Official Finn Episode VIII thread

Dang man, actually missed your posts around these parts; wasn't sure if we'd ever hear from you again. Hope all is well.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 16, 2018, Original Post Date: Aug 16, 2018 ---

I think most of us have given up on Finn being allowed to be relevant in any meaningful way ever. So it's pretty much Black Panther or nothing

 

I was so happy to finally see a black stormtrooper after all these years. I really think Boyega played Finn wrong. The more I watch TFA and TLJ the more I believe that Boyega was trying to play like Kevin Hart. He was trying to be funny but his performance came off goofy/silly. I wish Boyega had played Finn like a disgruntled Stormtrooper looking for a better place in the universe rather then trying to be this funny character.

From the beginning, when Finn is helping Poe escape, Finn is escorting Poe, he tells Poe that he is talking to himself which sounds really stupid and retarded. He played the scared stormtrooper like the scared black guy in the film The Meg( which made me cringe). I wish Boyega played a hardened Stormtrooper rather then a goofy one.

If Boyega had took the serious route maybe they would have considered him a for a Jedi or a Sith. JJ liked Boyega's take on the character; another black guy playing the scared buffoon. I like John Boyega don't get me wrong but watch the movie The MEG. Page Kennedy who played DJ was a complete embarrassment playing the scared black man for laughs. no one laughed in my theater it was embarrassing. It made me cringe.

In a scene, in the film The MEG, an 8 year old Asian girl is trying to calm down DJ because he is scared of drowning. An 8 year old Asian girl is trying to calm down an hysterical grown black man which to me was an embarrassment, no one in the theater laughed at DJ's goofy comedy. That little Asian girl and the scared black guy reminded me of Finn and Rose. Maybe Boyega being British thought that type of comedy is cool for Americans. I hate watching Black comedy when the black guy tries to get laughs by acting stupid or scared. It just reinforces negative stereotypes.

 

If I work up the desire to come back to the forums, it'll be to talk about Old Skool Star Wars up to maybe TFA, and throw in Rogue One and if something else new that's decent manages to come out. I won't even watch TLJ for free on Netflix. Just can't do it. I have no idea what these people were thinking when they did what they did. I can't defend it, can't even attempt to mount a defense for it, nor would I do that. Just sad man, sad.

Otherwise, I'm good. I mostly came up here cause I was going through a bored period at work. Considering what I'm doing, there might be more of those and I might appear from time to time.

 

As I said I haven't watched it, but I've seen enough reviews and fan rage to know a few things, but these are from second-hand reports so take them with a grain of salt. However, there from sources I trust and respect so while they may be warped with someone else's views about the movie, I don't think they're way off the mark. Here is a rough list:

• Major One: The way they handled Luke. He's a sad, tired, defeated old man, he has a moment of getting back into it, then he dies. Yes, I'm aware there are rumors J.J. may bring him back some kind of way. Running tally is as a Force Ghost.
• Second Major One: The way they handled Finn by placing him with a newly created character who helped obstruct any forward movement in his development. He is essentially the same character he started out as with some minor differences.
  • Finn is giving an unnecessary story arc. For a long time I had defended these creators believing they had a plan for him, but it's apparent they only have a plan mostly for Rey and Kylo.
• Poe seems to be made out to look stupid in this for the sake of introducing Holdo?
• Holdo's silliness - why not just share what's going on?
• Rose forcing a kiss out a Finn - huh? what?
• The nail in the Coffin: Post Production and Film Release antics and disrespect from the production crew, director, and president when a large segment of the fanbase voiced its displeasure about the movie and direction of Lucasfilm from their perspective. This alone really made me feel detached from the Star Wars Franchise. You cannot favor one side of your fanbase politically over the other. Sure, you can include politics in a story so long as you make the story good. Opposing views of those politics will still disagree with it, but they will at least compliment the story or simply hate it because of the politics. However, when you put yourself on a pedestal and start slandering and slurring certain fans to make yourself feel better about the silliness you did in the movie and your post-release behavior simply because of the existing political climate to date then I start to look at you differently as a company and a person. Then I have to decide to make some type of stand about the product you deliver. Hence, these fans' reactions to Solo. I watched all this play out watching various Youtube personalities angry with Star Wars but growing angrier each time one of the creators said something silly toward these upset fans. Watched the politically biased media try to paint these upset fans as alt-right, and all that silliness, calling them epithets and all that.

I may bring myself to watch TLJ one day so I can have my own criticism, but that's it for now. It's the reason we watch and/or read reviewers we trust.

 

To be fair to John Boyega, most of that is on the writers. He's outwardly expressed disappointment at the bait and switch and has said that he thinks Finn needs more skills to keep up with Rey.

 

Keeping up with Rey isn't the problem. It's the belief that the story is just as interesting if Finn isn't anything special. It's not, and it most likely will affect the box office. They did more damage to themselves than they ever could have done to Finn's character. Too much focus on individualism, and being that this is suppose to be a team effort there should be some focus on the group and how they work together. I

 

I'm about as leftist as they come, yet LFL's nonsense in dealing with fan backlash was something I took particular issue with. What a strange strategy. Demonize and insult your own fan base. It was especially interesting when the response to "this movie burns down every plot thread from TFA and doesn't even feel like they're apart of the same saga.", was "you clearly have a problem with women.". lol wut? Any fandom can forgive a terrible awful film. Instead of acknowledging a misstep, they through their fanbase under a bus. Thats not something a fandom will forgive right away.

 

A ton of us have articulated these issues and more (the ones most visceral for me where how Luke and Finn were handled in this movie, I hated it). I think what dooms most of the other characters (Rey, Phasma, Rose, DJ and Snoke) was Rian's fixation on making the story about Kylo and throwing realism and logical coherency to the wind when it contradicted with that goal. He sacrifices everything else in the story for Kylo and it is as puzzling as it is incredulity inducing. So in many ways you were wise not to come back to this forum, because early on most of the critiques were dismissed out of hand (even the legitimate ones) with the same tactics called out in your last bullet point. It wasn't bad enough that they made a bad Star Wars movie, it wasn't bad enough that they made a bad SW movie by subverting virtually everything worth going to see and leaving no reason to go see EPIX, it was the way they defended the movie that borders on unforgivable. The vast overwhelming majority of the fans came into that movie wanting to love it.

To engage in the reductionist arguments and obfuscation that they did following TLJ, there really is no excuse. There were and still are plenty of people who lean politically left that criticized this movie legitimately and harshly.

https://sweetnessandpopculture.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/star-wars-and-tokenism/
https://shadowandact.com/on-star-wars-and-the-ponzi-scheme-of-racial-inclusion
http://afropunk.com/2017/12/last-je...characters-reducing-comic-relief-canto-bight/

While it's certainly possible that they do exist, I don't know 1 black SW fan that liked TLJ or that were even indifferent to it. They hated it. And I would've thought after the complaints about TFA that they would have had at least one person in the room to provide some notes before they pushed forward with this particular story to avoid replicating the same problems. I think where the movie fails in this regard is that Rian wanted to highlight Kylo, KK (and various media outlets) wanted TLJ to be a vehicle about women empowerment:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/12/14/star-wars-last-jedi-feminist-women/943736001/

so when it was criticized (even when the criticism wasn't about the number of women) they defended the movie with talking points about fans having problems with women. Which was ironic because one of the issues many had with Finn's arc was that his nemesis is as meaningless and irrelevant as he was for 2 straight movies. Also ironic that the USA today article I linked spoke about tokenism with women in early SW movies, while ignoring the tokenism of the female characters of color happening now. They've announced that Billy Dee is coming back for EPIX, having seen TFA and TLJ my response is, "And? So what?"

There was some hope for the ST after TFA, now? I don't think it can be salvaged.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 18, 2018, Original Post Date: Aug 18, 2018 ---

I think they also shot it originally with Boyega being much more serious and brooding and it was decided that the chemistry didn't work. The crazy thing for me is that I didn't need or expect there to be a love interest between Finn and Rey. I thought it would be interesting to see a disillusioned former soldier having a crisis of faith (because of what he had seen and done) pairing up with a young naieve wanderer trying to find her place... felt like that contrast could be perfect for telling a story of how people so different could end up in the same place fighting for the same thing. Of course that opportunity is behind us now.

 

I was aware there were modern liberals who complained as well. Some of the personalities I get information from have them in their audience and they speak up. I've also watched Black people, Asian people, Hispanic people, Middle Eastern people, etc., and Women complain about the movie. The latter argued Rey is not a female character that is good for women. They believe she is KK projecting herself into the movies. However, it didn't stop with them labeling the fans as having problems with women. They labeled them as "40-year-old, fat lazy White men sitting in their mother's basements who had problems with women and Black, Asian, Hispanic, etc. characters."

Then a few on the Marvel side of the studio through their hat into it like James Gunn (we see what happened to him recently), and a few others.

Thus, I'm glad Gunn got the boot and there have been rumors floating around that since about late June that Robert Iger wants to get rid of KK. Most recently it's come out Disney has shut down Crybaby R.J.'s trilogy and he might be shown the door. I think the backlash of TLJ and the numbers from Solo have shown them these two have turned Star Wars from a fun franchise, which included politics, into a toxic franchise like so many on the left have gotten their hooks into and rather than be objective without thinking they are the saviors of the universe, they get out of control.

I just have no idea why R.J. would do that to Luke of all people. When I heard about it I wondered about the man's sanity. After over thirty years fans were waiting to see the return of Luke Skywalker then when he returns he appears as that, then kills over and dies. What?!

Then the Finn thing. I mean you're supposed to be for minorities and all that then you turn around and do that to him? Wooooow, and you know me. I don't like jumping to those types of conclusions right off the jump. They couldn't even give him a heroic moment at the end. Nope. I've seen a lot of people argue they would've rathered Rose's sister survive and be paired with Finn than Rose.

 

Sometimes I regret even getting invested in this franchise. As a post TFA fan I can honestly say that if I could see where this franchise and its characters would be at this time before TLJ, I would have dropped as fast as I picked it up. I can only imagine how those of you with decades of investment feel.
It is no secret that I got invested in this franchise primarily because of the introduction of Finn. That investment was initially tied to the possibility that he could follow his own force related arch and maybe even become a Jedi. I'm not going to get into specifics because I've said my piece about that many times before. So I'm just going to say this perspective was strengthened by stuff in the movie that I saw as possible hints as well as comments made by TFA's sound editor after TFA premier hinted at the possibility.
Funny thing, I have told people here and elsewhere about how Finn was going to get to be this great character force or no force. I thought "Maybe he's descended from some great warrior race like the Mandalorians or something, that would be pretty cool, I could live with that." Because, hey it would expand the story and maybe he could even get his own movie or two out of this in the future so cool.
Boy, did I set myself up for disappointment. Fast forward to 2017 and SWCO. Someone uploads a picture of a streetlight promotional poster which uses the TFA poster. Lo and behold what do we see? A certain character is completely cropped out of the poster. Guess which one it is. So, I think okay surely he'll get some promotion in the actual SWCO panel but nope. Lucasfilm releases a teaser trailer and poster for TLJ and guess who's face is completely absent from both? Bingo amigo. I see people calling this treatment out all over Twitter and other social media sites. What is Lucasfilm's response to this? A big, fat nothing.
We begin to approach the release date of TLJ, and suspiciously about 99 percent of a certain director's commentary is about the supposed villain of the story and the female lead with some about the last generations Jedi hero sprinkled in for good measure. What are the things this guy is saying? Stuff like the villain and female lead are "two halves of the protagonist" and talks about how interesting said villain is. Apparently, our male lead in TFA, was exactly what his role was in that movie, a bait and switch. Some fans call this stuff out and have to ask him pointed questions about why said character is not being included in the discussion. What is his response? He gives some bs answer about how Mr. Baitenswitch and female are the "two big characters in (his) movie"
We get to the release of the movie and I read the spoilers. I'm very disappointed. I decide to give the movie a shot just to see if the movie and Mr. Baitenswitch's role was as bad as people were saying. It was worse. From the very beginning, he's used for slapstick comedy. He's once again knocked down and "put in his place" by some random female. Oh, he's being sent on a mission to an exciting location. Okay maybe he'll lead the mission and be given the gravitas that he wasn't in TFA. Nope, random girl that tasered him is while talking down to him the whole time. To top it off a freaking droid gets to be more of a bada$$ than him.
Oh so Ol' Hermit Jed is going to get his just due, the director did talk about him right? Nope. He's going to get beaten and put in his place just like Mr. Baitenswitch during that time we'll see him drink walrus milk. But that's not all they have in common because they'll both attempt sacrifice themselves after being put in their place but only Ol' Hermit Jed will succeed because the female lead had that much of an effect on him.
Speaking of female lead, she continues to waltz through every "challenge" with nary a scratch on her. To top it off she'll discover that she's even a better shooter than Mr. Baitenswitch. Who by the way carried and was advertised with a blaster that he shot a total of zero times in the film. But female lead can't fully escape the director's pen either. She goes cavorting around with new male lead a day after he killed Han Solo and nearly killed Mr. Baitenswitch and gets no flack for it.

So at this point I'm at 1/10 when it comes to optimism whereas I was at least 7/10 after TFA. All of you long-time fans I feel little of your pain. @BrotherRoyVA You are not the only one eating your words. We all are. Crow and Spaghetti O's is being served and we all have a seat at the table.​

 

Yeah there were a few (I assume more Liberal oriented people) who really went after Rian on Twitter when it begin to emerge that Rian was making a concerted effort to have the audience empathize with who they regarded as a Fascist. I assumed it was premature (since the movie wasn't out) and that what we would actually see wouldn't be nearly as bad as what was being projected. And of course I was wrong. The criticism has come from every corner, and ever band of the political spectrum - I understand strategically why they tried to characterize it as just Alt Right fan boys (it's a much easier argument to knock down and a narrative that is much more ready for media dissemination) but it was still a bad strategy. They could've so easily quelled this, even without saying they were wrong, but they chose to double down, repeatedly until SOLO got punched in the face (a movie which I still saw and enjoyed). I expect EPIX to face a significant head-wind in no small part due to what TLJ was, and the campaign they launched to defend it.

Yeah I shed no tears for Gunn, but it's interesting that Rian Johnson deleted 20,000 tweets shortly after it happened. I'm pretty sure that wasn't just a precautionary move but a preemptive one.

You know what's also weird? That people signed off on the treatment of Luke. Rian went for subversion of every fan theory and every popular idea that the fans would like. But there was no reason for JJ and KK to go long with it. It's not like they didn't know what was happening to Luke in TLJ and for some reason they were ok with it. It's almost like none of them have a pulse on their customer base. I'm hard pressed to believe any SW fan could have read that treatment and not have had immediate serious heart burn (i.e. like MH did initially - he knew that this wasn't what fans had been waiting on).

Another puzzling thing (and further potential evidence that they just do not know their own customer) is making heavy allusions only to subvert them for something creatively worse. Finn being a Resistance foot soldier is NOT more exciting than a Force User. If you weren't going to go that direction - why tease it? Rey being a nobody is NOT more exciting than her being a Kenobi or Skywalker. If you weren't going to go that direction - why tease it?

And yeah, Finn got NO moments. He got to repeat his arc from TFA except this time instead of consulting his own moral compass he looks to Rose and DJ (who share none of his history) to act as his surrogate conscience and to compel him to choose one faction over the other for reasons that don't correlate to any of his life experience. I honestly didn't think a worse story could have been constructed for Finn if they tried.

 

TFA reeled me in as well. Hence me being on forums talking about it. TFA was surprising, because I didn't expect JJ to go as far as he did with the relationship between Finn and Rey. I had to wonder if we were ready for something like that. I believed he did a good job in selling them, but what has the focus been ever since TFA? Rey and her parentage, and turning the interrogation scene into something more than what it actually is. Rian is guilty of going out and making a film that ignores the male lead, but if we are to be honest. Almost all of the major youtube sites downplayed Finn going forward as well. The excuse was he doesn't have the force, so he should automatically be relegated to side story. A list of some things Finn should have been, but were ignored with no real reason.

He can't be force sensitive.
He can't be seen as a competent soldier.
He can't have Rey.
He can't take an interest in his origins.
He can't have reasons of his own to help the Resistance.
He can't be his own man.

Star Wars had an opportunity to push this franchise into the stratosphere. Now I see it as a franchise with no clue, and a dwindling audience that doesn't care. How the mighty can fall so fast.

 

I'll admit, initially, I hadn't planned on talking about it, but venting here is making me consider braving a TFA watch so I can have more of a direct criticism.

Yeah, it was a horrible strategy. They've taken a page out of Marvel, DC, various Video Game companies have been doing things. It all comes crashing down when they try to label an upset base of fans as crybaby right-wing boys. I'm amazed none of them who are handed off that playbook haven't paid attention to the dwindling revenue numbers after the strategy is put in place. It's like they have tunnel vision and since they are the "saviors of the universe" they absolutely refuse their antics are in the wrong.

There was still a campaign by his cast and a segment of fans to have him rehired anyway. I was baffled. Yet, if you go look up a Tedtalk on YouTube about pedophilia, you'll discover it's the next civil rights movement now that the other sexual orientation group has gotten their way. I'm not lying. So that, at least, gives some context as to why they all went to bat for Gunn despite the continued information that came out about him.

I've heard some conflicting things about J.J. I can't say I'm fully on the fence on either side. One side thinks he was in on the whole thing. Another side believes J.J. raised issue early on, talking like pre-TFA, and got silenced within Lucasfilm, he played along, directed TFA and that's when he sort of went dark according to some people. Of course, the other side fire's back that he did speak up on behalf of Crybaby R.J. and did play from the same playbook trying to paint the complaining fandom as sexist. I doubt I can find the pro-JJ's side's video I saw a while back to show here as this was some months ago. Dunno, maybe you guys heard about that too?

Yeah, Mark wasn't too happy about it. Initially said he had no desire to come back. There was obvious dissatisfaction in his behavior and speech until he was probably told to stop since he was under contract. Then he played the game for a while obviously and most recently he has started voicing his displeasure again, albeit not directly, but enough that fans know he was not happy with the direction they took with Luke.

I agree with allt his.

Here's to eating Crow and Spaghetti O's at that table complete with Egg on our faces. To think I was such a fervent defender to the point I got angry and had to walk away from the forums because of the Finn negativity. Looking back, I feel like such a foolish idiot for believing in these people and not giving those with criticisms more of a listening ear. I would've been warned then, would've been warned. Alas, we're all just human and make mistakes in judgment from time to time. It's all I can say really aside from eating my words.

In any case, I may sit down and force my way through TFA tonight now that I know what's coming. Just so the next time someone asks me what I don't like about it, I can list things on my own rather than second-hand information.

Yeah, Corn Cream, months ago I would've railed against this with some naive claims that there is hope in Finn's character. Apologies for my tunnel vision.

 

Well, I watched it. I see that the other threads for giving your thoughts on the movie have dissolved into debates between pro-TLJ and anti-TLJ groups. I'm not in the mood for a debate since I'm fresh off the movie and just want to list my thoughts so I'll do it here. This is more so for me to get them out there into the world rather than hold them in. A great deal of what I heard from fan rage was confirmed, but some of it is well, meh to me. Here goes:

Overall, I could see R.J. wanted to channel TESB, but ultimately failed. He wanted this to be the new trilogies' version of the OT's dark story. Any hope he presented he stole away until the absolute very end of the movie.

Overly driven by a very forced girl power obsession apart from Kylo, the final confrontation Luke, and the final few scenes Poe, most of the males in the movie were undercut to make the females look good. It was pretty obvious to me and I really don't care about female characters in a movie or story so long as your established male characters, or equivalent male characters aren't undercut to make the females look good. Why not just write equally good male and female characters? Nope, the writing forced the females to always be right while the males were mostly impulsive, angry, bitter, cowardly, foolish, idiotic, or just flat out wrong. There were some exceptions to this, but again it as the writing that forced these exceptions like Holdo's plan goins sideways and Rey finding out it was Snoke who brought her and Kylo's mind togehter rather than the Force and she had allowed herself to be led into a trap. Thus, making Luke right in telling her not to go to Kylo.

The opening scene bothered me. It set the precedent for the entire movie and the entire plot which was really all about the Resistance escaping Snoke's fleet with some character arcs (Rey, Kylo, and Luke) thrown in and the Canto Bight arc. Kylo and Luke's arch mostly pushed the trilogy plot along while everything else was filler. Rey's parentage, filler. Finn's actions, filler. Rose's introduction and subsequent actions, filler. Holdo's appearance only served to carry the immediate plot of TLJ which was underwhelming. Understandable, but underwhelming.

Holdo's insertion into the story struck me as wildly unnecessary. I found myself constantly asking what her big plan was and why it was so secret up until its reveal then I was disappointed. Sure, it sort of made sense. They flew that long with the First Order tailing them and ships getting picked off as they lost fuel just to make it to an old Resistance, oops, Rebel base so they could hold out until help arrives.

Back to the opening scene and Poe's initial "flyboy disobedience." Where'd this come from? In TFA, Poe wasn't necessarily that outlandishly disobedient with his superiors, outspoken, but not glaringly disobedient and foolish. This was only done so later when he confronted Holdo after Leia's injuries, the magically appearing Admiral could throw it in his face. Yes, I do mean magically appearing. Where'd Holdo come from? She wasn't on the bridge otherwise she'd been spaced or blown to smithereens with the rest of the leadership. No, she just magically appeared after all this in a dress while everyone else was in uniform. Nitpicky, I know, but this wasn't the first time R.J. had something magically appear on screen without any explanation for it. Every interaction she had with Poe made him look like an impulsive, idiot. All because she didn't share the plan. Then when she shared the plan the writing forced Poe to be even more impulsive and then wrong when Finn, Rose, and D.J. were captured and their plan didn't go through.

Finn was an afterthought in this movie. I don't think Rian likes him. It's apparent he was forced to do something with him since J.J. introduced the character in TFA. Rian was obsessed with pandering to Reylo, even if it turned out Snoke caused the Force Talks they had, it was still pandering to Reylo, especially at the end. Yes, Rey chose to go back to the Resistance and tried to Force Pull Luke's Skywalker when Kylo reached out his hand to her in an offer for her to join. The act is still there and it was still pandering with all the Force talk and playing up sympathy for Kylo. The whole "you're nothing in this story" line was jarring to me. I was like "whoa" that was a direct assault on the fans that were interested in Rey's parentage. What I know about R.J. now, I really don't think this is reading into it. It seems like his personality to throw that in there as sarcasm as a slap in the face of people who wanted Rey's lineage or I should say hoped it would be important.

Back to Finn. He was undercut. At first, I thought, "This Canto Bight mission has importance so they can save the dwindling Resistance Fleet." Nope, that was subverted fast once they got there, got arrested, met D.J. then Holdo revealed her plan then the group got caught then Leia woke up and stunned Poe. By then I felt the whole storyline became pointless to some degree. It could've been narrowed down to a backstory comic book between Episodes 7 & 8 with the real Episode 8 could've been something else. Apart from the whole Kylo and Luke backstory, this felt like filler, a massive dose of filler.

Dang, I keep forgetting to focus on Finn. Guess R.J.'s Inability to Focus on his character is contagious. What can I say, it's really not much to say about him and that's the general problem. He woke up, "Where's Rey?" Okay, fine. He finds out the predicament they are in and once he assesses the situation he gets hold of the beacon with the intention to get somewhere safe for Rey to get back to. Okay, fine, I'll let all this cowardice slide. Then enters Rose. Why? Why did we need this character to tell him to fight for what is right? Why? I really think it would've been more interesting had Finn left the ship and did, I dunno, something. Something that showed these people were creative. At this point, I would've settled for anything other than what happened.

He gets stunned by Rose. Dragged, then they have a moment finishing each others' sentences about the Hyperspace/Lightspeed Tracking Device on Snoke's ship. They take this information to Poe. Hold up, Hold up. Problem. I have a problem here. Going back to the whole reason Rose is in this story. She knows about the tracking device, but once she brings it up suddenly Finn magically remembers that he knows about the tracking device? What? Huh? If he already knew why didn't he come up with the plan way back when he was with Leia, Poe, and company talking about the First Order tracking them through Lightspeed/Hyperspace? You know, the moment Snoke's ship dropped out of Lightspeed/Hyperspace and Leia said, "They're tracking us through Hyperspace/Lightspeed?" Why couldn't Finn and, I dunno Poe, go to Canto Bight to find this master coder? Why was Rose even needed? That's all she really brought to the group was that one moment of "this is why they can track us through Lightspeed." Nah, instead, they had Finn say, "That's impossible" and then later on magically remember he knew how they did it when Rose magically figured it out? Huh? Way to miss the opportunity to give his character a reason for being there without the assistance of a female moral compass.

Then we get to Canto Bight. So much of that was pointless and only served to insert into Star Wars arguments about classism, arms dealing, and make the statement that somehow all rich people are evil. I admit I was appreciative to see D.J. point out to Finn that both the First Order and Resistance purchased arms from the rich people of Canto Bight.

Then there's Rey. She ran around like a lost little puppy. They undercut her character by stealing her parentage and making her a nobody. Yes, yes, she's the future of the Jedi and all that. The future of the Jedi is not dependent on the Skywalkers. I'm indifferent to whether to focus on Skywalkers or not, but I'm curious as to why they thought bait-and-switch with Finn was such a great idea if this was the route they wanted to go? They could've drawn up a much better movie with two young Force users joining Luke and Leia to face off against Snoke, Ren and the Knights of Ren. Nope.

I had heard some complaints against TFA to the degree that the sequel trilogy was borrowing way too much from the original trilogy. I think that's true for TLJ as it followed up TFA. Yes, there's some new stuff, but the overall feel that the good guys are always the ragtag bunch of rebel fighters fighting against a more organized evil force is there. I say that because then you get that theme of the one good guy Force users versus the bad guy Force user or users. Why?

Dang, again, I got distracted from Finn. Or did I finish with Finn? Was I on Rey? Where did I leave off? I think Rey. Oh yeah, she was undercut. In a way, she was pretty flat, not perfect enough I'd call her a Mary Sue, but there were elements there. She's supposed to be Kylo's light side equal and all that, but aside from her personal moral compass, she's more grey. She jumped into that dark side hole without a second thought and like Luke said to her she didn't fight it the first time it called to her. There was an obvious hint of interest in her eyes when Kylo asked her to join him (pandering to Reylo) and I think she only turned him down because of her own moral compass and disgust that Kyloy killed Han rather than an understanding of the gravity of the Light vs the Dark. While many of us who are fans of Finn can rightfully argue that he has not developed any since TFA, neither did Rey in my opinion. Both are pretty much the same characters and I don't think the fact there was no time skip is a good excuse. A good storyteller would have inserted character development here.

The only character throughout the whole show that had developed was Luke, hate it or agree with it, and maybe Kylo. Just a little bit tho. Still, Luke went from bitter, angry, afraid, and ashamed old man to Force projecting himself through space and time to give the Resistance a chance to flee. He went from refusing to confront Ben, his past, and the consequences to confronting it. Hey, you may not like it, but it was development. Only character to have it.

With Luke, I don't know what R.J. was thinking. Sure 30 years have passed, but somehow that turned Luke into a person who contemplates preemptively killing his nephew. Sure, we can argue that's Ben's version of the story, but Luke didn't challenge the fact he did go into the hut to find out how far Ben had fallen to the Dark side and he did fire up his lightsaber with the intent to strike him down only to reconsider it while in the moment but it was too late, Ben had woken up and saw his uncle standing over him with that hot green blade. So this set Ben on his path, no it seems to have actually made him determined to side with the Dark side whether he has convictions or not.

I mean Luke didn't even try to navigate his nephew, his only nephew in the right direction or at the very least a grey area. He just gave up and went straight for the weapon? We're supopsed to believe Ben/Kylo is worse than Vader who hunted down Jedi, the very Jedi he had fought side by side with, etc.? Ben/Kylo is that evil that Luke just felt he had to kill his own flesh and blood in that moment? Seriously?

Then there was Luke's logic about the Jedi. It was ridiculous. I was appalled we were supposed to believe that Luke Skywalker would spout nonsense out of his mouth like that. Yeah, I get he was supposed to have been there contemplating and whatnot coming to those conclusions, but they were silly. Everything the Jedi did turned out evil? Thousands and thousands of years of Jedi history and he focuses on the last few decades in which the Jedi were tricked by two of their own (Dooku and Sidious) and the result was the Empire which lasted a few decades.

The whole scene with him tossing his lightsaber was silly. R.J. took a scene that should be serious and turned it into a joke. Not only that, Luke tossed it over a mountain. You don't see Rey go get it, ever, but it magically reappears in her bag when she wants to maneuver from training with her staff to the Lightsaber.

Why did Yoda appear only to burn down the tree and tell Luke stuff Rey had already said? For that matter, why did Yoda wait until this point to appear? Why didn't he appear way earlier?

Why couldn't Luke get in whatever ship he used to fly there and physically go help the Resistance? Not only that, we didn't even get a final showdown between him and Snoke, let alone him and Kylo. Mostly because Snoke was prematurely killed by Kylo. This is where I say Kylo had some minor development. He went against Snoke and chose to kill him. That and his temper tantrums were set to minimum along with some reveal of his backstory. Oh, and he chose not to kill Leia indicating there may be a smidgen of good left in him, but I contend that Kylo is making a conscious choice to stick with the Dark side all because of what Luke did in the past. Which creates forced sympathy for him born out of a bad characterization of Luke Skywalker.

What happened to the Knights of Ren?

I seriously laughed out loud when Rose slammed into Finn then proceeded to tell him the way they would win is not by killing the things they hate but saving the things they love. The confused look on Finn's face was priceless. The naivety of the statement in the midst of a battle in which all of her allies were about to die was beyond silly. The kiss was forced cause they had very little chemistry. Nowhere near the chemistry Boyega and Ridley had in TFA. Rose and Finn just seemed to be too people who happened to meet and were sent on a mission together. I can't even say if I see a love triangle coming up, but I can't call where that one is going. It's not like Finn is a dashing hero at this point. She was fangirling more than anything, Rose that is.

Think I'm done. Sorry for the super long post and sorry because I'm sure you've all seen these complaints before. I'm what, almost a year behind.

Mod Edit: See Rule 12.

 

2 things you got wrong.

When Holdo is introduced. It's said she's the Admiral that came over from one of the other 2 ships. Since she wasn't on the main ship bridge that got attacked, that's why she is the next surviving highest rank of the whole Resistance.

We did see Rey pick up the tossed lightsaber. In fact, it's the scene that first shows the Porgs. You may have blinked and missed it or something.


It was hinted that Luke already tore pieces of his X-wing off for scrap. And left the main part in the water. You see that Luke's hut door is actually a piece of the x-wing. And other pieces in the hut.

Thus, unless Luke took a few days to repair the whole thing and conjure up some new parts, he wasn't going to get back in that thing.

 

They said a ship's name, but I didn't get from that statement it was one of the ships near them, but that's okay, it was a nitpick.

I was preparing dinner while watching it. I went back and ok, I missed the Porg scene. Good catch. I rewinded a few times last night and must've missed that scene or maybe my late night eyes didn't pick up on a few things. In that scene is also his X-Wing fighter submerged in water.

So those provide answers for three inconsistencies I thought I saw.