ST Were you disappointed that Rey and Finn's relationship never became anything romantic?

I didn't mind that Finn and Rey weren't a couple (I don't really watch SW for romance) but I was disappointed that Rey seemed to only have eyes for Kylo.

 

I would argue that the idea of her only having eyes for Kylo as early on as in TFA was more projection of the audience, especially by those who automatically dismissed any notion of her having any interest in Finn. Rian ran with that idea and it became semi-canon after that.

 

I don't know how you can say that considering all the positive interactions they had in the film.

Spoiler: Pictured: Rey and Kylo Ren's interactions in TFA

Oh wait, they absolutely none. Kylo Ren's interest went completely unreciprocated and at the end of the fillm, Rey was going for Kylo Ren's throat with fury because of everything he'd done to her and her friends.

Hey, if a woman spends nearly a whole movie getting tormented by a guy, it makes total sense to hook them up!

WTF Disney

 

Such irony that the same people who say that romance was impossible with Finn after TFA because Rey put Finn in the "friend zone" (which as has been pointed out is such a juvenile way to look at romance) think that THIS was set up for a romance.

 

I'm reminded of "Into the Spider-Verse" where Miles is shown to be attracted to Gwen. Initially, at the end of the film, they were suppose to kiss but it was decided to change it to them becoming friends instead, with the actual romance being saved for a second film, because the filmmakers thought it worked better and I agree: it kept their relationships in the film from feeling rushed.

There was no reason that Finn and Rey couldn't have gotten together in the second film just because they were "only" friends in the first one. The Force Awakens spends time building the beginning of their relationship from strangers that were tossed together to fire-forged friends to friends that considered each other their found family. It was a progression that spanned the whole film and one that could easily have continued into the next film with their relationship gaining a romantic element that culminated in them getting together (with the third and final film having them as a couple for the entirety)

The only way that they couldn't have become a couple is if you believe that a person can never develop feelings for a friend or that a relationship can only have two settings (friend or lover)

And I'm saying this as someone who voted no, by the way.

 

I didn't mean just Finn. Movie version of I need to work on myself before jumping into a relationship.

It's not the idea of them being romantically involved that's bad... it's that the characters never even fully developed on their own enough for me to even imagine it fitting in organically.

 

Yep. You pretty much nailed it.

Initially there wasn't all that much of a meaningful presence online of people who shipped Rey and Kylo. But a vacuum just had to be filled for those who desperately wanted to ship Rey with someone. As I wrote in my initial post the setup for this was more in Finn's favor, which was acknowledged by a number of people who wrote about movies. But the SW fans, the SW podcasters, the SW bloggers, the SW regulars on SW message boards? a large portion of them weren't about to go that route. So instead many of them hopped onboard the Finn-Poe relationship train and actually accepted this idea that Disney, after paying such a hefty price for Star Wars, was going to allow two of its three primary new heroes to be gay. And not just gay. Homosexual males to boot. That was NEVER going to happen, even if the writers, directors and KK wanted to go down that road. But Disney never had to worry about giving any edicts because there was never any indication whatsoever that the writers, directors and KK had even considered that an option. Gay Finn and gay Poe were nothing more than projections (wishes) by either folks who were hungry for overdue gay representation in any mainstream film and by people who were more uncomfortable seeing Finn hook up with Rey than they were with Finn in a relationship with another man. So SW fandom, even if they put out podcasts for the masses to consumer, went pretty much all-in with Finn and Poe being a legitimately possible option. They had either convinced themselves or this or were lying to themselves.

Here's the thing though : Finnpoe/PilotStorm became such an online phenomenon and had been mentioned enough in the press that by the time TLJ and in particular RoS came out, TPTB were put into a position to acknowledge it and even address it somewhat seriously. Something that they had not planned on, something conjured in the minds of fans and viewers for various reasons, had become an actual thing.....or at the very least something that warranted commenting on by those involved in making the movies. You know what also eventually became "a thing" in a similar fashion? Reylo.

With people desperate to have Rey paired with someone (in some cases anyone but Finn) there became this growing consensus among a vocal group on social media who insisted that when Kylo was torturing Rey to get inside her mind and unlock her secrets, what we were witnessing was the sexual tension of the early stages of a blossoming romance. When Rey called Kylo a monster and aggressively attacked him? What we were seeing was the sexual tension of the early stages of a blossoming romance. When Rey locked eyes with Kylo with a hateful stare while their lightsabers clashed and then she tried regaining control by closing her eyes and allowing The Force to guide her? What we were seeing were the sexual tension of the early stages of a blossoming romance. Seriously. That pretty much became their take. And they weren't alone. Rian Johnson apparently read it that way too. The rest is sad celluloid history.

One last thing. Long before TFA even came out there were SW fans fretting about these relationship possibilities. They saw Riley and Boyega being cast, saw them on social media on set or hanging together off set all the time read enough spoilers and got enough on-set info from insiders to know the two would be sharing the bulk of their time together in the movie. They also realized the two actors and thereby their characters were roughly the same age. They probably looked at other options and realized there weren't any other actress in the cast who could play Boyega's love interest. Just as likely they realized the other three relative young actors in the cast who could be Ridley's onscreen suitor were either much older and/or had been established by reports as portraying men working for the Bad Guys. Perhaps that led to some panic. How to combat it and put minds at ease? There was a rumor that was floated that Finn would be romantically involved with Lupita Nyongo's character even before knowing anything more than that she would be playing an alien. And then of course there were the cries that there shouldn't be any romance at all, that a female lead did not have to be "trapped" in a relationship, blah, blah, blah. Of course there is some legitimacy to that argument. Of course it was going t be spouted if the alternative option was Rey being in love with a black guy.

 

Yeah, these people are acting like just because Rey referred to Finn "as friend", that instantly means she has no romantic feelings for him and that she put him in the friend zone. If that was true, then what about all of the people who ended up falling for their best friend and actually dating them? I'm pretty sure those people referred to them as friends before any of the romantic stuff started happening.

 

John Boyega is obviously a handsome, good looking dude. Of course a ReyFinn romance could have worked but I think, given their instant chemistry and camaraderie, it kind of made the prospect of an explicitly romantic relationship a bit boring and not that interesting. Han and Leia worked because of their friction and antagonism ... Rey and Finn have that for like 30 secs and then they are bonding. It's just not as exciting.

 

You say that but it was exactly because of their chemistry and camaraderie that I liked watching them.

*frantically crawling through the vents*
Finn: "This was a mistake!"
Rey: "Huge!"

Also, if a couple is only interesting/only works when they're not together or when their relationship is filled with friction and antagonism, then someone sucked at writing that couple.

Look at Monica and Chandler: they became a couple and stayed together yet remained interesting, even after there was no drama surrounding their relationship, because it focused on their banter, them working on their issues, their struggles to become parents and in general, how endearing they were as a couple.

Finn is a former stormtrooper who was raised to be cannon fodder while Rey was abandoned by her family and had to survive as a scavenger. If (general) you can't make a relationship between them compelling, then you suck at writing couples.

 

This is the post of the year.

 

I would have loved for Rey to have what some consider the unexciting romance. It really disgusts me that instead of focusing on Rey's hero journey, that TLJ decided to pivot the emphasis of her story to a twilight tier romance (and TROS to an extent, though for all it's faults I did feel like it was trying it's hardest to move the focus back in the right direction in regards to Rey). I also wouldn't have been happy if it had made the primary focus of Rey's story her relationship with Finn, though at least it would not have been morally repugnant. However, that never would have happened, because Rey and Finn are wonderfully beautifully "boring." What a refreshing thing it would be for the source of drama and conflict for our protagonist to NOT be about a relationship. Novel concept, I know!

 

Also I thought Jedi weren't supposed to do the love thing.

 

Tricky concept. Anakin came back to the light because of the love for his son. It feels like the PT Jedi were over the top with the no attachment argument. But then again that same attachment can be a very dangerous thing, so its a double edged sword. Technically by TROS, Leia was a Jedi and married to Han, so she was breaking that rule as well.

 

Rey and Finn could have just been, and all the tension and drama could've been focused on the plot and the Big Bad (Kylo, Snoke, Palpatine, whoever the heck they decided on).

It's interesting that they paired Daisy and John for most of the promo together. It's like they knew their chemistry was magnetic, but they couldn't commit to it on screen.

 

Quite honestly i totally get what Lucas was going for with the attachment thing. attachment leads to stuff such as jealousy, and jealousy in itself makes people do stupid things. its not a particularly healthy emotion to have. so if Jedi started getting jealous over attachments, then that creates tension, and tension can lead to anger and ect ect.

While if you take attachment away. people can keep a level head. and you kind of want that for a society like the jedi order.

To do the attachment thing as a jedi, i imagine you would need serious meditation technique to keep people in line.

 

It would be as easy as breathing, right? Specially if it was between people who are both Force sensitive. In my opinion non FS can't ever understand the struggles FS is experiencing and therefore can't ever be a true support. Finn basically says that to Poe in TRoS.

Or asexuality test for Jedi admissions.
To deny emotions is unnatural, imo, which is one of the reasons Jedi fail. And if I am not mistaken many Jedi of old canon/EU broke it? If not most?

 

Rey and Kylo definitely have an adversarial relationship in TFA, there is no question of that. My guess after seeing TFA was that it was going to be a classic enemies-to-lovers trope (lovers in Star Wars meaning a kiss). I just got an inkling because of the bridal carry (yes, I know to some it was a monster carry) and the way the interrogation scene was blocked and shot. I surmised and even though I was correct I wouldn't have been overwhelmingly surprised if they went for Rey and Finn instead. I thought Rey and Finn had nice chemistry, but I thought Rey and Kylo's chemistry was even better. I don't care about fantasy fiction relationships being healthy, I just care about them being interesting and entertaining.

 

Hope they have a Jedi therapist on hand.

 

No, I wasn't really disappointed despite how much chemistry they both have. If they ever did become a romantic couple I would have liked the writers to take a page from Rebels with the Kanan and Hera romance. Despite being from a "kids" show, I've found their relationship to be one of the more mature and healthy romances we've ever had in Star Wars. I don't really watch Star Wars for romance (or any kind of romance in fiction in-general) so I probably have poor taste on the matter anyways.

 

Apparently there's some kind of unwritten rule that every romance in SW has to be contentious and hyper-sexual, and has to be a huge part of the story. So that's how we ended up with Reylo; Forcing a square peg into a round hole because mutual affection is "boring", gotta spice things up with casual mass murder and non-stop tension and conflict.

It's thinking like this that makes me not want to consume modern media; Everything has to be dark, edgy, and full of conflict in order to be "real" and "exciting". So many stories do this now that it has become boring and irritating to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Lucas get inspired to create SW specifically because movies were becoming too dark and he wanted to just tell a fun story based on the serials he grew up on?

Now we're in an age where large portions of the audience constantly clamor for the darkest, most messed-up versions of everything, and now creatives are catering to them with stuff like TLJ or Last of Us 2. Imagination, hope, love, and sincerity are all seen as childish or non-intellectual, so let's flip everything on it's head and just totally defy logic on every level because that's how modern stories are told.

I'm sorry, my mind just started going and I had to rant.