Main Finn/John Boyega Episode IX Thread

This reminds me of that deleted scene from the TLJ:

While this scene was a bit rough, I think this would have been a nice set up for a rebellion lead by Finn.

 

Mostly what @eeprom said.
Yes those are technically more rebel Stormtroopers but they also take the sails out of it being an active story for Finn by having it be force related. The story to tell there is one where Finn is the rebellion for the troopers. Which would have been a perfect wrap for his story IMO.
Leaving the First Order for mostly selfish reasons, to learning to fight for what he loves and not against what he hates, to saving the people stuck in the same situation as he was in.

I think if they had one trooper flee the area after Finn says that, it would be the perfect set up.

 

Because who needs logical explanations when is rocketing forward at a hundred miles per hour?
And riding horses on space-ships is cool! (Admittedly, the concept of sieging a space-ship from the outside while it's still in atmosphere IS really cool. It just doesn't make complete sense if the spaceship in question can just tilt over for a time and everyone could fall off, though.)

 

It’s just indicative of so much in TROS where resolutions play as payoffs to setups that never happened. We can maybe infer that Finn gave them the same pitch he did during that “rousing” speech before storming the castle, “They've taken enough of us. Now we take the war to them.” But, like so much in that film, it skips over the bit where he earns their trust/respect and jumps right to its conclusion.

Like the “It's not a navy, sir, it's just people” line. It could have been so affective if they’d actually laid the track for it. To me, it landed limp and hallow.

 

This. And then we have people saying- Rian Johnson tied up all loose ends, JJ Abrams had not nothing to work with...

Absolutely agree. And this was such a 'heroism of the ordinary person moment'
that totally fell flat. Dunkirk did it great, it's obvious that JJ Abrams was going for this message... But again, it fell flat.

 

I wish we would have actually seen those people. TROS should have started with those people denying the call of the Resistance.

 

Exactly. It’s presented as if it was development from TLJ: “We sent out a call for help at the Battle of Crait. Nobody came. Everyone's so afraid. They've given up.” But that isn’t reinforced at all in TROS and not provided any context beyond “good people will fight if we lead them.” Our only real identity for these “good people” though is Wedge showing up.

But, like so much else in that movie, we aren’t given any in-narrative significance for that. Did Wedge not want to fight, but had his heart and mind changed by Lando’s inspirational message of hope? I guess so? There’s no dimension to it. So it plays instead like ‘hey, look, we paid Denis Lawson enough for him to make a cameo in this one’. Cheap and unearned.

It’s similar with Finn. In concept, I think it’s a great idea to have the character be the inverse of where he was introduced. He enters the story as someone rejecting an unhealthy group dynamic. In TROS, he’s dramatically shifted to being the one struggling to keep the group together. “Alone with friends.” I really like the idea. It’s a natural extension of what came before. But that’s not character growth that happens on screen. He, evidently, got to that place in-between episodes.

So TROS doesn’t really advance him in any meaningful way. Who he is at the start is basically who he is at the end. He just trusts his instincts more now, because . . . Force. Which is fine I suppose, but pretty unfulfilling when compared to his potential after TFA I feel.

 

Well when you only have so many hours to prevent an attack. You do what you have to and pray.

 

...were you just responding to something that you didn't have time to before? Or is this a new thought? Because I have a response ready if you want to discuss, but I have a feeling we both know that we're not going to agree with each other at the end of the day on this movie...

 

Okay....please forgive me if I've said this before on the Cantina but...
At the end, Rian essentially left an epilogue/prologue. When Luke says to Kylo:
The Resistance is reborn tonight...we see Poe, Leia behind him. This foreshadowing her stepping down and Poe taking over leadership duties.
The war has just begun...
We see Finn.
Why Finn?

Because 'the war'...refers to Finn leading a stormtrooper revolt.

Rian Johnson, I think, was setting up a third film where the enemy is war itself., rather than a superweapon or a satanic type of baddie like Palpatine. This would have seen a conflict quite different to previous films, stormtroopers revealed as innocents, perhaps a few less savoury types in the Resistance. I also think he left it open as to what Kylo's fate would be. Supplementary material revealed cameras in the throne room and elevators, which would have recorded his betrayal of Snoke. and if Hux had gotten his hands on them...Kylo would have to run for the hills.

For me personally, one of TROS's disappointments was that this was never addressed.

 

Finn’s rank made perfect sense to me. He’s a former ST, who was trained and probably taught some form of strategy and battle tactics. And, from what we saw in TLJ, the Resistance is small and they have a hard time gaining volunteers. And even the ones they have are not all experienced in the military. So it would make perfect sense that they place one of the few seasoned soldiers and someone familiar with the workings of TFO in charge. And Finn is more level headed than excitable Poe.

It’s why Poe says to him “ I need you in charge with me”

Finn was never going to be a lead character. Given the fact that the ST was supposed to be the end of the Skywalker saga. And as a wiser fan than me pointed out. Starwars is Palpatine vs Skywalker.

TLJ certainly does that and in spades. Rey doesn’t want to be a Jedi because she suffers from massive insecurity as a result of her being traumatized from being abandoned. It’s when Luke refuses to help and Ren chooses to remain on the dark side. That she decides to take up the mantle. And even then it’s not solely due to something that she wants.

This fan essay posted on Reddit goes into much detail about it.

No? So you weren’t moved by the fact that in TROS Finn didn’t want to escape with the others and was prepared to sacrifice his life to destroy the lead FO ship?

I am baffled how people continually say that Finn did nothing in TROS and was misused, when it was he who came up with a strategy to take down TFO lead ship, lead the charge with the ST deserters, and came up with a contingency plan when he ran into trouble. But for some reason people claim that Finn did nothing because he didn’t go around shooting everything that moved and punching people in the face. And behaving like a stereotypical out of control Black man who thinks with his fists. Haven’t we moved past that?

Why would that be important for Finn when they have the threat of a totalitarian government on the horizon? It would be petty for Finn to sit and stew over pay back when he has greater responsibilities.

What you’re suggesting would be more suitable for supplementary material. Not a cinematic film.

????

And he did lead Storm Troopers in TROS.

Most likely the cameras, or the rooms that hold the footage was destroyed when the Radus hit the ship. If not it was the first thing that Ren would have had it destroyed.

 

The desire, as I understand it, was for the Finn character, because of his unique background, to inspire a Storm Trooper rebellion. Not to lead a group of Troopers who just so happened to have also deserted independently of him, that he stumbles on to by sheer happenstance (or the will of the Force or something). Troopers he just met who are then entirely willing to fight and die for him for . . . reasons. I think that’s more the criticism.

 

I actually thought that having Finn desert because of 'the Force' was a disappointment... it took away the fact that he chose to leave because his conditioning hadn't worked and his basic human decency overrode his brainwashing.
This meant that other troopers could have seen that and found the courage to overcome their history themselves. Instead, we got 'oh the Force sensitive ones were saved because the Force willed it, to heck with those unfortunate enough to not be gifted'.

The Force has morphed from an energy field created by life into some kind of cold judgemental 'god' choosing to save and discard at will. And sadly...the 'shades of grey' element I'd seen before in TFA and TLJ was completely thrown away with TROS.
I wonder if this was Terrio's influence...

 

No the force is still something that controls your actions AND obeys your commands. Nothing has changed.

 

Why would anyone read a long essay about Rey in a thread that is supposed to be about Finn?

 

I was banned for that!!

 

Because sometimes the discussion starts to broaden a bit. As long as it stays on topic in general, why not.

 

It's a bit like a Round Robin, that was how I came to mention Ben Solo in a Finn thread...elsewhere...and also why I got banned.

Regarding Finn...quite a few of his fans believe TLJ 'demoted' him, yet I'm genuinely bewildered by this. I think it developed him far better than TFA, and definitely better than TROS, where he spent much of the movie running around screaming 'REY!'.

I also noticed that in both TFA and TROS....Rey knocked him on his butt!

 

What people choose to read or don't is up to them. But I posted it in response to someone's statement about Rey's character arc.

 

I have to say this....why do so many Finn fans hate Kylo Ren? I've been on another forum where most of the posters are very passionate Finn fans...and they loathe him. They aren't too fond of his fans either - which might have been why I was banned! But seriously...

They seem to see him as a threat to Finn's place in the ST. If anyone stole Finn's thunder, so to speak, it was Poe.