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

[godisawesome]

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.

I actually do think that may have played a part, but I don’t think it played as big a part as Driver being Kennedy’s picked man for a role that had a more powerful marketing concept... at least until we get to the unconscious level, where I think systemic and unintentional racism likely did end up becoming Boyega’s enemy.

In other words, I don’t see anyone making the ST vocalizing any doubts about having Boyega as the male lead, or feeling he was “improper” for Rey’s love interest. I do think Abrams was headed that way and meant for Boyega to be those things when he made TFA. And I don’t even really believe that anyone at LFL consciously rejected Finn for racist reasons.

...But I do think that Johnson felt an instinctive favoritism towards Kylo that probably had some element of white privilege involved, and that the lack of major black creative voices in LFL no doubt played a part in how few people had Boyega's back or noted the issues with Kylo being favored over Finn. And to be honest, I think anyone malignant enough to actually consciously realize that bias wouldn’t have ahead a hard time concealing it while still exercise it, sadly.

There is a kind of delightful irony in Black Panther being the film that effectively marked the MCU fully surpassing the Sequel Trilogy by making more money in a worse release slot, even eating into TLJ’s legs, since Black Panther was a solo movie focused primarily on a black cast by black creatives, and didn’t need to be an Avengers film to beat a major entry in the Sequel Trilogy, particularly when a lot of TLJ’s critical appeal conforms to the traditional ”Sad White Guy Oscar Bait” stereotype.

(I‘d also add that I think Rey suffered from unintentional sexism in the ST, especially post-TFA; her character is a kind of textbook example of an attempt at a feminist character by someone blind to their own sexism, particularly when Kylo is involved. Kennedy being focused on Driver as Kylo means she wasn’t really focused on the main heroine outside of the economic asset she was likely viewed as.)

[Starter Set]

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.

Sadly true. The whole janitor thing just adds salt to the wound.

[dkrook]

I actually do think that may have played a part, but I don’t think it played as big a part as Driver being Kennedy’s picked man for a role that had a more powerful marketing concept... at least until we get to the unconscious level, where I think systemic and unintentional racism likely did end up becoming Boyega’s enemy.

In other words, I don’t see anyone making the ST vocalizing any doubts about having Boyega as the male lead, or feeling he was “improper” for Rey’s love interest. I do think Abrams was headed that way and meant for Boyega to be those things when he made TFA. And I don’t even really believe that anyone at LFL consciously rejected Finn for racist reasons.

...But I do think that Johnson felt an instinctive favoritism towards Kylo that probably had some element of white privilege involved, and that the lack of major black creative voices in LFL no doubt played a part in how few people had Boyega's back or noted the issues with Kylo being favored over Finn. And to be honest, I think anyone malignant enough to actually consciously realize that bias wouldn’t have ahead a hard time concealing it while still exercise it, sadly.

There is a kind of delightful irony in Black Panther being the film that effectively marked the MCU fully surpassing the Sequel Trilogy by making more money in a worse release slot, even eating into TLJ’s legs, since Black Panther was a solo movie focused primarily on a black cast by black creatives, and didn’t need to be an Avengers film to beat a major entry in the Sequel Trilogy, particularly when a lot of TLJ’s critical appeal conforms to the traditional ”Sad White Guy Oscar Bait” stereotype.

(I‘d also add that I think Rey suffered from unintentional sexism in the ST, especially post-TFA; her character is a kind of textbook example of an attempt at a feminist character by someone blind to their own sexism, particularly when Kylo is involved. Kennedy being focused on Driver as Kylo means she wasn’t really focused on the main heroine outside of the economic asset she was likely viewed as.)

Agreed 100%! What's funny is that they had a very good template for an empowering female in the Star Wars genre with Leia. She was very human, with flaws. That didn't stop her character from having a strong presence in the film. She was a damn near perfect balance of damsel, and John McClain from Diehard. This is how they should have wrote Rey. The uber power, clueless feminist with sensitivity issues was tired halfway through the second movie. Along with the wrenching in of shirtless Kylo, killed the narrative flow of the trilogies.

[godisawesome]

Agreed 100%! What's funny is that they had a very good template for an empowering female in the Star Wars genre with Leia. She was very human, with flaws. That didn't stop her character from having a strong presence in the film. She was a damn near perfect balance of damsel, and John McClain from Diehard. This is how they should have wrote Rey. The uber power, clueless feminist with sensitivity issues was tired halfway through the second movie. Along with the wrenching in of shirtless Kylo, killed the narrative flow of the trilogies.

They could have also used the old Legends character Jaina “Sword of the Jedi” as a template. Or Bastilla Shan, or Satele Shan. Or Tenel Ka. Or hell, even Ahsoka; the fact that Lucas and Filoni’s favored creation, often accused of being a Mary Sue, still stacks up better than Rey, is really not a good sign.

Finn, though, Finn was an admittedly new character idea. We’ve seen previous stormtroopers gone good, but never handled with the nuance or ambition that TFA suggested might be in his story.

And to be blunt, having TFA establish that the First Order Stormtroopers are all child slave soldiers deprived of their names set this very large elephant in the room about how every single one of the background fodder characters was now more sympathetic than LFL’s preferred male lead.

The fact that they had a black Englishman using an American accent for the part of Finn, with that background, is just kind of a dagger in the heart of the back half of the ST’s priorities. Particularly when Johnson thought that Rose should be lecturing Finn about child slaves on Canto Bight... and then they only free the space horses.

[WebLurker]

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...

Okay.

...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.

I think I understand your reasoning. I will certainly concede that I liked TFA more then TLJ on an enjoyment level and that I do think Knives Out was better then TJ (I think better then TFA on a craftsmanship level, too, although I still enjoy the other more). I guess Johnson's movies seem like there's more themes to them, while Abrams' stuff is very much character-focused popcorn adventure.

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.

Why was it out of character?

As far as it being introduced in the wrong place, I kinda liked how it forced Rey to adjust her perceptions as she figured things out. I mean, over the movie, both her and Luke and right and wrong about different things, sometimes even a mix on the same point. I like that kind of writing and find it more interesting then the straight right/wrong difference.

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.

Always liked the Canto Bight stuff myself (new characters, a break from the more serious stories) and capped off Finn's story of growing beyond NIMBY-sim (TROS dropped the ball on not giving him any further expansion). I thought they made a couple mistakes with Rey, but still within bounds. I think Poe suffered from needing to get a story arc, since he wasn't designed to be anything more then a supporting character who died off in TFA. IMHO, I think TLJ was a deconstruction of Kylo as a "Draco in Leather Pants" (as TV Tropes would put it), with the twist of the movie revealing that the praise and worship it had ostensibly been piling on him was just a wishful thinking. And then TROS went and tried to make the fake Leather Pants-ed Kylo you're seeing in TLJ into what the character canonically "always" was.

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.

Hmmm.

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.

Fair enough. Wonder what happened to the type of direction Abrams did in that movie when he made TROS.

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.

I only compare Hamill to his past work in the series.

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.

Dunno, have to say that I think Johnson and Gareth Edwards did the best cinematography post-Disney.

[godisawesome]

Okay.


I think I understand your reasoning. I will certainly concede that I liked TFA more then TLJ on an enjoyment level and that I do think Knives Out was better then TJ (I think better then TFA on a craftsmanship level, too, although I still enjoy the other more). I guess Johnson's movies seem like there's more themes to them, while Abrams' stuff is very much character-focused popcorn adventure.

Why was it out of character?

As far as it being introduced in the wrong place, I kinda liked how it forced Rey to adjust her perceptions as she figured things out. I mean, over the movie, both her and Luke and right and wrong about different things, sometimes even a mix on the same point. I like that kind of writing and find it more interesting then the straight right/wrong difference.

Always liked the Canto Bight stuff myself (new characters, a break from the more serious stories) and capped off Finn's story of growing beyond NIMBY-sim (TROS dropped the ball on not giving him any further expansion). I thought they made a couple mistakes with Rey, but still within bounds. I think Poe suffered from needing to get a story arc, since he wasn't designed to be anything more then a supporting character who died off in TFA. IMHO, I think TLJ was a deconstruction of Kylo as a "Draco in Leather Pants" (as TV Tropes would put it), with the twist of the movie revealing that the praise and worship it had ostensibly been piling on him was just a wishful thinking. And then TROS went and tried to make the fake Leather Pants-ed Kylo you're seeing in TLJ into what the character canonically "always" was.

Hmmm.

Fair enough. Wonder what happened to the type of direction Abrams did in that movie when he made TROS.

I only compare Hamill to his past work in the series.

Dunno, have to say that I think Johnson and Gareth Edwards did the best cinematography post-Disney.

I’ll leave the debate about Luke for another thread, that I may actually quote you on to launch if I can’t find it already on here, if that’s okay.

As to the other stuff, and to try and keep it on target here with Finn...

- I’d say that while Johnson might usually be very on point for his themes, in TLJ, due to some sloppiness on his part and due to the context established by previous films, ends up actually be incompetent-sometimes-hypocritical-bordering-on-poisonous: his film’s the most regressive of the ST, as he subjects Rey to sexist treatment around Kylo and banishes her from the climax and stuck all the People of color into a subplot, or a subplot of a subplot, while his anti-military-industrial-complex message is well intentioned, it’s a pathetic addition to a series that already has the PT doing a far more thorough job of it earlier... and the attempt at moral ambiguity on the Resistance is farcical because the First Order is so pitch black that DJ’s obfuscation is more parodic than on point.

I’d also add that I do think that Finn’s TFA arc conveys largely the same message as Luke’s... but has a larger story and frankly does it with more nuance. I tend to get peeved with arguments that Finn!s story in TLJ “needed” to happen, or that it progressed him to any extent; I *might* get more to it later, but a lot of it rests on Finn coming back to Han after the Hosnian System goes boom and well before Rey is captured - he can already see the big picture, so he’s further developed than where TLJ wants him to begin at.

- You’ve already heard most of the reasons I don’t accept Finn and Rey’s story’s (that Rey’s story is sexist and basically nothing else, while Finn’s a child slave soldier, and thus not fodder for “lighter fare”) but I think I’ll add in two quick arguments about Poe and Kylo. Johnson knew he could have had Poe go on the adventure with Finn... and he rejected it because he thought Poe (professional Resistance officer raised in a Post-Empire Galaxy) was too near identical to Finn (child slave Soldier raised in dehumanizing captivity by the First Order). On top of that, he pretty clearly wanted to treat Poe as a Han Solo-type instead of as the more measured Wedge Antilles-type... and as a result, walked into having the fans of Poe’s comic note that he wrote Poe (say it with me now, for funzies, even if we disagree)... out of character.

And let me blunt - there’s no good excuse for giving Kylo a “fake-out” Draco In Leather Pants treatment after TFA. The character needed development. TLJ didn’t really do that: he’s an evil prick in TFA, and all we find out in TLJ is that he was likely an evil prick as Ben Solo. And what this “fake out” really translated to, at its core, was just screwing up Rey, and ignoring his usefulness as an antagonist going through a Villain’s Journey. Kylo got a better story in TFA as well... because at least there, we didn’t know how much of a snake he was until he killed Han, and it didn’t obfuscate on what he was so much that Kylo-fans started becoming fans of this hypothetical “Ben” Character instead.

- What changed between Abrams in TFA and Abrams on TROS was even less time to develop the film, a devastated story and character mistakes and lack of momentum going forward after TLJ, and LFL making demands for Kylo Ren’s sake in defiance of both TFA and TLJ’s story intentions... which also means LFL was rejecting the *one* thing that TLJ really left with some momentum.

- Cinematography ranks well below storytelling in my opinion; it’s pretty and important, but it’s a side dish compared to the writing and directing. You can make a great film with average to below average cinematography. You can make a bad film with great cinematography.

And I really would argue that Abrams game there is good enough to negate the idea thta should be a deciding advantage... especially if we include other visual aspects of the story, like costuming; Kylo’s best costume and look is in TFA by far.

[dkrook]

They could have also used the old Legends character Jaina “Sword of the Jedi” as a template. Or Bastilla Shan, or Satele Shan. Or Tenel Ka. Or hell, even Ahsoka; the fact that Lucas and Filoni’s favored creation, often accused of being a Mary Sue, still stacks up better than Rey, is really not a good sign.

Finn, though, Finn was an admittedly new character idea. We’ve seen previous stormtroopers gone good, but never handled with the nuance or ambition that TFA suggested might be in his story.

And to be blunt, having TFA establish that the First Order Stormtroopers are all child slave soldiers deprived of their names set this very large elephant in the room about how every single one of the background fodder characters was now more sympathetic than LFL’s preferred male lead.

The fact that they had a black Englishman using an American accent for the part of Finn, with that background, is just kind of a dagger in the heart of the back half of the ST’s priorities. Particularly when Johnson thought that Rose should be lecturing Finn about child slaves on Canto Bight... and then they only free the space horses.

Yes! Even now as I think back on it, Finn story had the potential to be something along the lines of Star Wars, meets Spartacus. However ever that would require Rey not getting all the focus. As we all now know, in spite of all the build up and posters with Finn splayed across it, and trailer teasers showing this unknown stormtrooper. Disney worked the greatest racial bait and switch of our time and made it a Rey movie.

[godisawesome]

Yes! Even now as I think back on it, Finn story had the potential to be something along the lines of Star Wars, meets Spartacus. However ever that would require Rey not getting all the focus. As we all now know, in spite of all the build up and posters with Finn splayed across it, and trailer teasers showing this unknown stormtrooper. Disney worked the greatest racial bait and switch of our time and made it a Rey movie.

You make Rey a Skywalker and Finn her love interest, and I don’t think you have to worry about her being overshadowed by him going full Spartacus - she’d have the weight of the family story behind her, still be Kylo’s main rival and opponent, and get the main investment from Luke, Leia, and Han. Finn could start a Stormtrooper Rebellion, and it would jus5 be the complement to her taking on Kylo and the KOR as Luke’s daughter and last apprentice.

Rey getting “all the focus” is something that actually didn’t happen in the ST - she’s basically a supporting character and plot device in TLJ, and Kylo became a parasite she needed to be focused on after LFL decided they cared more about him than anyone else.

She and Finn had a largely complementary relationship in TFA - while she comes across as the more formidable opponent and ends the film “crowned” as the new Force user, his story actually makes the bulk of the film’s plot, and he’s actually very successful in accomplishing his strategic goals throughout the movie - he successfully engineered his escape form the FO, achieved his goal of singing a way out of pursuit entirely... then upon abandoning his pursuit because of empathy for the Honsnian System and Rey be captured, manages to rescue her and be the key component uniting everything to destroy SKB.

Their character arcs also intertwine very productively - the hug she gives him on SKB is basically her character arc of desiring a family to return for her finding resolution in his character arc of becoming a hero for the sake of her and the Galaxy.

The issue arises with the one-two-punch of the false marketing mixing with the apathy and disinterest in him after TFA. Trying to vaguely conceal Rey by having Finn featured with the lightsaber when she ends up with it and Luke was extremely risky, and either bordered on or just plain was “race-baiting” as you put it. But it didn’t have to be that way if the other two films proceeded to honor Finn’s place as the male lead of the story, and showed ambition with him commiserate with the ambition intended for Rey. But TLJ was totally uninterested in even understanding Finn’s story and place in the ST, let alone in having ambition for him, and it’s not clear that was a reflection of LFL’s overall opinion of the character as well. Abrams seems to have created Finn for a role and characterization that LFL itself didn’t want him for - they probably saw him as Ben/Kylo’s usurper.

Had LFL honored Finn’s potential as the male lead, and honored the probably intent of his and Rey’s stories in TFA, it wouldn’t be a matter of race baiting and trashing a character with high potential; it would be more akin to balancing a story so that the Force and family drama hang on a female heroine, while a revolutionary and military drama hang on a black hero, with the potential of an interracial relationship with the guy being black and the girl being white in a major AAA movie franchise.

And I do genuinely think that Abrams circa TFA was more likable to pursue that kind of story than not, even with the usual Hollywood trash against it. I just think that Johnson didn’t know what he was doing with either character, LFL was in denial about what TFA’s real value was, and when Abrams came back for TROS, it was a film by committee as much as anything, with more than half that committee screaming for Kylo/Ben to be the male lead.

[WebLurker]

I’ll leave the debate about Luke for another thread, that I may actually quote you on to launch if I can’t find it already on here, if that’s okay.

As to the other stuff, and to try and keep it on target here with Finn...

Okay.

- I’d say that while Johnson might usually be very on point for his themes, in TLJ, due to some sloppiness on his part and due to the context established by previous films, ends up actually be incompetent-sometimes-hypocritical-bordering-on-poisonous: his film’s the most regressive of the ST, as he subjects Rey to sexist treatment around Kylo and banishes her from the climax and stuck all the People of color into a subplot, or a subplot of a subplot, while his anti-military-industrial-complex message is well intentioned, it’s a pathetic addition to a series that already has the PT doing a far more thorough job of it earlier... and the attempt at moral ambiguity on the Resistance is farcical because the First Order is so pitch black that DJ’s obfuscation is more parodic than on point.

I’d also add that I do think that Finn’s TFA arc conveys largely the same message as Luke’s... but has a larger story and frankly does it with more nuance. I tend to get peeved with arguments that Finn!s story in TLJ “needed” to happen, or that it progressed him to any extent; I *might* get more to it later, but a lot of it rests on Finn coming back to Han after the Hosnian System goes boom and well before Rey is captured - he can already see the big picture, so he’s further developed than where TLJ wants him to begin at.

Not so sure about the "big picture" stuff in TFA, but I see.

- You’ve already heard most of the reasons I don’t accept Finn and Rey’s story’s (that Rey’s story is sexist and basically nothing else, while Finn’s a child slave soldier, and thus not fodder for “lighter fare”) but I think I’ll add in two quick arguments about Poe and Kylo. Johnson knew he could have had Poe go on the adventure with Finn... and he rejected it because he thought Poe (professional Resistance officer raised in a Post-Empire Galaxy) was too near identical to Finn (child slave Soldier raised in dehumanizing captivity by the First Order). On top of that, he pretty clearly wanted to treat Poe as a Han Solo-type instead of as the more measured Wedge Antilles-type... and as a result, walked into having the fans of Poe’s comic note that he wrote Poe (say it with me now, for funzies, even if we disagree)... out of character.

Huh. Heard about the discrepancies between the movie and Poe comics, but I kinda take it as a given in a movie franchise with tie-ins that the former don't always match up with the latter.

And let me blunt - there’s no good excuse for giving Kylo a “fake-out” Draco In Leather Pants treatment after TFA. The character needed development. TLJ didn’t really do that: he’s an evil prick in TFA, and all we find out in TLJ is that he was likely an evil prick as Ben Solo. And what this “fake out” really translated to, at its core, was just screwing up Rey, and ignoring his usefulness as an antagonist going through a Villain’s Journey. Kylo got a better story in TFA as well... because at least there, we didn’t know how much of a snake he was until he killed Han, and it didn’t obfuscate on what he was so much that Kylo-fans started becoming fans of this hypothetical “Ben” Character instead.

I guess I think the fans that "Draco-ized" Kylo only focused on the stuff in the movie before he announces his plan to destroy everything after turning on Snoke. IMHO, he's kind of an X1 Magento-type character; we understand why he is the way he is, but he's not supposed to be sympathetic.

- What changed between Abrams in TFA and Abrams on TROS was even less time to develop the film, a devastated story and character mistakes and lack of momentum going forward after TLJ, and LFL making demands for Kylo Ren’s sake in defiance of both TFA and TLJ’s story intentions... which also means LFL was rejecting the *one* thing that TLJ really left with some momentum.

Can't win 'em all.

- Cinematography ranks well below storytelling in my opinion; it’s pretty and important, but it’s a side dish compared to the writing and directing. You can make a great film with average to below average cinematography. You can make a bad film with great cinematography.

And I really would argue that Abrams game there is good enough to negate the idea thta should be a deciding advantage... especially if we include other visual aspects of the story, like costuming; Kylo’s best costume and look is in TFA by far.

Fair enough.