Official Finn Episode VIII thread

I guess I'd agree with you if Finn later tells Poe... "I could have blown up the cannon." Finn doesn't say that. Poe and Rose both say it's too late. The cannon was already charged. The mission failed.

 

And I'd argue again, that Finn was the subject matter expert on the First Order tech, for 2 movies; not Rose and not Poe. If you want to extend the parallel between Poe at the beginning of the movie and Finn at the end, Poe is ordered by Leia to retreat before launching the Bomber Attack. He proceeds anyway and the attack on the Dreadnought succeeds (albeit at great cost). Poe ordered Finn to retreat before launching his suicide attack. Finn proceeded anyway... if you agree that there are parallels between Poe's actions and Finn's actions, should we infer that his attack would be successful at great cost or fail ?

 

Well, the battle of Crait actually requires desperate tactics and someone to play hero (and spoiler alert : that's how the Resistance got out eventually). There, and unlike the opening battle, escape is not an option ! This was firmly established by this exchange :
"Rose : There has to be a back way out of here, right ?
Poe : BB-8, what do you got ?
C3PO : BB-8 has analyzed the mine's schematics. This is the only way in or out."

So those parallels are irrelevant because the 2 battles are inherently different : the first one presents a "Fight or Fllght" scenario, while the second is a "No Escape" scenario.


Praising Poe for ordering the retreat is a nonsense. It's like watching a horror movie and praising the blonde* who, chased by the killer in an empty building, goes to the highest floor, then locks herself up in a bathroom with no window and a paper-thin door.

Congratulations sweetie ! You bought yourself one extra minute, maybe even two ! But you drove yourself in a corner, and now you're dead.

Sure a magical door may suddenly appear out of nowhere while the killer may distracted by another magcal appearance. But even then, it doesn't mean the blonde* made the right choice : it just means the author cheated to keep her alive.

* : this post is not made to mock blonde girls, and more to make fun of typical horror tropes.

 

If only Finn were like Boyega's character in Pacific Rim II. A true action hero. Such a great character...............

right.............?

right................?

right................................?

 

It's part of the story arc for Poe who finally learns the lesson. It's not nonsense to me and fits in perfectly with the overall theme of the film which is learning from failure.

Let's face it... the military tactics in Star Wars aren't exactly from the pages of Patton, it's not super complicated.

 

1) My previous post had nothing to do with tactics (i'm not discussing how the speeders should use a different formation, attack from a different angle, use the salt to their advantage...), just common sense.

2) What's Poe's lesson exactly ? Is it :
_ when you're in a "Do or Die" situation, just hide yourself and pray for a miracle ? If so, that's the dumbest lesson he could learn.
OR
_ Don't play hero when you don't need to ? If so, that's a complete fail from the author, because he put Poe in a situation that actually requires desperate measures.

Again, it alll comes down to the Rose/Poe/BB-8/C3PO exchange i mentioned earlier : if you take that out*, then Poe's decision becomes defendable.

*or at least make it more ambiguous : instead of saying "there is NO exit" (which is dumb, BTW), say something like "most of the tunnels are collapsed".

 

Given the emphasis on Finn's ability to shoot in TFA (and how he's used in Battlefront II) and even the blaster that Boyega posted on do we think that Rian deliberately kept a gun out of his hand in this movie and if so, what do you think the purpose was? If he was an "aim bot" in TLJ (as he apparently is in Battlefront II) would that overshadow whatever you feel it was that Finn was supposed to learn or demonstrate in TLJ?

 

Watch the film again. Finn is "flying" because he's stuck in the canon's pre-firing drag. You actually see this.

He's not unabated. As an actual

They knew the Falcon was on Crait now. It's know longer a do or die situation. They were no longer as desperate as they were a few minutes earlier. Poe was right to make that call. It's part of his character arc. How could you not see that.

 

@LarsSkywalker : the Falcon presence doesn't change much : the Resistance still has no way to reach it. The FO has a massive firepower stationned at the base only exit. Any attempt to escape that way would result in a slaughter.

Not to mention you would have to bet on the Falcon shaking off ALL the FO's Tie Fighters and returning to the base fast enough. That's a nearly impossible feat in itself (or at least it would be, for any director with a tiny sense of measure).

 

And Luke shouldn't have been able to blow up the Death Star. Han Solo shows up to surprise the Chosen One and apparently the entire Empire defense so Luke can get the shot off without force training and without computer assistance. I'm not sure it's productive to argue "what's impossible" in a fantasy series where the heroes wave around laser swords and move objects with the force.

 

I don't want to get into a semantics argument here but to acknowledge your point, technically unless he is literally experiencing no air drag whatsoever he's not unabated. But that doesn't seem to align to the spirit of what I'm saying. The unabated to which I'm referring to is his pathway to the cannon, the beam was not disintegrating enough of ship that he wouldn't have made it. Rose intercepts him (literally) a dozen or so feet away from the canon. And he immediately gets out and asks Rose why should she would do that, he was almost there (which just further convinces me that Finn was confident that he would have taken out the cannon)

That said, I'm not sure how you assert because he continued on with his attempt to collide into the canon, that it was because he was stuck in the pre-firing drag, and not because he had chosen to push forward (which they show you Finn physically and deliberately accelerating the skimmer up into the beam). There is nothing to suggest that he is "stuck" let alone that there is Newtonian drag being created by the beam of the cannon, or that drag has any other attribute outside of acting in the opposite direction of relative motion of an object. I know, I know, this is Star Wars, adherence to principles of Physics is not a requirement, but I'd need you to explain further what you mean here. Drag wouldn't trap Finn's skimmer, it would slow him down.

 

Exactly!! It slowed him down so much that Rose was able to catch up with him.

Along with the skimmer being weakly held together (Rose knew this because she was the mechanic Poe ask to assess it), and with Finn being slowed down in the drag, there's no way Finn was going to make a scratch in that thing by ramming it.

Maybe if his skimmers' guns weren't melted off, he could still shoot it at the right spot (ala' Luke with the deathstar), but it was too late for that.

 

This feels kind of presumptive @LarsSkywalker. I mean, first, we don't know that Finn slowed down (no visual evidence at all) or that the beam he entered was capable of creating drag (pure conjecture). There is NO in movie reference to drag, just you hypothesizing it. I can see you perhaps inferring it because Rose caught him at the last second, but do we know for certain Finn was going full speed? Or do we know for certain if his top speed was unavailable due to some other reason (i.e. did Finn's skimmer get damaged when he bounced it on the ground initially). Do we even know for certain that Rose didn't just have a faster/better maintained Skimmer?

There's no way Finn was going to make a scratch in that thing by ramming it? *Eyebrow raise* We saw an A-wing crashing into the bridge of a SD and take it out in ROTJ. More recently we see TIE fighters colliding with Resistance Heavy Bombers and destroying them entirely. The scenario we're talking about with Finn is (for lack of a better term) a projectile being thrown at a high speed into the open end of a cannon which itself is providing the explosive energy for it's destruction, Finn would just need to be a catalyst to cause the reaction... and you don't think that's possible?

Have to disagree that this attack wouldn't be effective. Too much existing and in-movie evidence that it would (IMO).

 

remember, this is narrative.

 

You're actually comparing the ramming of a rusted old landskimmer to an A-wing, a vehicle designed for space travel????

Really?

Edit: I'll go check the "The Last Jedi-Ship Cross Sections" book again on how skimmers are effected by lift and drag.

 

Not sure that this affects my point.

Without any sarcasm, I have to say I am not sure I understand your position here. Let me walk you through my thinking and you can tell me where you disagree or where you think my logic falls apart. I brought up the A-Wing and the SD, and the TIE and the heavy bomber to establish precedence (both within the franchise and within the movie itslef) for a smaller vehicle destroying a much larger object via collision. Do you object to that?

I am also noting that the original plan was to fire blasters into the cannon. With them inoperable Finn plans to ram his skimmer into the open end of a weapon charged with energy. The collision will destroy it, or disable it. Do you object to this?

 

A lightweight downtrodden surface vehicle with relatively puny momentum vs a space faring ship with cross galaxy thrusters.

Check the TLJ Cross Sectional book on ships. The skimmers are not durable at all, and that's before they were even antique.

The canon had a heavy duty exterior with beefy construction. And it was anchored to the ground.

 

Oh brother.