ST Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico) in TLJ

Yes Han and Lando become automatic Generals in the Rebel Alliance because they are the main characters > the extras. (And anyone can become a general no matter their background)

No one asked Luke, Han or Lando for their resumes. They're all just naturals.

 

Not saying it's impossible to fit her in. Just that she doesn't feel necessary or that useful in comparison to the other main cast. If her role was smaller I'd be singing a totally different tune.

Actually...even Finn I feel was kind of losing his usefulness when they went the janitor route again in TLJ. I was thinking, what does Finn bring to the table? Well it turns out he has intel on TFO. The janitor gag I feel is overdone, but at least he does have knowledge that no one else in the resistance does. This can be explored further in IX, hopefully.

Okay back to Lando: they make it clear that flying the Falcon is no easy task. It's one of the fastest ships in the galaxy and as far as we know only two people can pilot it well: Han and Lando.

Also, Lando is seen as orchestrating the contingency plan when Vader keeps altering the deal. Darth Vader, the baddest man in the galaxy (after Palpatine). He successfully organizes a plan to set Leia, Chewie, and Threepio free from the Empire. And he had this all planned out, we see this the moment he realizes Vader will not keep any of his promises - he turns to his most trusted confidant to signal: "Let's do it".

Now compare this to Finn and Rose accomplishing nothing in Canto Bight and on the Supremacy. In fact their actions cause more deaths in the resistance. They trusted the most shady looking character in DJ. I see a vast difference in competence between the characters (Rose and Lando).

If anything I feel that DJ has more potential in IX...even though he isn't gonna be in it. His character was shown to be very resourceful and educated. I saw potential in a return for him.

As for R2-D2 and Threepio, R2 is the droid that had the Death Star plans and formed a bond with Luke. He clearly states "That droid and I have been through a lot together" and Luke is one of the few characters who empathizes with droids in the OT. Also R2 is portrayed as being a more effective droid than most others...for example we see the other R2 unit malfunction, then Threepio mentions to Luke how R2 is very capable.

Threepio is fluent in over 6 million languages. In ANH it seems as though not any protocol droid like him can speak that many languages.

But those are the in-universe reasons for their relevance. Outside the universe....people just loved the design of R2-D2 and C-Threepio and their personalities. Just like people loved the design and personality of BB-8. I know these are superficial reasons...but they do matter a lot. Just like Phasma being brought back and fans wanting her to have a big role - she just looks bad ass. Same with Boba Fett. He looks and sounds super cool. For the droids, they are endearing to audiences in an adorable way. Now I understand some may find Rose adorable or likable, but from what I've seen, the majority were really turned off by her character.

Also outside universe, George used R2 and Threepio as showing the SW Saga from their point of view. Now if that was the intent since ANH, I'm not sure. If anyone knows this let me know.

 

I'd say Han was pretty useless in ESB. His job was to have a romance with Leia and get shipped off in carbonite. I am not sure this is really an apt comparison as it's true the whole canto bight/supremacy mission feels kind of pointless to me. Though I mean technically in ESB Han/Leia fail in their mission to escape Vader so I could argue the whole bit in the asteroid field and so on is "pointless."

 

But I'm sure you could see why a lot of fans thought it could have worked. The way they shot the scene, with Finn closing his eyes and the music building up, makes it seem like he's going to succeed because it's played as a classic big hero moment trope we see all the time in movies.

Plus, we see Holdo, Luke and Paige sacrificing their lives to save others so why should the audience think Finn's plan wasn't going to work? Also, Rose line about "saving what we love" doesn't make any sense in the scene because Holdo, Luke and Paige do JUST that.

 

The line is preposterous because “saving what we love” sometimes involves “fighting what we hate.” Like in the scene immediately preceding that line...

Love alone does not conquer Space Nazis.

 

i don't think that's really what that line means anyway. It's about putting one above the other, not one excluding the other. As in, you should choose to save what you love above fighting what you hate. Saving what you love might require a fight at times, but you shouldn't through away your life to fight what you hate if you could save what you love instead. Though granted, that line could have been worded better. Not to mention that Holdo sacrificed her life to save what she loved (in a way), so that scene kind of contradicts the one between Rose and Finn. Though two characters having different approaches doesn't necessarily mean that the movie contradicts itself, just that the characters do.

The one video posted in the ST Complimentary topic had a quote from Irvin Kershner that shows a pretty similar intend, but which might put it in a clearer way:

 

Finn's sacrifice attempt and Rose saving him is probably the weakest part of the movie for me from a thematic perspective. In spite of it being a decent way of showing Finn's growth in the film, it's out of place because it's meant to be a subversion of heroic sacrifice when the movie plays it straight three times. By having Finn attempt to sacrifice himself in order to save everyone and then saying "nope" it makes the movie's message on heroic sacrifice seem confused.

The problem with that line has less to do with Rose and much more to do with Finn. The point was to shut down Finn's newfound unhealthy sense for fighting, but because Finn's arc is rushed we don't really see Finn's "We have to fight" attitude being unhealthy in the way that Poe's was in the film.

Honestly, Poe saving Finn instead of Rose would have made a lot more sense thematically. Poe had just learned a lesson about considering other people's lives before doing something that could go drastically wrong and him saving Finn would have been a great way to show how much he's grown. However, I would have hadn't him crashing his speeder into Finn's because I feel like that would have been out of character. He (or Rose for that matter) could have just found a way to grab Finn out of his speeder crashed.

 

Kersh says it better, for sure. But it’s also not quite right that the Rebels won’t sacrifice lives. That’s precisely what they do against the Death Star in ANH. They all knew it was a near-impossible mission that would cost many lives, and they went for it. Same thing in RO.

Though I think what Kersh meant to say is that the Rebels try to avoid killing innocent civilians in their fight. A principle Saw and his extremists clearly violated in RO.

 

isn't the point of Cassian andor show to show the shades of grey in the rebellion compared to the empire

 

Well, yeah. But there wasn’t a hint of that in the OT. Rogue One and I’m sure the Cassian show explore some of the more difficult moral choices the Rebellion makes in ways the OT never did. Ultimately, the Rebels are undoubtedly the good guys because the cause they’re fighting for is just, and their enemy is overwhelmingly evil. But it’ll be interesting to dig into the moral quandaries underneath that righteous surface.

 

Yeah, I think "sacrificing lives" was about civilians / innocent bystanders, or generally people who can't fight back. Not so much about losing people in military action. After all, that is bound to happen in a fight.

I don't think they really wasted lives in ANH though. Without the attack, everyone would be dead anyway, because the Death Star was coming for them. This was mostly a defensive operation to protect the rebel base. Throwing an endless amount of soldiers at a target that brings no real benefit isn't really something we have seen the rebels do. They did take heavy losses in Rogue One, but not really in a careless manner. Vader not caring about the loss of a Star Destroyer or two in the asteroid field of Hoth, that is throwing soldiers away because you can, and because you do not care about what happens to them.

 

Saving Luke and Leia was pretty useless, I guess, considering the ST.

 

Yeah, what a great "argument", even if it wasn't just for trolling purposes. Time doesn't stop, and achieving something doesn't mean that nothing in the future could possible go against those achievements. To use your sort of hyperbole, I guess preventing any sort of attempted mass-murder was useless, because all people that were targeted eventually died anyway

 

Well, if you would have payed attention in history class, you would know that if we would have just loved Hitler to suicide, the war would have stopped all the way back in 1939.

Nah, I agree. I also disagree with the idea of always saving what you love above fighting evil, sometimes sacrifice is necessary. Obi-Wan knew this, Yoda learned this in TCW (heck, the episode is called Sacrifice ), Luke knew this in ROTJ, and Anakin learned this at the end of ROTJ. Actually, often a sacrifice is needed to save ones you love. One death to save many.

And i don't really understand how Rose would know more than Finn about the Death Star cannon, because Finn knew the ins and outs of FO technology, and knew how to navigate SKB. So, you're telling me that he knows everything there is to know, and where everything is located on an entire planet that's completely one of a kind and unique, but doesn't know what makes a (definitely not one of a kind) cannon go boom? Versus Rose, an average Resistance mechanic who's probably barely seen FO technology at all, since they've been at war with the FO for like all of a week by now.

 

I think TLJ does a pretty good job of making Rose seem knowledgeable. Rose may be a mechanic, but she is very intelligent when it comes to technology. The best example would be when she and Finn are planning on shutting down the FO tracker. Finn even seems surprised that someone knows about technology as much as he does.

Not to mention, Rose may not know much about FO tech, but she does know enough about Resistance tech. She even checks the speeders right before the Resistance goes out to battle the FO on Crait. It’s enough for me to believe that she knows what she’s talking about when she thinks that Finn’s attempt wouldn’t work.

 

okay, Han is pretty useless after the first 30 minutes of the movie. And he failed to save Leia since they were captured by Vader anyway.

Also he's bad at repairing the MF. No hyperdrive!

And you're right. His only purpose in the movie is to save Luke. Otherwise he's a worthless loser character.

And I'm not trolling. The whole Han/Leia storyline is engaging in ESB. It's engaging independent of success or failure. They aren't useless characters if they fail all movie or if the main thing they "accomplish" is a change in attitude or in their relationship with one another.

 

The problem, though, is that Finn is clearly knowledgeable about the FO cannon, as he briefs the Resistance on it before they attack. So, either Finn is being portrayed as not particularly bright, or the scene doesn’t quite support the notion that Finn’s attack run would’ve have worked. It’s just a poorly executed moment. The worst in the film, IMO.

 

To me this is on par with the space chase. It's that RJ/the movie doesn't concern itself with making these things make sense.

 

Han and Leia’s side mission isn’t useless in ESB. It’s what Luke’s story, the central story, is building to. Ultimately, Luke is motivated to save his beloved friends when Vader uses them. He fails, but everything narrative-wise ties together.

It always comes off as reaching when people try to rationalize TLJ by ESB. ESB is a classic, timeless movie. Every plot that can be some vague parallel with it doesn’t make its movie another ESB.

Finn and Rose’s side mission has nothing to do with anything. The central plot is the force stuff. Luke is the protagonist. Kylo is the antagonist. Everything else exists to serve their story, which is normal. The mutiny plot serves it because it directly leads to Luke deciding to intervene to save his sister (and others). Finn and Rose just do a thing that doesn’t work that the main characters don’t know or care about, and then Finn and Rose unceremoniously and inexplicably rejoin the real story. Their contribution is: they brought a guy to the FO that told the FO to look for cloaked ships. I almost fell asleep typing that.

 

Well oh boy, Rey's story, the central story, is building to helping the Resistance, ending in the glorious Finn/Rey hug.

But please go on with Finn and Rose are useless.

 

Rey’s story isn’t the central story of TLJ, and that hug had nothing to do with Finn and Rose’s mission. It was the culmination of Rey and Finn sharing zero scenes and zero dialogue the rest of the movie. It would make no difference to the hug if Finn had stayed with the Resistance the entire time.

 

That should have read “the notion that Finn’s attack wouldn’t have worked.” The film just doesn’t give enough to suggest that, and so it leaves Rose’s decision to stop Finn vulnerable to serious criticism about dooming the Resistance. Unless, of course, you assume Finn is not that bright, and has no idea how to disrupt the technology that he just said he’s familiar with.

Muddy, and not at all in a good way.

Right. If Rey came to Crait to save Finn and Rose, the comparison would work better.

That said, I don’t mind that Finn and Rose’s side quest failed. They tried to help, it didn’t work, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Learning from failure and all that. I just don’t think it was that well-implemented or integrated into the film.

 

Everyone craps on Qui-gon Jin for not freeing the slaves on Tatooine, but he at least freed more of them than Rose. Then again, I get the impression that Rose isn't much of a people-person. She probably likes cats, dogs and fathiers more than her co-workers.

Wait, wait, don't forget about Broom Boy! Canto Bight could be the prologue to his origin story!

 

Yes Rose should be like "Hey kids, wanna come with Finn and me on this mission in which we might die, or would you like us to stay here and spend more time trying to free you instead of working on our mission?"

Broom Boy: We have these chips in our bodies somewhere and will explode if we are a mile out of range of the stables!

Rose: Okay, so the spend more time than we have option. Thanks!

Finn: I thought you said the Resistance is running on fumes...

Rose: Change of plans, let the FO have them. I have kids and fathiers to save.

Finn: What about Rey?

Rose: What about my sister.