around for leia. Leia tried to pretend she did not want him and he was going to leave. Of course they ended up going on an adventure together anyway thanks to the cave in at hoth.

Finn is in love with rey. Or at least he is in tfa and the majority of tlj. The reason they are just friends is because rey never showed any interest in him. Unlike leia i don’t believe rey ever will but again we have to wait until 9 to find out. Romantics aside, finn has no concern for money like han did. He wants to escape the first order because he has witnessed the atrocities they have commited. If you think he would have left rey behind then i don’t think that aligns with tfa or tlj.

As far as whether finn should leave the first order after what happened i think he is actually invested in the fight now more than ever. Canto bight and crait showed him that fighting the first order is worth it and even going down in a blaze of glory is better than letting the first order win.

 

Nope Finn is not “in love” with Rey while she friendzoned him. None of that is actually in the movie. Finn chose to walk away from her. He stayed to save her life, not to marry her. Sure he had a crush on her, and he walked away by choice. People project this on Finn, including I have no doubt RJ. Finn’s story was not about unrequited love and that is why TLJ is such a disaster in how it mistreats his story.

To show Finn invested in the fight, RJ needed to show him coming to terms with his own history with the FO and his personal desire to ensure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else. Finn didn’t need to be shamed by a stranger. That was the worst possible approach RJ could have taken.

 

Not true.

Even if you don't like the stuff they did with Finn, he DID kill Phasma.

Despite criticism with set up, Phasma IS a named villain in this trilogy along with Snoke, Kylo and Hux.

Kylo killed Snoke and Finn killed Phasma. Both of them, were that persons' former masters.

As the trilogy winds down going into the third movie, we now have two named villains left to deal with (among the vast nameless ones), that being Kylo and Hux.

 

That’s not Finn having an accomplishment, that’s just you describing the ending of the movie and then saying it’s some grand act of heroism.

Also Finn is better than Poe because he knows how to follow orders? Really? What kind of weird authoritarian theme is that?

Things like this are why it Finns storyline actively pisses me off. Why is it that now that we have a black person as a lead we suddenly need to learn our place?

 

His story really needs to be better this time. Counting on JJ.

 

Ummmm what are you talking about know our place? And following orders is a part of military operation. It has to be done for things to work. Not sure what kind of rant this is suppose to be but what you are implying is to distracting for me to answer in a meaningful way. If you can clarify in a cleaner manner then sure.

 

It’s hard to just “live” when you know a solar-system destroying weapon is out there roaming the galaxy in the hands of crazy space Nazis. That’s why his “I’m just here to find Rey” in TFA rang false to me. This is the same guy who refused to kill innocent people on FO orders, risking his life by that act. After seeing the FO destroy an entire solar system, I find it hard to believe that he’d just check out and go work on an organic farm. It’s a cartoonish motivation, IMO, and it doesn’t work in either TFA or TLJ for me.

 

Well, i mean i am sure the use of the skb did have an impact on finn. I am just saying that his primary motivation was his connection with rey. I come to this belief by what he told han solo.

 

I assume your first sentence applies to every single citizen in the gffa after the Hosnian System blew up? I am going to assume that you are not applying a double standard to the character that spent his life as a slave and that just escaped that slavery when all of this occurred.

I don’t think his motivation is cartoonish at all. I think it is actual very real world and human. Finn isn’t anybody’s slave anymore at that point. For literally the first time in his entire life, he gets to choose. He wants to be free of all of it.

 

He didn’t even follow Han’s order to focus on SKB first. Han didn’t order him to do anything. Han said basically, “what about the shields?” and Finn was all, “cool I got a plan for that, let’s take care of it first.”

Finn was always down with helping and he understood that the bigger mission came first. He unambiguously demonstrated that twice, when SKB went off and when he went for the shields. He just hadn’t chosen to be in what was, at that point, someone else’s fight. After never getting to live by his own terms, after never getting a chance to just experience the galaxy, his focus was on for once having peace and freedom.

Rey being his personal motive there wasn’t about some manufactured unrequited love like this is a teenage angst soap opera. It demonstrated for the second time in the film that Finn will die for what he cares for. He was willing to die rather than murder for the FO and he was willing to die to save a friend. The character needed time, that’s all, to think and breathe and choose to make the Resistance’s cause his life’s destiny.

TLJ’s lack of a time skip is so terrible. In the end, Finn was shamed within days as though he actually did have some ridiculous obligation to do what others have deemed he needs to do or else he’s a bad person. What other film portrays one of its lead heroes as bad unless the lead is willing to die for strangers? Why is Finn different? Why is his life and his right to choose so valueless? Basically his choice to join isn’t heroic, it’s just not cowardly, and this awful standard only applies to him.

 

It's hard to get worse and JJ is just as much as responsible for that as RJ. Its close to impossible to make up for it in the final film of a trilogy.

 

No he didn't kill her, she fell. Also even then he needed Rose's help to beat her in the end. And Phasma's a joke, defeating her is about as much an "accomplishment" as Han "killing" Boba Fett in ROTJ.

And if you really think that Finn is going to get to take down Kylo or Hux, who both lack any credibility as villains anyway, then you have FAR more faith in the narrative than I do.

 

Oh no, I could see Hux being Finn's big accomplishment in IX

Ugh, one character treated like a joke defeats another character treated like a joke. I truly can't wait. /s

 

I was going to say something similar to this but you beat me to it.

I could just see it now, those two bumbling through a fight in which they're both knocked down continuously by random objects. Meanwhile Finn is reeling off corny one-liner after corny one-liner and Hux over the top snarky comments. Then Finn gets saved by BB8 and his new mini-cannon or lightsaber at the last second after being knocked down by Hux. Gross.