Rian Johnson and Star Wars TV series.

[Jcogginsa]

But Rey got her spine and brain removed, and shoved into a poorly written abusive relationship that made no damn sense, her yearning for her family was replaced with some pathetic Gen-Z style “Where’s my place in all this?” identity crisis, then got shooed off center stage right after being literally told she had no place on the story, so that we could instead have a showdown between two white Skywalker boys.

No, she didn't have her brain and spine removed, nor did her motivation change. Everything in this film was building off of plot threads lain down in TFA, including the shitty romance stuff with Kylo

Finn got his entire growth from the third act of TFA ignored so he could be punished for caring about Rey, then shoved into an ancillary side-story that tried to limit him to only being a Resistance foot soldier with a boring girlfriend, in a subplot that basically crammed every non-white actor into it so they could all screw up for not blindly obeying the badly written white commander.

No, it didn't. In TFA, Finn learned to fight. Here, he learned what to fight for. He had his own plotline which was given nearly as much focus as Rey and Poe's. It's hardly a sidestory.

[godisawesome]

People who think Rey was attracted to Kylo in TFA, or that anything in that film set-up the bullshit in TLJ and beyond between them, weren’t watching those scenes from Rey’s perspective. It was a violation and torture that was coded as an attempted sexual assault, and Kylo as the loathsome villains he was going to fight. Pushing right past that and insisting he could “neg” her into liking him after a few sentences comes from people who wanted to have an excuse to cheer for Kylo, or who wanted to view the film through Kylo’s eyes and found Rey a nice trophy to give him.

Rey was a hardened pragmatic survivor with real human psychology. Even most messed up people wouldn’t find a Neo-Nazi School Shooter who assaulted them attractive if that’s *all* they were to them.

And Finn already learned what to fight for; Johnson ignored it, but TFA pretty clearly shows that what got Finn to abandon his running away attempt wasn’t Rey, but the Hosnian System being destroyed. Dude had the bigger picture, and didn’t need a bunch of busy work from an apathetic writer to see it. And his TLJ story is strictly a sideshow only lazily tied to the main action - his only contribution to the main conflict is being stupid enough to recruit DJ.

Boyega pointed out that issue himself.

[Totoro Man]

No, she didn't have her brain and spine removed, nor did her motivation change. Everything in this film was building off of plot threads lain down in TFA, including the shitty romance stuff with Kylo

No, it didn't. In TFA, Finn learned to fight. Here, he learned what to fight for. He had his own plotline which was given nearly as much focus as Rey and Poe's. It's hardly a sidestory.

since Finn started off as a presumably fully-trained stormtrooper in "the Force Awakens" he ALREADY knew how to fight. he just made a decision that he had been fighting for the wrong side.

I'm puzzled by how you can argue that Finn's narrative arc in "the Last Jedi" was NOT a sidestory.

what makes his arc even more baffling is that Vice Admiral Holdo is allowed to sacrifice her life to enable the Resistance to escape. but later on in the film, Finn is thwarted in his efforts, and lectured by Rose Tico. she tells him that they need to protect the things they love more than destroy the things that they hate. really? so, why couldn't a droid have performed the "Holdo Maneuver" instead? why is it okay for Holdo to perform a kamikaze attack but not Finn?

most of the problems I had with TLJ were with Rian Johnson's script. if we think of it as a metacritique of the pop culture phenomena and mega-franchise that is Star Wars it makes a certain amount of sense. while I CAN appreciate it as a patronizing subversion of SW cliches and tropes... it doesn't really work at a narrative level. it seemed like every major decision that characters make in the film are inspired not so much by their established character arcs and identities... but are driven by the author's desire to have the story move in a very specific direction.

so, if RJ isn't the only person involved in the script... I fully expect he could make a great episode of the Mandalorian. I've enjoyed some of Johnson's other work... I just didn't like his work on Star Wars.

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

I hope this doesn't happen. I like The Mandalorian and TLJ is probably one of my moste hated films. Honestly I don't think Rian Johnson gets Star Wars. Now my only experience with Rian Johnson being part of the writing and directing is TLJ. If it does happen I hope he somehow pulls a rabbit out of his backside and makes a good episode. However i have very little faith in him too pull it off or even try too do it.