Finn in *just* TFA > Kylo in all three ST films

[Mia]

Weird but legitimate question. If Driver was ugly or had played Ren as ugly (shaved his head, tons of prosthetics etc) do you think Reylo would have been pushed as hard ? Cause Driver seems to make alot of girls swoon and even after TFA (when their only interactions were her getting tortured by him and then them fighting) there were hundreds of shippers. So there would have been some fan pressure for Reylo to be a thing. Meanwhile if Ren had looked ugly would they have not signed on for that?

That way it leaves space open for Finn to actually do **** since Kylo can be a villain and not a deutagonist

Honest answer. No. Some women like messed up men, they think that can fix him. If they had left shaved Driver of his lovely locks, I still think that Reylo's would have gone for him. Which I was sort of sad that they went there in TLJ, there is a massive 'Beauty and the Beast' overtone and apparently Pride and Prejudice was used as reference in their relationship. Because I think that Rey deserves better, but then again she was still finding herself at the point and she knew that she needed to turn Ren if they were going to take down TFO. So she had to give him the benefit of the doubt. And she also is coming from a place where she was rejected/abandoned and treated as nothing for most of her life. So she didn't want to write Ren off.



Finn was never going to be be with Rey, unless they changed his race and made him her adversary. I wasn't crazy about the Reylo romance. But I have to say that their relationship love/hate or enemies to lovers made the films more interesting, and far more interesting and less predictable. There was a tension and you never knew what was going to happen next. Wathcing as Rey was attracted to him, but yet at the same time be repulsed.

Finn with Rey would be a boring pairing. Finn will talk Rey down and comfort her. But he doesn't challenge her the way she needs to be challenged, he's better as older brother not partner. Although I have to say that I liked Finn in TLJ and TROS he stood up for others and himself without being belligerent and he used his head.

[Mia]

John Boyega was attacked by the unfortunate (though small and in no way representative of the overall shipping community) racist section of the Reylo fandom after one off-color joke, and he gave the racists the treatment and belittling they deserved and deconstructed the abusive relationship that they hold above all else in the fandom.

Boyega was hired to be the male lead of the Sequel Trilogy. I’d be willing to bet that his contract probably included some kind of emphasis that prevented Johnson and LFL from filling removing his screentime, since LFL’s apathy towards him is unlikely to have still allowed him to have such a screentime lead of Kylo/Ben in TROS.

Hardly. John Boyega isn't Denzel Washington or Chadwick Boseman.

I find it ironic that you make excuses for Boyega's for his unproffessionalism, his postings online, interpret criticisms and crass Twitter posts (I have seen people fired for less). I really can't wait to see how far his career goes after this. If he can't behave himself online or out in public, I wonder what he might be like on set. People do get fired and parts downsized due to behavioural issues.

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But work yourself into a lather and get worked into a lather about a fictional characters transgressions. To quote CP30. "The Irony Sir."

[WebLurker]

A lot of my disappointment and criticism of the film is based off how much I loved TFA for character things, and just how jarring and counterintuitive I find TLJ for pretty much all the new characters; I’m less concerned with Luke’s characterization - I dislike it in TLJ, but it’s not as important to me as Rey, Finn and Kylo’s story... and in that order. And I just can’t really accept the writing for Rey around Kylo in TLJ as good - to me, it’s a massively derailing move that cascades into later inconsistency, and simply wouldn’t be happening if Johnson were less enamored with Kylo, or more clear headed about Kylo, or just anything less about Kylo and more about Rey, where I just don’t think he really worked hard at getting in her head at all.

I honestly liked Luke's characterization, but that's another thing.

Way I see it, I think Rey's story in TLJ goes just to the breaking point, but doesn't quite cross over it. I agree her trusting Kylo on anything doesn't make much sense (I think that "third lesson" scene really needed to stay; that gave what I think the hut scene needed to make the most sense). I guess the thing is, I think the movie's main point is that Rey screwed up big time going to Kylo. That's the lesson of the film (whether TROS retcons that or not can be debated). Course, I saw it more tying into her disillusionment with Luke then anything else, which was the story I was more invested in.

And that “cascading effect” is only made worse when I look at BTS details that make it look like a lot of the ST’s problems revolve around two factors - LFL allowing Rey to end up not being a Skywalker or Solo when that was almost certainly her first characterization, and the LFL inevitably succumbing TFA realignment of the cast in their priorities based around Kylo being the only Skywalker.

I don't think Rey was ever intended to be a Skywalker/Solo by blood; TFA itself indicates that Luke and Rey's father were different people (Maz's scene in the basement). To be honest, I didn't have a huge problem with the answer they settled on. In fact, I've really come to like it. Like characters who're "supposed" to be evil, but aren't. Also, given a franchise that's played a lot with destiny, it's a nice change of pace to see one where the character's destiny is defined by their choices, not what fate has in mind.

As far as Kylo goes, I frankly don't get the fan cult around the character. Good character, good actor, but the heroes were more interesting, IMHO. Course, I never bought into the idea that as the last bio Skywalker, that he had to be redeemed to justify the movies. If nothing else, irregardless of what the nine-movie cycle is being called, the sequel trilogy isn't the the Skywalker's story (the role those characters played and the end reveal that the heroine joined the family nothwithstanding).

The Reylo element of TROS and the jarring and seemingly disconnected nature of Ben Solo’s redemption are basically exactly what will happen when someone decides they have to be “conventional” in their treatment of the Skywalker story after the extremely unconventional story of TLJ. It didn’t really matter that Abrams had poisoned ”Reylo” as a relationship in TFA, or that Johnson has intended to end the possibility in TLJ (though I’d blame him thinking it was possible at that point for its rise later), or that TLJ ended with him becoming a bigger bad guy, or that TFA had arguably pretty definitively driven the character away from a good redemption story and actually defined him against that possibility...

Preaching to the choir, Would be curious to know how exactly that got into the movie and what the intent was. Doubt that Disney was trying to pander to the Tumblr crowd.

Because once you say “Kylo/Ben is the last Skywalker,” LFL Started realigning people into the spots to fit that.

And yet the point of the movie is that he wasn't...

Rey wound up with a weird Frankenstein story arc to try and preserve her place as the lead while she was still kind of hammered into the “Non-Skywalker” supporting role around Kylo - their scenes are uneven from trying to milk Kylo/Ben for the expected family drama at the heart of Star Wars even when Rey is around and that hurts her story, but Kylo’s story is still limited so that he still has to act as a supporting character to Rey. As a result, neither gets full formed, and both honestly keep from reaching their potential.

Finn got caught in the crossfire, because to be honest, it’s better to be a well-written sidekick accompanying the main hero with mutually beneficial story arcs than “his own man” : it can be argued that he’s capitalizing on the lessons from the previous movies... but he’s still clearly locked into a supporting role in a not very ambitious story, and would clearly benefit more if, say, as a Force sensitive person, he was allowed to be in the Palpatine confrontation as well, and the story would probably benefit there as well, since he would offer more storytelling opportunities with Ben and Rey... and almost certainly would help Rey’s story get better if they weren’t trying to lock her away from him beyond this 11th hour “No One knows me!” bull that seems to exist mainly to allow Ben to be her companion when that makes no sense and inject some artificial drama.

Finn didn’t so much lose his spot to Poe as much as he got demoted to Poe’s level, because Kylo got promoted away from villainous antagonist who *happens* to be a Skywalker, to *the* Skywalker and dual protagonist of TROS.

I guess I have to say that I found Rey, Finn, and Poe's stories worked better and were more satisfying then Kylo's, at least on paper. But, I am one of those weird guys who found that TFA and TLJ were mostly organic to each other in terms of having a through line to the stories and all that.

[godisawesome]

Hardly. John Boyega isn't Denzel Washington or Chadwick Boseman.

I find it ironic that you make excuses for Boyega's for his unproffessionalism, his postings online, interpret criticisms and crass Twitter posts (I have seen people fired for less). I really can't wait to see how far his career goes after this. If he can't behave himself online or out in public, I wonder what he might be like on set. People do get fired and parts downsized due to behavioural issues.

Tweet.jpg


But work yourself into a lather and get worked into a lather about a fictional characters transgressions. To quote CP30. "The Irony Sir."

I find getting incensed at a black actor for a dirty joke while still finding nothing wrong with a female character being made to kiss her white abuser when 99% of their interactions were horrible assaults upon her person and her friends while she never talked to him after his “redemption” to be a massive double standard.

He can’t make a joke. But LFL can endorse an abusive relationship.

And literally no one has ever spoken bad about Boyega as a professional. If anything, Ridley, Isaac, Tran and everyone else who’s worked with him has enjoyed the experience, and he was easily the most enthusiastic and loyal promoter among the actors that Disney and LFL could hope for, and only started expressing his issues after TROS came out.

I honestly liked Luke's characterization, but that's another thing.

Way I see it, I think Rey's story in TLJ goes just to the breaking point, but doesn't quite cross over it. I agree her trusting Kylo on anything doesn't make much sense (I think that "third lesson" scene really needed to stay; that gave what I think the hut scene needed to make the most sense). I guess the thing is, I think the movie's main point is that Rey screwed up big time going to Kylo. That's the lesson of the film (whether TROS retcons that or not can be debated). Course, I saw it more tying into her disillusionment with Luke then anything else, which was the story I was more invested in.

...

I guess I have to say that I found Rey, Finn, and Poe's stories worked better and were more satisfying then Kylo's, at least on paper. But, I am one of those weird guys who found that TFA and TLJ were mostly organic to each other in terms of having a through line to the stories and all that.

I honestly think that enjoying TLJ predominantly for Luke is probably the best way to enjoy that film. It makes it so much easier, especially if you follow Johnson’s creative philosophy for Luke’s characterization. There’s less need to care about the “why” for Rey making a mistake in favor of Kylo, less reason to be ticked at Finn’s story going nowhere, and not all that much reason to be upset at all the mystery boxes being burned up with minimal payoff.

It’s not a bad idea to try and enjoy TLJ as “The Bittersweet Epilogue to the Adventures of Luke Skywalker,” since that’s really what the core of the story ends up being on a character level.

I just didn’t put money down for “The Bittersweet Epilogue to the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.” I put down money for a sequel to TFA, and the continuing adventures of Rey the Scavenger of Jakku and Finn the Escaped Slave Soldier, and their battle against the loathsome monster Kylo Ren.

And for the record, I don’t think you’re at all weird to find that in your opinion TFA and TLJ flow together organically; that tends to be more fo a common connection for TLJ fans, period, and really only a major and gigantic gripe of TFA fans or, strangely, people whomdidn’t like TFA but see TLJ as somehow even worse or “differently bad.”

It’s TROS that’s the real odd bird out. It’s Abrams trying to tell a TFA-style story, but upon half the foundation from TLJ, while that half the foundation is how he and/or LFL view it or want it to be interpreted, and that required demolishing half of TLJ’s philosophies and ideas, while still trying to keep to what LFL thinks are TLJ friendly ideas that only aggravate TFA fans (prime example: Reylo, and Kylo over Finn as the male lead.)

...And it’s TROS that features Kylo/Ben’s only clear turn as the male lead. TFA clearly has Finn as the male lead. That’s not really up for debate. TLJ features Luke in that role. That’s not really up for debate. Only TROS really focuses on Kylo enough to get that argument... it just does so while giving him very little time or story to work with, again because I think Abrams feared he’d overwhelm Rey in layman’s eyes because he was a Solo. You’re view of the family story/lack of family story is closer to what LFL and Abrams were hoping for, but there’s plenty of people who reject the entire story or back up Abrams’s fears by voicing disgust at Ben being underwritten when “he’s the Skywalker!”

...

...For the record, I would gladly do a debate between Finn and Luke as ST male leads, with a lot friendlier atmosphere and a lot less disgust compared to Kylo/Ben. Luke has the weight of the previous film’s stories, and a literally award-worthy performance by Hamill... But Boyega delivers a great performance in TFA himself, and I’d argue his story is still better *for the ST as a three film story,* and that he still gets more dynamism in TFA than even Luke in TLJ. That one would be friendlier and more fun.

Ben Solo just isn’t worth what LFL had Abrams do in TROS.

[jetengine]

Honest answer. No. Some women like messed up men, they think that can fix him. If they had left shaved Driver of his lovely locks, I still think that Reylo's would have gone for him. Which I was sort of sad that they went there in TLJ, there is a massive 'Beauty and the Beast' overtone and apparently Pride and Prejudice was used as reference in their relationship. Because I think that Rey deserves better, but then again she was still finding herself at the point and she knew that she needed to turn Ren if they were going to take down TFO. So she had to give him the benefit of the doubt. And she also is coming from a place where she was rejected/abandoned and treated as nothing for most of her life. So she didn't want to write Ren off.



Finn was never going to be be with Rey, unless they changed his race and made him her adversary. I wasn't crazy about the Reylo romance. But I have to say that their relationship love/hate or enemies to lovers made the films more interesting, and far more interesting and less predictable. There was a tension and you never knew what was going to happen next. Wathcing as Rey was attracted to him, but yet at the same time be repulsed.

Finn with Rey would be a boring pairing. Finn will talk Rey down and comfort her. But he doesn't challenge her the way she needs to be challenged, he's better as older brother not partner. Although I have to say that I liked Finn in TLJ and TROS he stood up for others and himself without being belligerent and he used his head.

That just sounds like a shallow reading of pride and prejudice on their part, Darcy is a prick but hes nowhere near Ren

[motherofpearl1]

John Boyega was attacked by the unfortunate (though small and in no way representative of the overall shipping community) racist section of the Reylo fandom after one off-color joke, and he gave the racists the treatment and belittling they deserved and deconstructed the abusive relationship that they hold above all else in the fandom.

Boyega was hired to be the male lead of the Sequel Trilogy. I’d be willing to bet that his contract probably included some kind of emphasis that prevented Johnson and LFL from filling removing his screentime, since LFL’s apathy towards him is unlikely to have still allowed him to have such a screentime lead of Kylo/Ben in TROS.

But in spite of doing his job well, he was shuffled to the side, had his character lectured, and was put into scene that suspiciously belittle and make fun of his character while LFL themselves seemed to deliberately undermine the drama of his character in TFA, forsaking stuff like a Greg Rucka’s Before The Awakening story and it’s serious edge for him as a stormtrooper in training, and going for more janitor jokes. Frankly, it feels like there’s some benign racism probably at work against the character; please note I’m saying this as a white guy, but if his story isn’t suffering from all the ill-effects of benign racism that I’ve been told identify it, it certainly looks that way.

And regardless, it definitely seems like all those racists who attacked him when he was announced and featured in TFA got what they wanted; TROS showed LFL was more comfortable with having Rey kiss an ex-Space Neo-Nazi and mass murderer who’s d tortured her than in having her confide her feelings in a black man.

Driver got to be front and center of all the publicity for all three films and had his character get magically redeemed at the cost of Carrie Fisher’s last on-screen material, and enjoyed the privilege of sharing the screen with the expensive Harrison Ford to try and undo his character’s worst crime, and then his character got kissed by the victim of Kylo’s most heinous and selfish acts with little to no justification for it. Was Ben underdeveloped? Oh yeah, but that’s because he wasn’t built to be the male lead LFL wanted him to end up being, and Abrams was likely worried about a fully realized Ben stealing Rey’s spotlight since she wasn’t a Skywalker and the script was already making her pull a Sleeping a Beauty at an awkward time so Ben could get a kiss from her. What Driver had to deal with on an unpleasant level was harassment of his real life family by the kind of nutjobs who I wont even associate with Reylo fans, since “Daivers” are just morons who make Reyloers look like saints even to Kylo haters.

Gleason got screwed over by Johnson first. Abrams just perforated his character to get replaced by Pryde because a comedic idiot, like the one Johnson wrote in TLJ, couldn’t serve as the competent villain that Abrams had built in TFA.

Tran got screwed. There I have no argument. Even if someone didn’t find her character good in TLJ (like myself), the answer was not to banish her to a tertiary role. It would have been to rehabilitate her and integrate her with the heroic crew; Rey could have used a wrench wench friend to break the Bechdel Test with. I don’t think Johnson did Tran anymore favors than casting her in TLJ, and I think he gave her a limited and ultimately bad script to work with... but Abrams and Terio botched handling her in every way that could be worse.


Driver’s charisma and unconventional good lucks definitely played a part in the pro-Kylo slant that slowly came to ignore the character’s crimes, shallow nature, and clear placement as a bad guy with few to no redeeming qualities before TROS tried to magically wave that away.

Though to be fair, Kylo’s biggest advantage wound up just being the part where his character was a Solo/Skywalker, while Rey wound up being first a Random than a Palpatine.

Johnson was on the one hand arguing that the Skywalkers shouldn’t get special treatment and shouldn’t absorb too much audience attention going forward, but he also made a movie where the Skywalkers got special treatment and Rey’s attention was absorbed by them, and created the situation that led to Kylo experiencing the most egregious “Skywalker privilege” in the Saga.

Frankly, if his goal was to move beyond the Skywalkers, than pretending like the mass murderer, patricide and at-the-time-supposed-school-shooter was still a viable candidate for Rey’s attraction was a massively stupid move. If Rey Random was meant to say anything, than Kylo should have acted as the foil to fully deconstruct the idea of a Skywalker hero, and just stayed a turd or grown even worse.

And if we’re posting fandom articles not officially published by LFL, here’s one tied to my point:

https://the-swsc.com/2019/10/07/wher...s-protagonist/

Okay.
I'm a Reylo. I know quite a few. Many are people of colour, bisexual, gay. None of the people are in any way racist. We all liked Finn.
But...your comments are getting more and more disturbing, my friend. As I said it's fine to defend your character, not so fine to accuse people of being racist when they're not.Reylos chose to react at their disappointment with TROS by raising a fortune for Adam Driver's charity.
I also am finding your remarks about Adam Driver are getting too close to the bone - they're going beyond dislike for his character.
I think it's time for me to bow out of this thread. Bye folks.

[godisawesome]

Okay.
I'm a Reylo. I know quite a few. Many are people of colour, bisexual, gay. None of the people are in any way racist. We all liked Finn.
But...your comments are getting more and more disturbing, my friend. As I said it's fine to defend your character, not so fine to accuse people of being racist when they're not.Reylos chose to react at their disappointment with TROS by raising a fortune for Adam Driver's charity.
I also am finding your remarks about Adam Driver are getting too close to the bone - they're going beyond dislike for his character.
I think it's time for me to bow out of this thread. Bye folks.

Okay, I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude, and I mean no disrespect towards Adam Driver. He's fantastic, and I love him as an actor... when he gets to play well-written characters. And i don't beleieve Kylo qualifies beyond a shallow reading, and that Driver was stuck with a fairly limited role.

But if the question is to defend my favorite character, i can do that.

John Boyega gets to show more depth and progression across TFA than anyone else does in a single film throughout Star Wars. The character of Finn has a highly empathetic and well paced transformation across an entire film, one that echoes and helps the stories of his peers, Rey and Kylo. He just gets more and does more with it because it's a story-line designed for maximum exploitation of an actor's skills.

The character concept is already pretty high quality. A stormtrooper, the ubiquitous nameless, faceless henchman in previous films, becoming a major heroic rebel character? That's a great formula, if execute well.

And it is.

Boyega's first scenes in the film share a commonality with Ridley and Driver; all three are first shown masked and costumed up, leaving them largely reliant on body language to communicate their acting. Rildey removes her mask quicker than the other two, and Driver takes the longest to take his off. Boyega wears his mask for his entire first scene and brilliantly acts out a crisis of conscience and horrifying epiphany about the First Order's nature and what his place in it is. He's a stormtrooper suddenly reminded of his mortality by a compatriots death, which awakens his empathy, self-interest, and probably the Force all at once, and it's reflected in his acting while still covered in armor. When called onto to commit a mass murderer under Kylo's orders, Finn finds himself too sickened and horrified at the action to carry it out, but to frightened to do anything, and again conveys that through body language. We then have our first character dynamic of the film - a small but well done antagonism between Kylo and Finn, as Kylo so intimidates and frightens Finn that Finn freezes in fear when caught staring at the giant Force using monster he's just queitly defied.

Only then does Boyega remove his helmet to reveal a new persona being born on screen - one that's too human to conform to the horrors of the First Order's dogma, but also too human to not realize the sheer danger he's in. He becomes a desperate but clever deserter, seeking out his best hope for escape in Poe, and being rewarded with his shot at freedom and a name -an identity all his own to form from here on out. His friendship with Poe is born from necessity, but Finn demonstrates he still retains a pragmatic loyalty to his current allies in trying to rescue Poe form the sinking fighter. He's not a hero yet - mostly juts a survivor with enough wisdom to pursue mutually beneficial courses of action - but he's now his own man. He meets Rey, and clearly shows his compassion to help others when she is attacked and he considers saving her. She doesn't need it, chases after him instead, and when events conspire to let him see how she would view him as a Resistance fighter, he succumbs to the natural human selfishness to keep receiving that adoration. He is not a flawed but easy to sympathize with protagonist in full.

He and Rey team up in a storyline that proves mutually beneficial for both actors, as Boyega's chemistry with her is the best Ridley gets in the series, and we begin to see a warring battle between his selfish desire for her concern with a selfless desire to help hr, honor Poe, and do at least something right. Han sees through his facade and clearly makes him feel some shame, again conveyed through non-verbal acting, and when called on his charade, he eventually admits it, bluntly but emphatically states his intelligent reasons for being afraid, and tries to withdraw with what dignity he can, confessing his sins to Rey, asking her to accompany him, and respecting her decision to stay. He then begins taking his chance to escape the First Order's threatening pursuit... but is compelled to stop when he sees the Hosnian system get blown up... and returns to Han because of *that,* his innate compassion and some burgeoning bravery, before realizing Rey is missing, seeing her taken by Kylo, and flipping his priorities fully to heroic ones.

He then willingly supplies the Resistance the information they need to stop SKB, volunteers to help sabotage it's shields, and places the Resistance's mission priorities above his on for rescuing Rey - taking down the shields first, and then staying behind to help Han afterwards. He also has his personal story help Rey's here - her seeking her family and dealing with her denial about being abandoned it matched and reversed when he returns for her, giving her an emotional catharsis Ridley wonderfully portrays - because Finn and Rey have a reciprocal character dynamic that helps them both. He then ends the film in a reversal of where he began it vis-a-vie Kylo - charging the murderous SOB with pure defiance even though he knows he's outmatched, and managing to tag the montser when toyed with... and his delay of Kylo allows Rey to rise and win the day.

To paraphrase John Moxley talking about Vince McMahon - "This is some good $#!+!"

...And nothing Driver gets to do as Kylo is as inspiring, well paced, or organically created. Kylo/Ben relies on a magic trick to finally change, has no real redeeming qualities, has horribly banal and even disgusting flaws, and just never gets a chance to reach his potential.

...And i think the laziness his story suffers form is intrinsically related to just assuming a sympathetic view of him as a white male Skywalker, while Boyega and Finn have to work twice as hard to get half the praise in the other films.

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

I find getting incensed at a black actor for a dirty joke while still finding nothing wrong with a female character being made to kiss her white abuser when 99% of their interactions were horrible assaults upon her person and her friends while she never talked to him after his “redemption” to be a massive double standard.

He can’t make a joke. But LFL can endorse an abusive relationship.

And literally no one has ever spoken bad about Boyega as a professional. If anything, Ridley, Isaac, Tran and everyone else who’s worked with him has enjoyed the experience, and he was easily the most enthusiastic and loyal promoter among the actors that Disney and LFL could hope for, and only started expressing his issues after TROS came out.



I honestly think that enjoying TLJ predominantly for Luke is probably the best way to enjoy that film. It makes it so much easier, especially if you follow Johnson’s creative philosophy for Luke’s characterization. There’s less need to care about the “why” for Rey making a mistake in favor of Kylo, less reason to be ticked at Finn’s story going nowhere, and not all that much reason to be upset at all the mystery boxes being burned up with minimal payoff.

It’s not a bad idea to try and enjoy TLJ as “The Bittersweet Epilogue to the Adventures of Luke Skywalker,” since that’s really what the core of the story ends up being on a character level.

I just didn’t put money down for “The Bittersweet Epilogue to the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.” I put down money for a sequel to TFA, and the continuing adventures of Rey the Scavenger of Jakku and Finn the Escaped Slave Soldier, and their battle against the loathsome monster Kylo Ren.

And for the record, I don’t think you’re at all weird to find that in your opinion TFA and TLJ flow together organically; that tends to be more fo a common connection for TLJ fans, period, and really only a major and gigantic gripe of TFA fans or, strangely, people whomdidn’t like TFA but see TLJ as somehow even worse or “differently bad.”

It’s TROS that’s the real odd bird out. It’s Abrams trying to tell a TFA-style story, but upon half the foundation from TLJ, while that half the foundation is how he and/or LFL view it or want it to be interpreted, and that required demolishing half of TLJ’s philosophies and ideas, while still trying to keep to what LFL thinks are TLJ friendly ideas that only aggravate TFA fans (prime example: Reylo, and Kylo over Finn as the male lead.)

...And it’s TROS that features Kylo/Ben’s only clear turn as the male lead. TFA clearly has Finn as the male lead. That’s not really up for debate. TLJ features Luke in that role. That’s not really up for debate. Only TROS really focuses on Kylo enough to get that argument... it just does so while giving him very little time or story to work with, again because I think Abrams feared he’d overwhelm Rey in layman’s eyes because he was a Solo. You’re view of the family story/lack of family story is closer to what LFL and Abrams were hoping for, but there’s plenty of people who reject the entire story or back up Abrams’s fears by voicing disgust at Ben being underwritten when “he’s the Skywalker!”

...

...For the record, I would gladly do a debate between Finn and Luke as ST male leads, with a lot friendlier atmosphere and a lot less disgust compared to Kylo/Ben. Luke has the weight of the previous film’s stories, and a literally award-worthy performance by Hamill... But Boyega delivers a great performance in TFA himself, and I’d argue his story is still better *for the ST as a three film story,* and that he still gets more dynamism in TFA than even Luke in TLJ. That one would be friendlier and more fun.

Ben Solo just isn’t worth what LFL had Abrams do in TROS.

I have to disagree with TROS being the odd one of the three. I feel TLJ is the odd one out IMO. TLJ and TFA just do not fit well together at all. TROS the big problem is the Abrahms tried to please both who love and hated TLJ.

[Jackalope89]

Finn=Best male lead of any of the ST films. And a better character then whiny, wannabe Vader.

[WebLurker]

I honestly think that enjoying TLJ predominantly for Luke is probably the best way to enjoy that film. It makes it so much easier, especially if you follow Johnson’s creative philosophy for Luke’s characterization. There’s less need to care about the “why” for Rey making a mistake in favor of Kylo, less reason to be ticked at Finn’s story going nowhere, and not all that much reason to be upset at all the mystery boxes being burned up with minimal payoff.

Dunno about Finn's story "not going anywhere"; it was a step forward from where he had been before (standing up for himself and a select few he cared about vs. standing up for those who needed it). Remember, his sole motivation in TFA for helping the Resistance is to rescue Rey and the only reason he was going along to the base in the first place was partially to keep up the improvised cover as a Resistance agent and partially due to making deal with BB-8 to get him there to keep up that cover. I mean, at Takodana, he was going to jump ship and abandon everything; the only reason he came back was for Rey.

As far as the mystery boxes, I honestly didn't have any real complaints about how those worked out. Heck, I found they worked better then the asinine "who is John Harrison" mystery box cooked up for Star Trek Into Darkness (and even J. J. Abrams has admitted trying to hide that the bad guy was a white-washed Khan was a mistake that hobbled the movie).

It’s not a bad idea to try and enjoy TLJ as “The Bittersweet Epilogue to the Adventures of Luke Skywalker,” since that’s really what the core of the story ends up being on a character level.

I just didn’t put money down for “The Bittersweet Epilogue to the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.” I put down money for a sequel to TFA, and the continuing adventures of Rey the Scavenger of Jakku and Finn the Escaped Slave Soldier, and their battle against the loathsome monster Kylo Ren.

I think it was both. I guess I liked both parts more then you did?

And for the record, I don’t think you’re at all weird to find that in your opinion TFA and TLJ flow together organically; that tends to be more fo a common connection for TLJ fans, period, and really only a major and gigantic gripe of TFA fans or, strangely, people whomdidn’t like TFA but see TLJ as somehow even worse or “differently bad.”

It just seems like it's a pretty rare combination, since the most vocal are either of the "TLJ ruined TFA and TROS was a course correction" or "TLJ is what the sequels should have been from day one and TROS destroyed that by pandering to the TFA fans" camps. Being someone who loved the first movie, thought that TLJ was the right sequel to that film and that TROS was good overall, but a step back from the previous two, made a couple of serious mistakes, and seemed like Abrams was trying to make his own parts two and three to the trilogy in one go to very mixed results seems to be a rare position to hold.

It’s TROS that’s the real odd bird out. It’s Abrams trying to tell a TFA-style story, but upon half the foundation from TLJ, while that half the foundation is how he and/or LFL view it or want it to be interpreted, and that required demolishing half of TLJ’s philosophies and ideas, while still trying to keep to what LFL thinks are TLJ friendly ideas that only aggravate TFA fans (prime example: Reylo, and Kylo over Finn as the male lead.)

As noted before, it does feel like Abrams had ideas for his own Episodes 8 and 9 and tried to stuff them into one movie, which I think is one reason why it suffers (it's really fast with hardly any moments to catch your breath and introduces new characters who would've been great to have in a second and third movie, but don't have a chance to shine here). On the other hand, I don't know if it's quite as anti-TLJ as it might seem at first. It builds off the Force Skype and Rey's initial Jedi training. I'm not even sure the theme of Rey's past (or lack thereof) are mutually incompatible; in both cases, the point is that the person she chose to be and what she chose to do are what define who she is and what she'll become, not her lineage (whether that be of ignoble nobodies or the most evil figure in recent history).

As far as Kylo being imported as the male lead, maybe? Thing is, IMHO, I would make the case that I think Finn had the more consistent story arc through and through. I will concede that he seemed to have finished that in TLJ and TROS is more of us seeing who he'd become as a result of that, but at least it works, not with Kylo being evil until his mother flips the switch and he's suddenly good again. Also, for the alleged male lead, Kylo is a disappointment in the final installment; he literally only exists to prop Rey's story up. Think about it, he tells her who she really is, which feeds her crises until she reaches the point where she's willing to confront her familial past to find her future beyond it. His only purpose for coming to the final battle as a hero is to give Palpatine the means to fix himself and ultimately resurrect Rey. As soon as the former is done, he disappears from the story, leaving Rey as the one to finish him off and then disappears again once the latter is done, leaving Rey as the character who then gets to complete the arc that's been set up from day one; her finding her place and solidifying finding her family.

...And it’s TROS that features Kylo/Ben’s only clear turn as the male lead. TFA clearly has Finn as the male lead. That’s not really up for debate. TLJ features Luke in that role. That’s not really up for debate. Only TROS really focuses on Kylo enough to get that argument... it just does so while giving him very little time or story to work with, again because I think Abrams feared he’d overwhelm Rey in layman’s eyes because he was a Solo. You’re view of the family story/lack of family story is closer to what LFL and Abrams were hoping for, but there’s plenty of people who reject the entire story or back up Abrams’s fears by voicing disgust at Ben being underwritten when “he’s the Skywalker!”

...

You can see above for thoughts on Kylo as a lead character and the question of if he really overshadows Rey.

...For the record, I would gladly do a debate between Finn and Luke as ST male leads, with a lot friendlier atmosphere and a lot less disgust compared to Kylo/Ben. Luke has the weight of the previous film’s stories, and a literally award-worthy performance by Hamill... But Boyega delivers a great performance in TFA himself, and I’d argue his story is still better *for the ST as a three film story,* and that he still gets more dynamism in TFA than even Luke in TLJ. That one would be friendlier and more fun.

Ben Solo just isn’t worth what LFL had Abrams do in TROS.

I kinda feel that TLJ is Luke's story inasmuch as the original trilogy was Darth Vaders'. You can make the case (and it has been made) that the original six movies' overall story is "the Tragedy of Darth Vader," but, even if that is one of the overall plot threads, 4 - 6 is still Luke's story. So, TLJ can house both the conclusion of Luke's story and the continuation of the other character's, IMHO.

[Joeybsmooth]

The definition of a male lead is the leading actor star, starring role, or simply lead who plays the role of the protagonist of a film, television show or play.

As you yourself mentioned above. Finn was never more than a ‘bosom’ buddy and companion to Rey. Someone for the main character to emote off of. To borrow from Shakespeare he’s Benvolio to Rey’s Romeo. You could take out Finn and replace him with another character including a woman, and do the same thing. And it would not change the nature of the part: The best friend. That’s it. You could not do the same thing for Kylo.

Essentially Finn was nothing more than the Black best friend. His running around after Rey in the film was embarrassing to watch. Like he can’t stand on his own two feet and wants to tuck tail and run at the first opportunity. It was in TLJ and TROS where he got more of a leadership role and became integral to the story.
If you liked Finn in TFA that's your preference, but I frankly found him in the role to be embarrassing. That of the interchangeable Black side kick.





Rey didn’t change? Did we watch the same film? Because it just baffles me how anyone could miss her change and growth.

Rey starts off as a tough and resilient yet still naïve girl and changes into to a powerful, pragmatic and confident young woman.
She starts off in TFA as desperately wanting to know who her family is so she can define herself through them so she can feel significant.
She then becomes wiser in the realization and acceptance that heroes don’t always behave as heroes or do the right thing. She discovers that she doesn’t need to define herself through others and can value and accept herself for what she has achieved and who she has become. She can choose her own family and does not have to be defined by lineage.

No one else can tell you who you are, not a friend, not a mentor, not even your parents. She eventually takes charge of her own life and that same self reliance that allowed her to survive on Jakku is how she helped save what is left of the Resistance. By taking the lessons she has learned to not only take down a tyrant but also to reign in her darker impulses.

Much if most of Rey's changes are believable because they are represent a maturing and change of the mind. Which is the primary way people grow and change.
https://www.fandom.com/articles/star...e-of-skywalker

It is funny how the people who like the down play the importance of love how he was treated by TLJ. Finn drove the plot of the TFA, and can not be replaced by anyone. You call his role embarrassing in TFA. When in TLJ he is falling around and bumping his head right after getting out of a coma. Then he gets electrocuted and thrown back like 8 feet as an joke. Before that he walks around in leaking bubble, and he even falls in animal waste. Beyond that he as be told why war is bad. In TFA he was running away .. then own his own he made the Choice to stand and fight, and by the end of the movie he is facing down Kylo.

Beyond, they literally said Finn was co-lead, more then once.