If it’s true that the Force belongs to everyone, then why not have the other main heroes in addition to Rey–Finn, Poe, Rose, and “Caro”–Force-sensitive as well? They can be Rey’s first pupils (though it’s more a mutual teaching/study group situation) and, going off the books Rey got from the Jedi Temple, develop their own theory and practice of the Force. Here’s how I envision their respective specialties and powers.
Rey
Summary: The generalist Jedi and melee combat specialist
Description: Rey has the most obvious and familiar, seemingly supernatural Jedi powers. She has impressive Force telekinesis, Force telepathy, has had Force visions and dreams, and the mind trick. She is a force, or should we say Force, in melee combat. She is the tank of the party and all-purpose Force powerhouse, not to mention a potent symbol to revive hope when the Jedi seemed all lost or fallen.
Rey still has limitations, however. While her abilities are very strong, they are generally obvious and one-off in nature. She can use the Force mind trick to get a Stormtrooper to take her shackles off her, but trying to use the mind trick in negotiation, for instance, would be noticeable and end up breeding distrust. Similarly, she can be a whirlwind of destruction in combat but can’t turn the tide of a large-scale battle on her own. She needs a team, and having trusted friends can in turn help her resist the lure of the Dark Side, which can be strong for a Force user as powerful as she is.
Finn
Summary: Empath, death sense, Battle Meditation
Description: A Force user on par with Rey, Finn has the ability to sense life and, less pleasantly, the ending of life. We saw him go into a panic attack at Slip’s death, seemingly sensing him die. We saw this ability again on a larger scale with the destruction of the Hosnia system, when he sensed the mass deaths much like Obi-Wan did. Highly trained and talented at both long-distance and melee combat, he has probably been unconsciously powering his military prowess with the Force all his life. He knows how to read a situation and people instantly and use this knowledge to great effect. Particularly skilled in small unit combat, he is the undisputed tactician of their group.
His tactical genius and empath abilities intersect for devastating effect in the form of Battle Meditation. He senses the battlefield and the combatants and, with a mental nudge here and a tug there aided by his own extensive strategic training, shapes the battle like a sculpture or a Rubix cube. The Resistance/Rebellion pulls off victories out of all proportion with their resources this way, especially with Finn’s extensive knowledge of the enemy. His strong empathy can be a liability as well as an asset, however, and sensing the deaths of so many people could result in trauma and burnout. He needs emotional support from a caring network of people, and fortunately he is no longer alone.
This is what the Force was all about! Not just a fist fight who gets the force or not. This is some Kotor 2 level of thinking and I love this idea @lj-writes !
Yeah that Force elitist bullshit was what drove me to finally finish this post. I forgot to add Finn’s Force immunity/wound in the Force stuff because I had completed Rey and Finn’s parts before I even thought of the Force immunity meta, and when I came back to this post I had three more characters to flesh out >.< Still, Finn is the Exile and he awakened the Force in all of them!
If it’s true that the Force belongs to everyone, then why not have the other main heroes in addition to Rey–Finn, Poe, Rose, and “Caro”–Force-sensitive as well? They can be Rey’s first pupils (though it’s more a mutual teaching/study group situation) and, going off the books Rey got from the Jedi Temple, develop their own theory and practice of the Force. Here’s how I envision their respective specialties and powers.
Rey
Summary: The generalist Jedi and melee combat specialist
Description: Rey has the most obvious and familiar, seemingly supernatural Jedi powers. She has impressive Force telekinesis, Force telepathy, has had Force visions and dreams, and the mind trick. She is a force, or should we say Force, in melee combat. She is the tank of the party and all-purpose Force powerhouse, not to mention a potent symbol to revive hope when the Jedi seemed all lost or fallen.
Rey still has limitations, however. While her abilities are very strong, they are generally obvious and one-off in nature. She can use the Force mind trick to get a Stormtrooper to take her shackles off her, but trying to use the mind trick in negotiation, for instance, would be noticeable and end up breeding distrust. Similarly, she can be a whirlwind of destruction in combat but can’t turn the tide of a large-scale battle on her own. She needs a team, and having trusted friends can in turn help her resist the lure of the Dark Side, which can be strong for a Force user as powerful as she is.
Finn
Summary: Empath, death sense, Battle Meditation
Description: A Force user on par with Rey, Finn has the ability to sense life and, less pleasantly, the ending of life. We saw him go into a panic attack at Slip’s death, seemingly sensing him die. We saw this ability again on a larger scale with the destruction of the Hosnia system, when he sensed the mass deaths much like Obi-Wan did. Highly trained and talented at both long-distance and melee combat, he has probably been unconsciously powering his military prowess with the Force all his life. He knows how to read a situation and people instantly and use this knowledge to great effect. Particularly skilled in small unit combat, he is the undisputed tactician of their group.
His tactical genius and empath abilities intersect for devastating effect in the form of Battle Meditation. He senses the battlefield and the combatants and, with a mental nudge here and a tug there aided by his own extensive strategic training, shapes the battle like a sculpture or a Rubix cube. The Resistance/Rebellion pulls off victories out of all proportion with their resources this way, especially with Finn’s extensive knowledge of the enemy. His strong empathy can be a liability as well as an asset, however, and sensing the deaths of so many people could result in trauma and burnout. He needs emotional support from a caring network of people, and fortunately he is no longer alone.
Poe Dameron
Summary: Force-aided instinct and reflex, micro-visions, inspiration
Description: A young leader of the Rebellion and Leia’s chosen successor, Poe has been using the Force unconsciously for his piloting much like Anakin and Luke Skywalker did. Sensing events in the split second before they happened gave him uncanny reflexes and saved his life in many a tight spot. Further developing these abilities gave him an edge not only in his reflexes but in planning and leadership as well. Sensing danger in advance helped him avoid costly mistakes and, conversely, being able to sense payoffs for risks enabled him to take risks in a calculating, advantageous way.
As Leia pointed out, though, he has to be more than the pilot or kickass spy he’s used to being; he also has to be a leader. With his deep roots from his parents in antifascist resistance, you might say rebellion is in his blood. He inspires others with this conviction, and being in the same room with him or even watching a holo of him speak can electrify audiences despite–or perhaps because of–his simple, down-to-earth style. It is one of the many qualities that his enemy General Hux, known for his bombastic rhetoric, scorns about him.
Description: Loving droid owners like Poe have always known that there was more to their companions than gears and electricity, and Rose’s awakening Force power confirms this. She can sense and communicate through the Force with droids and computers, including ships that are equipped with droid brains. The Force is the connection between living beings, after all, and sentient machines are just as alive as organics if in a different sense. Rose’s exploration into this side of the Force endlessly fascinates Rey and Chewbacca, both enthusiastic mechanics, and Rose’s insights into the needs of the cranky old droid brains that run the Millennium Falcon have done much to place her in its good graces.
Rose also has the Force ability of shatterpoint, rare and once thought lost. She can sense pivotal points where a single outcome may change the course of events. In this she takes after legendary Force master Mace Windu, and some have speculated that she may have family ties to Ghôsh Windu, Master Windu’s clan which nearly died out with him. When Rose risked her own life to save Finn’s on Crait she sensed a shatterpoint, convinced he had to survive that moment no matter what. It was more important than her life or the lives of the entire remaining Resistance. Subsequent events proved her right, and fortunately the grim payoff did not come to pass thanks to the intervention of Luke Skywalker.
On the flip side of Finn who is a strong empath, Rose is strong in broadcasting her emotions, particularly negative emotions such as fear and pain. Some of her occasionally unhealthy interactions with Finn may have resulted from their respective abilities going in a feedback spiral. Now that she is aware of the effect she has on others, Rose works hard to modulate her emotions and is particularly careful around Finn. Her friendship with mechanical sentients, who are less moody than organics, helps in this regard and she can frequently be found meditating in hangars and repair rooms while curious droids look on.
Caro*
Summary: Force echoes, life powers, shadow friends
Description: Caro thrives on the balance of all things, passion and peace, anger and compassion, life and death. Rey admires how she not only understands but lives the concepts that Rey herself has only begun to grasp. Rey, Finn, and the others to different degrees can talk to the spirits of powerful Jedi masters who live on in the Force, like Luke Skywalker, but Caro goes farther. She is not only more effective at communing with these spirits, she also hears echoes in the Force itself from every being who has ever been in the Force. Not all at once, of course, which would overwhelm any mortal, but she can sense snatches that she seeks or that simply come to her. She can attempt to get more information through concentration and meditation, and this was how she found Finn: Through the memories of people living and dead who had crossed his path. Slip remembered him kindly, Caro told Finn, though he still thought him an awful showoff. Due to her powers she frequently seems to know people before she meets them, which some find unsettling.
As befitting a Jedi who is a master of the Balance, Caro has deep connection to life as well as death. She is a healer of great skill like Barriss Offee before her, and has saved many lives. An expert at integrating medical technology with her powers, she has worked with Rose to pool their strengths for better medical care in the Resistance. Though Caro is more accepting of death as a part of the Force than Barriss was and has proven more resilient to the trauma of losing patients, she can be saddened by the mounting losses. Finn and the others take care to draw her gently from her solitude where the events of her life and her unique powers sometimes lead her to take solace. She is particularly loved by defected Stormtroopers who have never experienced such caring, and quite a few are open about being willing to fight and die for her more than the Resistance. She has found a loving partner in one of them and their companionship brings her much joy.
Through great concentration and focus Caro can cause these “echoes” in the Force to take temporary physical form. They can help with set tasks and even go into battle with her, although the effort can be taxing for her and their actions can be unpredictable. Such is the nature of the Force, and she accepts that. It is key to the peace and balance she keeps with the Force.
* Caro’s powers are purely speculative at this point, of course. We don’t even know her name, to say nothing of her abilities or relationships with the other characters. But it’s fun to imagine and there was no way I was going to leave her out of this post, okay?
So there’s precedent for it in the franchise. If Force-immune Finn is true I wonder if Finn did something similar due to his own trauma and the suffering he felt all around him. Phasma also heavily discouraged from exercising his natural empathy, and in his attempt to cut it off he may also have unconsciously cut off his connection to the Force. Perhaps the Force reawakened in him when Slip died and his Force sense abilities returned, but the Force immunity remained as a defensive reaction. Such a setup would certainly be in line with Finn’s story of turning trauma to strength.
If you’ve never played Kotor 2, I’d pick it up if I was you. It’s probably the best written Star Wars story out of both canons. Just make sure to download the restoration cut too.
The Jedi Exile’s cut off from the force is interesting. It happened sometime near the Mandalorian war after the activation of a weapon that killed millions of people. After the war the exile(you choose the gender) became an echo in the force, which they believed cut them off from the force, but in actuality it just made their connection to it so much more stronger, only they didn’t know it. It is believed that the mass loss of life around the exile is what created that echo.
Many years later while in exile, the exile meets a force user named Kreia who opens them back up to the force, though the exile was still unaware of the force. This echo influences the people around the exile, creating bonds between them and their companions. Throughout the exile’s journey they awaken the force potential within people they journey with. This echo would also be called a wound in the force because of how other force users couldn’t always use their force powers on the exile. They could hurt the exile of course, but even powerful force users like Darth Nihilus found that their powers weren’t as effective against the exile.
Now from reading your meta, I don’t think anymore that Finn is immune to force. Instead I think Finn might be an echo in the force, a wound in it.
Finn awakened the force within him in battle.
The Exile awakened the force within them in battle.
Finn’s Force Awakening had been felt by Kylo and Snoke.
The Exile’d Awakening had been felt by Visa and Nihilus.
Finn meets a woman (Rey) with seemingly no connection to the force, then after traveling together, she finds her own connection to the force, which she rejects at first them accepts to help the exile later in the story.
The same thing happens between the Exile and Brianna.
Finn could have become an echo/wound in the force during his abduction, especially if there was mass amounts of death around him, and his battle on Jakku could have awakened it.
The difference between them would be The Exile found a teacher through Kreia and Finn wasn’t able to find one yet thanks to Johnson. Alll Force users need at least a teacher to show them the Force.
Bonus: The Exile and Finn are both chased by high waisted pants wearing dark side users who are obsessed with their old masters.
Doesn’t Darth Sion look like Boldo Ren? BTW he didn’t look like this before the Dark side.
Holy shit, so many parallels. I really need to play KOTOR 2. Roundhead Jerk may not have put Finn with a master, but maybe Finn and Rey can teach each other with an assist from Force Ghost Luke. Maybe not so much an academy or a master-disciple relationship as a study group because it’s past time to try some new approaches.
Also that last image will haunt me forever 😂 The resemblance is uncanny lmao.
I think the author of Twilight is a member of the LDS church, and though the more conservative strains of Mormonism may have some things in common with Christian fundamentalism there’s enough anti-Mormon bigotry in Christian fundamentalist circles that they probably shouldn’t be conflated. But you’re right, it’s a very specific and to me creepy kind of wish fulfillment.
TLJ may be more Christian than you think, though. I had conversations with both @kyberfox and @attackfish about how blatantly, painfully white and Christian a story TLJ is, more in the cultural than religious sense. It’s really a jarring tonal change from TFA which was directed and written by Jewish creators.
As a result Rey is no longer the scrappy heroine from TFA burning with anger at the injustice done to her and those she loves. Rather she’s a pure and patient maiden devoted to the redemption of the “sinner” who wronged her. The whole movie has a pretty nonsensical message about how you shouldn’t hate your oppressors for Reasons and love will save us all? Somehow?
So yeah, Rey is one of the characters who were failed by the storytelling but her story is also symptomatic of the movie as a whole and its incoherent, sometimes downright repugnant message.
@thatfantasylovingdork Okay. You seem desperate enough for my attention to get into my notes months after I ignored your first comment, so let’s do this.
First of all, I am not Jewish myself and was relying on comments by my some of my Jewish friends that their culture is more accepting of anger as a response to injustice, and women’s anger in particular, compared to cultural Christianity dominant in Europe and the U.S. Rey’s character could be seen as a reflection of such a cultural archetype. I certainly don’t mean that all Jewish people are angry (though I don’t blame them if they are tbh), or thatthere is any one Jewish experience or any one Jewish culture for that matter. It’s a statement of a few anecdotal experiences with particular Jewish cultures, just like yours is.
Second of all, I don’t know what to say if you think Rey was angry and easily pissed off for “no reason,” especially toward the end after you watched her assaulted, kidnapped, tortured, and forced to watch people she cared about murdered and almost murdered. I heartily hope you don’t apply that standard to real people.
Third of all, since you are so very ready to invalidate the effect of everything Kylo Ren ever did (”no reason” lmao), it’s not surprising that you’re calling for him to be forgiven or rather, it seems to me, absolved of all accountability for his actions. I don’t even want him to die, personally, I want him to be in jail for the rest of his life to think about what he’s done. Would you be okay with that, I wonder, or is that too violent for you? I’m also okay with him dying a violent death, and if he is killed it will be to end the immediate threat he represents and not a “heartless murder.”
@thatfantasylovingdork Thank you for taking the time to tell me about your beliefs, but not everyone believes in supernatural beings or a divine/universal will. I don’t believe in the death penalty but I’m not crying for hanged Nazis, and killing in self-defense is entirely justifiable.
Also did you just say “misandrist” like it’s a real thing asdjklf yes, I’m sure Rey was “rude” because Finn was a guy and not because she initially (and mistakenly, thanks BB-8) thought he was a thief and possibly a murderer, and later because she was told she had become a shooting target because of him. I’m sure the real problem was his gender. Yeah. Right.
I… can’t tell anymore if you’re serious or trolling? This oh-so-caring woman had just tried to kill him and his friend twice, and the first time she deliberately wanted to make them suffer. How could Finn have rescued her without risking his own life? Climb down into a firepit when she was a still-active threat who would no doubt have tried to kill him again? Why did he have to repay a lifetime of abuse plus recent attempts to kill him by risking his life for hers?
But yeah, sure it was because she was white. Because reverse racism is just as real as misandry. Lmaoooo.
Tell me, do you make a habit of disregarding outright attempts to kill people and calling abuse “caring?” If you do this to real people I really want you to get far away from me and preferably people in general.
Depending on the count Finn had equal screen time as Rey or more in TFA, so the reduction was entirely in TLJ. And a sizeable number of TLJ stans don’t think Finn was a protagonist in the first place–I’ve heard him compared to Qui-Gon Jinn or Mace Windu–so to them that’s just the way things should be.
The mentor who died in one movie or the only black Jedi they know.
Finn’s screentime was reduced by about 20 minutes compared to TFA…
In TFA Finn and Rey were miles above everyone else in screentime, and storywise clearly were the co-protagonists, with Finn actually actively starting the entire story …
TLJ retconed that. For that alone the movie is awful. (Not to mention there was more Finn material filmed, important material in fact that RJ cut for unknown reasons *cough*)
The entire Kylo show btw doesn’t result from Kylo having gained significant screentime.. his screentime stayed pretty much the same compared to TFA but Finn in particular and also Rey lost a lot of theirs. This explains the shift of the focus, together with the fact they Rey’s storyline is mostly about poor Ben and not herself, and Finn’s is literally filler material.
Finn has approximately 7 deleted scenes, 8 if you count whatever scene this flight suit came from. What I find weird though is how Finn’s cut scenes aren’t short things the film can do without like Kylo staring out a window, they’re actual character driven scenes.
It also strikes me as odd Finn is the only character to have an entire alternant scene! Which makes me think that this version of Finn’s confrontation with Finn is from an entirely different character arc.
tbh I’ve had a particular horror vision in my head for a while… and this vision says that John expected a totally different film in terms of Finn’s arc. That even more things that we don’t know about were filmed and then scrapped as soon as Johnson was in the cutting room … Like RJ couldn’t get away with minimizing Finn’s role to this degree while filming but then once this was over, he could wield the scissors and rearrange everything until it fit more to his original idea, ie. Finn as the comic relief who doesn’t do that much. And then John saw the movie and realised what was done to his arc and couldn’t do anything about it.
Maybe. Could be possible. No one just has that many deleted scenes. Also put in mind that Finn in his flight suit-
Has a different haircut than the rest of the movie and this footage was taken during principal photography. Now I’m not sure if everyone knows this, but hair doesn’t grow overnight, especially hairstyles like that. Us african folks ain’t a chia pet. John woudnt just show up to set with a different cut. He would have to of cleared this look. That means John potentially has an entirely different group of scenes that were changed in re-shoots.
Yes! It makes no sense for him to turn up to filming with a completely different haircut! Look at how early he started growing out his hair for IX even before we knew that’s what it was for! Training for TLJ started shortly after the end of the TFA promotion, so why on earth should he get a haircut during this period if it wasn’t for the movie?
Also wasn’t Rose’s background story initial in the movie and they then reshot the scene and left it out?
Also this is John during the promotion of the Force Awakens. Different haircut, particularly visible bc it’s longer and the line in his hair is on the other side, unless the footage from TLJ shooting is mirrored for some reason but I don’t know why that should be the case.
Usually when people get that type of haircut, the line is on both sides for balance.
I really don’t know why anything happened. I just know that there had to of been some changes, even JJ admits that he changed parts of the TFA script because he didn’t like them or the implications.
Timeline-wise, one of the first things to get leaked about tlj was the filming of John and Kelly “getting flirty” on what we now know to be a Falthier and that photo was released in March of 2016 iirc. It’s my opinion that the casino plot on Canto Bight was Rians top priority for Finn.
My tin foil hat is on, but I don’t think rian ever had many alternative ideas for Finn. I don’t know who is responsible for coming up with Finns arc on the supremacy, or for the plot involving Finn fighting alongside Paige, but it is unlikely to have come from Rian himself. I don’t even think Rian was present while shooting the Finn vs Phasma duel—I have to double check this, but I believe the secondary director was there filming that. And we have bts footage of Rian observing daisy and Adam training, but nothing of John.
Yeah I’ve looked in BTS and there’s not jack of Johnson, and I mean even the throne room scene is more about Kylo then Rey.
Johnson just wants to be Kylo.
Considering nothing
If what @reys–speeder says is true, and @themandalorianwolf provides at least partial confirmation, it may explain something I noticed about the TLJ novelization (link): The Finn-Phasma duel is very different in a number of small details from the version in the novelization. At the time I thought this might simply be the nature of action scenes, but then I read the throne room scene and no jarring discrepancies jumped out at me, at least none that I could spot from memory alone. If Johnson didn’t film and possibly didn’t even write the Finn duel that may explain the extra “drift” from the script.
Also, the second unit director generally doesn’t film scenes with the primary cast but rather films background characters and large-scale battles. The duel was a pivotal scene for Finn that featured him prominently. If it’s true that Johnson left the scene to the second unit he was treating Finn as effectively a background character and not a part of the main cast.
@lj-writes @reys–speeder @thelastjedicritical
After watching more BTS I noticed something odd about the scene. Rian Johnson is present during the scene direction, but isn’t present for actual bts of filming, which is confusing.
I can’t find anything on him when they’re filming. Though he could be somewhere else watching a monitoring, though considering Johnson is always shown watching and/or giggling.
Now call me a tinfoil hat wearing nut, but my personal theory is that Johnson was there for the filming of alternate version of the Finn vs Phasma fight, which I believe is honestly the original version. I think the one that was kept in the movie was the re-shot version.
I came to this conclusion because in this video Christie, Tran, Boyega, and Johnson talk about the Finn vs Phasma fight like it’s the deleted version that has an actual confrontation behind it and dialogue that sounds scripted, while the one left in the movie sounds like improve from John and Christie.
Also
When watching the version in the movie, there is a glaring continuity problem after Holdo does her suicide run. Phasma and her troopers transport to the other side of the hanger, but in the scene before they had been right next to Finn and Rose ready to execute them.
Compare that to the alternate version that was deleted that actually matches the continuity.
I can’t honestly pretend to know if Johnson was there for both shoots, but I do believe Johnson wasn’t there for the version version shown in the movie.
I saw this because almost everyone who watches both scenes say that the alternate scene feels like it should have been in the movie and matches continuity, while the movie version feels tacked on and like a filler fight to give Finn something to do.
Depending on the count Finn had equal screen time as Rey or more in TFA, so the reduction was entirely in TLJ. And a sizeable number of TLJ stans don’t think Finn was a protagonist in the first place–I’ve heard him compared to Qui-Gon Jinn or Mace Windu–so to them that’s just the way things should be.
The mentor who died in one movie or the only black Jedi they know.
Finn’s screentime was reduced by about 20 minutes compared to TFA…
In TFA Finn and Rey were miles above everyone else in screentime, and storywise clearly were the co-protagonists, with Finn actually actively starting the entire story …
TLJ retconed that. For that alone the movie is awful. (Not to mention there was more Finn material filmed, important material in fact that RJ cut for unknown reasons *cough*)
The entire Kylo show btw doesn’t result from Kylo having gained significant screentime.. his screentime stayed pretty much the same compared to TFA but Finn in particular and also Rey lost a lot of theirs. This explains the shift of the focus, together with the fact they Rey’s storyline is mostly about poor Ben and not herself, and Finn’s is literally filler material.
Finn has approximately 7 deleted scenes, 8 if you count whatever scene this flight suit came from. What I find weird though is how Finn’s cut scenes aren’t short things the film can do without like Kylo staring out a window, they’re actual character driven scenes.
It also strikes me as odd Finn is the only character to have an entire alternant scene! Which makes me think that this version of Finn’s confrontation with Finn is from an entirely different character arc.
tbh I’ve had a particular horror vision in my head for a while… and this vision says that John expected a totally different film in terms of Finn’s arc. That even more things that we don’t know about were filmed and then scrapped as soon as Johnson was in the cutting room … Like RJ couldn’t get away with minimizing Finn’s role to this degree while filming but then once this was over, he could wield the scissors and rearrange everything until it fit more to his original idea, ie. Finn as the comic relief who doesn’t do that much. And then John saw the movie and realised what was done to his arc and couldn’t do anything about it.
Maybe. Could be possible. No one just has that many deleted scenes. Also put in mind that Finn in his flight suit-
Has a different haircut than the rest of the movie and this footage was taken during principal photography. Now I’m not sure if everyone knows this, but hair doesn’t grow overnight, especially hairstyles like that. Us african folks ain’t a chia pet. John woudnt just show up to set with a different cut. He would have to of cleared this look. That means John potentially has an entirely different group of scenes that were changed in re-shoots.
Yes! It makes no sense for him to turn up to filming with a completely different haircut! Look at how early he started growing out his hair for IX even before we knew that’s what it was for! Training for TLJ started shortly after the end of the TFA promotion, so why on earth should he get a haircut during this period if it wasn’t for the movie?
Also wasn’t Rose’s background story initial in the movie and they then reshot the scene and left it out?
Also this is John during the promotion of the Force Awakens. Different haircut, particularly visible bc it’s longer and the line in his hair is on the other side, unless the footage from TLJ shooting is mirrored for some reason but I don’t know why that should be the case.
Usually when people get that type of haircut, the line is on both sides for balance.
I really don’t know why anything happened. I just know that there had to of been some changes, even JJ admits that he changed parts of the TFA script because he didn’t like them or the implications.
Timeline-wise, one of the first things to get leaked about tlj was the filming of John and Kelly “getting flirty” on what we now know to be a Falthier and that photo was released in March of 2016 iirc. It’s my opinion that the casino plot on Canto Bight was Rians top priority for Finn.
My tin foil hat is on, but I don’t think rian ever had many alternative ideas for Finn. I don’t know who is responsible for coming up with Finns arc on the supremacy, or for the plot involving Finn fighting alongside Paige, but it is unlikely to have come from Rian himself. I don’t even think Rian was present while shooting the Finn vs Phasma duel—I have to double check this, but I believe the secondary director was there filming that. And we have bts footage of Rian observing daisy and Adam training, but nothing of John.
Yeah I’ve looked in BTS and there’s not jack of Johnson, and I mean even the throne room scene is more about Kylo then Rey.
Johnson just wants to be Kylo.
Considering nothing
If what @reys–speeder says is true, and @themandalorianwolf provides at least partial confirmation, it may explain something I noticed about the TLJ novelization (link): The Finn-Phasma duel is very different in a number of small details from the version in the novelization. At the time I thought this might simply be the nature of action scenes, but then I read the throne room scene and no jarring discrepancies jumped out at me, at least none that I could spot from memory alone. If Johnson didn’t film and possibly didn’t even write the Finn duel that may explain the extra “drift” from the script.
Also, the second unit director generally doesn’t film scenes with the primary cast but rather films background characters and large-scale battles. The duel was a pivotal scene for Finn that featured him prominently. If it’s true that Johnson left the scene to the second unit he was treating Finn as effectively a background character and not a part of the main cast.
I know reincarnation theories tend to favour finn as padmé but you know what? I think it’s anakin as finn. anakin as a child was such a kind and gentle soul who wanted to free the slaves. it’s not that big of a stretch that his wish would be fulfilled in his next life as finn, who frees the stormtroopers from the first order after breaking away from slavery himself.
Depending on the count Finn had equal screen time as Rey or more in TFA, so the reduction was entirely in TLJ. And a sizeable number of TLJ stans don’t think Finn was a protagonist in the first place–I’ve heard him compared to Qui-Gon Jinn or Mace Windu–so to them that’s just the way things should be.
The mentor who died in one movie or the only black Jedi they know.
And yet Qui-Gon got his mug in the poster that’s supposed to be about the Skywalker legacy and Finn didn’t.
I think there’s plenty of basis to headcanon him as gay, though I doubt Disney/Lucasfilm will say anything about it for another decade or so. Doomereys notwithstanding he’s never shown romantic or sexual attraction to a woman (saying “hi” doesn’t count, you demons), while he’s shown plenty to Finn in TFA before TLJ and the comic did their best to retcon it. BUT I WILL ALWAYS HAVE “KEEP IT. IT SUITS YOU” AND THE LIP BITE, OKAY.
I always saw Poe as the Star Wars version of Commander Shepard, rank puns aside, Poe always struck me as someone who never put a gender or species on love.
And that Poe and Rey saying “Hi” = them about to fall in love and have sex is horse shit.
Are Suralinda Javos and Poe Dameron in love? She even says he had a nice ass. Maybe they became lovers, or maybe they’re just friends.
Poe can have friends too. Female friends. Rey can have male friends. Shippers gotta chill.
I love Poe and Suralinda’s relationship. I personally never got a romantic vibe from them, but that could be my own bias speaking.
There probably isn’t. But if people looked at every interaction a character had with shipping googles, we’d be in a Harem anime 😂
What’s next, you’re going to tell me TFA and TLJ aren’t works of harem anime about everyone falling head over heels for Finn? Madness!
L.J.'s Obsessions 