A major problem with Finn's character


Literally like 4 minutes after we meet him he has completed his character arc, there was no buildup or anything to him defecting, we didn't get to see any of the horrible things that happened to him or some of the questionable actions he was forced to carry out, nope instead he is already having his big emotional breakthrough like literally 10 minutes into the movie, and his tragic past had to be told to us instead of shown. I guess the characters weren't really a big priority for Disney, well let me take that back they had to have lots of characters that they didn't have time to fully develop because they wanted to sell some more toys (cough Batman and Robin cough)

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It's an action film not a novel written by Jane Austen. If you want in depth character development try Period Drama.

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The other 2 SW trilogies managed to have character arcs. Nobody in this Disney crap did.

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Rey Palpatine and Kylo Ren both had character arcs.

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You know who had an arc? Noah

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Noah don't. Besides he had an Ark.

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(Wuchak's witty joke completely flies over the dumbfounded Quasimodo)

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Uhhhh I never asked for a Jane Austen novel. Plenty of action films have had character arcs including the six SW films that came before it. Quit making excuses and concede that Finn's character was poorly written.

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What do you do when you realise you're talking to an idiot ?

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I try to educate them as I just did with you.

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An ignorant can be educated. An idiot cannot ;)

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True, Quasimodo may be beyond my skill to help.

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Lol what was Rey’s character arc? Finding out who your parents are is not a character arc. She was a Mary Sue when we first met her and she was an even bigger Mary Sue when it ended (FYI becoming a bigger Mary Sue isn’t a character arc either)

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LOL the major "problem" with Rey was that she was too powerful. She just trashes every opponent she faces, including Luke Skywalker. They just couldn't afford to have her lose a fight ever, or else someone would be fired from Lucasfilm.

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Exactly the political agenda was put ahead of the story

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Rey's arc was transforming from desert scavenger to force user/ace pilot within minutes. Kylo's arc was 'I'm insecure'. That was it.

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They didn't have arcs, they were poorly written characters. Kylo's "arc" was also pretty much the same thing as Anakin Skywalker's just poorly done.

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I'd say Kylo had a decent redemption story. He's the only one that was properly covered.

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It was just the same old thing all over again and I never liked Adam Driver. Also when he was “forgiven” by Han that was just what was going on in his head it wasn’t a force ghost so actually Kylo forgave himself which rings incredibly hollow

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I can't help feeling it was Leia who was supposed to forgive him but...

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That wasn't in the movie though

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When I was married, there was period drama every month so I'm not eager to search that out.

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PERIOD DRAMAS ARE LONG AND MISERABLE...THEY REALLY PAD THEM OUT.🙂

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That's bloody spot on, mate!

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Wrong, the defection was just the beginning of his character arc, not the end. His real arc was to find himself as a free man and to become the good man he had to the right to be, and to find a place in the world and find love.

What a pity the writers forgot that, I liked him.

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Maybe he should have been played by Morgan Freeman

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He didn't progress as a character at all after he defected, his character arc literally happened 3 minutes after we met him. His change of heart may have meant something if we got to know him before he changed sides but we didn't because this trilogy was basically a 7 hour toy commercial made by a corporation more concerned with getting their investment back rather than telling a story.

This is basically the Disney Trilogy in a nutshell: It's all payoff with no buildup which makes the payoff meaningless. Lucas and Spielberg as the masters of buildup in my opinion, Jar Jar Abrams doesn't know the first thing about it.

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No your confusing this with a Hallmark film.

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So action movies aren't supposed to have well written characters who evolve as characters and grow? Literally every great action film has well written characters who undergo changes. You're just making excuses for this poorly written and poorly executed excuse of a trilogy.

Heck if TFA was just as good as Phantom Menace I would have been fine but it couldn’t even clear that bar

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To be fair, they might have been considering his arc to be that in the beginning, all he wanted to do was escape the First Order and go somewhere that they couldn't find him. But he began to care too much about the rest of the people, so eventually decided to stick around and fight the bad guys (pretty much identical to Han Solo in the original).

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Its not a finn standalone movie, its a sequel , this is just nit picking for the sake of it.

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Never said it was and it’s sloppy writing to have Finn undergo a character arc that we don’t even get to see. Watching Vader come back in rotj meant something because we knew what he was like before and we got to see him slowly coming back to the light. Not a nitpick at all it’s a major problem

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Vader was the main character and we had years of stories to flesh out the character, watching ANH back in 1977 he was just some big bad guy that worked for Tarkin and was a sith lord that was trained by Obi Wan, that's pretty much it, how can you possibly fit in Finns complete back story into a 2 hour star wars sequel movie????

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If they couldn’t properly flesh him out then maybe they shouldn’t have included the character. And even then they could have shown us what it was like for him being a storm trooper for the majority of the movie then have him defect at the end and join the rebels for the next two movies oh wait that would require them to have an actual plan and of course they didn’t have time for that.

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so you wanted him to be the main character ? above Rey , Kylo Ren , Solo , Chewbacca, and The Resistance?

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Strawman I didn’t say that. Even supporting characters can have character arcs (Han Solo, Vader, Lando Calrissian, etc). It’s clear you don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about nor do you know how to have an honest discussion

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What was landos arc in empire? How did Han know him ? Why did he portray him ? Why did Han owe Jabba money ? How did he know him ? When did they meet?

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Lol are you kidding? At first he was willing to sell his friend out to protect the city but he eventually realized there was no negotiating with Vader as he would never honor any agreement and he then stood up and did the right thing and even lead the attack on Death Star II

Lol epic fail little boy

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Little boy, im not the man child constantly moaning for clicks , haha funny , these movies are for us star wars fans , not snow flakes like u that moan that they didnt make a movie u liked

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I call you little boy because that’s how you’re acting, also I love how you’ve pretty much given up defending this trash movie and this trash character

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Who breaks Poe out of the star destroyer if not Finn?

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He could have broken himself out just like MaRey Sue did. Also you are arguing a non sequitur at this point , you can’t even stay on topic

I guess by your logic Jar Jar from Phantom menace was a good character because he took down all of those droids, I guess Robin from Batman and Robin was a good character because he saved both Batman and Batgirl at various points in the movie. It’s preposterous

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Does Lando have a detailed background story in the OT?

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I didn’t ask for a detailed backstory I said that if you are going to give a character this big emotional change and this big moment of turning to the side of good we need to see how he was before and his progression like we did with Lando. Otherwise it’s an unearned and poor excuse of a payoff

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Neah, i disagree. It's enough that we were told. Not really necessary to be shown.

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Show don’t tell, basic rule of filmmaking

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So you wanted one more hour of movie to show you the background of a minor character?

Nope, show don't tell doesn't work all the time.

Have ever seen "The man from earth"? It's basically a man telling his story. And nothing is shown, NOTHING. Still a great movie.

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Strawman I never said that, the movie didn’t have to start where it started, Finn didn’t have to defect when he did but jar jar Abrams did it where he did because he doesn’t know how to write characters or show their progression, he’s all pay off with no buildup therefore it isn’t earned. If you are going to debate then fine but at least do it honestly. Also it seems people think that character development is a big long drawn out backstory, no we just need to know who the character is, a good example is the Joker , we know literally nothing about his past but we know exactly who he is and what he stands for

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There is a 2h movie with the background of Joker ;)

I don't want a 2h movie with Finn's background.

Hell, we didn't have any background on Bobba Fet and I dare to say that it's a more well known character and more important than Finn although the screen time was much more limited in the OT.

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I'm referring to Ledger's Joker, he's totally different from Nicholson's Joker, we knew nothing about his past but we knew who he was as a character and there was actual buildup. We didn't see him blow Harvey Dent half to hell in the first 2 minutes.

Not sure why you're arguing about Boba Fett, in the OT he was basically a throw away character. He didn't become anything more than that until Attack of the Clones

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Boyega was pretty pissed off about it. He even cried racism because of the lame character development. They turned him into a black servant constantly sticking his neck out for Rey, even though she's a lot more powerful and resourceful than he is from the get go, and particularly as the movie progresses. He is basically chaperoning her and being infatuated by her. But he never gets to hump that sweet ass, which would vindicate his efforts. Kathleentians meticulously picked a diverse cast, but kept the relationships between them very old-fashioned.

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What pisses me off is Finn had the potential to be a good character, a defecting storm trooper was actually a new, original idea, too bad they completely screwed it up

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Well, he not being a clone makes the idea of defecting not quite original ..

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I thought there would be a romance between Finn and Rey, or perhaps a triangle with Poe or whatever. But no, everyone had to be kept blueballed, particularly the audience.

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Sounds about right and part of the problem was Rian was allowed to come in and just do whatever he wanted

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Yeah and what does he do? Invents a homely lady to keep Finn busy and away from the white princess.

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Lol and then he and fat Asian Bitch do absolutely nothing in TROS.

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Disney himself would have been proud of the characterisation, particularly when Finn drinks from the pig's water trough

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Screenwriter 1: I dunno about this Finn guy, I feel I need to give him a stronger motivation.
Screenwriter 2: Ah, just make him scream "Rey!!!!" all the time.
Screenwriter 1: OK.

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Hahahahahaha that sounds about right. Oh that was such bad acting BTW. What pisses me off the most is he could have been a great character and they totally messed it up

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Yea but so is everything.

We have no idea nor care about Kylo, Rey, any character except maybe Han, and Leia. We even have Max Von an outstanding actor killed within a few seconds of the movie before we can have any sympathy for him.
The Novel is quite different. We are supposed to have a sympathetic character in Kylo Ren but instead we get this crazy raging lunatic.

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