Yeah, it’s like self-parody of the worst instincts of the West. Because culture is a specimen to be studied under a microscope and not a lived reality, obviously.
RO itself majorly shafted its one visible Black and physically disabled character, and the whole first act suffered for it. It had redeeming qualities but I don’t trust fans who are completely uncritical of the movie.
See, that was my major disappointment with these people. Because none of them have been uncritical of RO and the treatment all of the characters of color received including Saw.
But with TLJ it seems something in their brains shut down or something. We’re back to the “let people just have fun” and literally someone comparing the critique of TLJ coming from fans of color to people whining about the wooden acting and bad dialogue in ANH.
Really? Really!
Heck, if they’d been uncritical of RO I wouldn’t have followed them in the first place. So I’m just in the “I thought you could be partially trusted, but I guess not. More fool me then.”
Maybe it’s a case of low expectations. I remember that when I first saw ESB and RotJ in the late 90′s or so my apprehension was simply that Lando not be killed as narrative punishment for his “betrayal” or as cheap motivation for Han. I didn’t actually enjoy my first views of these movies very much because I was so afraid for him. When he made it through the trilogy alive that was a huge relief for me and I didn’t think of much past that because the bar was that low for me at the time. Tbh I didn’t have much hope that a Black character with the least bit of moral complexity would survive to the end of a Hollywood movie made in the 70′s and 80′s.
I bring this up because it’s possible these bloggers’ bar for a Black character in Star Wars is as low as mine was. Finn is a more prominent character than Saw was, and he didn’t die to further any other character’s arc, so it may be okay in their minds. I disagree with them if this is the case because Finn has different weight in the sequel trilogy than Saw or Lando (and also can we stop holding the bar ridiculously low for the treatment of Black characters in general), but this may explain the inconsistency.
Ah, dammit. Typing it up anyway, just a lose outline I can give you more details if you need it, but this is the Cliff’s Notes version.
Major change: Holdo doesn’t exist. Like, that’s basically the one major change I made to this.
We start out as otherwise. Poe leads the assault on the dreadnought, though can we please just hvae Paige injured badly. It’ll still be traumatic as hell for Rose, no need to kill her.
Anyway, Finn wakes up ect, ect.
When Poe and Leia talk she does neither slap nor demote him. Instead she tells him that she understands his need to strike back at the First Order after all they’ve done both to the galaxy and to him, but he can’t let his pain lead him. Now is not the time to fight, but to retreat and regroup and that she needs him to keep a level head for that. And simply point blank asks him if she can trust him to do this?
To which Poe answers “yes general”. (Like it’s clear here that Poe is affected at what he’s been through and it might be making him a bit rasher than he has otherwise been, but it’s down to his trauma. And that Leia knows and understands this and is willing to count on him still.)
Finn wakes up and Poe finds him (and can we please have a convo between them?)
Anyway, the FO tracks them through hyperspace so they have to run off at sublight speed. Leia gets injured but – and here’s where the major change takes effect – because since Holdo does not exist in this the one who Leia has transferred command to, is Poe. He has to learn how to be top boss by doing.
As for Finn’s and Rose’s meeting it goes as per TLJ but she doesn’t stun him. Instead we have them talk it out (with Finn being first “listen I know you think I*m a hero, but I didn’t’ sign up for this and really I’m just trying to keep my friend safe, ect, ect.) They figure out how the FO tracks them and Poe sends them on their – in this universe official – mission to stop it so they can escape through hyperspace.
I’m still a bit lose on Canto Bight, but can we a) please not have Finn and Rose stunned, b) skip the fathier thing, they’re cute but there are so much bigger problems there than that, like you know the enslaved children. c) let Finn figure out for himself what’s going on there and not have Rose lecture him?
Maybe something along the lines of Finn and Rose helping the kids in some way and the children telling them about DJ, since they can’t find the real code breaker? Idk.
Btw, DJ is still a mercenary doucebag in this.
Anyway, they get aboard the Supremacy. They actually manage to disable the whatever device and escape back to the fleet.
They jump to hyperspace and everyone thinks it’s all in the clear. Leia wakes up and tells them all, good job and asks for their course to be set to Crait where they can lie low and call for help.
Only DJ has betrayed them, he’s only there for the money and the FO paid him well, so they have to make the same last stand as in TLJ.
Ultimately the end of this is no different. The Resistance still gets decimated, they still fail, but at least they’re half way competent, some of their actions succeed and there’s not need to butcher neither Finn’s nor Poe’s character in this or make a hash of Finn’s and Rose’s relationship
Reblogging myself again because I just had a bit to add.
I know this doesn’t do much for Finn’s character, except realize that freedom – like the unlimited financial freedom of the rich of Canto Bight – has a darker side and that that kind comes at a price that other people pay.
But the damn thing is that his plotline is so weak it’s hard to fix without just shredding it all.
Maybe let him take out that damn canon, but eject at the last moment so he doesn’t die?
So the FO might no be able to get the door open, but since no help is coming they’re still stuck and have to fight and Luke has to do his force projection and save the day so the remains of the Resistance can escape.
I know it isn’t perfect, but the challenge I set myself was “how can I fix this into something marginally working that doesn’t screw everyone over, but still change as little as possible”.
Of course, if it had been me the movie would have run entirely differently.
I keep wondering what a “biohexacrypt” is, and thinking that it might have something to do with troopers being assigned 6-digit designations instead of names – they’re not code names/etc, they’re biohexacrypts (almost an Orphan Black-like “patented organism” ring to the word). Except the -crypt part makes me wonder whether there’s more to that “you should’ve used a clone army” comment than a deadpan snark? I really wonder about some kind of Order 66 2.0 being programmed somehow during reconditioning or something?
Otherwise, i think maybe biohexacrypt is just the new carbonite. Either way, for me so far that’s been the most actually tantalizing clue/teaser to TLJ. That’s what Ir really want to know. That, and Poe’s ring necklace, and Rose’s suit’s monogram/abbreviation, and what the caretaker creatures were doing for a thousand years, etc.
But man. BIOHEXACRYPTS.
I’m at work right now, so I don’t have he link to hand but the full line – according to John – was “It’s a biohexacrypt and it recharges every hour”.
I had a long talk about this with @lj-writes and I think we ended up agreeing it was possibly some sort of device. (I got very annoyed – sorry, lj – because I kept having the feeling that there was something staring me right in the face taht I couldn’t see. Still got that feeling, but I’m less annoyed about it.)
OMG I didn’t even make the connection to the six-digit Stormtrooper designations! Yeah, I’m definitely getting strong feels toward “biohexacrypt” having something to do with Stormtrooper programming/conditioning.
Very true, it could be about his legacy being redeemed. If the movie’s twist is what I predict it would be very fitting to close with his tragic death, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Can’t believe I’m talking to the source herself 😂 can you believe I went through your whole Adam Driver tag looking for this lmao. I came up mildly nauseated but not much wiser on the character’s possible death, unfortunately.
I just saw Finn described as a “psychopath” and now I feel ill.
@kyberfox Unclear, since it was an unsourced indirect quote in a Korean wiki article. On the other hand it’s just a blunter statement of the criticisms that he killed Stormtroopers and didn’t feel bad enough about it. That he’s unfeeling, violent, his seeming humanitarianism is for his self-image, etc. (The last one by a reylo “feminist”)
The article also questioned whether he actually had PTSD because, it claimed, the symptoms went away in the third act and he was cheering the deaths of Stormtroopers which um, no he wasn’t? TIE pilots aren’t Stormtroopers, and in any case SORRY HE DIDN’T WANT TO GET KILLED WHAT DO YOU WANT HIM TO DO
[Image description: Screenshot of a search for the term “fandom racism” (without quotes), which turns up no results.]
It doesn’t seem to be a universal problem, though, but may differ from region to region. Friends in other regions did not get the same error. For a while a number of other search terms were also not working for me–such as “racism” and “white power”–but those are back on while the search for “fandom racism” still comes up blank. Maybe the situation is being rectified by @staff and the fandom racism search will work again like the others.
Working in United States Midwest on a PC connection currently.
In Europe and idk if that affects it, but I may have located where the issue lies. Because I get this if I turn “Allow Adult Themes” off. So racism is now considered NSFW by tumblr.
Seriously @staff how exactly is racism, fandom or otherwise, and adult theme?
Is this the same thing as safe mode? Because I have safe mode off on both PC and mobile but this still happens, and I can’t seem to find the specific menu you mention. I mean, how ironic would it be if fandom racism (and let’s laugh forever at the fact that the related tags are “anti reylo” and “reylo receipts”) is considered sensitive and, like, white power is not?
Now that we know that Finn will face off against Phasma in what looks like the hangar of Snoke’s capital ship the Supremacy, I found something interesting in the teaser trailer.
Here’s Finn igniting his baton:
Here they are fighting:
And here’s a shot of Phasma walking out of the darkness leading a group of Stormtroopers from the teaser trailer:
In the teaser this part is cut together with a shot of the burning building Luke is kneeling in front of, making it look like this scene and that is connected but on closer inspection it looks all wrong.
Look at the curved bit with the metallic reflection in the upper left corner and the debris on the ground, it looks nothing like Luke’s burning building. But it looks a lot like the hangar in the fight scene.
So Phasma doesn’t arrive alone to take on Finn and what’s more the hangar is already burning when she and her troopers do. Someone has already destroyed it.
What’s more, these Stormtroopers with Phasma cannot be the only ones there.
This Stormtrooper behind Finn is interesting because he’s shooting a TIE fighter.
So the two possibilities seems to be that: A) He’s one of Phasma’s loyal Stormtroopers and someone has taken over the TIE and are helping Finn bust up the hangar. In which case we must be looking at a major infiltration by the Resistance, but do they even have the personnel to commit to such an action? In TFA they looked very understaffed and not at all equipped for such large scale infiltration. Not to mention that this mission seems to consist of Finn, Rose Tico and the mysterious DJ.
B) He’s a Stomrmtrooper that, like Finn, has turned against the First Order.
Now this is much more in thread with what we already has hints off about Finn’s storyline. And it makes sense of his lines from one of the other TV spots:
“I was raised to fight. For the first time, I had something to fight for.”
Lines that clearly comes late in the movie given how he’s dressed.
What he has found to fight for is freedom. Not just his own, but the freedom of all those infants that the First Order stole and indoctrinated. For all the children that the world forgot and who grew up into people that the galaxy tries to forget about as well, at least that they are people.
Would that mean Finn’s infiltration mission had results by the time Phasma arrived at the hangar–that the uprising was so organized that troopers pretended to be loyal to her until the moment they turned?
Alternately, the troopers who were still loyal to the Order may have been killed/neutralized after arriving with Phasma. That would be in keeping with the theme of moral ambiguity if we have Troopers killing each other.
Further, if we assume the hangar burns after this gathering from the trailer:
Where are these Stormtroopers in the subsequent fight? Wiped out in the blast that caused the fire? Turned against the FO en masse? Fighting each other? My guess is a combination of the first and third, since neither Finn nor Phasma has troops by their side while there are troopers in the background, so the assumption is that both their sides are too busy fighting to come to their leaders’ aid.
Yes, I’d say that what Finn and Rose are doing on board the Supremacy has already paid dividends by the time Phasma arrives.
And I could only imagine that any pre-existing rebellion inside the First Order Stormtrooper ranks would have to be very circumspect and very careful about at least appearing to be loyal or risk reconditioning.
Yes I imagine it’s a mix between 1 and 3 too. But I have a much more pressing question right now.
Assuming that the rebellion is at least partially successful, what becomes of the surviving Stormtroopers after this scene?
Do they go down to Crait with Finn and Rose (and Rey)? Is it them we see in the walkers?
You know, we’ve seen none of the skispeeders actually fighting any of those walkers.
That’s really intriguing! The walkers show up with the TIE fighters above them and the TIEs are definitely hostile (either that or the teasers are cut REALLY deceptively when Finn whooped at them being shot down), so I assume at the moment the walkers and the TIEs are on the same side. But I think it’s more than possible that the Stormtroopers make off with the FO’s weapons. How cool would that be, for the Stormtroopers to “dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools?”
Now that we know that Finn will face off against Phasma in what looks like the hangar of Snoke’s capital ship the Supremacy, I found something interesting in the teaser trailer.
Here’s Finn igniting his baton:
Here they are fighting:
And here’s a shot of Phasma walking out of the darkness leading a group of Stormtroopers from the teaser trailer:
In the teaser this part is cut together with a shot of the burning building Luke is kneeling in front of, making it look like this scene and that is connected but on closer inspection it looks all wrong.
Look at the curved bit with the metallic reflection in the upper left corner and the debris on the ground, it looks nothing like Luke’s burning building. But it looks a lot like the hangar in the fight scene.
So Phasma doesn’t arrive alone to take on Finn and what’s more the hangar is already burning when she and her troopers do. Someone has already destroyed it.
What’s more, these Stormtroopers with Phasma cannot be the only ones there.
This Stormtrooper behind Finn is interesting because he’s shooting a TIE fighter.
So the two possibilities seems to be that: A) He’s one of Phasma’s loyal Stormtroopers and someone has taken over the TIE and are helping Finn bust up the hangar. In which case we must be looking at a major infiltration by the Resistance, but do they even have the personnel to commit to such an action? In TFA they looked very understaffed and not at all equipped for such large scale infiltration. Not to mention that this mission seems to consist of Finn, Rose Tico and the mysterious DJ.
B) He’s a Stomrmtrooper that, like Finn, has turned against the First Order.
Now this is much more in thread with what we already has hints off about Finn’s storyline. And it makes sense of his lines from one of the other TV spots:
“I was raised to fight. For the first time, I had something to fight for.”
Lines that clearly comes late in the movie given how he’s dressed.
What he has found to fight for is freedom. Not just his own, but the freedom of all those infants that the First Order stole and indoctrinated. For all the children that the world forgot and who grew up into people that the galaxy tries to forget about as well, at least that they are people.
Would that mean Finn’s infiltration mission had results by the time Phasma arrived at the hangar–that the uprising was so organized that troopers pretended to be loyal to her until the moment they turned?
Alternately, the troopers who were still loyal to the Order may have been killed/neutralized after arriving with Phasma. That would be in keeping with the theme of moral ambiguity if we have Troopers killing each other.
Further, if we assume the hangar burns after this gathering from the trailer:
Where are these Stormtroopers in the subsequent fight? Wiped out in the blast that caused the fire? Turned against the FO en masse? Fighting each other? My guess is a combination of the first and third, since neither Finn nor Phasma has troops by their side while there are troopers in the background, so the assumption is that both their sides are too busy fighting to come to their leaders’ aid.
L.J.'s Obsessions 