Soooo... we have Force Sensitive Finn, but I have to put up with a monosyllabic Adam Driver in the final confrontation alongside Rey, instead of Boyega, or instead of Boyega, Driver, and Ridley together?
I fundamentally loathe displacing Finn for the Neo-Nazi Diet Darth Vader (half the development, half the sympathy, all the predictability!) And its not like they did anything interesting with Finn outside of it. A whole huge chunk of this trilogy got wasted because of tunnel vision and double standards centered on Kylo.
...and speaking of Kylo, how the hell would Rey being Related to the Skywalkers not
also be descended from evil? Isn’t that just Luke's story from the OT? And I mean, that’s *also* the entire premise of Kylo being inspired by Vader, isn’t it? And Kylo is still evil, isn’t he? Wouldn’t that still put immense pressure on Rey and also give her first hand experience with the terror of that legacy and someone who’s antagonism of her could fuel her own turn to the dark side, because, you know, Kylo’s a monster towards her? Or are we supposed to argue that Kylo shouldn’t count, because Ben should be the main focus here, and he’s
totally worth handicapping all other characters to tell his dumb story?
I don't know, either way, JJ had literally nothing to work with to end a trilogy.
Just a mess of a trilogy. TROS is basically two movies worth of content shoved into one(and it shows), because Rian Johnson didn't develop these characters in any regard.
That's not true at all.
There's nothing done in TLJ that filmmakers couldn't have worked past to conclude the trilogy.
That's just silly thinking
Exactly. So how was he left with nothing? If the characters didn't radically change and the story didn't radically change other than the death of Luke (which I think was always gonna happen) then how was anyone left with nothing or next to nothing? Pick up the character work, there was still places the story could go.
And how was Palpatine coming back "different?" They're literally bringing back an old character, which overrides one of the biggest moments in the whole saga. How is bringing Snoke back again after just killing him weirder when they did the same thing with Palpatine.
Before I use another esteemed poster’s argument for my counterargument (sorry, former English teacher here), here’ isn’t brief thesis:
Nothing in TLJ was anywhere near sufficient of a development for the character who mattered most, save maybe Kylo. Rey mostly lost her spine, characterization, and her conflict’s momentum against Kylo because of redundancy and a pro-Ben bias on the films’s side. Finn just got a criticized and redundant bit of busy work... and I’m willing to bet that probably played into why LFL felt comfortable demoting him in TROS. The overall Galactic conflict didn’t do anything major except blandly re-establish exactly the boring “copy and paste the OT” conflict everyone feared TFA had started (which is one rehash Johnson and LFL should share the blame for.)
Luke’s story was a self-contained epilogue that didn’t help the main story.
Kylo *did* get one compelling idea - being the First Order’s leader- but was actually a much lamer villain after TLJ because of the Pro-Ben bias being obsessed with trying to make hima protagonist... which also probably played into why Abrams and Terio ditched Kylo as the villain, because this “Ben Solo is so worth sacrificing everything!” belief in LFL meant that him being the main threat was a non-starter (can’t be the main threat to be beaten down if they don’t want you beaten down at all.)
In more detail:
By the end of TLJ:
1. Kylo overcame and killed Snoke. He became Supreme Leader, fully committed to the dark side. He was set up ad the big bad of Episode 9.
2. Rey knows who she is and that she has to give her own life meaning by her own actions and not define herself by who her parents were.
3. Luke begins the film as a depressed and bitter man, cut off from the Force, and unable to come to terms with his failures. He wants the Jedi to end. He ends the film as a Jedi Master at peace and one with the Force, knowing that the Jedi wont end with him.
4. Poe starts out a hotshot pilot, insubordinate, arrogant in his abilities, and quick to action. By the end of the film he's learned the consequences of that and is setup to be the general and leader of the Resistance in Episode 9.
5. Finn begins the film wanting to abandon the Resistance because Rey is his only concern and he still isnt committed to the fight against the First Order. As the film progresses his motivation for helping the Resistance shifts from only being about keeping Rey safe. He is willing to die if that's what it takes to fight the First Order and save the Resistance.
6. The First Order has control of the galaxy.
7. The Resistance is reduced to only the Falcon and a small group of people. All of its leadership except Leia is dead.
8. Phasma is dead.
9. Young potential jedi are being inspired by Luke's actions on Crait.
10. Rey has the Jedi texts.
1. I am totally on board with this... but they kneecapped his effectiveness as a villain by refusing to give him a clear victory over Rey, and all reports say that we were always going to get a Bendemption storyline, even though I would agree that TLJ is leading away from that... in a much lamer and less convincing way than in TFA, where he commits patricide, mass murderer, and is a spiteful, contemptible fiend throughout who we are actually supposed to cheer against, instead of the shallow pseudo-Byronic anti-hero that Rian Johnson’s thought was a sympathetic portrayal (hint: it wasn’t.)
2. Redundant after TFA, and only exists because Johnson and the powers that be at LFL couldn’t truly conceive of Rey as a highly motivated survivor of the traumatic events of TFA... because that would require acknowledging she would
hate Kylo far more than they want her to. This also acts to basically start stop her story after it just began to be launched in TFA; even if you believe she wasn’t self-actualized at the end of TFA (and believe that her pain at being violated, losing two friends, and stalked by a monster should be dismissed), this level of self-actualization
doesn’t actually make a compelling hook for the 3rd and final chapter of a story; it’s an inherently limiting reasoning that basically denies thencharacter has really, truly begun her journey enough to end the series in the next installment. TROS needed to bring a close to Rey’s story; TLJ didn’t just try and wrap her around Kylo and shackle her to him as “one half of the protagonist” (Johnson’s own words), it’s also argued her story had only just
begun.
3. *
None* of Luke’s story contributes anything meaningful to Rey or Finn, and instead his story overshadows them... which was the exact reason why Abrams and Kasdan shoved him into the next film after TFA, so those characters,
the more important ones to the Sequel Trilogy, could get a chance to develop and stand. The only character to benefit from him is Kylo, because they want to try and justify Kylo’s fall with Luke’s “betrayal” (while also ignoring the pile of bodies the film claims Kylo left right afterwards, which would ironically suggest Luke’s murder-instinct was *right*). He then dies without properly handing off the torch to Rey except through a bland, meaningless bit of verbal declaration that she’ll be fine without him. We detoured 25 minutes of stroytime for Luke’s man pain, and the St didn’t really gain anathema no from it plot-wise.
4. He’s a tertiary character who also goes through a redundant arc; he already was a leader and cool headed officer before TLJ. Rian Johnson introduced the stereotypical hotshot persona just so he could deconstruct it. I’d also blame Johnson’s greater passion for deconstructing something Poe originally wasn’t and his general apathy for Finn with why Finn’s story suffered; Finn mattered more than Poe, but Poe’s story mattered more than Finn, and now in TROS Finn is pretty much Poe’s sidekick instead of the other way around.
5. Finn’s story is also redundant, and horribly ignorant of the dramatic potential for the character offered up by the plot, which arguably counters and undercuts whatever pathetic little goal Johnson thought he was achieving. Finn *already* saw the bigger picture; he ran back to warn Han when the Hosnian System exploded
before he knew Rey was in trouble, and forsook his escape plan to do so. Could he have used a bit less focus on Rey?
Maybe... But Johnson wrapped up that idea in five minutes, since Finn is ready to go on the mission to Canto Bight rightbafter this “flaw” is introduced. Johnson then studiously ignores all potential for drama for Finn aboard the Supremacy... you know, where Finn, the
former child slave soldier, might experience some existential horror at knowing that he’s surrounded by so many other
child slave soldiers. And I’d add that Johnson handicapped his own creation Rose with bad writing, especially in the final scene; Kelly Marie Tran is a great actress, but you give any character the nonesense she spouts when her purpose as Johnson’s not-Rey love interest for Finn is made clear with that tepid kiss, you’re going to screw them over. It was stupid on Abrams part to not try “rehabilitating” Rose a bit and to sideline her, but the character was fundamentally damaged by TLJ’s failures.
6. Big whoop. The film’s crawl assserts that, then the film proper paints them as incompetent idiots. Hux was a liability after TLj’s Hack job in the military plot, so we had to kill him off in TROS in exchange for a wonderfully portrayed but barely-there substitute in Pryde.
7. Also big whoop. The Resistance was also played incompetently, and of course they were going to come back; Johnson even undercuts the drama of their situation with the tone of the last scene. Abrams and Terio may have mocked the Holdo manuver in a somewhat mean spirited way, but they had to, because that moment and the preceding storyline made everyone idiots in the Resistance plot.
8. Phasma was a disappointment again, you mean. Somehow, Johnson figured out a way to give her a fight scene and still waste Gwendolyn Christie’s screentime: don’t build up the fight at all, then clumsily choreograph it so that Finn’s win is about as impressive as Eli Manning’s arm strength in his twilight years as a quarterback. Also, again, ignore the real dramatic potential here because they can’t take Finn as seriously as they should.
9. Are they with Rey and Finn? No? Were we ever going to see them getting trained in the next film? Probably not. Also, their inspired by a smokeshow that saved a whopping 12 people while Rey inexplicably did all the heavy lifting, and how in the hell can this be more inspiring than SKB blowing up, or Holdo taking out half the First Order fleet? It’s a moment the film tries to praise its own lame Oscar-Baity ideas in universe without concern for the logic of that.
10. The film basically insists she doesn’t need them, or training really, and fundamentally, her story is the lamest in the film. She’s a glorified audience member for Luke’s story, and a self-insert for cheap Kylo Ren-focuses fan fiction.
