It just hit me that Mayfeld had better character development than Finn?

[Anthony W]

Both worked for the Empire, but Mayfeld received more character development in two episodes of a TV show than Finn over the course of three movies.

[thwhtGuardian]

Both worked for the Empire, but Mayfeld received more character development in two episodes of a TV show than Finn over the course of three movies.

It's even more sad when you consider the fact that Burr is a comedian with limited acting history and they still gave his character time to evolve and trusted that not only would viewers be interested in that journey but that Burr could pull it off.

[Anthony W]

It's even more sad when you consider the fact that Burr is a comedian with limited acting history and they still gave his character time to evolve and trusted that not only would viewers be interested in that journey but that Burr could pull it off.

And Mayfeld isn't even meant to be a "main character"! They only needed one episode to get the point across. The first episode we saw the character in he was just a wisecracking gun for hire. Now he is on his way to being the Deadpool of the Star Wars universe.

[thwhtGuardian]

And Mayfeld isn't even meant to be a "main character"! They only needed one episode to get the point across. The first episode we saw the character in he was just a wisecracking gun for hire. Now he is on his way to being the Deadpool of the Star Wars universe.

Yeah, I'm thinking we'll definitely be seeing more of him, whether its in the next season of the Mandalorian, the Book of Boba, Rangers of the New Republic...or all three.

[godisawesome]

That’s what happens when LFL doesn’t want the black dude to be the main male character because he stands in the way of the whiny little brat they’d prefer, and punish the character for that rather than actually do something positive.

And because The Last Jedi absolutely sucks with Finn.

Boyega and Finn got screwed; TFA gave the character plenty of development, dramatic meat, and showcase scenes, easily greater than the other characters in the ST, and I’d argue clearly more than Barr’s Mayfeld got across two appearances...

...only for the next film to promptly not just ignore the characters potential, but to regress and denigrate the character down to an unexceptional token black guy that had no real place in the story.

Finn exited TFA having completed a well-paced, multi-layered arc going from a nameless, faceless henchmen to a desperate deserter to a Resistance Big Deal, in a story that had no problem embracing the drama and trauma of his background. His confession scene to Rey and his return to Han after Starkiller Base fires on Hosnian Prime clearly match Mayfeld’s performance in his second episode, and his first scene earlier in TFA is pure dynamite from a dramatic perspective.

But he left TLJ a lesser character than Mayfeld, and LFL seemed bound and determined to keep him that way, and from Boyega’s testimony, apparently over Abrams’s objectives.

TLJ seemed to deliberately act to try and downgrade and reinterpret as much of his strengths into weaknesses as it could:

* His bond with Rey is reworked into somehow being a flaw (which is bullshit from a film that wants her focused on Kylo),
* His injuries fighting Kylo are mocked in his Bacta suit while Kylo’s little face scratch is treated as some serious dramatic damage,
* He then has Rose tase him as their “Meet Cute” in a story that pretty clearly only cares about making it so he can’t be with Rey and thus doesn’t actually make their relationship interesting.
* His story is a subplot of a subplot deliberately designed to have no real benefit on the main conflict, only lazily tied to the main plot in the first place, and that clearly suffers from apathy as Rian Johnson casually mentioned he didn’t even want to write in an interesting character hook between Finn and Rose.
* Then he, the child slave soldier from the fascist state who made that all abundantly clear in the last film, has to play the naive idiot so that Rose can lecture him on the evils of war profiteering and child slavery for some dumb reason.
* We then get a scene where, like Mayfeld, he has to infiltrate the First Order, but Johnson only uses it for slapstick before throwing in a somehow even more wasted Phasma for a lazy fight scene.
* Then Finn gets put in the stupid Battering Adam mini-adventure, which is exactly as dumb, hypocritical, and badly written as the Space Chase in terms of trying to sell a point with blatant double standards and stupidity.

You couldn’t really demote and denigrate a character that much harder than TLJ did to Finn... and judging from LFL’s actions afterwards, I think they wanted it that way.

[BeastieRunner]

A TV show should have more and better character development due the length of the series.

This seems a bit like sour grapes to me.

[thwhtGuardian]

A TV show should have more and better character development due the length of the series.

This seems a bit like sour grapes to me.

While it's true that the medium of an episodic TV show lends itself to more character development films are more than capable of developing the personalities of supporting characters. I mean, you don't even have to look further than the Star Wars films to see that as despite not being the main narrative shaker and mover of the original series Han Solo had just as a compelling an evolution as the main lead Luke Skywalker...and yet Finn fizzled in the sequels. Finn's lack of development is one the many ways in which the sequels fail narritively

[Anthony W]

A TV show should have more and better character development due the length of the series.

This seems a bit like sour grapes to me.

Yes but..

Mayfeld is not the star of the show, nor is he a member of the supporting cast.

He has only appeared twice. His first appearance was just as a wisecracking gun for hire.

The heavy lifting for his character was done in one episode. Just one episode.

[SuperiorIronman]

Your confusing character development with backstory.

Mayfeld doesn't develop in season 2, we just learn his backstory which is "both sides suck" and "I hate everyone" which is in contrast to him working for the Empire and only leaving once he got screwed. He's not a hero, he's not developed, we just discover his backstory and his world view is something that would be mocked on the politics thread. Him shooting an officer doesn't make him any less of a POS.

[Username taken]

Finn ended the sequel trilogy as pretty much a nothing character.

They literally used him to say “see we have a black main character” and the proceed to do nothing with him.

It’s all part of the commodification of minorities that’s now being called out. We’ve seen this nonsense in a number of tv series but I never in a million years thought that Lucasfilm will go down that route.

[SuperiorIronman]

Finn does develop over the sequels it's just he isn't given anything to do with that in TROS.

He's self-serving even if his interests are for the heroes in TFA and by TLJ he rejects the BS of "both sides are bad" and comes through with his Rebel scum comment. That's why he's on Canto Bight. He has to understand that while both sides are bad, space Nazi's aint it. He's fighting for the heroes but he was prepared to ditch everyone before Starkiller fired. The ending of TFA sets up Finn learning that this fight is real and affects everyone. You have to be prepared to throw down for what you love because you can't just be in it for yourself. It's too big to just keep running.

[godisawesome]

Finn does develop over the sequels it's just he isn't given anything to do with that in TROS.

He's self-serving even if his interests are for the heroes in TFA and by TLJ he rejects the BS of "both sides are bad" and comes through with his Rebel scum comment. That's why he's on Canto Bight. He has to understand that while both sides are bad, space Nazi's aint it. He's fighting for the heroes but he was prepared to ditch everyone before Starkiller fired. The ending of TFA sets up Finn learning that this fight is real and affects everyone. You have to be prepared to throw down for what you love because you can't just be in it for yourself. It's too big to just keep running.

Not... quite? He developed and had an arc in TFA, and then he actually regresses and gets reinterpreted into a far more banal and supporting role in TLJ, which is why the TROS story sucks - LFL wanted his downgraded supporting role interpretation from TLJ continued.

Notice how much of your (accurate) description of his evolution is TFA-specific? Notice how quickly he volunteers for the Canto Bight mission in TLJ? That’s because he evolved further than TLJ wanted; he’s already seeing the bigger picture and no longer self-serving by the last act of TFA, and it’s not just because he cares about Rey.

But that’s the problem TLJ has: he cares about Rey, and Rey cares about him.

And for TLJ, that simply wouldn’t do.

TLJ only treats him as a dynamic character for about five minutes while it tries to reroute his storyline so that him caring about Rey is a character flaw for some reason, ignoring the actual substance of the previous movie, before shipping him off to a nothing story where he does nothing and grows into nothing - all, seemingly, so Kylo can slot into his former place, get Rey to fawn over him, and become the new male lead and co-protagonist.

Abrams appears to have wanted to have him carry a major role forward in TROS in defiance of TLJ’s banal and insulting relegation of him to the JV team - concept art shows what appears to be Finn’s battle on the Star destroyer, but with him carrying a lightsaber, likely meaning his Force powers were far more central to TROS originally, but it sounds an awful lot like LFL couldn’t stand to have that happen, or even have the Force powers acknowledged on film, and kept on ordering his stuff cut.

As to why I blame LFL for perpetuating Rian Johnson’s insultingly bad take on Finn... Boyega’s interviews told people not to blame Abrams, and LFL is the company that thought the best lead-up for Finn to TROS was a single comic about him being a janitor, while putting Soule on a miniseries dedicated to white washing Kylo.

LFL was insecure about their preferred male lead, and trashed Finn for it.

Filoni and Favreau are anything but insecure on the Mandalorian, so they decided to have fun giving Mayfeld an Inglorious Bastards scene.

[Xero Kaiser]

Yeah, Mayfield really is a better version of Finn.

I had high hopes for Finn going into TFA and while he was still my favorite of the new protagonists, it was all downhill for him after the janitor joke. TLJ completely and utterly wasted him and by the time TROS tried to give him a little dignity back, it was way too late.

[K. Jones]

Such a grim concept and thread topic. It's so true though. There's a few caveats I think I'd like to get into ... "IN STORY". We all know why Mayfeld had better development than Finn in the real world, and it's good writing and being a supporting role character in a story ... that matters. Or I mean, matters more. Feels more impactful and explores more angles.

Within universe though I think a little bit of it can be played with. Finn is still young. Youth comes with a certain naivety and also, frankly, a degree of being boring. Uninteresting. Unformed. Underdeveloped, like, as a person. Age, and even a short half-decade of disillusionment compared to one bad mission, hitting someone who was a veteran spec ops fighter rather than a fresh-faced grunt, is going to yield different results. Mayfeld has simply had more time to become an interesting person, where for Finn it starts out so much simpler and more cut and dry, and his extroversion-emotions are because he's more exuberantly young, less calloused, hasn't had to live with the guilt or pain as long. Mayfeld is old enough that he actually had time to become an interesting guy PRIOR to becoming disillusioned with the people he worked for.

Continuing on that, looking from TFA to TLJ, it's like five minutes later and the only person Finn actually knows took off on a mythic quest and the second person he's ever met is accusing him of being a coward or deserter when he hasn't even enlisted in her army. Canto Bight tangent notwithstanding, his story does at least continue to be about shedding naivety.

By TROS they really did him dirty by essentially having nothing to do and denying that pitch of leading a revolution. It's a total bummer and I really feel for Boyega. Just meeting others like him is "nice". I don't feel like he had to have "inspired" them to do it to have meaning or matter to the story. But pulling some kind of Dominion War Cardassian Flip at the end on Coruscant and putting him up against Hux would have been excellent.

Anyhoo, just like everything else it's the old "The Writing and the Execution" comparison that we'll all be drawing for years and years to come.

[tib2d2]

Both worked for the Empire, but Mayfeld received more character development in two episodes of a TV show than Finn over the course of three movies.

Man, I didn't even think about this but you're totally right. IN FACT, even in TFA, when Finn says "you haven't seen the things I've seen", I remember thinking "well tell us!". All we saw was Finn being upset that a fellow Stormtrooper near him died, that can't be what he was referring to when he was talking to Maz.