Should Finn have died or not????

It's not about if he should have died, Finn's act was to show his growth. He went from petrified traitor who wanted to go live in the far reaches to get away from the FO to being willing to fly into the barrel of a giant cannon for the Rebellion.

 

Notice that he was going to sacrifice himself even after he saw the Falcon (and assmed Rey was on it).

A lot of characters have been whittled done for Episode IX:

No more Snoke, Phasma, Ackbar, Holdo. DJ's gone. We know Leia will be gone. And Luke will be in less scenes as a force ghost.


That leaves Kylo, Hux, Finn, Rey, Poe, Rose with Threepio, Connix, Artoo, BB-8, Maz and Chewie as support.


Looking at that. He'll at best be the 3rd most important character or tied for 3rd with Poe.

 

Luke : hold my beer

 

And she did exactly that. With her manoeuvre she saved Leia and the Resistance.

 

Rey would've been devastated if he died.

 

Since only 5 % of the resistance is still alive.

He's essential by default.

 

Rian would have cut the scene and replaced with a shirt less man.

 

NO.

Let me tell you why

Of course it would have been a powerful scene, but if it happened, then... you don't have Luke's final stand.
He still pursues his arc.
And elements from Episode 8 are just playing with his destiny (DJ's character sole purpose IMHO was to push Finn a step further: Don't join!).

I think this will play a major part in Episode 9 since it will be the Revival of the Rebellion. Worlds will join either the First Order (And I predict one of the first thing we will learn in Episode 9's crawl is that Kylo Ren has declared himself EMPEROR, hence, a NEW EMPIRE) or the Rebellion, led by our heroes.

Finn may still be ambivalent, don't join... or join.
I am sure his arc will end with something as powerful as what could have happened if he sacrificed himself on Crait.
He will do it saving Rey at some point... or Rose.
Or both.

 

That's irrelevant : a good writer/author can do anything with even the talentless character. Frodo Baggins is one of the greatest heoes of all times. The possiblities are endless as long as you have a creative mind ready to explore them.

Problem : JJ let Finn down halfway through TFA while RJ didn't care at all. There is no future for the character simply because the authors gave up on him a long time ago. THAT is Finn biggest handicap.

 

One big thing in this film that Finn has against him was no link to an OT.

Kylo is Han and Leia's child and Luke's ex-apprentice.

Last film, Han saw Rey as a surrogate child, offered her a seat on the Falcon and inherited his ship.
This film, she's Luke's new apprentice and the new Last Jedi.

Poe is Leia's new successor as leader of the resistance.


Finn, unfortunately, has no link to the OT.

 

Ok if he has to be an ace pilot or force sensitive to be relevant and make a big impact in the story, then what is so special about Lando, Chewbacca, Hux, tarkin, jyn, cassian or even Leia? (Yes she was FS but she was no Jedi). Your argument makes no sense.

Finn is a warrior and a soldier with an unflinching moral code. What more do you need from a character? Yes, TLJ wasn't his film but it didn't have to be, his story isn't complete yet. Luke was only in TFA for 15 seconds, does that mean his character is any less important?

There is still one more film to go. Finn will have a big role to play in IX, If he didn't then why not kill him at the end of TFA? or let his kamikaze run in TLJ be a success? Why give him a love interest?

His story isn't done yet, not by a long shot.

 

I just find something really sad.

When you can take an emotional moment in a movie and simply write it out because you know you are going to write in something else convenient to fix it.

Imagine Return of the Jedi where the entire fleet is waiting for Han to get the shield down so they can blow up the deathstar. Everything is riding on key points to succeed for the next action. Except this time for some reason Han inexplicably fails, but at the last second some random commander trips into a control panel shutting down the shield anyway...bombs away and death star gone.

Does that ending have the same payoff? It has the same result right, so same payoff??? Heck no. Not only did this happen in Finns story arc once, but it happened TWICE....in 20 minutes!

First by going off on a mission to find the only code-breaker in the galaxy who can save them all. Except oops, just as they are moving in they are caught!!! But thats ok because random thief in the basement also happens to be the only person in the galaxy who can save them.

OK GREAT! Here we are flying back, we have a new plan and we can save the day tralalala. Codebreaker2 does what he says he can do and we are back on track. OH NOES, betrayal. Instead now 20 ships are blown up and hundreds of resistance die and Finns entire mission is now %100 completely pointless and the payoff is the death of his peers.

Oh man, that's ok because after causing the death of hundreds of his comrades he is now able to escape.....due to the heroic death of a legendary general who sacrificed herself to make right what he did wrong. Before he leaves he must FIGHT! Finn fights Phasma and looses yet again but what luck he falls on a platform and sucker punches her for the win! (technically that would be three, but its a very common movie thing so we'll let it slide)

Now we get to number two. Finn and Rose outrun the First Order to make it back just in time to crash land through a door that absolutely should have been closed already. That's ok though because now he can fly out with Finn (and Rose??? apparently they are out of pilots) on a mission to blow up the only canon the first order has to break through this huge door and kill everyone immediately. So here we go, we are flying and oh crap people are dying on this suicide mission, that's not right!! Everyone turn around now...nope Finn is finally going to be the hero to live up to his name and he will die saving, or at the very very least buying a lot more time for his few remaining friends a chance to find their escape or wait for help.

Nope, somehow Rose who was already turned around and well behind Finn manages to not only catch up to him as he goes full speed, but cut across and slam into him, survive the crash and now somehow the giant Walkers looking right at them (watch the movie, they are) do not fire and kill them even though Kylo just made the order to do just that. But the evil canon blows a hole into the cave door. What's the payoff? Rose just stopped Finn because it's better to fight for who you love than die blah blah. Except at this point EVERYONE IS DEAD NOW because of them! No help answered, the cave door was blown apart and the First Order would slaughter them. Except convenient writing knows Luke is going to do something thats never been done before to save them all.


Yes Finn should have died, heroically and on his own. The exact opposite of what he's been.

 

Absolutely yes. He is nothing more than an annoying character.
In both TFA and TLJ he is the ultimate coward and wants to run away from everything, but on the other hand he charges on Kylo Ren with lightsaber and on Crait he wants to attack the walkers on foot when Luke went out to confront Kylo.
If they killed him on Crait I would have a lot more sympathy and respect for that character.

 

Finn’s arc really bombed for me. If anything, RJ caused his character to regress from where he was in TFA.

We already saw the cowardly lion find his resolve in TFA. He returned to help Rey, he returned to the heart of the very machine he was running from in order to find and rescue her. When she was knocked out by a scary as hell dude with magic powers, he picked up that light sabre and resolved himself to do anything he could to keep her safe. We already saw his heroic sacrifice right there, it cost him his spine. That already told us what he was fighting for, he found companions in Rey and Poe, he understands the dangers of the FO - he is fighting for his friends. Now, it’s good to see him get a better understanding of the galaxy at large and lose some of his naievity, but this whole arc was a massive mishandling of his character overall.

 

Why didn't they just fly a drone into that big cannon?

 

Heck no. Why are people even arguing this?

Whatever hang you have about Finn in TLJ with RJ writing,most people loved JJ writing him in TFA, and you want him to die before your preferred writer gives him an awesome role and arc in IX.

Finn is one of my favourite characters! I want him to have a developed romance with Rose, a cool friendship with Rey and Poe, and to kick FO butt.

He was too awesome to die a pointless death (the point of his stopped sacrifice, that people seem to miss) and must return!

And he still needs to kick Kylo's ass for the forest scene in TFA! Forest revenge people!

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 23, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 23, 2017 ---

FO destroyed all their stuff. They literally had some old mining speeders and that was it.

 

Finn is the best character left in SW.

Shame he was wasted in SW 8

 

I like this idea but, how do we know this though? How do we know if, at that instant, Finn was doing it out of malice or anger but we know that Holdo's sacrifice was purely out of selflessness? How do we know if his use of his vehicle to damage the cannon was one in a million chance but Holdo's use of the ship as a light speed kamikaze was guaranteed to work? Out of everyone in the rebellion wasn't he the only one that knew what it was and its destructive capacity?

Rose's sister died in self-sacrifice a person that she knew and loved. Finn who she's known for only a couple of days knew he was doing it out of wrong intentions? Her flinging her vehicle into his had a one in a million chance of survival as well and could have killed both of them.

 

Will it make Rey and Kylo more interesting? They aren't enough to hold the attention of the audience.