Tag: finn

kyberfox:

Whenever I hear “well Finn had to learn to care about more than just himself and his immediate friends” I want to punch the one saying it.

Not because it’s factually incorrect, which it is, but because it shows a complete lack of compassion. They either do not know, or more likely do not care, about how hard it would be for him as an abuse survivor to say ‘no’, to look after himself and his own needs first and not constantly put others first.

When someone has been brutalized emotionally as well as physically their whole life like Finn has, saying ‘I want’ or ‘I need’ is difficult in and of itself, just figuring what it is you need or want is difficult. But acting on a need or desire when someone else is making a demand of you… that takes more emotional and mental fortitude than people who have not grown up in an abusive household can ever imagine. Especially when you just escaped the abusive situation like Finn just has and have had no time at all to heal the deep wounds in your heart and soul.

For Finn to put himself and his own needs and desires over others would take enormous courage from him. And saying that he needs to learn to put others first and commit to something bigger than himself is unspeakably evil and cruel.

We know why they’re so obsessed with the idea of making Finn serve others and put himself last.

rose-griffes:

redrikki:

redrikki:

kyberfox:

chibi-chellist:

One thing that really annoys me about the discussion surrounding the TLJ backlash is people talking about arrogant fans feeling “entitled”.

And I say, what about Disney’s arrogance and entitlement? After the success they had with their animation, Pixar and Marvel movies they now behave like people *owe* it to them to like their products, and are shocked and appalled – and spin ridiculous tales about hackers rigging Rotten Tomatoes or whatnot – because how dare people not like one of their movies, how dare they!?

No, Disney, you are not immune to criticism and failure and Star Wars fans don’t owe you anything and have the right to just really and honestly think that TLJ is a bad movie and not spend their money on it.

I wonder if some of this is tied to the mindset that Star Wars was the unsinkable franchise?

Star Wars was seen as the one thing that couldn’t tank, couldn’t bomb. It was inconceivable that a Star Wars movie, much less a Star Wars saga movie, could flop.

But The Last Jedi has flopped and flopped big time. And right now not just Disney but all of Hollywood is in a state of panic because yes other movies and franchises has flopped, but Star Wars had this myth of being untouchable surrounding it, and if Star Wars can sink, anything can.

I think this may have hammered home in a way that nothing else could have, that no one is above criticism, that no one is immune to backlash from fans. Disney, Hollywood and media is in a state of shock that this has happened and that it has happened on such a clear scale – there’s no arguing that TLJ did fail – and they have no idea how to deal with it, so they blame the fans-

Complaining that fans feel entitled to good storytelling and a
modicum

of respect is like complaining that Millennial are killing the _____ industry. How dare consumers want some things and not others! How dare they! Don’t they know that they exist to give corporations money? Consumers can’t honestly expect corporations to tailor their products to meet their evolving wants and needs, not when years of advertising theory say that they’re just malleable sheep who can be trained to want anything.

@thewillowbends replied saying:

They spent $5 billion on the franchise and thought they could just pump
out whatever and we’d eat it up.  Apparently, they weren’t paying
attention to the response to the prequels.  Star Wars fans are fanatics,
but they’re also extremely demanding.  These movies mean a lot to
people. 

Don’t you know you’re supposed to let the past die? Kill it if you have to. We’re all just a bunch of entitled losers if we think we should have standards and want some form of character continuity. I mean, obviously, Disney envisioned Star Wars fans as walking ATMs who could be relied upon to pay for tickets and buy all the merchandise, but it’s more insidious than that. So much of the current film storytelling is based on the idea that while casual viewers just want lightsabers and a rehash of the OT, anyone who is actually invested in the GFFA will feel compelled to buy all the tie-in material just so they understand what the fuck is going on.

Want to know how the galaxy became such a mess in between RotJ and TFA? Buy the books! Want some actual depth to our cardboard cut-out characters? Buy the books! Want to know who this new person is we’re pretending you’re already supposed to know is? Buy the books. The Old EU was never this crass when it came to forcing fans to buy the tie-ins. By uniting all their storytelling under one roof, they can and have deliberately created gaps which must be filled and it’s deeply annoying to me that I have fallen for it on multiple occasions because I genuinely do care about the characters and the story. 

I’ve been a Star Wars fan for years. Decades, even. But I’d never bought any tie-in material before TFA. 

I love Finn, so I got the Rucka novel Before the Awakening, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THAT MATTERS TO FINN from that novel actually makes it onscreen in TFA or TLJ. It’s not just that the novel “enhances” the character; he’s basically an entirely different character. 

Finn was a star in the Stormtrooper program; Phasma saw him as future leadership material. None of that gets portrayed in either movie. And I find it even more disappointing because Finn is portrayed by John Boyega, who is black, and so a lot of fans aren’t making positive assumptions about him to begin with. 

TFA went for a cheap joke about Finn working sanitation, and never clarified that it was part of a normal rotation of duties. TLJ doubled down on that sanitation worker idea. Yes, we saw Finn make smart deductions for a moment onscreen in TLJ. But we still don’t see any hint within the films about Finn that the Rucka novel goes to the trouble of creating. 

Anyway. So that’s the last time I’ll buy anything for the new EU. 

There are soooooo many assholes now claiming BTA is not canon and Finn was a janitor. (A janitor who’s also a crack shot and tactical genius, sounds pretty impressive actually) Ryan Craig gave fuel to fandom racists by unoriginally repeating the sanitation gag and now I just want to burn everything down.

Eh I’m asian-american and i think Rose is far more accurate and more written for us than anyone living in east asia. And I personally connect with her a lot

leg-grestrade:

lj-writes:

I’m happy for you that she’s a character you can identify with. I just hope you’ll give me a head start if I have to run from you.

Gross. I’m Asian-American too and the anon sounds ghastly. Speak for yourself – and stay well away from me and other Asian-American women horrified by Rose’s characterization, while you’re at it, anon.

I’ve only spent a few years in the States, but there are some nuances that I caught of Asian-American and African-American relations that made some of Rose and Finn’s interactions intensely uncomfortable for me. One of these nuances is the blatant antiblackness and colorism in Asian-American communities, something you were talking about with @diversehighfantasy shortly after the movie came out.

The second is the way white America has pitted Asian and Black communities in the States against each other, perpetuating the myth of the model minority as a weapon against Black, Latinx and other minority communities. Racist white people have told me whenever issues of race came up that Black people hate Koreans (because the L.A. riots 25 years ago are evidently the only Black and Korean-American interaction of note) and that I should agree with them, the white supremacists, on the issues. Which, ew no, but the pressure to split minority communities apart seems to be very strong.

Against the background of these personal experiences, Rose threatening and then enacting terrifying violence against an injured Finn with no consequence, and her subsequently lecturing to him and putting him down, brought back memories of both antiblackness within Asian communities and the pressure on me to be antiblack as an Asian person. In that way I could say Rose resonated with my experiences, but not in a good way at all.

Hey I know it’s kinda soon, but did you get a peek at that stormtrooper book? Is it good?

diversehighfantasy:

It’s a cool book. I haven’t read through it yet, but it’s got a lot of Stormtrooper behind the scenes history.

One part I did read is the section on a Star Wars comic from 1983 called “The Stormtrooper Alliance” that had stayed with me as a kid and is one of the reasons I was excited to have an ex Stormtrooper hero in the sequels. In it, Leia is rescued by a Stormtrooper from Alderaan who had once been a servant to The Organas. This was when Stormtroopers signed up or were conscripts. It brought up class issues and showed that for some troopers, the Imperial Army meant they could take care of their families. I was stunned by the realization that they weren’t just mindless minions, and that it took a certain level of privilege to be able to fight for The Rebellion, which was volunteer in every sense.

Point being, it explores a lot of interesting stories across all Star Wars media.

The character reminds me of Bodhi, who also probably started working for the Empire for economic reasons. Stormtroopers, like other rank-and-file people in the Empire and later FO, raise a whole bunch of interesting issues like class, agency, responsibility, and complicity.

I wonder if defections like these were why the FO opted for abduction and brainwashing over hiring/conscription. Joke was on them, though…