The Last Jedi John Boyega as Finn (VIII)

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

He really drew the short straw in storylines here.

Definitely, he was my favourite new character in TFA, really disappointed with his role in TLJ.

 

[Iceman]

Definitely, he was my favourite new character in TFA, really disappointed with his role in TLJ.

Episode IX is last chance saloon to make this character a big part of Star Wars history. I hope Abrams can deliver on that.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Episode IX is last chance saloon to make this character a big part of Star Wars history. I hope Abrams can deliver on that.

Yeah agree, he needs a really good arc in Episode IX. Now him and Rey are re-united let’s hope we get that.

 

[godisawesome]

So here's what I'm trying to figure out:
When Finn was charging at the battering ram cannon, would his kamikaze attack have worked? Would he have destroyed the cannon? Because if so, then it feels like Rose should have let him do it; just one more life to protect what's left of the Resistance.
But then, Finn was ordered to break off. Even his best pal Poe, who had to learn some hard lessons about following orders and not being a hot-head, told him not to go for it.
So who was right? Was there any chance of taking out that cannon?

I noticed on my watch that there's significant time before the cannon actually goes off when Rose hits him out of the way; Finn has enough time to get out of his wrecked skimmer, jog over to Rose's, pull her out and exchange their lines. She kisses him as the cannon fires.

Now, they're visually demonstrating that the laser is slowly melting Finn's skimmer as he charges it, including his weapons, and the film ends up showing nothing about what the skimmers can do in combat aside from dodge, so it's unlikely his plan would have worked as anything except maybe a suicide ram.

 

[godisawesome]

Found this on another forum. I agree.

Y'see, the problem I have with the sequence and subplot for Finn is that the biggest actual character epiphany moment for him comes in a short conversation of mostly expository dialogue from Rose, where she tells (not shows) us that the planet is the luxury of First Order-gotten gains, and he has a short reaction to it. That's mostly it. Rose even tells us she's angry. Next thing we know, Finn's supposed to be righteously satisfied with a stampede. DJ (the amazingly redundant character from nowhere saved only by BDT being able to make plot tools engaging) has a better sequence with Finn showing him the Libertine's sales record, but even that seems kind of perfunctory. And that's the bulk of the actual work on his character arc in the finished film.

It's pretty abysmal compared to the work in TFA. Abrams, for all his flaws, tended to give Boyega decent sized silent or laconic acting scenes to show his character growth:

- Finn's introduction, where a nameless and mostly silent Stormtrooper is suddenly hit by the actual nature of his job and the death of a compatriot, and has a visible freak out during the middle of firefight, before communicating the human decency to refuse to kill civilians strictly through body language.
- The sequence on the Star Destroyer where Finn deserts, where we start with just a few seconds of John Boyega in closeup grappling with his choices and fears, then see him show the desperation and hope he has when he frees Poe.
- Finn's scenes with Rey. Kelly Tran does a good job in TLJ, but they just don't have the chemistry of Ridley and Boyega, where we're again given numerous scenes to show them becoming closer that feel more real, especially when Finn tries to leave. Yeah, there's some exposition in their dialogue, but most of it is a confession from Finn to Rey, and both actors milk the pauses for all their worth, and get scenes at the end looking back at each other to again non-verbally communicate their attachement.
- The assault on Maz's fortress; note that Finn ran back to Han when the Hosnian System goes boom, before he knows Rey is in trouble. It's subtle, but they are demonstrating Finn's priorities shifting a bit towards straight up altruism and the bigger picture; Rey still ends up being his main goal, but he clearly does believe the First Order should be stopped.
- Finally, his charging at Kylo Ren on SKB. He knows he's outmatched, that he almost certainly can't win, and that its hopeless. But it's the best thing to do and the most righteous thing to do, and again Abrams gives us some close up shots to let Boyega sells us on Finn coming to this realization.

TLJ's Finn storyline pales to an almost ridiculous extent compared to that. Some of that is because of time and importance; it seems clear that at a certain point, Poe's story became easier to keep in the film due to being attached to a larger subplot (though I still see the chase scene as badly thought out overall), while Finn's almost certainly got chopped up to save time. Which is part of the reason why I can regard TLJ as a good movie with some great acting and some great moments, but enough flawed subplots and controversial decisions that it's cant be great overall, and why TFA is still the best ST movie right now.

 

[Iceman]

Yeah agree, he needs a really good arc in Episode IX. Now him and Rey are re-united let’s hope we get that.

I hope these guys and Poe spend a fair bit of time together in IX although I wouldn’t be surprised if Rey has to forge her own path when things get high level near the end.

 

[Jedi Arrow]

You know, even though I knew Finn wasn't actually going to die ramming the battering ram cannon, the combination of the score in the background, Rose and Poe begging him to break off, and his passionate (and fantastically delivered by Boyega) "I won't let them win!" really got me emotionally invested in that scene. That, and the whole sequence with him fighting Phasma, really made the movie for me, as far as Finn's role. Did he have as big a part as I wished? No, but what he did have, especially the two aforementioned bits, made it really worth it, to me.

 

[Mjölnir]

It just dawned on me that not only did we leave Finn grievously wounded at the end of TFA only to have him be 100% again, they apparently managed to heal his jacket as well. No hole in his right shoulder or huge slice in the back.

 

[Iceman]

You know, even though I knew Finn wasn't actually going to die ramming the battering ram cannon, the combination of the score in the background, Rose and Poe begging him to break off, and his passionate (and fantastically delivered by Boyega) "I won't let them win!" really got me emotionally invested in that scene. That, and the whole sequence with him fighting Phasma, really made the movie for me, as far as Finn's role. Did he have as big a part as I wished? No, but what he did have, especially the two aforementioned bits, made it really worth it, to me.

That would have been a great sacrifice scene the way it was built up. Ended in a really crap way unfortunately.

 

[Sithborg]

It just dawned on me that not only did we leave Finn grievously wounded at the end of TFA only to have him be 100% again, they apparently managed to heal his jacket as well. No hole in his right shoulder or huge slice in the back.

He borrowed another one from Poe.

 

[titansupes]

It just dawned on me that not only did we leave Finn grievously wounded at the end of TFA only to have him be 100% again, they apparently managed to heal his jacket as well. No hole in his right shoulder or huge slice in the back.

Eh, if the tech to heal the slice up his own spine without any nerve damage or whatever (even though a 'saber would burn a heck of a lot of important stuff), and fix the cut on Kylo's face so it barely leaves only a relatively faint scar... They can fix up his jacket.

 

[Brother Jack]

It just dawned on me that not only did we leave Finn grievously wounded at the end of TFA only to have him be 100% again, they apparently managed to heal his jacket as well. No hole in his right shoulder or huge slice in the back.

You can see where it's been mended where it was cut. There's some metallic-looking stitches.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

You can see where it's been mended where it was cut. There's some metallic-looking stitches.

 

[spiderman2]

haha

 

[Orba]

You can see where it's been mended where it was cut. There's some metallic-looking stitches.

The visual dictionary mentions that it was Poe who repaired the jacket for Finn.

 

[IndyFlash2121]

Finn Star Wars Poster

 

[Iceman]

I like it

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I kinda hope Finn has an important Resistance role in nine. If there is a big time jump I hope heeleading an elite Resistance unit.

 

[Mask&Cape]

You can see where it's been mended where it was cut. There's some metallic-looking stitches.

Thank you.

I was just on this thread to ask that question.

I had intended to watch out to see if it was the same jacket on my third viewing but I got too caught up in the awesomeness off everything again.t:

I kinda hope Finn has an important Resistance role in nine. If there is a big time jump I hope heeleading an elite Resistance unit.

I like that idea.

I'd like Finn to still be a soldier (no flying for Finn) and for his unit to be troopers only. Elite would be good, but I would prefer Finn's unit to be gang of misfits and oddballs who get the job done by the skin of their teeth - they all join the Resistance after Crait but no one can do anything with them until Poe assigns Finn to train them. Maybe in the final battle of IX they go up against an uber-elite stormtrooper squad.

 

[Iceman]

We're down to the last film now for them to really deliver something great with Finn & Poe. At the moment they both seem like squandered potential.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

We're down to the last film now for them to really deliver something great with Finn & Poe. At the moment they both seem like squandered potential.

Agreed, they both started off great, but their potential was ruined somewhat by TLJ, they both need to have a huge impact in Episode IX.

 

[Iceman]

Agreed, they both started off great, but their potential was ruined somewhat by TLJ, they both need to have a huge impact in Episode IX.

They gave Poe much more this time after he showed so much charisma and potential in TFA. I just hate what they gave him and his character acted like a *****e at times. And Finn had his time wasted by that horrible Canto Bight scene and a promising partnership with Rose which ended in embarrassing fashion.

Rey, Finn and Poe should be approaching where Luke, Han and Leia were by the end of ESB with the GA by now but that isn’t the case.

 

[Brother Jack]

I think Finn's plot thread is the weakest in the movie, and does a disservice to what was a very dynamic character in VII, but the broad strokes of his arc made sense. He goes from a guy who isn't committed to the Resistance cause, who's only interesting in saving Rey (which he states in TFA), to a guy willing to give his life for it. I'm not sure where he'll go in IX (it's much less obvious than it is with Rey and Poe), but there's a solid basis with that.

 

[Schlosser85]

TLJ just rehashed his character arc from TFA.

 

[godisawesome]

Wrote a whole, huge Tumblr Essay addressing some of my issues with Finn. Since I felt that simply stating that I didn't like it by itself was too subjective, I compared it to TFA so I could try a pseudo-objective argument.
https://franchisewars.tumblr.com/post/171769864765/why-the-force-awakens-is-better-than-the-last-jedi