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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by FRC Coazze View Post
    Kylo is the only character that tries to be interesting in the sequel trilogy. I think much of his appeal is due to the actor: Adam Driver carries the trilogy on his shoulders. It really is a pity to see so much potential getting wasted. Overall the entire sequel trilogy is just disappointing and annoying (I’m not angry as other fans are, but those movies can be really frustrating).

    TFA is where Kylo really fails as a character I think, it’s his worst movie. He started off cool and ended up as a waste, and his arc in the first movie undermined his credibility as a villain in the sequels. He can’t be a menacing threat ‘cause he got beaten by the protagonist in their first fight, and if you don't have a good villain you can't have a decent hero (and the sequel trilogy doesn't have a villain at all). I liked him better in The Last Jedi… except from the fact that there was another movie before and that Kylo’s character in TLJ clashes with the same character from TFA. But we know how consistent the sequel trilogy is.

    I liked him when he’s Ben Solo again. Pity he doesn’t even say a word.

    I don’t know, and can’t fathom, what went on at Disney… but were they scared he could actually be a good interesting character? Is that why they treated him so poorly? Is that why he was the one to die? Is that why he doesn’t utter a word in the last scenes of TROS? He’s the only legit Skywalker there, for crying out loud! I like Kylo. If I had to choose a character from the sequel trilogy that would be him. That's why I'm so displeased by they way he's been handled.
    I think it comes down to this: what did you, LFL, and others wants the ST to be?

    Because Abrams was hired to make, and then set out to make a Sequel Trilogy focusing on a female Jedi hero played by Daisy Ridley (Rey) with a male co-lead who *he, Lawrence Kasdan, and Bad Robot* decided should be played by John Boyega (Finn). And the film they produced based off that *specific* idea had Adam Driver playing the *antagonist,* not a protagonist, and a rather loathsomeness one at that, one fans would love to cheer against... and that film made $2 Billion and set the record for domestic box office.

    That film also reportedly caught LFL a bit by surprise, with them being shocked by how positive and enthusiastic the response was for Rey and Finn.

    LFL seemed to picture the ST as being, yes, about a female Jedi hero... but they themselves weren’t as invested in the specific character and actress they’d recruited for the role in comparison to the character they seemed to regard as the “real” male lead, played by Adam Driver. They shared this opinions with Rian Johnson, and he seemed to agree, with neither LFL nor Johnson quite seeing what the substance of his arc in TFA was, and produced TLJ... which saw support for Rey and Finn decrease immensely after it was released, made $700 Million less than TFA, was incredibly divisive, and saw Kylo’s popularity kind fo pulled by fan sf his increased profile and haters of his increased profile.

    Understand: as far as I’m concerned, nothing about Kylo is actually original (he’s just an inversion of Vader inconsistently portrayed) and Driver is massively underserved by his material.

    John Boyega got to show much more range and skill in just TFA than Driver did across three films, and Finn’s a more original and interesting character than Kylo in just TFA than across all three films... but LFL was uninterested in Boyega and Finn in spite of his success, and couldn’t decide exactly what Kylo was supposed to be. Driver is an excellent, even generational talent... but if 95% of what the script requires you to do is just be a sad but predictable monster, you can work the hell out of being a sad but predictable monster, but you can’t really be more.

    TLJ didn’t make him a greater villain at all, in either dimension or threat level - it simply presented him as though he were a deep character without actually showing why, and to the detriment of Rey and Finn, mostly; Boyega just got flat out demoted and handed material that condescendingly dismissed and downplayed his work in TFA, while Ridley got stuck with a character arc that was mostly “be a tool for telling the audience to pity and sympathize with Kylo.”

    And then TLJ also simultaneously argued that Kylo should just be the main villain now without explaining his origin, but also the last Skywalker.

    That’s why TROS had to “pay the bill” on a story where:

    - Rey, as the female heroine, is supposed to be the main character... but didn’t get much of a story in the middle film and in fact had stuff subtracted from her (they screwed her over because they didn’t want Kylo hated) and isn’t a Skywalker in a story that’s trying to end their 9 film saga.
    - Kylo is just a mess of contradictions, because LFL is firmly elevating him to male lead and romantic lead for Rey with a redemption story... but in terms of substance, he’s still just a Neo-Nazi school shooter who tried to mind-rape Rey... AND he ended TLJ refusing to get redeemed again and being placed as the main villain for the story... AND giving him special treatment to try and achieve his new endpoint goals were all liabilities to Rey.
    - And of course, Abrams isn’t the guy who suffers from the delusion that Kylo is already a sympathetic character, and isn’t going to forget that Rey is the main character.

    Don’t get me wrong: Kylo got screwed and the Skywalkers ended on a wet fart of an ending, with Driver skills being the only consistent asset the films used across the entire Trilogy. But...

    Ridley as Rey and Boyega as Finn got screwed over a lot more for Kylo’s sake.

    Kylo has to die because it wasn't his Trilogy, and they’d put too much importance and double standards on him to let him survive when Rey’s so underserved by TLJ, and the Skywalker had to be screwed over because Kylo was the only Skywalker.

    And Finn just got screwed, period.
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  2. #32
    Ultimate Member ChrisIII's Avatar
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    I wonder if they had to dial back Finn a bit since they increased Oscar Isaac's screen time. (After all, he was only really seen at the beginning and end of TFA, but I guess that was in part because they didn't want to overshadow the Han arc with an extra character along for the ride).
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  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisIII View Post
    I wonder if they had to dial back Finn a bit since they increased Oscar Isaac's screen time. (After all, he was only really seen at the beginning and end of TFA, but I guess that was in part because they didn't want to overshadow the Han arc with an extra character along for the ride).
    I still mainly blame Kylo’s promotion to male lead overall for Finn’s displacement, but Poe’s promotion to major character was a contributing factor; Isaac basically earned himself a higher ranking role through charisma and great chemistry with Boyega, and I think both Johnson and Abrams naturally felt he was more of Han Solo character by the second and third film - he’d been more of a charismatic Wedge character in TFA, but Johnson apparently reacted badly to a charismatic ace pilot and had a compulsion to deconstruct that, so he made Poe more of a blow hard hothead like Han, and then Abrams just kept that characterization and made him a true Han-substitute.

    Poe *does* eventually end up with more screentime than Finn in TROS... but Adam Driver is the guy that LFL insisted should be submitted as best actor, and there’s an awful lot of evidence they’re the ones insisting on both the “Bendemption” story and on the “Reylo” element of TROS, with Abrams acquiescing to those demands.

    Finn got squeezed from two directions at once, three of you consider Luke’s larger role in TLJ... but I think Kylo is the bigger “aggressor” in this argument.

    Finn was conceived of, casted, marketed, written and directed as the male lead, deuteragonist and Rey’s most important companion in TFA; that’s the job Boyega auditioned for, got, and proceeded kick ass in.

    ...Then TLJ immediately demoted him from male lead in favor of Luke and Kylo, shoved him into a sideplot, and decided he couldn’t exchange even *one word* of dialogue with Rey because her new screen companion and “other half of the protagonist” with Rey. TLJ also had Poe occupy a more serious and militarily significant role than Finn, but I think Kylo is still the bigger “belligerent” in terms of shoving Finn aside.

    I mean, once you declare that Finn can’t be Rey’s biggest companion, deuteragonist, or even love interest, you’ve kind of rejected the entire purpose for his character.

    ...And since everyone kind fo got screwed for the sake of Kylo, I just think LFL’s obsession with him was a bigger culprit for the ST’s problems. I mean, Rey got “maimed” in terms of characterization in TLJ just so she could be sympathetic towards Kylo. Everyone else got torn down so he could be above them... and they didn’t even really build him up.
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  4. #34
    Wakanda Forever Xero Kaiser's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by godisawesome View Post

    ...I’ll also be honest and say that if Finn had remained in the spotlight as Rey’s main companion and as an enemy Kylo personally hates, it would ave helped as well, since Finn was still very much the underdog... and a better character in just one film than Kylo/Ben in three.
    Don't get me started. I will forever be salty at how Finn got screwed over.

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xero Kaiser View Post
    Don't get me started. I will forever be salty at how Finn got screwed over.
    The thing is... Kylo worked pretty well as an antagonist and enemy for Rey *and* Finn in TFA: he and Rey have a rivalry quickly established once they meet each other, but Kylo and Finn are perfect foils for each other, and there is something low-key awesome in seeing Finn’s relations to Kylo do a 180 turn from being scared stiff to being willing to turn his back on him, then turn around and charge him defiantly.

    And, ideally, an evil, privileged neo-fascist betraying his family for a false myth that he’d rather believe, played by a white guy, vs a woman and a black man? And he’s personally antagonized, belittled, and assaulted both of them? While secretly being an insecure, puffed up and delusional man child?

    That’s like the perfect bad-guy for the Trump era.

    That’s not to say he couldn’t be revealed as more than some loathsome dude trying to “Make The Galaxy Great Again”. But you need to actually write the story that gets him there, fleshes him out, and addresses his loathsomeness and evil activities in a way that doesn’t make him a liability towards the heroes. Hell, with the right approach to storytelling, you *could* try to supplant Finn with Kylo as male lead and create a romance between Kylo and Rey, and not actually lose anything with those two characters.

    But as it is, it feels like Finn got “punished” for not being Kylo and for daring to be a successful male lead in TFA; Rian Johnson making sure not to write a single line of dialogue between Rey and Finn, even after they reunite, and clearly refusing to treat Finn’s injury as anything serious? That’s just rubbing salt in the wound for a character already saddled with a massive amount of apathy and disinterest on Johnson’s part.
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  6. #36
    Spectacular Member FRC Coazze's Avatar
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    Finn is probably the most wasted character in cinema history.
    He was the most compelling and original character in the Force Awakens and then almost got cancelled from the movies, but I don't think that was to flash out Kylo or to give Poe more screen time (you can have all of these characters without having to erase one of them), I think they were just very confused about what they wanted Kylo and Finn to be.
    But that's the big problem of the sequel trilogy: the lack of a cohesive vision. And this hindred all of the characters. You don't make a movie following the whims of the fans (who will never be pleased anyway) or the directors: you plan a story, a vision and you keep true to that, otherwise you come up with a trilogy where each movie retcons the previous, where characters keep changing and therefore lose their identities. This happened with Finn, Kylo, Rey and Luke.
    Last edited by FRC Coazze; 08-07-2020 at 03:57 PM.

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by FRC Coazze View Post
    Finn is probably the most wasted character in cinema history.
    He was the most compelling and original character in the Force Awakens and then almost got cancelled from the movies, but I don't think that was to flash out Kylo or to give Poe more screen time (you can have all of these characters without having to erase one of them), I think they were just very confused about what they wanted Kylo and Finn to be.
    But that's the big problem of the sequel trilogy: the lack of a cohesive vision. And this hindred all of the characters. You don't make a movie following the whims of the fans (who will never be pleased anyway) or the directors: you plan a story, a vision and you keep true to that, otherwise you come up with a trilogy where each movie retcons the previous, where characters keep changing and therefore lose their identities. This happened with Finn, Kylo, Rey and Luke.
    Agreed. It’s the lack of real coordination, and not just preplanning, but failure to honor and adapt to previous material in the ST that wound up under serving each character; heck, I’d argue that even Luke suffered from a lack of communication and respect given the wildly different tones of him meeting Rey in TFA and TLJ - while TLJ’s Luke story was always going to be a little bit recklessly experimental/pretentious, making such a hard and fast break from the tone and intention of TFA adds a layer of “disrespect” from TLJ towards the earlier film.

    Kylo and Finn had one film, TFA, that I think knew how they should relate with each other; even if Kylo losing to Rey hurts him as her enemy, he still works well as Finn’s enemy, and both of the characters have some actual dynamic growth in that film.

    I *do* think that Kylo getting positioned more as Rey’s most important connection and peer screwed over Finn, though, and likely reflects a lack of investment in Finn as the male lead by LFL.

    And not having Rey and Finn exchange even a single solitary word in all of TLJ (even Poe technically talks to her more in that film!) is what makes me think that Johnson and LFL May have deliberately tried to dismiss Finn as Rey’s original companion. Well, that, and stuff like LFL giving the comic writers the job of writing Finn in a janitor role instead of, y’know, the stormtrooper role.
    Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?

    I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP

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