So, are going to pretend that Finn wasn't truly meant to be force sensitive?

[godisawesome]

How awesome it would have been for him to lead a stormtrooper rebellion. How thematic.

Shame also about the Finn/Poe romance.

Ah well...

I think Finn was probably envisioned to be a positive romantic lead with *someone* in both TFA and TLJ, and then had that lost when TROS was made. I tend to think that Abrams was envisioning him as Rey’s love interest in a sweet kind of romance rather than a tension filled one, while Johnson was clearly trying to make a Rose his love interest (I think largely to kill of any chance at Rey and Finn as a romantic option. Isaac had fun teasing the idea of Finn and Poe, but I think neither Johnson nor Abrams were interested in that route, considering Rose and Zorri both exist, while the TFA elements between them seem to have been the result of improv and chemistry more than anything else.

Of course, basically *any* other romance would have been better for the Sequel Trilogy than the Reylo we wound up getting, and I’d still rank FinnPoe ahead of FinnRose in terms of possibilities strictly on the basis that Johnson made the latter the most tepid thing I’ve ever seen, somehow. I was personally more interested in Finn and Rey though... and that probably is a sign of my pro-Finn bias, since being the love interest for the main Force character feels to me like the kind of thing that couldn’t have been swept under the rug by Kylo-obsessed creatives.

People wonder if Jannah was meant to be another romance interest fro Finn, but I don’t think that’s in the final cut, at least. She may have been conceived for the role, and she definitely feels like an Abrams approved counterpart to Rose, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Abrams moved away from that possibility after realizing that it was getting a bit ridiculous.

As to the Stormtrooper rebellion idea, I had high hopes something like that would happen, and something vaguely like it is in the a Duel of the Fates script, but I don’t think LFL ever really considered the idea seriously themselves. I mean...

There's an alternate Finn/Phasma confrontation where he tells some other Stormtroopers that she was the one who brought down Starkiller's shields, and her troopers start to waiver; she kills all of them to cover it up again (also lines up with the Phasma comic in which she also went to extraordinary lengths to cover up her role in that) before Finn kills her.

That would've actually fit in nicely with the Stormtrooper revolt concept.

...This scene was the only part of TLJ’s production that ever seemed even vaguely aware of the drama posed by the Stormtroopers... and “vaguely” is the right word for it, I think, since the delete scene is really more interested in Phasma betraying the First Order, rather than in Finn pointing out any of the horror of the Stormtrooper program. And since Johnson’s other deleted scene idea dealing with Stormtroopers was a comedy moment where Tom Hardy slaps John Boyega's ass, and since he felt that Rose should lecture Finn (the escaped child slave soldier) on the evils of slavery, it feels like he never really cottoned onto the actual nature of Finn’s background. He was probably too busy feeling bad for the school shooter with the nice hair he gave a shirtless scene to.

Trevorrow’s script includes “Brutetroopers” who help give Finn leverage to start *some* kind of rebellion involving the Stormtroopers, but even it seems to be shying away from just making him the focal point and fuse for that story... and then Jannah and her barely seen crew are all that remains in TROS’s script.

I’ll confess I sometimes think there may have been a small amount of malice towards Finn on LFL’s part, not out of anything spiteful, but maybe out of a believe that Finn was some weird, superfluous creation by Abrams distracting from who they thought the male lead should be - Kylo. Kennedy pushes for Driver early on, and both Kylo and Finn emerged from the original male lead, with Kylo keeping that character heritage as a Solo. Abrams and Kasdan supposedly knocked out TFA’s script after months of issues when they kicked out everyone else and just worked it out themselves. I think it’s possible that LFL handed over a script to Abrams and Kasdan while already planning for Driver as a Solo kid male lead, then simply refused to change their viewpoint when Abrams made a movie with a different (more sympathetic and compelling) male lead.

[Jackalope89]

I'll admit, I was curious to see if Star Wars had the balls to go in the direction of having Fin and Rey get together over the course of the trilogy. Of course, that didn't last beyond The Force Awakens. You could see little hints of it in TFA, that they might go that way, but then it was ditched altogether in the next two films. For Finn and Rose, and "Reylo" (worse thing since Twilight).

[WebLurker]

I think Finn was probably envisioned to be a positive romantic lead with *someone* in both TFA and TLJ, and then had that lost when TROS was made. I tend to think that Abrams was envisioning him as Rey’s love interest in a sweet kind of romance rather than a tension filled one, while Johnson was clearly trying to make a Rose his love interest (I think largely to kill of any chance at Rey and Finn as a romantic option. Isaac had fun teasing the idea of Finn and Poe, but I think neither Johnson nor Abrams were interested in that route, considering Rose and Zorri both exist, while the TFA elements between them seem to have been the result of improv and chemistry more than anything else.

Maybe. I do know that the TFA novelizations strongly imply that Rey and Finn where going to be a couple. While books are written while the movie is in progress and later movies can and have done their own thing, I don't see TFA novelization's material as binding, but I've been extremely curious why the Powers That Be signed off on it, given that all the other movies clearly didn't want to go that way (although I think they could've looped back to it after TLJ had they wanted to).

Of course, basically *any* other romance would have been better for the Sequel Trilogy than the Reylo we wound up getting, and I’d still rank FinnPoe ahead of FinnRose in terms of possibilities strictly on the basis that Johnson made the latter the most tepid thing I’ve ever seen, somehow. I was personally more interested in Finn and Rey though... and that probably is a sign of my pro-Finn bias, since being the love interest for the main Force character feels to me like the kind of thing that couldn’t have been swept under the rug by Kylo-obsessed creatives.

IMHO, I would've preferred Rey and Finn getting together too, over other combinations (although I would've been okay with Finn and Rose). IMHO, the idea of Finn and Poe being a gay couple was just a "wild" fan theory that took on a life of its own despite the fact that there was never any basis for it in the first place. Was never a fan of the Reylo theory and didn't like how TROS handled it.

People wonder if Jannah was meant to be another romance interest fro Finn, but I don’t think that’s in the final cut, at least. She may have been conceived for the role, and she definitely feels like an Abrams approved counterpart to Rose, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Abrams moved away from that possibility after realizing that it was getting a bit ridiculous.

Given how crammed in she was with so little payoff, I don't really understand why she was put in the movie in the f

As to the Stormtrooper rebellion idea, I had high hopes something like that would happen, and something vaguely like it is in the a Duel of the Fates script, but I don’t think LFL ever really considered the idea seriously themselves. I mean...


...This scene was the only part of TLJ’s production that ever seemed even vaguely aware of the drama posed by the Stormtroopers... and “vaguely” is the right word for it, I think, since the delete scene is really more interested in Phasma betraying the First Order, rather than in Finn pointing out any of the horror of the Stormtrooper program. And since Johnson’s other deleted scene idea dealing with Stormtroopers was a comedy moment where Tom Hardy slaps John Boyega's ass, and since he felt that Rose should lecture Finn (the escaped child slave soldier) on the evils of slavery, it feels like he never really cottoned onto the actual nature of Finn’s background. He was probably too busy feeling bad for the school shooter with the nice hair he gave a shirtless scene to.

Trevorrow’s script includes “Brutetroopers” who help give Finn leverage to start *some* kind of rebellion involving the Stormtroopers, but even it seems to be shying away from just making him the focal point and fuse for that story... and then Jannah and her barely seen crew are all that remains in TROS’s script.

I’ll confess I sometimes think there may have been a small amount of malice towards Finn on LFL’s part, not out of anything spiteful, but maybe out of a believe that Finn was some weird, superfluous creation by Abrams distracting from who they thought the male lead should be - Kylo. Kennedy pushes for Driver early on, and both Kylo and Finn emerged from the original male lead, with Kylo keeping that character heritage as a Solo. Abrams and Kasdan supposedly knocked out TFA’s script after months of issues when they kicked out everyone else and just worked it out themselves. I think it’s possible that LFL handed over a script to Abrams and Kasdan while already planning for Driver as a Solo kid male lead, then simply refused to change their viewpoint when Abrams made a movie with a different (more sympathetic and compelling) male lead.

Maybe?

[godisawesome]

Let me make this very clear; o really don’t think there was any spite or anger or any kind of negative emotional reaction towards Finn as a character or Boyega as an actor. But I do think that LFL had extreme apathy towards the character, the kind where they might feel he was a kind of unwanted burden on them, and where they may have at some point decided he had to be undercut a bit in order to make sure the spotlight settled on Kylo among the male characters.

I think regardless, they’re lack of interest remains astoundingly prominent, all things considered. When Hux was given greater dramatic focus and sympathetic angst in his TROS tie-in that was set around TFA and featured his father Brendol as his abusive father, and yet Finn’s focused on the idea of him being a janitor dealing with funky creatures, instead of the innate horror that is explicitly drawn with the stormtroopers not receiving names and being stolen from birth... you’ve got a disconnect in the offices about what Finn is as a character.

[WebLurker]

Let me make this very clear; o really don’t think there was any spite or anger or any kind of negative emotional reaction towards Finn as a character or Boyega as an actor. But I do think that LFL had extreme apathy towards the character, the kind where they might feel he was a kind of unwanted burden on them, and where they may have at some point decided he had to be undercut a bit in order to make sure the spotlight settled on Kylo among the male characters.

I think regardless, they’re lack of interest remains astoundingly prominent, all things considered. When Hux was given greater dramatic focus and sympathetic angst in his TROS tie-in that was set around TFA and featured his father Brendol as his abusive father, and yet Finn’s focused on the idea of him being a janitor dealing with funky creatures, instead of the innate horror that is explicitly drawn with the stormtroopers not receiving names and being stolen from birth... you’ve got a disconnect in the offices about what Finn is as a character.

Noticed that a lot of the goofier stuff with Finn came after TFA was released, where we saw that Boyega did comedy pretty well. I mean, the Before the Awakening novella had a pretty serious story with him.

[godisawesome]

Noticed that a lot of the goofier stuff with Finn came after TFA was released, where we saw that Boyega did comedy pretty well. I mean, the Before the Awakening novella had a pretty serious story with him.

That definitely happened.

But it also required LFL ignoring the fact that John Boyega also did drama pretty damn well, and that his dramatic storyline was *very* strong in the movie... arguably stronger than the other storylines.

Like, comparing him to Adam Driver as Kylo Ren in TFA, the Finn role had a greater range of emotions, characterization, and pretty much equal inner turmoil, and both actors got to showcase their ability to act while covered head-to-toe in costume... but Boyega got to do it while almost totally silent as well, and still knocked it out of the park. Driver and Boyega are both fantastic actors, and I wouldn’t put one ahead of the other save for experience and exposure right now (where Driver has an advantage). But comparing the roles of Finn and Kylo, I think it have to be argued that Finn in *just* TFA was a more demanding and well developed role, even compared to Kylo/Ben across all three films. Driver does a lot with a little across all three, but Boyega does just as much with more in TFA.

And the janitor story with the TROS tie-ins is the only one that makes me side eye LFL a bit. By then, they know that Abrams and Terrio are gearing up to give Finn an action hero role in the finale, and Trevorrow had submitted a script that pointed out the dramatic premises of his backstory... and they still decide to make his comic story be a primarily comedic story of him as a janitor.

And I’ll confess there’s a part of me that thinks that a lot of the praises for Ben Solo/excuses given for his behavior as a character often sound like explicit descriptions of Finn’s *actual story*, but that’s inconvenient when LFL and some fans clearly prefer Ben.

I mean, Ben “feels” abandoned, “Ben” was *maybe* the victim of abusive tactics by Snoke/Palpatine before The Rise Of Kylo Ren (AKA, Morose, Moody Dudes Should Totally Be Self Absorbed, Man), and Ben was clearly too weak to resist *some* brainwashing.

Meanwhile, Finn was *actually* kidnapped from his family at a young age and *actually* stripped of his identity, was *actually* the victim of such dehumanization abusive tactics to try and make him a slave soldier, and was subjected to more *overt and persistent brainwashing* attempts (even with a fallback “division” re-conditioning thing)... but was strong enough to break free from it.

Finn and Ben/Kylo make awful “male lead rivals” as presented by LFL, even with supplementary material (since Rise of Kylo Ren hasn’t really improved the opinion of anyone who isn’t already a fan of the character, while more of Kylo’s stories have painted him as even more evil). Kylo is given favoritism and exceptionalism that Finn and Rey end up becoming victims of as a literary characters, only for Finn’s first movie to put the lie to so many of Kylo’s supposedly appealing and sympathetic elements.

[WebLurker]

That definitely happened.

But it also required LFL ignoring the fact that John Boyega also did drama pretty damn well, and that his dramatic storyline was *very* strong in the movie... arguably stronger than the other storylines.

Fair enough.

Like, comparing him to Adam Driver as Kylo Ren in TFA, the Finn role had a greater range of emotions, characterization, and pretty much equal inner turmoil, and both actors got to showcase their ability to act while covered head-to-toe in costume... but Boyega got to do it while almost totally silent as well, and still knocked it out of the park. Driver and Boyega are both fantastic actors, and I wouldn’t put one ahead of the other save for experience and exposure right now (where Driver has an advantage). But comparing the roles of Finn and Kylo, I think it have to be argued that Finn in *just* TFA was a more demanding and well developed role, even compared to Kylo/Ben across all three films. Driver does a lot with a little across all three, but Boyega does just as much with more in TFA.

Well, Finn was a lead character in TFA, Kylo was not. The line got kinda blurred, esp. in TROS (I know some people will point to TLJ, but I think unpacking Kylo's backstory was the right call and Finn did have a story arc in that one. TROS was where he got his share of screen time, but not that much to do narratively speaking.)

And the janitor story with the TROS tie-ins is the only one that makes me side eye LFL a bit. By then, they know that Abrams and Terrio are gearing up to give Finn an action hero role in the finale, and Trevorrow had submitted a script that pointed out the dramatic premises of his backstory... and they still decide to make his comic story be a primarily comedic story of him as a janitor.

Which one?

And I’ll confess there’s a part of me that thinks that a lot of the praises for Ben Solo/excuses given for his behavior as a character often sound like explicit descriptions of Finn’s *actual story*, but that’s inconvenient when LFL and some fans clearly prefer Ben.

I mean, Ben “feels” abandoned, “Ben” was *maybe* the victim of abusive tactics by Snoke/Palpatine before The Rise Of Kylo Ren (AKA, Morose, Moody Dudes Should Totally Be Self Absorbed, Man), and Ben was clearly too weak to resist *some* brainwashing.

Meanwhile, Finn was *actually* kidnapped from his family at a young age and *actually* stripped of his identity, was *actually* the victim of such dehumanization abusive tactics to try and make him a slave soldier, and was subjected to more *overt and persistent brainwashing* attempts (even with a fallback “division” re-conditioning thing)... but was strong enough to break free from it.

To be fair, I think a good Kylo Ren redemption story could've been written. The problem is that TFA and TLJ made Kylo irredeemable and TROS didn't have enough time to undo that, forcing them to tell us that Kylo was redeemed and counting on Adam Driver to sell it, despite the fact that nothing until the battle where he turns supports the twist. I'd love to know the real thought process behind all this, since I can't comprehend the incoherence behind the storytelling in this case, esp. since Abrams was the one who also made the movie that was the most blunt that Kylo was not going to be redeemed.

Finn and Ben/Kylo make awful “male lead rivals” as presented by LFL, even with supplementary material (since Rise of Kylo Ren hasn’t really improved the opinion of anyone who isn’t already a fan of the character, while more of Kylo’s stories have painted him as even more evil). Kylo is given favoritism and exceptionalism that Finn and Rey end up becoming victims of as a literary characters, only for Finn’s first movie to put the lie to so many of Kylo’s supposedly appealing and sympathetic elements.

I think Finn pulls ahead since, at the very least, his story makes sense from beginning to end, it just "ends" a little too early, leaving him just doing what he does. Kylo's redemption is comes out of left field and the revisionism of the tie-ins trying to whitewash him from a factual monster to some misguided good person only underscores how much it does not work.

[godisawesome]

Fair enough.



Well, Finn was a lead character in TFA, Kylo was not. The line got kinda blurred, esp. in TROS (I know some people will point to TLJ, but I think unpacking Kylo's backstory was the right call and Finn did have a story arc in that one. TROS was where he got his share of screen time, but not that much to do narratively speaking.)



Which one?



To be fair, I think a good Kylo Ren redemption story could've been written. The problem is that TFA and TLJ made Kylo irredeemable and TROS didn't have enough time to undo that, forcing them to tell us that Kylo was redeemed and counting on Adam Driver to sell it, despite the fact that nothing until the battle where he turns supports the twist. I'd love to know the real thought process behind all this, since I can't comprehend the incoherence behind the storytelling in this case, esp. since Abrams was the one who also made the movie that was the most blunt that Kylo was not going to be redeemed.



I think Finn pulls ahead since, at the very least, his story makes sense from beginning to end, it just "ends" a little too early, leaving him just doing what he does. Kylo's redemption is comes out of left field and the revisionism of the tie-ins trying to whitewash him from a factual monster to some misguided good person only underscores how much it does not work.

The comic was the Age of Resistance spinoff.

One of the reasons I’d argue Finn *was* supplanted narratively in TLJ is because not only does his story not connect to Rey’s (and this the Luke and Kylo plot as well) until the very end (with them still exchanging no dialogue *at all*), and not only is Finn’s story effectively a spin-off of the Space Chase plot... but he *also* ends ups with the most juvenile plot in terms of tone, characterization, and effort, with all the dramatic weight usually firmly removed and placed elsewhere in the film.

I *do* think that Kylo’s backstory should have been unpacked... but considering how little of it was, how twisted and contradictory it wound up being, and yet how much importance Johnson had Luke *and* Rey place on it (especially Rey, as she has no real reason to give a damn about Kylo/Ben, and far more reasons to think the “dead students” are the important details of the flashback even if the film doesn’t care about it), I think it’s clear Johnson (and LFL) expected less information about Kylo to mean more to the audience than anything Finn had experienced in TFA. And I generally think that the confrontation between Kylo and Luke is the actual climax of the film, so even Rey loses any chance of being in that aside from lifting some rocks on the side without any storyline buildup to make it a real moment for her as a character. Finn not even being permitted to talk to her exiles him entirely from the plotline, while Kylo gets the actual spotlight opposite Luke.

Finn’s just as connected to the central storyline with the Force in both TLJ and TROS, but in TROS they at least conjure up some vague reason for him to matter to the climax, and he actually has more screentime there. They’re both wastes of time, but that’s because both films are obsessed with Kylo...

...As was LFL.

And I think the process behind the rushed nature of Kylo’s redemption, in defiance of his character arc until then, was simply Kathleen Kennedy and LFL generally valuing Ben Solo over Kylo Ren... and most of the other characters, in fact. Terrio and others have stated pretty clearly that Kennedy wanted Ben Solo’s redemption to be a bigger part of IX than Trevorrow and others had gone for, and that desire for Ben Solo to matter to the story was behind Palpatine’s return... and I’d say probably behind Rey kissing Ben as well.

And I think that mixed badly with Abrams knowing that Kylo wasn’t set up for a redemption at all, and that the more focus you gave him, the more likely he was to overshadow Rey. So that’s why Kylo’s redemption is done by basically just replaying the TFA scene with Han, but having it end differently. Abrams kind fo recognized that people who still thought Ben Solo should be redeemed after TFA and TLJ didn’t really need much work to accept the idea, so that’s what he did.

[WebLurker]

The comic was the Age of Resistance spinoff.

Okay, have the trade, but haven't read it, yet.

One of the reasons I’d argue Finn *was* supplanted narratively in TLJ is because not only does his story not connect to Rey’s (and this the Luke and Kylo plot as well) until the very end (with them still exchanging no dialogue *at all*), and not only is Finn’s story effectively a spin-off of the Space Chase plot... but he *also* ends ups with the most juvenile plot in terms of tone, characterization, and effort, with all the dramatic weight usually firmly removed and placed elsewhere in the film.

I see the point.

I *do* think that Kylo’s backstory should have been unpacked... but considering how little of it was, how twisted and contradictory it wound up being, and yet how much importance Johnson had Luke *and* Rey place on it (especially Rey, as she has no real reason to give a damn about Kylo/Ben, and far more reasons to think the “dead students” are the important details of the flashback even if the film doesn’t care about it), I think it’s clear Johnson (and LFL) expected less information about Kylo to mean more to the audience than anything Finn had experienced in TFA. And I generally think that the confrontation between Kylo and Luke is the actual climax of the film, so even Rey loses any chance of being in that aside from lifting some rocks on the side without any storyline buildup to make it a real moment for her as a character.

IMHO, I think the point of TLJ is a subversion of the "redeeming the villain" plot, which TROS then turns around and tries to play straight. Fair enough about Luke getting the climax, but I can't say I didn't mind. In any event, I don't think that scene is about Kylo at all.

Finn not even being permitted to talk to her exiles him entirely from the plotline, while Kylo gets the actual spotlight opposite Luke.

IMHO, Finn and Rey didn't "need" to say anything in the reunion scene (it plays pretty well silent and is the "hope spot"). Actually, I think TROS fouled it up more then anything else.

Finn’s just as connected to the central storyline with the Force in both TLJ and TROS, but in TROS they at least conjure up some vague reason for him to matter to the climax, and he actually has more screentime there. They’re both wastes of time, but that’s because both films are obsessed with Kylo...

...As was LFL.

Not sure Kylo was quite the breakout villain they wanted.

And I think the process behind the rushed nature of Kylo’s redemption, in defiance of his character arc until then, was simply Kathleen Kennedy and LFL generally valuing Ben Solo over Kylo Ren... and most of the other characters, in fact. Terrio and others have stated pretty clearly that Kennedy wanted Ben Solo’s redemption to be a bigger part of IX than Trevorrow and others had gone for, and that desire for Ben Solo to matter to the story was behind Palpatine’s return... and I’d say probably behind Rey kissing Ben as well.

And I think that mixed badly with Abrams knowing that Kylo wasn’t set up for a redemption at all, and that the more focus you gave him, the more likely he was to overshadow Rey. So that’s why Kylo’s redemption is done by basically just replaying the TFA scene with Han, but having it end differently. Abrams kind fo recognized that people who still thought Ben Solo should be redeemed after TFA and TLJ didn’t really need much work to accept the idea, so that’s what he did.

Wonder why Kennedy wanted Kylo redeemed?

[godisawesome]

Okay, have the trade, but haven't read it, yet.



I see the point.



IMHO, I think the point of TLJ is a subversion of the "redeeming the villain" plot, which TROS then turns around and tries to play straight. Fair enough about Luke getting the climax, but I can't say I didn't mind. In any event, I don't think that scene is about Kylo at all.



IMHO, Finn and Rey didn't "need" to say anything in the reunion scene (it plays pretty well silent and is the "hope spot"). Actually, I think TROS fouled it up more then anything else.



Not sure Kylo was quite the breakout villain they wanted.



Wonder why Kennedy wanted Kylo redeemed?

When it comes to Kylo’s story’s purpose in TLJ, I can’t help but think that regardless of whether it was meant to subvert a “redeem the villain” story, it’s actual substance only acted to defuse his potential as a villain, defuse his antagonism with Rey (especially in regards to how a villain serves a hero’s story in Star Wars), and effectively sell the idea idea that he could still be redeemed, but that now Rey wanted it herself.

I mean, the biggest issue with TLJ’s story trying to “subvert expectations” regarding Kylo and redemption is that it has no way to do the job better than The Force Awakens already did. Which sounds more like an actual subversion of that expectation: a Skywalker grandkid forces himself to murder his loving father in cold blood to try and overcome his conflict about being evil in a scene tailored to play into the idea that his father’s emotional appeal might be making some headway, or the Skywalker grandkid being ordered to kill the random girl he met a few days ago who’s already his victim several times over but he instead uses her as a distraction so he can kill his master and take her place?

If the purpose of TLK was to assert Kylo as a villain, it was only ever weakly redundant. And substance-wise, mostly all it did was sweep away any issues Rey had with Kylo, including any issues she may have had about him trying to kill Finn, the main subject of this thread, and the character who TFA spent most of its time trying to forge a great bond with between them... and all this to replace a good conflict between them with something that’s biased to favor Kylo, his feelings, and avoid any real spiritual threat he might pose to her via rage she logically would have for him.

As to the other discussion points, I think it can be summed up somewhat succinctly: Kathleen Kennedy and other members of LFL never really bought into Finn as the male lead, because they still thought of Driver as having been cast in that role even back in TFA... and as Rey’s main companion, not as her iconic villainous opponent.

In detail, I think that she and others had already warmed on to the earlier script stories, where Kylo and Finn were a single character called “Skylar/Sam” who Kennedy *might* have already decided to pursue Driver for, with the iconic villain being “The Jedi Killer” as a separate entity who seduces “Skylar/Sam” to the dark side. And when Abrams and Kasdan remixed things so that the Solo kid *was* the iconic villain, Kennedy and others simply never really accepted that in its entirety, and simply kept on thinking of Driver playing the original male lead. I think this might even have played a part in how they approached Johnson for making VIII; the fact that he seemed to share their focus on Kylo above Finn, and in fact apparently had to be asked to add more Finn into his script than originally present, may mean the sales pitch they made focused on Kylo/Ben as though he were the male lead.

Which is partially why I *do* blame TLJ for setting the Sequel Trilogy firmly on a pathway towards Kylo supplanting Finn, having “Bendemption” happen no matter how much it supposedly wasn’t setup by TLJ, and having a bad version of “Reylo” made canon. That film clearly felt that Kylo needed to be the main male character Rey developed with, couldn't conceive of her hating him, favored his story over her (even with Luke, who clearly is more focused on Kylo than on Rey, ultimately), and *did* go out of its way to try and break apart Rey and Finn as the core connection of the Sequel Trilogy.

It’s not just them failing to share any dialogue that tells me that Johnson wanted Rey and Finn kept separate and Kylo in place of Finn. It’s the apathy with which he wrote Finn’s story (even ditching an idea for a more dramatic Rose and Finn connection because he “didn’t want to write it”), the way he didn’t think that Finn’s wounding was worth Rey holding against Kylo (much like Han’s death, but at least that got a view mentions and he had to deflect on it) and the existence of a character as blandly boring but clearly functional as Rose. I mean, Rose is not an ambitiously written character designed to excite people. She’s really designed to fulfill the role she has in her last scene - being a girl Finn goes to and waits over apart from Rey. Rose exists primarily to act as a catalyst for Rey no longer interacting with Finn as much for her co-lead.

TLJ is the film that has a creator explicitly saying he saw Rey and Kylo as two half’s of the same protagonist, joke about leaving Finn in a coma for the whole film, and spend pretty much all his time gushing over Kylo, and even anecdotally having Williams rewrite the score to emphasize his vision of a Rey being attracted to Kylo rather than being a threatening presence to her when they touch hands (which I generally take to mean that Williams had paid more attention to TFA than Johnson did.)

Everything wonky about TROS’s plot for Kylo is born out of how LFL believed the audience perceived TLJ - a more sympathetic Kylo and Ben that was to be invested in and regarded as more important than his heroic peers.

[WebLurker]

When it comes to Kylo’s story’s purpose in TLJ, I can’t help but think that regardless of whether it was meant to subvert a “redeem the villain” story, it’s actual substance only acted to defuse his potential as a villain, defuse his antagonism with Rey (especially in regards to how a villain serves a hero’s story in Star Wars), and effectively sell the idea idea that he could still be redeemed, but that now Rey wanted it herself.

I mean, the biggest issue with TLJ’s story trying to “subvert expectations” regarding Kylo and redemption is that it has no way to do the job better than The Force Awakens already did. Which sounds more like an actual subversion of that expectation: a Skywalker grandkid forces himself to murder his loving father in cold blood to try and overcome his conflict about being evil in a scene tailored to play into the idea that his father’s emotional appeal might be making some headway, or the Skywalker grandkid being ordered to kill the random girl he met a few days ago who’s already his victim several times over but he instead uses her as a distraction so he can kill his master and take her place?

If the purpose of TLK was to assert Kylo as a villain, it was only ever weakly redundant. And substance-wise, mostly all it did was sweep away any issues Rey had with Kylo, including any issues she may have had about him trying to kill Finn, the main subject of this thread, and the character who TFA spent most of its time trying to forge a great bond with between them... and all this to replace a good conflict between them with something that’s biased to favor Kylo, his feelings, and avoid any real spiritual threat he might pose to her via rage she logically would have for him.

That's a fair opinion, esp. with Kylo killing his father being a powerful "point of no return" (narratively speaking, at least) and how narratively weak it was that Rey would consider trying to pull him back in the first place (I'm willing to accept if for the sake of the story, but I'm the first to agree that it needed more writing to "work" and is one of the few flaws in what I otherwise think is one of the best movies in the series).

As to the other discussion points, I think it can be summed up somewhat succinctly: Kathleen Kennedy and other members of LFL never really bought into Finn as the male lead, because they still thought of Driver as having been cast in that role even back in TFA... and as Rey’s main companion, not as her iconic villainous opponent.

In detail, I think that she and others had already warmed on to the earlier script stories, where Kylo and Finn were a single character called “Skylar/Sam” who Kennedy *might* have already decided to pursue Driver for, with the iconic villain being “The Jedi Killer” as a separate entity who seduces “Skylar/Sam” to the dark side. And when Abrams and Kasdan remixed things so that the Solo kid *was* the iconic villain, Kennedy and others simply never really accepted that in its entirety, and simply kept on thinking of Driver playing the original male lead. I think this might even have played a part in how they approached Johnson for making VIII; the fact that he seemed to share their focus on Kylo above Finn, and in fact apparently had to be asked to add more Finn into his script than originally present, may mean the sales pitch they made focused on Kylo/Ben as though he were the male lead.

Would be interesting to hear the full story and see how true our speculations are. Personally, while I think Kylo is a very interesting character and villain, he's not a favorite character of mine. (I know plenty of fans online prior to TROS were of the opinion that it would be unbearably tragic if Kylo never redeemed himself, essentially condemning the Skywalker line and legacy to be nothing but death and evil. I never understood that position or why it would've been so tragic, but I have wondered if some of the Powers That Be though the same.)

Which is partially why I *do* blame TLJ for setting the Sequel Trilogy firmly on a pathway towards Kylo supplanting Finn, having “Bendemption” happen no matter how much it supposedly wasn’t setup by TLJ, and having a bad version of “Reylo” made canon. That film clearly felt that Kylo needed to be the main male character Rey developed with, couldn't conceive of her hating him, favored his story over her (even with Luke, who clearly is more focused on Kylo than on Rey, ultimately), and *did* go out of its way to try and break apart Rey and Finn as the core connection of the Sequel Trilogy.

It’s not just them failing to share any dialogue that tells me that Johnson wanted Rey and Finn kept separate and Kylo in place of Finn. It’s the apathy with which he wrote Finn’s story (even ditching an idea for a more dramatic Rose and Finn connection because he “didn’t want to write it”), the way he didn’t think that Finn’s wounding was worth Rey holding against Kylo (much like Han’s death, but at least that got a view mentions and he had to deflect on it) and the existence of a character as blandly boring but clearly functional as Rose. I mean, Rose is not an ambitiously written character designed to excite people. She’s really designed to fulfill the role she has in her last scene - being a girl Finn goes to and waits over apart from Rey. Rose exists primarily to act as a catalyst for Rey no longer interacting with Finn as much for her co-lead.

TLJ is the film that has a creator explicitly saying he saw Rey and Kylo as two half’s of the same protagonist, joke about leaving Finn in a coma for the whole film, and spend pretty much all his time gushing over Kylo, and even anecdotally having Williams rewrite the score to emphasize his vision of a Rey being attracted to Kylo rather than being a threatening presence to her when they touch hands (which I generally take to mean that Williams had paid more attention to TFA than Johnson did.)

Everything wonky about TROS’s plot for Kylo is born out of how LFL believed the audience perceived TLJ - a more sympathetic Kylo and Ben that was to be invested in and regarded as more important than his heroic peers.

Maybe.

[godisawesome]

That's a fair opinion, esp. with Kylo killing his father being a powerful "point of no return" (narratively speaking, at least) and how narratively weak it was that Rey would consider trying to pull him back in the first place (I'm willing to accept if for the sake of the story, but I'm the first to agree that it needed more writing to "work" and is one of the few flaws in what I otherwise think is one of the best movies in the series).



Would be interesting to hear the full story and see how true our speculations are. Personally, while I think Kylo is a very interesting character and villain, he's not a favorite character of mine. (I know plenty of fans online prior to TROS were of the opinion that it would be unbearably tragic if Kylo never redeemed himself, essentially condemning the Skywalker line and legacy to be nothing but death and evil. I never understood that position or why it would've been so tragic, but I have wondered if some of the Powers That Be though the same.)



Maybe.

To me, the reason why Kylo being “favored” over Kylo is something like a fatal blow to the story is because not only is she the more important character, and not only is he maybe the worst possible character to be favored over her (since that most negatively impacts her conflicts, aka, the main thing that’s supposed to keep her story, and thus the trilogy’s,interesting), but also because of how badly it interacts with a film that simultaneously makes certain Rey isn’t a Skywalker/Solo, then de facto punishes her for that, since it makes Kylo’s confrontation with Luke the central conflict and climax of the film.

And part of that deals with the second point you raised; that a whole bunch of fans regarded the idea of Kylo dying and the Skywalkers being wiped out as tragic, and insufferably so if he died evil. That’s the power of a nine-film “soap opera” with a single family as the central showcase; each previous generation basically invests some audience attention and care alongside some storyline momentum into the next one. That makes the individual characters more interesting and popular, and often makes the total story greater than the sum of its parts. Anakin wouldn’t be nearly as important or interesting if he weren’t Like’s father... and a huge chunk of Kylo/Ben’s popularity is because he’s Anakin’s grandson and Luke’s nephew and Han and Leia’s son. Heck, that remains the biggest explanation I see for both Rey Palpatine and Rey “Skywalker”, as well as Kylo’s death still happening even as he is redeemed: Ben Solo has 9-films of history and audience investment behind him, so even though he’s piddly as an actual character once divested of Kylo, for most people, that’s simply more important than Rey of Jakku getting one three film adventure.

It’s an imbalance and inequality in Saga importance that I primarily blame on TLJ suggesting a risky storytelling move, and then executing it badly as well.

Like, I genuinely can’t take arguments that TLJ is one of the better films in the Saga seriously unless* that listing also includes The Force Awakens above it, because there’s not a single thing that TLJ does well that TFA doesn’t do better in the ST, and Finn is easily the biggest part of that. Both movies mix copying the Original Trilogy with some experimental flourishes. The difference is that TFA uses inversion to TLJ’s subversion, which means that TFA has substance in its surprises (Kylo killing Han is an inversion of Anakin being redeemed by Luke that creates a more detestable villain, Rey fighting her denial so hard it costs her her found family being a more brutal inversion of Luke finding he’s too late to save his aunt and uncle), while TLJ is largely kind of insubstantial (Luke not training Rey ends up doing nothing for her story and instead seems to overshadow her in the story, while Kylo becoming Supreme Leader through assassination but failing to mature makes him and the entire First Order weaker as villains than they were in TFA).

And Finn? Well, Finn’s simply a better male lead *in TFA* than Luke is *in TLJ.* Finn’s story has greater depth and dynamism in one film than Luke’s does in TLJ, and doesn’t rely on last stories for its dramatic weight, unlike Luke’s, where to be honest, most of the dramatic weight comes from the contrast between his somewhat pretentious and over-the-top tragic nature and his OT characterization. I mean, Luke spends an entire film struggling between being a “broken toy” for the story, and manages to barely get back into the game, right at the end before dying. Finn does that entire bit in the first five minutes of his screen time... because that’s only about a quarter of his total arc. And Luke needed a magic ghost to hit him on the head to get off his butt and get in gear. All Finn needed was an epiphany, some empathy, and the courage to break his brainwashing.

And Kylo’s basically just a worse version of TLJ!Luke stretched out over three films, but without any heroic history for us to care about, and even less development for his “brokenness.”

TLJ was a film trying to make its greatness by standing atop the older films, and kicking down, like a Gen X hipster mocking his childhood enjoyments. TFA was a film trying to make its greatness by standing atop the older films and reaching towards new characters and new stories, like a Gen X geek finally getting to play with the toys for the first time and having his own ideas to add to the collection.

And Finn kind of symbolizes TFA’s approach, while TLJ’s is ultimately wrapped up in Luke and Kylo. And since Luke bit the dust in TLJ, that left only Kylo for TROS.

[WebLurker]

To me, the reason why Kylo being “favored” over Kylo is something like a fatal blow to the story is because not only is she the more important character, and not only is he maybe the worst possible character to be favored over her (since that most negatively impacts her conflicts, aka, the main thing that’s supposed to keep her story, and thus the trilogy’s,interesting), but also because of how badly it interacts with a film that simultaneously makes certain Rey isn’t a Skywalker/Solo, then de facto punishes her for that, since it makes Kylo’s confrontation with Luke the central conflict and climax of the film.

I guess I saw Rey finishing her story arc by saying no to Kylo (her main arc is her feeling out of place and him trying to exploit that offering her one), with a bit of an epilogue where she reconnects with Finn.

And part of that deals with the second point you raised; that a whole bunch of fans regarded the idea of Kylo dying and the Skywalkers being wiped out as tragic, and insufferably so if he died evil. That’s the power of a nine-film “soap opera” with a single family as the central showcase; each previous generation basically invests some audience attention and care alongside some storyline momentum into the next one. That makes the individual characters more interesting and popular, and often makes the total story greater than the sum of its parts. Anakin wouldn’t be nearly as important or interesting if he weren’t Like’s father... and a huge chunk of Kylo/Ben’s popularity is because he’s Anakin’s grandson and Luke’s nephew and Han and Leia’s son. Heck, that remains the biggest explanation I see for both Rey Palpatine and Rey “Skywalker”, as well as Kylo’s death still happening even as he is redeemed: Ben Solo has 9-films of history and audience investment behind him, so even though he’s piddly as an actual character once divested of Kylo, for most people, that’s simply more important than Rey of Jakku getting one three film adventure.

It’s an imbalance and inequality in Saga importance that I primarily blame on TLJ suggesting a risky storytelling move, and then executing it badly as well.

I guess I always got invested with the characters on their own terms, given that I never got why Kylo being forever evil would harm the "legacy." Course, I didn't see the trilogy as going off the rails until halfway through TROS, so I'm weird.

Like, I genuinely can’t take arguments that TLJ is one of the better films in the Saga seriously unless* that listing also includes The Force Awakens above it, because there’s not a single thing that TLJ does well that TFA doesn’t do better in the ST, and Finn is easily the biggest part of that. Both movies mix copying the Original Trilogy with some experimental flourishes. The difference is that TFA uses inversion to TLJ’s subversion, which means that TFA has substance in its surprises (Kylo killing Han is an inversion of Anakin being redeemed by Luke that creates a more detestable villain, Rey fighting her denial so hard it costs her her found family being a more brutal inversion of Luke finding he’s too late to save his aunt and uncle), while TLJ is largely kind of insubstantial (Luke not training Rey ends up doing nothing for her story and instead seems to overshadow her in the story, while Kylo becoming Supreme Leader through assassination but failing to mature makes him and the entire First Order weaker as villains than they were in TFA).

I think that TLJ is the better movie in terms of filmmaking (I would put Rian Johnson ahead of JJ Abrams as a filmmaker in general) and stands above Abrams' installments on those merits. However, I like TFA more and think that it showcases what Abrams does best, specifically getting good performances out of the actors (while Johnson can do that pretty darn well -- see Knives Out -- Abrams did it better in these movies). That said, I think TROS showcases Abrams' worst problems as a filmmaker, such as his tendency to have badly laid out plots that use breakneck speed to disguise the fact that things don't really make sense. Make of that what you will.

And Finn? Well, Finn’s simply a better male lead *in TFA* than Luke is *in TLJ.* Finn’s story has greater depth and dynamism in one film than Luke’s does in TLJ, and doesn’t rely on last stories for its dramatic weight, unlike Luke’s, where to be honest, most of the dramatic weight comes from the contrast between his somewhat pretentious and over-the-top tragic nature and his OT characterization. I mean, Luke spends an entire film struggling between being a “broken toy” for the story, and manages to barely get back into the game, right at the end before dying. Finn does that entire bit in the first five minutes of his screen time... because that’s only about a quarter of his total arc. And Luke needed a magic ghost to hit him on the head to get off his butt and get in gear. All Finn needed was an epiphany, some empathy, and the courage to break his brainwashing.

I don't think we can divorce TLJ Luke from the other movies, since his story arc is supposed to carry over from the other movies. It's apples and oranges to me, anyways; TFA was a good story arc for a new character and TLJ was a good story arc for a returning character. (If nothing else, I will defend to the death that TLJ was Mark Hamill's best performance in the series.)

And Kylo’s basically just a worse version of TLJ!Luke stretched out over three films, but without any heroic history for us to care about, and even less development for his “brokenness.”

You don't have to convince me that Kylo is the weak link of the sequel trilogy, although we might disagree on where things fell apart; IMHO, it fell apart the moment we were supposed to believe that hearing his mother would turn him good again like a light switch.

TLJ was a film trying to make its greatness by standing atop the older films, and kicking down, like a Gen X hipster mocking his childhood enjoyments. TFA was a film trying to make its greatness by standing atop the older films and reaching towards new characters and new stories, like a Gen X geek finally getting to play with the toys for the first time and having his own ideas to add to the collection.

And Finn kind of symbolizes TFA’s approach, while TLJ’s is ultimately wrapped up in Luke and Kylo. And since Luke bit the dust in TLJ, that left only Kylo for TROS.

Can't say I agree, but I think I understand where you're coming from here.

[godisawesome]

.
I think that TLJ is the better movie in terms of filmmaking (I would put Rian Johnson ahead of JJ Abrams as a filmmaker in general) and stands above Abrams' installments on those merits. However, I like TFA more and think that it showcases what Abrams does best, specifically getting good performances out of the actors (while Johnson can do that pretty darn well -- see Knives Out -- Abrams did it better in these movies). That said, I think TROS showcases Abrams' worst problems as a filmmaker, such as his tendency to have badly laid out plots that use breakneck speed to disguise the fact that things don't really make sense. Make of that what you will.



I don't think we can divorce TLJ Luke from the other movies, since his story arc is supposed to carry over from the other movies. It's apples and oranges to me, anyways; TFA was a good story arc for a new character and TLJ was a good story arc for a returning character. (If nothing else, I will defend to the death that TLJ was Mark Hamill's best performance in the series.)

Eh, let me offer up an argument that TFA is a better film than TLJ even in terms of filmmaking, though with Johnson still being a more complete overall package as a creator than Abrams...

...Primarily because when it comes to TFA vs TLJ, it’s not just Abrams vs Johnson. It’s Abrams *and Kasdan* vs Johnson. I think Johnson might be a better overall creator than Kasdan as well (since while Kasdan was behind Silverado, and a lot of good scripts, he was also part of Costner’s Wyatt Earp failure and Solo is pretty much the only truly mediocre Disney Era Star Wars film). But Kasdan is an original storyteller, and compensated for Abrams’s deficits in that area during TFA, while Johnson had an off day in that regard during TLJ, and genuinely just failed at telling a story to his usual standards.

The strongest part of TLJ, and I think this might be the *closest* thing to a consensus that we might get, is Mark Hamill’s performance as Broken!Luke... and that’s still attached to a heavily debated storyline. I’d actually argue that Luke’s storyline is also the best written... but I still feel it’s out of character, inappropriately placed in context during a vulnerable weak spot of the ST’s story for the new characters, and simply doesn’t actually use him well *for the ST’s characters and plot.* Now, all of that is debatable, and Luke’s plot is the part of the film that has Johnson’s most self-analyzed writing and best writing strategies, so I think it’s debatable because it *is* Johnson’s bets work in the film, by and large.

But the rest of TLJ often has a combination of glaring weaknesses or minimally applauded parts. His dialogue and characterization in Finn’s story, for instance, is undeniably juvenile, he managed to waste Kelly Marie Tran’s clear skill and chemistry with Boyega in his writing of Rose (the actress is far more popular than her character, who is actually pretty unpopular), Rey’s character was at best massively underserved and underutilized, and at worst written out of character and deprived of human characterization, Poe got rewritten into an idiot to be deconstructed... but in a contradictory and sloppy plotline with a massively inconsistent new character of Holdo, who ends up being written as incompetent when she’s supposed to be very much competent. And Hux became a broad comedy archetype leading a bloated and ineffectual First Order, while Kylo became a static and banal villain who the film inexplicably praised and worshipped.

There’s an awful lot of TLJ that is good acting and directing *in spite* of poor writing and storytelling... and that poor storytelling naturally limits the performance quality that makes actor can get out of character. Hamill had the best time in terms of performance meeting worthy material for his talents; the problems with Luke are all about external story placement and impact, not internal characterization for the performance. But pretty much everyone else has to deal with some kind of handicap, where if you don’t absolutely buy into the storytelling idea, the performance will be fatally flawed.

That’s not the case in TFA.

Kasdan evens out a lot of Abrams’s weaknesses as a storyteller, and acted as the perfect complement to Abrams’s strengths. TFA has the best performances for Ridley, Boyega, and Driver, while still turning in an excellent performance by Ford as the counterpart to Hamill’s turn in TLJ. And a lot of that has to do with a great mix of writing *and* direction: Rey and Finn are both introduced in largely dialogueless scenes for them, and brilliantly communicate their personalities and character arcs in these scenes without words and just visual acting, scene staging, and some of Williams’s best music in the ST, while Driver got his best performance as Kylo in the film’s finale, managing the right combination of vaguely pitiable and loathsome to make his scene with Ford be compellingly tense, foreboding, and unpredictable even though you could logically ascertain what would likely happen.

Johnson did right by Hamill as an actor. Abrams and Kasdan did right by pretty much the entirety of their cast. And Abrams's improvisational style was actually an asset here: he and Kasdan had certain set goals for the new characters, and Abrams used reshoots to better achieve those, especially between Finn and Rey. And to me, the only way Hamill’s performance in TLJ can be ranked as “better” in anyway than the work with the new characters in TFA is with the tired old subjective believe that a sadder story is more dramatic... and by dismissing the more genuinely sad, tragic, and tense moments of TFA involving Han’s death, Finn’s maiming, and Rey losing her found family right as it finally gathers.

And I’d have to argue that TFA has a good enough game from Abrams in regards to visuals that I don’t think Johnson can really claim and undisputed victory there. The Praetorian Guard duel is excellent visual spectacle, but I’d actually rank the Starkiller Duel above it, because visually speaking, it’s a match with its Kurosawa-style contrast between shadows and light, but storytelling-wise, it’s the apex of three different character journies that blend together perfectly. I’d put Maz’s castle against Canto Bight and call that even as well; Maz’s castle is more clearly derivative, but Canto Bight is pretty bland after a while. And stuff like Holdo’s hyperspace Ram is pretty, but exceedingly dumb.

Johnson, I believe, is a better director and writer than Abrams 8/10 times... but TFA is that exception that proves the rule.

[dkrook]

Kudos to all the mental gymnastics you guys have put to this, but to simply state the elephant in the room is that there was no possibility of a black guy being the main hero and romancing a white woman when the executive decision was made. All the plot twisting that went boils down to the avoidance of those two things. In 2019/2020 at the end of the day this is the sad reality.