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.
1. No Resistance. Instead of rehashing the Rebels vs Empire conflict, I’d just have the Republic face the First Order directly.
2. Han is an admiral in the Republic fleet and Chewie, Lando and Wedge are generals.
3. Luke would be looking for the first Jedi temple, but not because his Jedi order failed. He would be searching for answers to defeat the First Order. He would remain in contact with Leia through Artoo until said communication is suddenly lost. Artoo would be kidnapped by the First Order to try and pry Luke’s location from him and the assault on Starkiller Base would be about rescuing him. (The reason Luke stays on Ahch-to, which would be Tython in my version, is because he finds some terrible secret about the Jedi and decides he has to stay to protect it.)
4. Luke entrusts Leia to his Jedi order in his absence. The new Jedi temple is on Takodana.
5. Kylo Ren and Ben Solo are separate people. Kylo Ren is still a former student of Luke’s, but he doesn’t single-handedly destroy all his work. He’s a Jedi killer who collects lightsabers like General Grievous. (He’s the reason the Jedi temple is no longer based on Coruscant.) Ben Solo’s main drive is to best him after Ren humiliates him.
6. Jakku is a desert swamp like in the original concept art. Just to differentiate it from Tatooine.
7. Rey’s parents actually are nobody and this is cleared up pretty quickly. Star Wars isn’t about speculative fan theory mystery boxes; the reveals come out of nowhere. No one walked out of ANH thinking, “I bet Vader is Luke’s father!” Nobody’s going to wonder who Rey’s parents are either.
8. Ben Solo replaces Poe in the trio (not that there was much of one) but Poe is still an ace pilot and gets around the same amount of screentime as he does in TFA. Poe gets a bigger role in Episode VIII (more on that later.)
9. Starkiller Base is an ancient Sith weapon that was non-functional when the First Order found it. Snoke has just recently discovered how to fix it.
10. The map to Luke is actually an ancient paper map to Tython. Make it really clear that this is not a map to Luke, he didn’t say “I’m going to go hide, nobody follow me but I’m going to leave a piece of my map with my droid” and just not have that confusing stuff. The map is just a really old map that Lor San Tekka found that might lead to Luke’s location, but might not because Luke didn’t have a map and may have ended up in the wrong place.
With these, my plot would go like this:
Leia learns that Lor San Tekka has the map to Tython and sends her son Ben to meet with Lor San Tekka. When he gets there the First Order arrives to take the map. Ben gives it to BB-8 and tells him to take it. Kylo Ren kills Lor San Tekka and Ben attacks him. Ren defeats Ben and takes his saber.
FN-2187 decides to defect, but needs a pilot, so be breaks Ben out. This plays out like his escape with Poe except Ben doesn’t disappear during the crash. Instead they head out together in the desert to find an outpost so they can leave the planet.
Rey finds BB-8 and runs into Ben and Finn. Ben sees she’s Force sensitive and wants to take her with them, but Finn just wants to get off Jakku and Rey doesn’t want to leave because she’s waiting for her family. The three of them are forced to flee in a junk ship (not the Falcon, because Han still has it) and once they’re safe, Ben contacts his father to pick them up.
On board the Falcon, Ben tells Han of Rey’s Force sensitivity and says she needs to be brought to Leia for training. Rey just wants to go home and Finn just wants to go anywhere the First Order isn’t, and they bond over their disgust of Ben’s stubbornness. But when Finn tells them about Starkiller Base, Rey realizes she can’t go back to Jakku because the First Order might destroy it and declares that they have to stop them, but Finn still wants to run, so they tearfully part.
Rey is brought to Takodana where she is given a lightsaber by Leia. (Ben gets a new one to replace the one Ren stole, though he really wants to get his old one back.)
The First Order captures Finn and Kylo Ren decides to hold him hostage when he finds Rey in Finn’s mind. The First Order contact the Republic and demand the Jedi hand over Rey or Starkiller Base will destroy Coruscant. Ren tells Leia Finn is Force sensitive (he thinks he’s lying, but he’s actually right.) Leia and Ben go to Starkiller Base with Rey employing a ruse while Han amasses the Republic fleet to attack Starkiller Base.
Finn escapes and tries to create a stormtrooper rebellion only for Phasma to stop him. Ben, Rey and Leia come to his rescue, sending Phasma on the run. Finn takes the stormtroopers he’s managed to convert on a mission to cripple Starkiller’s shields and weapon, while Ben goes off to confront Kylo Ren. Leia and Rey search for Artoo.
Rey and Leia find Artoo and Leia takes him to their ship while Rey goes in search of Finn, who has just managed to get the shields down. She finds Ben about to get his butt handed to him by Kylo Ren and distracts Ren by attacking him. The two of them fight together.
Finn realizes he needs the Force to shut down the shields and goes off to find Rey and Ben, who are Force sensitive (he doesn’t know that he is too.) He arrives just in time for Rey to receive the wound he receives in The Force Awakens. Finn picks up Rey’s saber and he and Ben fight Kylo Ren. Finn’s stormtrooper rebels come to the rescue with Leia and Finn hightails it with a wounded Ben and an unconscious Rey.
Ben and Leia shut down the firing mechanism while the Republic’s bombers damage it permanently, as well as taking out most of the station’s mobility. The protagonists all flee with several new stormtrooper defectors.
Finn tells Rey he loves her and Ben promises to pass on the message when she wakes up. Ben, Rey and Leia head off with Artoo to find Luke while Finn gets acquainted with Poe. Finn talks with Han and Poe about turning his stormtrooper band into an elite Republic squadron.
Episode VIII- Finn joins Black Squadron to learn some piloting skills while training his stormtrooper commandos. Finn and Rose would be Poe’s wingmen and they’d form a trio. Ben would struggle with feelings for Rey, knowing that Finn loves Rey and Rey loves Finn and ultimately choosing their happiness. Luke’s secret would be something dark, and to his shame, he would have used this secret, a shocking reveal made by Kylo Ren at the end of the film. However, I would make it something that would be within Luke’s character. Maybe it’s a forbidden dark side power or something. Luke would sacrifice himself, but his death would mean something this time and the battle would take place on Tython. Finn’s Force sensitivity would be revealed (after being hinted at to the audience in the previous film) and he and Rey would be united again to kick butt in IX. Rey would see Luke as a father figure and take on the Skywalker name.
Episode VIII would not be called The Last Jedi because that’s a stupid and uncreative title. Rian Johnson would not be involved in any way with VIII.
No idea what I’d do with IX but I know Rey, Finn, Ben, Poe and Rose would form the baddest gang in the galaxy and restore motherflippin peace to the galaxy. I’d probably have Finnrey Jedi babies to show that this is the VERY VERY end of the Skywalker saga. Luke’s ghost would play a major role in IX. JJ would not be in charge of this one because he’s bad at satisfyingly ending things but for consistency’s sake he will be consulted heavily (unlike with TLJ.)
Anyway that’s my ST. I couldn’t find a place for Maz Kanata which is a shame because I like the concept of a Force sensitive smuggler who runs a castle bar. Maybe I’d have that instead of Canto Bight. (Although the “on the run low on fuel” plot from TLJ is hot garbage and I wouldn’t have VIII do anything like it.)
Edit: I just clicked submit on my idea for Episode VII and totally
forgot that I was going to have R2 be the one to bust Finn from his
cell, and then when Finn went off to start his rebellion, R2 and 3PO
would go hack into the First Order’s computers to delete the memories
they stole from R2 (they didn’t find anything on Luke because Luke put a
Force lock on those files, the way a holocron works.) And then he and
Leia would find each other.
Lando Calrissian’s Return in EP-IX should about Lando
Since even before Lando was confirmed to be in IX, and his return was just a rumor, I’ve been watching people make his return about almost everyone else but himself. The worse offenders of this have been Reylo shippers who make Lando’s return all about Kylo’s redemption to the ge of saying Maz would chew Lando out for wanting to hurt Benny Boy with the threat of Han Solo haunting him.
With this Fuckery I thought I should go over some canon facts about Lando for everyone.
Canon Facts
Han and Lando loved each other and were as close as brothers. They shared decades of adventures together.
Lando cared about Leia and Luke deeply and became like family to them. They had years of adventures fighting.
Lando and his people were almost killed by the Empire and he was given the horrible choice of selling out his friends or Cloud City, the city he was in charge of, would have been punished by the Empire.
Lando and Chewie were just as close as Lando and Han. They had even spent a year looking for a Han was Boba Fett captured him.
Shara Bey and Kes Dameron, Poe Dameron’s parents both served and fight along side Lando, Han, Leia and Luke throughout the last war. They were family.
Kylo murder Han Solo
Kylo led the attack that almost killed Leia
Kylo tried to kill Luke and indirectly did
Kylo led another attack that would have killed Leia
Lando would be furious about Maz’s castle being destroyed by Kylo and the First Order.
Lando would be furious about the torture Poe had gone through by Kylo and the First Order.
Lando would hate Kylo and the First Order for killing his friends and allies in the New Republic and the Resistance.
Lando would hate Kylo for almost murdering Leia twice and leaving her for dead.
Lando would hate Kylo for indirectly killing Luke.
Lando would hate Kylo for murdering Han in cold blood.
I have watched this one wretched part of the fandom to so much shit.
Post TFA they demonized Han and Leia, calling them abusive, neglectful, fear mongering parents while making Rey and Luke’s entire purpose to be redeeming Kylo Ren.
Post TLJ they demonized Luke, Han, Leia and the entire Skywalker name, and blamed them for everything wrong and bad about Kylo while making Rey’s sole purpose to be Kylo’s redemption baby factory fuck toy.
Now Pre-IX they are demonizing Han and Luke, and making Leia’s exit from the movie and Lando’s return all about redeeming Kylo.
How about no.
Lando’s return is about Lando. It’s about him continuing the fight against people that have killed his friends and family. Lando won’t be trying to save Kylo, he’s going to fight him.
Lando will finish what he started 30 years ago and end those fascist bastards. Stop making Lando’s return about Kylo.
Lando knew that thousands of deaths weren’t just a statistic, unlike this fandom, Kylo’s mass murdering life isn’t worth more than the Galaxy. stop ignoring a character’s pain.
Who do y’all wanna use and slander next?
Poe probably knew Benny Boy his whole since their families were so close. Should Poe save Benny Boy next?
Finn and Kylo were both apart of the FO. Should Finn save him?
Or should Kylo be held accountable for his actions and people should stop treating these characters like they’re from some crap romance movie.
@loopy777 Well, obviously. Finn going from “This fleet is doomed” to outright kamikaze for the remnants of that fleet because the person who tased him and mocked him gave him a lecture about the evils of the universe and has a sad past is the height of writing. His character regressing from valuing his own individuality and feelings, something that was systematically denied to him as a child soldier, to seeing himself as expendable for yet another cause is great character development. And his “having” to be hurt yet again to be saved from himself and being lectured to about how hateful he is for wanting to sacrifice himself for other people is a great thematic moment.
And that’s just one character.
If I squint hard the egregious and incoherent “that’s how we win” moment was about Rose realizing she was wrong and telling Finn he shouldn’t throw his life away for a cause like her sister did, that yes, he should live, he should have a chance to see Rey again. But there was a relentlessly glorified suicide run like 5 minutes earlier, and that was evidently about serving the light and not being a hero? And Paige wasn’t trying to destroy what she hated, she was thinking about Rose in her last moments? Finn wasn’t acting out of hate either, he was trying to buy time for the remainder of the Resistance. Why is it love when Holdo does it and hate when Finn does it?
I think I would have liked the scene better without that stupid line, because then at least it could have been about Rose’s trauma and not about her being a thematic vessel or whatever the hell that scene was trying to achieve.
@loopy777 DJ as catalyst for Finn development is even worse, though? At least
Rose became a friend of sorts. Finn went from fleeing to kamikaze
because a random dude he met in a jail cell spouted nonsense moral
equivalency and then–shock!–betrayed them. That looks awfully flimsy to me.
Did
you seriously put Finn’s “individuality” in quotes? I guess I
hallucinated the parts in TFA where he escaped the regime that kidnapped
and enslaved him out of his own “individual” conscience, where he made
friends and built relationships as an “individual,” and wanted to flee
to the Outer Rim out of his terror and trauma as an “individual.” Or the
part in TLJ where he wanted him and Rey, two “individuals,” to be
spared the destruction. There’s even a part in the TLJ novelization
where he all but begs Rose to understand that he was never allowed to
think and act for himself as an “individual” in the First Order (and
Rose dismisses him because yay friendship)!
I’m sorry, buying
time in a desperate situation has always been a valid military plan and,
for that matter, Holdo’s and Paige’s sacrifices also consisted of
buying time with their lives. There WAS a plan on Finn’s part for the
Outer Rim to rally and come to the Resistance’s aid. Finn had so much faith in the
people of the galaxy rising up against the First Order that he was
willing to literally stake his life on it, and then to have his
attempted sacrifice cheapened by being called an act of hate and not
love left a serious bad taste in my mouth.
Also, even if we say he
was acting without a plan, that is at best thoughtless or reckless, not
hateful. Rose’s speech, though framed and received as a thematic
moment, was unearned and made no sense even by your metric.
Yes, Finn was an individual, but ‘individuality’ was a never a theme or a subplot anywhere; it’s not important to the story, and 7 certainly doesn’t posit it as the reason he left the FO. 8 was clear that no more help was coming to Crait, & everyone knew it by then. And I don’t think “thoughtless and reckless” inspires suicide without some deeper emotion driving it- you’re taking away Finn’s agency, and kind of infantilizing him.
@loopy777 “My first battle, I made a choice.I wasn’t going to kill for them.”
I mean… I can’t believe I actually have to explain what an astounding assertion of individuality that was for someone who was brainwashed to be a cog in the FO machine. He listened to his own trauma, his own morality, in defiance of everything he had been taught his entire life, and I thought that made his individuality pretty important to his story and TFA as a whole. I’m curious, what do you think Finn’s arc in TFA was really about?
Oh hey, I didn’t realize “believing in the people of the galaxy” and “fuck it, I’m gonna save my friends anyway even if no one’s coming” weren’t valid motivations, or that attempting to kill yourself to destroy a weapon that would have been used to kill your friends has to come from a place of hate now. By that metric weren’t Holdo and Paige a lot more hateful, since they killed a metric ton of people in their own suicide runs? Or is it okay as long as they had a good plan–do carefully planned suicide attacks never come from a place of hate? As far as I can tell good planning and hatred are like… two totally unrelated indices. One doesn’t say anything about the other.
And why is it infantilizing to read a motivation in Finn that is not hatred? Believing that people will rise up is infantilizing now? Wanting to save your friends is infantilizing? I mean your handwavy “some deeper emotion” seems to be your own assumption and not anything supported by the story, other than the presupposition that Rose was correct. Why does that deeper emotion necessarily have to be hatred–couldn’t it be love, or maybe depression from everything he had suffered?
@loopy777 But Finn’s story being about asserting individuality explains both of those developments? He tried to flee because he listened to his own trauma and fear about the FO rather than be drawn into another cause to fight for. He came back for Rey not because he was obligated by a higher cause because she was someone he wanted to be safe. It’s clear that he hadn’t given himself to the Resistance at this point, but rather had his own goal he wanted to achieve by helping their mission.
It’s also possible that TLJ badly mangled his arc and his newly discovered individuality is ridiculed and called a bad thing, and then his dedication is also called bad so all he can do now is follow the person who was violent against him and insulted him. Maybe Rose Tico is just a horribly written character. You know, just a possibility.
Again, you can’t deny that earning time for one’s allies is a valid tactic that has been used throughout history, in general to show how noble the person is (e.g. Holdo). Even if no one came, Finn’s allies could still find a way out while their cover was intact. Since no one including Rose was expecting Luke to come, as far as anyone knew at that point Finn’s sacrifice actually was necessary for the Resistance remnants’ survival.
It’s interesting that it’s suddenly a “spiteful act of defiance” and “hate” because Finn does it while it’s “heroic” when Holdo does it. It’s also interesting that, while they both miscalculated, Holdo is judged by circumstances she could have known at the time while Finn is judged by circumstances he could not have. Omniscience is expected for Finn, but not for Holdo. And what’s more, not being omniscient makes Finn spiteful and hateful instead of, like, just not all-knowing.
You seem to have forgotten or misunderstood the role “thoughtles or reckless” played in my argument. That was not my first position, which was that he was making a noble sacrifice and there was no evidence he was acting out of hate, but rather a fallback position that even if we accept for the sake of argument (you know what that is, right?) that Finn’s suicide run was poorly planned, a position I don’t actually agree with, that at best makes him a bad planner and not automatically hateful. I was pointing out that even if you’re right about the sacrifice being needless, it doesn’t support your (or Rose’s) conclusion that he was being hateful.
But Finn wasn’t trying to destroy. He was trying to defend, much as Poe was. That’s another reason Rose’s line was dumb, by the way, because there is no clear line between destroying and defending when you’re being attacked by an enemy that’s trying to annihilate you. There’s a famous case of someone trying to apply pacifism toward fascists in our own world, but Neville Chamberlain doesn’t get the best rap unfortunately.
Eh, you can try to insert “individuality” into Finn’s background psychology, but you’re not really explaining where it was in The Story. If we were meant to read “individuality” in there as something important, it would have been reflected beyond Finn. I could easily read “cowardice” into the same moments and choices, and nothing in the movie would contradict me, but it’s equally unsupported by the wider framework.(1/3)
@loopy777 Going back to your earlier point Finn is actually not adverse to violence though, did you miss the part where he jumped out at and killed Troopers in battle on Takodana and actually whooped with joy in battle? Cowardice is even more contradicted by his actions where he hatches an incredibly dangerous plan to escape the FO and shows incredible boldness in battle, for instance literally running into someone aiming a blaster at him. There’s a lot of trauma and fear about the FO, understandably, but it doesn’t translate into anything that can be reasonably or fairly termed cowardice. And for that matter, aversion to violence isn’t a thing anywhere in TFA–not a theme, not a subplot, not reflected in the story anywhere. Violence has never been inherently bad in SW, or even in TLJ itself.
I don’t get what you’re saying about Holdo vs Finn. 8 is clear that when they’re fleeing to Crait, they think allies might still come, but by Finn’s attack they know they’re trapped in a box and alone. Finn is in denial, and all he’s doing is hurting himself by giving into the dark side. And that’s where you argument about pacifism falls apart, because Star Wars has feeling-fueled magic. You may not like it, but it’s the point of this whole series. (2/3)
You are confused about the sequence of events. The confirmation that no one is coming explicitly arrives AFTER Finn’s attempted self-sacrifice and Rose crashing into him. It even comes after the “not fighting what we hate” line. The ski speeder mission was launched in the first place because Poe and others agreed with Finn’s argument that they buy time for allies to arrive. The only new information Finn had between the start of the mission and the end of it was that losses were too heavy and he was, most likely, going to die unless he gave up on taking out the cannon. You can’t argue this was “dark side” without arguing that suicide runs are inherently dark side, in which case Holdo is as much “dark side” as Finn.
Also why are you positing that Finn was acting out of hatred in an argument about whether finn was acting out of hatred? That’s circular reasoning. Unless you’re arguing that destroying a weapon to save innocent people/your friends is an inherently hateful act, in which case, well, he was already dark side in TFA and so were Luke and Lando from the original trilogy. Destroying an entire fleet in a suicide run isn’t particularly pacifistic, either.
‘As for “thoughtless and reckless,” I focused on that because we were already disagreeing hardcore about his sacrifice having any purpose, which I still say the movie is very clear on. You’re free to disagree on the clarity of the moment, of course, but I don’t think you can saying something is “unearned” when you’re reading against the text. (3/3)’
Like I said, you’re arguing from a false premise–that Finn knew no one was coming and they were alone, but he didn’t. If I’m wrong about that sequence of events please let me know.
The “thoughtless and reckless” bit is a neat trick on your part, if you’re even aware of what you’re doing. Let’s look at the flow of the argument so far: You said Finn’s act was hateful because he didn’t have a plan. I pointed out that even if he didn’t, though the movie supports my point that he did, not having a plan and being hateful are two separate categories. I labeled your argument correctly, that what you’re arguing is not that he was hateful but that he was thoughtless/reckless at best. Then you turned that against me, imputing your argument to me to accuse me of infantilizing him. That’s not an honest way to argue, Loopy.
Reading against the text is an impressive accusation coming from someone who’s going off an incorrect chronology of events, imputing knowledge to Finn that he couldn’t have had, and making a logical leap from there to calling him hateful, spiteful, giving into the Dark Side etc. If that’s the kind of distortion it takes to make Rose’s line fit, then frankly it doesn’t look very defensible.
I can’t continue the debate due to some family stuff taking my time,
Good luck, I hope everything is okay!
but
I wanted to say I’m not trying to be disingenuous, I think we’re both
getting confused about each other’s arguments. I was trying to argue
that Finn having no plan and fighting anyway *is* hateful, and also
trying to link back your other “thoughtless and reckless” option to the
same thing.
No, you weren’t. You said I was
infantilizing him and taking away his agency, implying that you weren’t
by interpreting his action as hatred rather than thoughtless/reckless.
Also you never explained how not having a plan is equivalent to being
hateful. Repeating it doesn’t make it so.
Different people are sensitive to different things, and have different reactions as a result. I’ve noticed that even a number of people who are very critical of TLJ don’t see the treatment of Finn as a problem, for instance, and a lot of white women see TLJ as an unqualified victory for female representation. I think a lot of people also react positively to what TLJ was trying to do, especially the last half hour or so, without necessarily dwelling on the failures of execution or how unearned some of its most heartfelt moments were.
And a tech speaking “no one is coming” != confirmation, it’s voicing what was clear to everyone including Finn.
No
it wasn’t omg what the hell are you going on about. They hadn’t even
established communication when the ski speeder mission was launched, and
they went to take out that cannon specifically so they would have enough
time to communicate and for allies to come to them. They were in the
same place information-wise and goal-wise as Holdo was when she did her own suicide
run, unless you’re imputing some kind of telepathetic power to Finn and
the others to magically know without even sending out a call.
I’m
glad we’re no longer continuing this debate because it’s not productive
anymore. If you misremember these pivotal scenes so inaccurately then I
really have to question what it is you like about TLJ–the actual
movie, or the very different version that’s in your head?
@loopy777 Well, obviously. Finn going from “This fleet is doomed” to outright kamikaze for the remnants of that fleet because the person who tased him and mocked him gave him a lecture about the evils of the universe and has a sad past is the height of writing. His character regressing from valuing his own individuality and feelings, something that was systematically denied to him as a child soldier, to seeing himself as expendable for yet another cause is great character development. And his “having” to be hurt yet again to be saved from himself and being lectured to about how hateful he is for wanting to sacrifice himself for other people is a great thematic moment.
And that’s just one character.
If I squint hard the egregious and incoherent “that’s how we win” moment was about Rose realizing she was wrong and telling Finn he shouldn’t throw his life away for a cause like her sister did, that yes, he should live, he should have a chance to see Rey again. But there was a relentlessly glorified suicide run like 5 minutes earlier, and that was evidently about serving the light and not being a hero? And Paige wasn’t trying to destroy what she hated, she was thinking about Rose in her last moments? Finn wasn’t acting out of hate either, he was trying to buy time for the remainder of the Resistance. Why is it love when Holdo does it and hate when Finn does it?
I think I would have liked the scene better without that stupid line, because then at least it could have been about Rose’s trauma and not about her being a thematic vessel or whatever the hell that scene was trying to achieve.
@loopy777 DJ as catalyst for Finn development is even worse, though? At least
Rose became a friend of sorts. Finn went from fleeing to kamikaze
because a random dude he met in a jail cell spouted nonsense moral
equivalency and then–shock!–betrayed them. That looks awfully flimsy to me.
Did
you seriously put Finn’s “individuality” in quotes? I guess I
hallucinated the parts in TFA where he escaped the regime that kidnapped
and enslaved him out of his own “individual” conscience, where he made
friends and built relationships as an “individual,” and wanted to flee
to the Outer Rim out of his terror and trauma as an “individual.” Or the
part in TLJ where he wanted him and Rey, two “individuals,” to be
spared the destruction. There’s even a part in the TLJ novelization
where he all but begs Rose to understand that he was never allowed to
think and act for himself as an “individual” in the First Order (and
Rose dismisses him because yay friendship)!
I’m sorry, buying
time in a desperate situation has always been a valid military plan and,
for that matter, Holdo’s and Paige’s sacrifices also consisted of
buying time with their lives. There WAS a plan on Finn’s part for the
Outer Rim to rally and come to the Resistance’s aid. Finn had so much faith in the
people of the galaxy rising up against the First Order that he was
willing to literally stake his life on it, and then to have his
attempted sacrifice cheapened by being called an act of hate and not
love left a serious bad taste in my mouth.
Also, even if we say he
was acting without a plan, that is at best thoughtless or reckless, not
hateful. Rose’s speech, though framed and received as a thematic
moment, was unearned and made no sense even by your metric.
Yes, Finn was an individual, but ‘individuality’ was a never a theme or a subplot anywhere; it’s not important to the story, and 7 certainly doesn’t posit it as the reason he left the FO. 8 was clear that no more help was coming to Crait, & everyone knew it by then. And I don’t think “thoughtless and reckless” inspires suicide without some deeper emotion driving it- you’re taking away Finn’s agency, and kind of infantilizing him.
@loopy777 “My first battle, I made a choice.I wasn’t going to kill for them.”
I mean… I can’t believe I actually have to explain what an astounding assertion of individuality that was for someone who was brainwashed to be a cog in the FO machine. He listened to his own trauma, his own morality, in defiance of everything he had been taught his entire life, and I thought that made his individuality pretty important to his story and TFA as a whole. I’m curious, what do you think Finn’s arc in TFA was really about?
Oh hey, I didn’t realize “believing in the people of the galaxy” and “fuck it, I’m gonna save my friends anyway even if no one’s coming” weren’t valid motivations, or that attempting to kill yourself to destroy a weapon that would have been used to kill your friends has to come from a place of hate now. By that metric weren’t Holdo and Paige a lot more hateful, since they killed a metric ton of people in their own suicide runs? Or is it okay as long as they had a good plan–do carefully planned suicide attacks never come from a place of hate? As far as I can tell good planning and hatred are like… two totally unrelated indices. One doesn’t say anything about the other.
And why is it infantilizing to read a motivation in Finn that is not hatred? Believing that people will rise up is infantilizing now? Wanting to save your friends is infantilizing? I mean your handwavy “some deeper emotion” seems to be your own assumption and not anything supported by the story, other than the presupposition that Rose was correct. Why does that deeper emotion necessarily have to be hatred–couldn’t it be love, or maybe depression from everything he had suffered?
@loopy777 But Finn’s story being about asserting individuality explains both of those developments? He tried to flee because he listened to his own trauma and fear about the FO rather than be drawn into another cause to fight for. He came back for Rey not because he was obligated by a higher cause because she was someone he wanted to be safe. It’s clear that he hadn’t given himself to the Resistance at this point, but rather had his own goal he wanted to achieve by helping their mission.
It’s also possible that TLJ badly mangled his arc and his newly discovered individuality is ridiculed and called a bad thing, and then his dedication is also called bad so all he can do now is follow the person who was violent against him and insulted him. Maybe Rose Tico is just a horribly written character. You know, just a possibility.
Again, you can’t deny that earning time for one’s allies is a valid tactic that has been used throughout history, in general to show how noble the person is (e.g. Holdo). Even if no one came, Finn’s allies could still find a way out while their cover was intact. Since no one including Rose was expecting Luke to come, as far as anyone knew at that point Finn’s sacrifice actually was necessary for the Resistance remnants’ survival.
It’s interesting that it’s suddenly a “spiteful act of defiance” and “hate” because Finn does it while it’s “heroic” when Holdo does it. It’s also interesting that, while they both miscalculated, Holdo is judged by circumstances she could have known at the time while Finn is judged by circumstances he could not have. Omniscience is expected for Finn, but not for Holdo. And what’s more, not being omniscient makes Finn spiteful and hateful instead of, like, just not all-knowing.
You seem to have forgotten or misunderstood the role “thoughtles or reckless” played in my argument. That was not my first position, which was that he was making a noble sacrifice and there was no evidence he was acting out of hate, but rather a fallback position that even if we accept for the sake of argument (you know what that is, right?) that Finn’s suicide run was poorly planned, a position I don’t actually agree with, that at best makes him a bad planner and not automatically hateful. I was pointing out that even if you’re right about the sacrifice being needless, it doesn’t support your (or Rose’s) conclusion that he was being hateful.
But Finn wasn’t trying to destroy. He was trying to defend, much as Poe was. That’s another reason Rose’s line was dumb, by the way, because there is no clear line between destroying and defending when you’re being attacked by an enemy that’s trying to annihilate you. There’s a famous case of someone trying to apply pacifism toward fascists in our own world, but Neville Chamberlain doesn’t get the best rap unfortunately.
Eh, you can try to insert “individuality” into Finn’s background psychology, but you’re not really explaining where it was in The Story. If we were meant to read “individuality” in there as something important, it would have been reflected beyond Finn. I could easily read “cowardice” into the same moments and choices, and nothing in the movie would contradict me, but it’s equally unsupported by the wider framework.(1/3)
@loopy777 Going back to your earlier point Finn is actually not adverse to violence though, did you miss the part where he jumped out at and killed Troopers in battle on Takodana and actually whooped with joy in battle? Cowardice is even more contradicted by his actions where he hatches an incredibly dangerous plan to escape the FO and shows incredible boldness in battle, for instance literally running into someone aiming a blaster at him. There’s a lot of trauma and fear about the FO, understandably, but it doesn’t translate into anything that can be reasonably or fairly termed cowardice. And for that matter, aversion to violence isn’t a thing anywhere in TFA–not a theme, not a subplot, not reflected in the story anywhere. Violence has never been inherently bad in SW, or even in TLJ itself.
Different people are sensitive to different things, and have different reactions as a result. I’ve noticed that even a number of people who are very critical of TLJ don’t see the treatment of Finn as a problem, for instance, and a lot of white women see TLJ as an unqualified victory for female representation. I think a lot of people also react positively to what TLJ was trying to do, especially the last half hour or so, without necessarily dwelling on the failures of execution or how unearned some of its most heartfelt moments were.
I don’t get what you’re saying about Holdo vs Finn. 8 is clear that when they’re fleeing to Crait, they think allies might still come, but by Finn’s attack they know they’re trapped in a box and alone. Finn is in denial, and all he’s doing is hurting himself by giving into the dark side. And that’s where you argument about pacifism falls apart, because Star Wars has feeling-fueled magic. You may not like it, but it’s the point of this whole series. (2/3)
You are confused about the sequence of events. The confirmation that no one is coming explicitly arrives AFTER Finn’s attempted self-sacrifice and Rose crashing into him. It even comes after the “not fighting what we hate” line. The ski speeder mission was launched in the first place because Poe and others agreed with Finn’s argument that they buy time for allies to arrive. The only new information Finn had between the start of the mission and the end of it was that losses were too heavy and he was, most likely, going to die unless he gave up on taking out the cannon. You can’t argue this was “dark side” without arguing that suicide runs are inherently dark side, in which case Holdo is as much “dark side” as Finn.
Also why are you positing that Finn was acting out of hatred in an argument about whether finn was acting out of hatred? That’s circular reasoning. Unless you’re arguing that destroying a weapon to save innocent people/your friends is an inherently hateful act, in which case, well, he was already dark side in TFA and so were Luke and Lando from the original trilogy. Destroying an entire fleet in a suicide run isn’t particularly pacifistic, either.
‘As for “thoughtless and reckless,” I focused on that because we were already disagreeing hardcore about his sacrifice having any purpose, which I still say the movie is very clear on. You’re free to disagree on the clarity of the moment, of course, but I don’t think you can saying something is “unearned” when you’re reading against the text. (3/3)’
Like I said, you’re arguing from a false premise–that Finn knew no one was coming and they were alone, but he didn’t. If I’m wrong about that sequence of events please let me know.
The “thoughtless and reckless” bit is a neat trick on your part, if you’re even aware of what you’re doing. Let’s look at the flow of the argument so far: You said Finn’s act was hateful because he didn’t have a plan. I pointed out that even if he didn’t, though the movie supports my point that he did, not having a plan and being hateful are two separate categories. I labeled your argument correctly, that what you’re arguing is not that he was hateful but that he was thoughtless/reckless at best. Then you turned that against me, imputing your argument to me to accuse me of infantilizing him. That’s not an honest way to argue, Loopy.
Reading against the text is an impressive accusation coming from someone who’s going off an incorrect chronology of events, imputing knowledge to Finn that he couldn’t have had, and making a logical leap from there to calling him hateful, spiteful, giving into the Dark Side etc. If that’s the kind of distortion it takes to make Rose’s line fit, then frankly it doesn’t look very defensible.
@loopy777 Well, obviously. Finn going from “This fleet is doomed” to outright kamikaze for the remnants of that fleet because the person who tased him and mocked him gave him a lecture about the evils of the universe and has a sad past is the height of writing. His character regressing from valuing his own individuality and feelings, something that was systematically denied to him as a child soldier, to seeing himself as expendable for yet another cause is great character development. And his “having” to be hurt yet again to be saved from himself and being lectured to about how hateful he is for wanting to sacrifice himself for other people is a great thematic moment.
And that’s just one character.
If I squint hard the egregious and incoherent “that’s how we win” moment was about Rose realizing she was wrong and telling Finn he shouldn’t throw his life away for a cause like her sister did, that yes, he should live, he should have a chance to see Rey again. But there was a relentlessly glorified suicide run like 5 minutes earlier, and that was evidently about serving the light and not being a hero? And Paige wasn’t trying to destroy what she hated, she was thinking about Rose in her last moments? Finn wasn’t acting out of hate either, he was trying to buy time for the remainder of the Resistance. Why is it love when Holdo does it and hate when Finn does it?
I think I would have liked the scene better without that stupid line, because then at least it could have been about Rose’s trauma and not about her being a thematic vessel or whatever the hell that scene was trying to achieve.
@loopy777 DJ as catalyst for Finn development is even worse, though? At least
Rose became a friend of sorts. Finn went from fleeing to kamikaze
because a random dude he met in a jail cell spouted nonsense moral
equivalency and then–shock!–betrayed them. That looks awfully flimsy to me.
Did
you seriously put Finn’s “individuality” in quotes? I guess I
hallucinated the parts in TFA where he escaped the regime that kidnapped
and enslaved him out of his own “individual” conscience, where he made
friends and built relationships as an “individual,” and wanted to flee
to the Outer Rim out of his terror and trauma as an “individual.” Or the
part in TLJ where he wanted him and Rey, two “individuals,” to be
spared the destruction. There’s even a part in the TLJ novelization
where he all but begs Rose to understand that he was never allowed to
think and act for himself as an “individual” in the First Order (and
Rose dismisses him because yay friendship)!
I’m sorry, buying
time in a desperate situation has always been a valid military plan and,
for that matter, Holdo’s and Paige’s sacrifices also consisted of
buying time with their lives. There WAS a plan on Finn’s part for the
Outer Rim to rally and come to the Resistance’s aid. Finn had so much faith in the
people of the galaxy rising up against the First Order that he was
willing to literally stake his life on it, and then to have his
attempted sacrifice cheapened by being called an act of hate and not
love left a serious bad taste in my mouth.
Also, even if we say he
was acting without a plan, that is at best thoughtless or reckless, not
hateful. Rose’s speech, though framed and received as a thematic
moment, was unearned and made no sense even by your metric.
Different people are sensitive to different things, and have different reactions as a result. I’ve noticed that even a number of people who are very critical of TLJ don’t see the treatment of Finn as a problem, for instance, and a lot of white women see TLJ as an unqualified victory for female representation. I think a lot of people also react positively to what TLJ was trying to do, especially the last half hour or so, without necessarily dwelling on the failures of execution or how unearned some of its most heartfelt moments were.
Yes, Finn was an individual, but ‘individuality’ was a never a theme or a subplot anywhere; it’s not important to the story, and 7 certainly doesn’t posit it as the reason he left the FO. 8 was clear that no more help was coming to Crait, & everyone knew it by then. And I don’t think “thoughtless and reckless” inspires suicide without some deeper emotion driving it- you’re taking away Finn’s agency, and kind of infantilizing him.
@loopy777 “My first battle, I made a choice.I wasn’t going to kill for them.”
I mean… I can’t believe I actually have to explain what an astounding assertion of individuality that was for someone who was brainwashed to be a cog in the FO machine. He listened to his own trauma, his own morality, in defiance of everything he had been taught his entire life, and I thought that made his individuality pretty important to his story and TFA as a whole. I’m curious, what do you think Finn’s arc in TFA was really about?
Oh hey, I didn’t realize “believing in the people of the galaxy” and “fuck it, I’m gonna save my friends anyway even if no one’s coming” weren’t valid motivations, or that attempting to kill yourself to destroy a weapon that would have been used to kill your friends has to come from a place of hate now. By that metric weren’t Holdo and Paige a lot more hateful, since they killed a metric ton of people in their own suicide runs? Or is it okay as long as they had a good plan–do carefully planned suicide attacks never come from a place of hate? As far as I can tell good planning and hatred are like… two totally unrelated indices. One doesn’t say anything about the other.
And why is it infantilizing to read a motivation in Finn that is not hatred? Believing that people will rise up is infantilizing now? Wanting to save your friends is infantilizing? I mean your handwavy “some deeper emotion” seems to be your own assumption and not anything supported by the story, other than the presupposition that Rose was correct. Why does that deeper emotion necessarily have to be hatred–couldn’t it be love, or maybe depression from everything he had suffered?
@loopy777 But Finn’s story being about asserting individuality explains both of those developments? He tried to flee because he listened to his own trauma and fear about the FO rather than be drawn into another cause to fight for. He came back for Rey not because he was obligated by a higher cause because she was someone he wanted to be safe. It’s clear that he hadn’t given himself to the Resistance at this point, but rather had his own goal he wanted to achieve by helping their mission.
It’s also possible that TLJ badly mangled his arc and his newly discovered individuality is ridiculed and called a bad thing, and then his dedication is also called bad so all he can do now is follow the person who was violent against him and insulted him. Maybe Rose Tico is just a horribly written character. You know, just a possibility.
Again, you can’t deny that earning time for one’s allies is a valid tactic that has been used throughout history, in general to show how noble the person is (e.g. Holdo). Even if no one came, Finn’s allies could still find a way out while their cover was intact. Since no one including Rose was expecting Luke to come, as far as anyone knew at that point Finn’s sacrifice actually was necessary for the Resistance remnants’ survival.
It’s interesting that it’s suddenly a “spiteful act of defiance” and “hate” because Finn does it while it’s “heroic” when Holdo does it. It’s also interesting that, while they both miscalculated, Holdo is judged by circumstances she could have known at the time while Finn is judged by circumstances he could not have. Omniscience is expected for Finn, but not for Holdo. And what’s more, not being omniscient makes Finn spiteful and hateful instead of, like, just not all-knowing.
You seem to have forgotten or misunderstood the role “thoughtles or reckless” played in my argument. That was not my first position, which was that he was making a noble sacrifice and there was no evidence he was acting out of hate, but rather a fallback position that even if we accept for the sake of argument (you know what that is, right?) that Finn’s suicide run was poorly planned, a position I don’t actually agree with, that at best makes him a bad planner and not automatically hateful. I was pointing out that even if you’re right about the sacrifice being needless, it doesn’t support your (or Rose’s) conclusion that he was being hateful.
But Finn wasn’t trying to destroy. He was trying to defend, much as Poe was. That’s another reason Rose’s line was dumb, by the way, because there is no clear line between destroying and defending when you’re being attacked by an enemy that’s trying to annihilate you. There’s a famous case of someone trying to apply pacifism toward fascists in our own world, but Neville Chamberlain doesn’t get the best rap unfortunately.
Why he’s not getting more work? My dad said that Mark Hamill was
in a lot of real flops after SW whereas Harrison went on to be the big
star, and Mark sort of drifted into other things like voice work. I
really don’t want that for John. I just feel like maybe being in SW
might have hurt rather than helped him because they said Finn was the co
lead and he’s treated like the second string in TLJ. Idk, I am just not
happy that he’s not getting the opportunities others in that franchise
are (2/2)
There could be a lot of different reasons, and I’m not worried. I think John has been smart about his career, doing other jobs between SW movies so that he won’t be associated exclusively with Finn. He may have gotten some advice there; one reason Mark’s acting career didn’t work out so well was because he was too strongly associated with Luke. I know he missed out on at least one musical role for that reason.
It’s simply not true that John can only get commercials. He’s been in other movies, he’s been in plays. It could be that he’s negotiating deals, or maybe he’s focused on other things at the moment. We already know his ambitions are bigger than acting–he wants to create
opportunities for others as well through his production company.
So yeah, just because we’re not hearing about work he’s doing right now doesn’t mean he isn’t working, or isn’t getting opportunities. I think he’s preparing things that will amaze us down the line, whether it’s as an actor, producer, or otherwise.
(And I’m not sure what you mean about Adam winning an Oscar this year? For his work in the upcoming Spike Lee film? I’d be happy for him if he does, but it is not possible for anyone to win an Oscar this year, that would be in February 2019 for films opening in 2018.)
I actually think John’s career has been going well. Especially compared to some of his co-Stars. I just think John is choosing the right things so that his face is known not only critically but also in a main stream way.
John was in the critically acclaimed movie Detroit by Kathryn Bigelow and had his performance praised for it.
And while Pacific Rim didn’t receive the praise the original did, the film made a profit, had its sequel greenlit and John was said all around to be the best part of the movie and proved he can be THE leading man.
Plus John has been spending his time getting to know the right people in the business and also supporting his friends in the business.
I really don’t think it’s a stretch to think that John will eventually be joining the MCU soon since he was in the running for getting in the Black Panther. I’ll bet he’s even gonna he in the sequel.
If anything I think Daisy will have the harder time and might suffer from the same problem Mark did. Which what happen to Mark was a shame because he was a damn fine actor, but back then Hollywood was looming for the Harrison Ford type. Not woman like Carrie who were outspoken or Mark who wasn’t you’re typical masculine man.
John is trying to avoid what happens to a lot of actors in big franchises, and that’s not getting type cast. So he’s picking good roles that display his talents but also get him recognition. It would help his career greatly though now that JJ is back. I can honestly say John gave it his all in TLJ.
If there is anything to love about the dumpster fire that was TLJ and Finn’s story arc is that John was fucking amazing in every scene he was in.
John was everything from comedic to hauntingly serious and I hope JJ delivers with bringing Finn back to the leading role in ep 9.
JJ told John he’s the new star of Star Wars and he’d better deliver on that promise. Personally I think a large part of the reason he came back for IX was for John/Finn’s sake.
Yeah considering how close JJ is with John and Daisy I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back for them. Like I’m sure having your story hijacked is frustrating, but I imagine seeing these two new kids you hired being wasted and suffering professionally because you left would be more upsetting. The fact that Daisy cried when she heard he was coming back says a lot about their relationship.
For the actual quotes if anyone wants to read them:
Here’s John’s statement:
And JJ’s
JJ Abrams pretty much started John and Daisy’s career and are close friends with as well.
It’s no secret that Daisy had reported that she was having trouble on set and John’s enthusiasm seemed to only be bts of hanging out on set.
JJ Abrams more than likely not only wanted to save the story and characters HE created, but protect the actors he cares about.
To add further to my reply, JJ Abrams is not only a protégé of Steven Spielberg, but of George Lucas.
While writing The Force Awakens, JJ sat down with George and Spoke with him, got his advice on where to take these characters and what to do with them. There is a reason why so many of the characters in TFA seem like they were based from legends, that’s because they were.
Jaina Solo and Ben Skywalker were the template for Rey
Kyle Katarn and Finn Galfridian were the template for Finn
And Jacen Solo was the template for Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.
JJ Abrams knew what he was doing. If there was anyone who you would want to do episode nine, it would be him and I’m happy he’s back.
This warms my heart. Also the return of the JJ shows the idea that LF is totally happy with RJ for the bullshit it is. Like Daisy said, RJ was the logical and expected choice for IX after Jurassic guy was gone. Why get–or accept–JJ back if RJ could just pick up where he left off?
1. Tfw a reylow shipper uses a legal term–one redefined by the Bush administration to authorize torture–to justify wiping out an entire village. No, people don’t just “die” in SW, they are killed for justifiable or unjustifiable reasons and the village massacre was clearly unjustifiable. The massacre of Tuanul was also a direct callback to the Holocaust in a movie written and directed by Jewish creators, and yes, the Jewish and Romani villagers in these villages fought back which, according to you, would makes them enemy combatants and thus the Nazis justified in killing them for the crime of defending themselves and their children 🙂 fuck you 🙂
A further fuck you from an international law scholar because the term “enemy combatant” has NEVER EVER meant you can kill people after disarming them and rounding them up, which is what Ren did. The term is one used under the Geneva Conventions to define who could be imprisoned as a prisoner of war, who had rights including the right not to be KILLED OR TORTURED. Not even the Bush admin went so far as to argue they could kill “enemy combatant” prisoners out of hand, holy shit. You fucking heartless, dangerously disingenuous ignoramus.
2. Quite aside from the all sorts of fucked up erasure and dismissal in that comment, it’s amazing that the very crimes that made the Nazis so infamous, like mass murder, torture, and genocide, are fine when non-Nazis do it! Whew! Who knew one set of rules applied to Nazis and different rules to everyone else? Glad we cleared that up.
@starawr thought I should let you know about this, since OP here doesn’t have the guts to tag you apparently, even though she has your blog name on full display so she and her followers can mock you behind your back.
Thanks for letting me know @hothmess. Wow, where to start…
For context, here’s the (MONTHS-OLD) conversation between me, @bai-xue and @decoffinated which @lj-writes dug up to stir some drama:
And because of this conversation, OP accused me of Holocaust apologism, nazi apologism, war crime apologism, torture apologism, etc:
So, let me see if I can follow OP’s logic:
10+ years ago, Bush redefined “enemy combatant” for his own purposes, and that changed the plain meaning of the words “enemy combatant” all over the world, I suppose. According to OP the International Law Scholar (lmao), the phrase “enemy combatant” must now mean whatever the fuck Bush wanted it to mean. Instead of, idk, the plain and obvious meaning of the words.
OP says that Kylo Ren, a fictional space wizard and his fictional stormtroopers, have breached the Geneva Convention by killing villagers. Obviously, according to OP the International Law Scholar, this means that if you support Kylo, you’d also support every possible real-world breach of the Geneva Convention, such as Nazis killing Jewish and Romani villagers.
Everyone who supports Kylo also supports Nazi war crimes now! Also, the Bush administration, I suppose. (Now that’s a new one.)
(Oh, and you know what’s really funny about all this? OP and I had a pretty civil conversation about Black Panther’s reception in China a few months back. So OP knows that I’m Chinese, and that I’d have no reason to know or care whatever the fuck Bush got up to a decade ago:)
But hey, I guess I’m worse than Bush because I don’t care that my favourite space wizard killed a bunch of fictional space villagers in a star war ¯_(ツ)_/ ¯
Imagine having this little reading comprehension/strawmanning this hard to “win” in one’s own mind. Obviously the term “enemy combatant” does not mean what Bush said it means, that was my point. The point, since it flew over @starawr ’s head or they chose to ignore it, is that the moment someone starts to use it to mean “it’s ok to do whatever the fuck you want to people” they’re going into some terrifying Bush-style territory–a worse twisting of the term, as I said, because they took the meaning way further.
Nor do I think this person necessarily cares about Bush, I just think they’re a big enough idiot to parrot American war crimes apologist rhetoric that’s rampant in their particular echo chamber. At what point in their study of the Geneva Conventions or world news did they pick up that very specific term, I wonder, and if so how did they get it so terrifyingly wrong? Nah, either they picked it up from fandom without the faintest idea of what it actually means, or they just independently decided to distort the hell out of a real world term to justify a fictional character’s actions.
Look how adorable they are, retreating from their point because they can’t defend it! If they really thought being fictional made real world morals irrelevant, they could have said that instead of, idk, bringing in very fraught real life terms and attempting to justify crimes that draw directly from very real and traumatic history. If they’re going to stand by a repugnant point at least they could have the courage of their convictions lol. Typical disingenuous, passive aggressive reylow bullshit.
And I won’t even try to explain tagging etiquette to them smh, or the fact that some of my followers might not want to be exposed to the kind of rhetoric they were spouting. Understanding this requires they have any kind of consideration for systematically marginalized people’s trauma, and that’s too much to expect of them.
Oh lookit, @starawr blocked me, taking their reply and mine out of the thread. Probably hopes to make it look like I blocked them lol. Anyway, if you’re interested in the actual “conversation” that took place here it is above this addition.
1. Tfw a reylow shipper uses a legal term–one redefined by the Bush administration to authorize torture–to justify wiping out an entire village. No, people don’t just “die” in SW, they are killed for justifiable or unjustifiable reasons and the village massacre was clearly unjustifiable. The massacre of Tuanul was also a direct callback to the Holocaust in a movie written and directed by Jewish creators, and yes, the Jewish and Romani villagers in these villages fought back which, according to you, would makes them enemy combatants and thus the Nazis justified in killing them for the crime of defending themselves and their children 🙂 fuck you 🙂
A further fuck you from an international law scholar because the term “enemy combatant” has NEVER EVER meant you can kill people after disarming them and rounding them up, which is what Ren did. The term is one used under the Geneva Conventions to define who could be imprisoned as a prisoner of war, who had rights including the right not to be KILLED OR TORTURED. Not even the Bush admin went so far as to argue they could kill “enemy combatant” prisoners out of hand, holy shit. You fucking heartless, dangerously disingenuous ignoramus.
2. Quite aside from the all sorts of fucked up erasure and dismissal in that comment, it’s amazing that the very crimes that made the Nazis so infamous, like mass murder, torture, and genocide, are fine when non-Nazis do it! Whew! Who knew one set of rules applied to Nazis and different rules to everyone else? Glad we cleared that up.
@starawr thought I should let you know about this, since OP here doesn’t have the guts to tag you apparently, even though she has your blog name on full display so she and her followers can mock you behind your back.
Thanks for letting me know @hothmess. Wow, where to start…
For context, here’s the (MONTHS-OLD) conversation between me, @bai-xue and @decoffinated which @lj-writes dug up to stir some drama:
And because of this conversation, OP accused me of Holocaust apologism, nazi apologism, war crime apologism, torture apologism, etc:
So, let me see if I can follow OP’s logic:
10+ years ago, Bush redefined “enemy combatant” for his own purposes, and that changed the plain meaning of the words “enemy combatant” all over the world, I suppose. According to OP the International Law Scholar (lmao), the phrase “enemy combatant” must now mean whatever the fuck Bush wanted it to mean. Instead of, idk, the plain and obvious meaning of the words.
OP says that Kylo Ren, a fictional space wizard and his fictional stormtroopers, have breached the Geneva Convention by killing villagers. Obviously, according to OP the International Law Scholar, this means that if you support Kylo, you’d also support every possible real-world breach of the Geneva Convention, such as Nazis killing Jewish and Romani villagers.
Everyone who supports Kylo also supports Nazi war crimes now! Also, the Bush administration, I suppose. (Now that’s a new one.)
(Oh, and you know what’s really funny about all this? OP and I had a pretty civil conversation about Black Panther’s reception in China a few months back. So OP knows that I’m Chinese, and that I’d have no reason to know or care whatever the fuck Bush got up to a decade ago:)
But hey, I guess I’m worse than Bush because I don’t care that my favourite space wizard killed a bunch of fictional space villagers in a star war ¯_(ツ)_/ ¯
Imagine having this little reading comprehension/strawmanning this hard to “win” in one’s own mind. Obviously the term “enemy combatant” does not mean what Bush said it means, that was my point. The point, since it flew over @starawr ’s head or they chose to ignore it, is that the moment someone starts to use it to mean “it’s ok to do whatever the fuck you want to people” they’re going into some terrifying Bush-style territory–a worse twisting of the term, as I said, because they took the meaning way further.
Nor do I think this person necessarily cares about Bush, I just think they’re a big enough idiot to parrot American war crimes apologist rhetoric that’s rampant in their particular echo chamber. At what point in their study of the Geneva Conventions or world news did they pick up that very specific term, I wonder, and if so how did they get it so terrifyingly wrong? Nah, either they picked it up from fandom without the faintest idea of what it actually means, or they just independently decided to distort the hell out of a real world term to justify a fictional character’s actions.
Look how adorable they are, retreating from their point because they can’t defend it! If they really thought being fictional made real world morals irrelevant, they could have said that instead of, idk, bringing in very fraught real life terms and attempting to justify crimes that draw directly from very real and traumatic history. If they’re going to stand by a repugnant point at least they could have the courage of their convictions lol. Typical disingenuous, passive aggressive reylow bullshit.
And I won’t even try to explain tagging etiquette to them smh, or the fact that some of my followers might not want to be exposed to the kind of rhetoric they were spouting. Understanding this requires they have any kind of consideration for systematically marginalized people’s trauma, and that’s too much to expect of them.
Remember the time Leia electrocuted Han for leaving the Rebellion in A New Hope? God, that scene was so funny. Remember also how she punched Han across the room as he was recovering from being frozen in Return of the Jedi? A total laugh riot. What a wacky, endearing character!
These things didn’t happen, of course, because it would have been completely off in tone and made Leia look like a weirdo. It would have cheapened Han’s character and the story as a whole.
So why is it okay for Finn, and why are viewers falling over themselves trying to find excuses for Rose? “She lost her sister-” Leia lost her planet. Next excuse.
I’m not saying you’re a Bad Racist Person if you liked The Last Jedi. I hope you enjoyed it and it rekindled your love of the franchise. That’s what we’re all here for, the fun and joy of loving these adventures.
I’m saying that Hollywood and audiences alike have a bias when it comes to whose pain is given respect and whose pain can be played for a laugh. And that bias is not only hurtful to fans caught on the wrong side of the empathy gap, it also hurts the quality and integrity of the works themselves.
It’s possible to love a work and also see how others might not feel the same way about it. Being a fan doesn’t mean you have to be a dismissive jerk or wilfully deny a work’s flaws. It’s fun to be a fan, but it’s imperative to be a person.
You know, it’s amazing how bad things can sound when you take the context out of them. It’s amazing how you talk about being critical about things you like, similar to how a rational person would, when you’ve been on an Anti-Rose-Tico tirade since before you even saw the movie – if you’ve even seen it at all at this point.
Anyway, so, Rose is positioned – presumably by a superior – to guard the escape pods from deserters. These deserters could likely be trained fighters, so they give the mechanic Rose – who probably isn’t that good at hand-to-hand combat – a weapon: a stun gun. Harmless in the long run, it knocks out its victims for a brief period of time, enough time for Rose to get any would-be deserters to superiors to be dealt with. Makes sense, right?
So this guy – Finn – comes by near the pods. Rose has had to stun several people by this point, but she’s cool with Finn. She doesn’t know him, but, after all, he’s a Resistance hero, who bravely risked his life to fight against his former captors, and was quite skilled at it too, and – is that a bag?
She stuns him after pitiful excuses, like “it’s not what it looks like!”, and “i mean, i was planning on leaving, but not deserting, i swear!”. She’s heard it all before, presumably. And this Finn character – she doesn’t know him, and has no reason to trust that he was actually trying to help the Resistance.
She did her job and stopped who, to the best of her knowledge, was a deserter, and, somehow, she’s a villain for that? Anti-black? Extremely violent? That’s a pitiful claim, too.
And she punched him across the room – when, how? I may have just forgotten, and, if that, please explain to me when that happened. But somehow, the description seems unlikely.
There’s one more claim to address, though – your claim that her crashing into Finn to stop him from committing a pointless heroic sacrifice was violent. What else was she supposed to do – watch Finn kill himself in a pointless endeavor that had more loss than gain; wave her arms and hope he stopped; or take charge of the situation to save her friend? You chose!
There’s being critical of a franchise, and then there’s downright being hateful, hypocritical and mocking people who hold a different opinion on your blog. Hint: you’re not the former.
Oh hey, everyone, criticizing the way Rose is written is now being anti Rose! Like, don’t think I can’t see you using a female Asian character to shield a white dude’s writing decisions from criticism.
You know what you sound iike? You sound like one of those dudebros who get suuuuper defensive about sexual objectification in video games and comics, saying shit like, “Of course her tits were hanging out, she was in hand-to-hand combat against a claw monster with a lactation fetish! Do you expect her clothes to be all pristine and intact after that?!”
News flash: The context does not grow out of the earth. Rian Johnson wrote it and specifically cooked up a situation that “justified” Rose tasing Finn. Even worse, he played it for a laugh. That answers the speeder crash part, too. Johnson also made it so that Rose “had” to crash her vehicle into Finn’s.
And even in the situation you mention the tasing doesn’t hold up because Finn is–guess what? Not a Resistance member. Hence, he can’t be a deserter. He was a free agent who did more for the Resistance than anyone could be expected to, and was receiving medical care from them as a result.
This is specifically why I compared him to Han at the end of ANH because Han, too, was an outsider. Unlike Han Finn wasn’t even trying to leave the Resistance for good, he was trying to protect two of its major allies, Rey and by extension Luke.
And like, thanks for making your own racism crystal clear by calling Finn’s reasons “pitiful excuses.” I’m sure you’ll sound so much braver and more coherent when someone’s menacingly waving a weapon at you that causes excruciating pain.
You also directly contradict yourself by saying that Rose was cool with Finn because of the way he bravely risked his life and then, in the next breath, saying she doesn’t know him and has no reason to trust him. Like, even to listen for half a fucking second?
And yes, it’s antiblack as fuck to contrive a situation to make a Black character suffer and pass out for no good story and character reason, and to play his pain for laughs. It cheapens Finn’s character arc because he didn’t get to make a choice to stay the way Han came back of his own free choice. Finn spent his entire life being controlled by pain and fear, and at Rose’s hands he gets more of the same.
By Leia punching a recovering Han I was referring to Rose making Finn, who had just recovered from a life-threatening injury, fly backward with the taser.
The op was like literally the mildest possible critique of the tasing incident yet here you are on my post, choosing to be hyperdefensive and fragile about it. I guess the exhortation to have some empathy really does sound like a threat to some people.
Well, first of all,
Yes, tagging something anti Rose, does mean, that, in fact, your post is being titled by you, the writer, as anti Rose! So, guess you’re just criticizing yourself at this point.
And nice job spending around ¼ of your rebuttal criticizing me as a person instead of my argument! I just think it really shows the lack of strength in a person’s debate if they can’t even scrounge up a few measly criticisms on my actual argument, but, instead, spend their time comforting themselves by changing my gender and adding 20+ years to my age so they can think that, at least, they’re not the loser living in their mom’s basement.
And what, Johnson specifically writes situations to put Finn in pain? He thought, Hey, why don’t I stun Finn, cause’ I hate him, but, oh, how? I got it! I’ll make it so he attempts to leave the Resistance and gets stunned by Rose! It sure is fun writing a significant scene that introduces a new main character and starts a new sub plot based specifically on causing one character pain! I love ruining Star Wars!
And I also guess literally any other use of stunning (which, in the Star Wars universe, is a heck of a lot, and in The Last Jedi, a decent of a lot, since it was established as a weapon early in the film that then justified its use later in the movie while also making sure the audience wasn’t jarred by the sudden use of a completely new weapon in an important battle – hey! another reason why Finn could have been stunned by Rose!) is also racist and made by Johnson specifically to hurt characters! Wow, amazing how stupid that sounds!
And maybe, just maybe, Rose crashing into Finn to save him from sacrificing himself was a culmination of the human life vs. military gains debate that had been raging throughout the entire movie since the death of the bomber squad to take out the dreadnought as well as showing how Rose, despite not being able to save her sister, took the chance to save another one of her loved ones at great personal risk. Because, let me remind you, Finn was fine after the crash, being able to run and walk around immediately after, while Rose was the one bloodied up and needing medical care.
And considering Finn was kept with the Resistance and fought for their causes, it may seem to a low-level mechanic that he was, in fact, a member of the Resistance! Shocker what we can discover when we look at what a character would know in context of the story, and not what we, the audience, knows.
Also, nice job on having zero reading comprehension skills, since it’s quite clear that “pitiful excuses” is referring to Finn’s failed attempts to explain to Rose why he was leaving through Rose’s eyes and not his actual reasons for leaving. And how is that even racist? Isn’t something racist supposed to relate to the race of a character, like, say, making an assumption based on their race? Cause, please, I fail to see how saying Finn did a poor job of explaining himself is racist.
And Rose knew Finn at that point similar to how someone like me knows Ryan Gosling. A celebrity, maybe someone you adore? Sure! But not someone you would place the same amount of trust in as a friend or family member.
And why would you make a reference to the same thing twice in different ways? Literally just make your one reference and go, don’t make it seem like you’re referring to two different situations.
And nice job dodging the fact that you started hurling criticisms at this movie before you even saw it. After all, how can someone construct a thorough review on something they didn’t even see?
That’s…. your supposed gotcha? I don’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for you. It’s called tagging etiquette, keeping critical content out of the character tags. “Anti” is just one of the tag conventions for such posts.
You sound like a dudebro =/= you are a dudebro. I’m not even sure where the age thing comes from, dudebros are YOUNG guys between 16 and 25. Is this your way of telling me you’re a fetus? #PlotTwist
It doesn’t matter what Johnson’s specific intention was, the impact is what you described in italics. (A very apt summary, thank you.)
Since it looks like you stopped reading everything in the paragraph after “dudebro,” let me elaborate on that comparison. Let’s say I had a female character get into a fight and had her breasts hanging out of her torn clothes as a result, and treated that visual in a very sexual way. It doesn’t matter whether I started out intending to objectify her, it’s still objectification and it’s still sexist. I wrote the plot that would lead to the character’s breasts being exposed and sexualized, and I don’t get a pass for that.
The same goes for the tasing and crash scenes, somehow Johnson didn’t write scenes so that Finn could have his own realizations and make his own crucial choices but rather had to be hurt “for his own good” and I find that objectionable.
You might want to look up what “implicit bias” is. I was pointing out the seeming contempt for Finn in a situation where he was clearly scared of having more pain inflicted on him. How’s that for an empathy gap?
I guess I assumed that people who saw the movie would remember that Finn went flying across the room because it’s uhhh rather memorable? I mean it looks like the couple hundred people in the notes got it without any problem.
On a side note, human lives vs. military gains is such an odd way to frame that scene because I think the Resistance who were going to be killed by the FO also consists of human and also alien beings?
You seem pretty well acquainted with my recent blogging history, not to mention really fucken’ obsessed with my media consumption like a few anons I was getting a while back. As I told one of those anons, if you don’t like how or at what point I’m talking about a movie you’re free to ignore me? I keep my TLJ-critical posts out of the main tag and the character tags so it shouldn’t be hard to do.
Thanks for missing the point of every single one of my arguments and instead focusing on very minor points! Seriously, “you’re a fetus”? I’m so hurt.
And, no, “anti” in the context of tumblr 2017 very specifically means you are “anti” or against said thing. I’m sure you know that by now.
And how about I put it this way? A female character getting her breasts exposed serves no other purpose than to provide fan service for those who swing that way. Finn getting stunned, however, A: moves the plot forward (without Finn being restrained in some way, he would have left and thus not be able to travel to Canto Bight and make all those revelations and character revelations and connect with Rose…etc. Finn is rather headstrong, and if he could have, he would have escaped to make sure Rey was safe, not sit around and play story-time with Rose if she did not pose an immediate threat to his plan. He was under a time crunch, after all) B: puts the stun gun as a weapon in the audience’s mind, thus setting up all the other uses of it throughout the film (like Leia stopping Poe’s mutiny) and C: establishes Rose’s allegiance to the Resistance as well as, despite her being introduced crying, do-what-you-got-to-do attitude.
And how do I show contempt for Finn? Do I say he’s stupid? A bad person? I said he gave poorly-word excuses. No need to blow it out of proportion.
Okay, how about this: humans-and-sentient-creatures-who-are-often-humanoid lives vs. military gains. Better?
Also:
“I keep my TLJ-critical posts out of the main tag and the character tags so it shouldn’t be hard to do.”
Can you at least make up a better lie?
in other words, you didn’t know what a dudebro is and got mad at me for your own ignorance. Okay.
Are you saying I should use the Rose Tico tag with content critical of Rose? But then you’d be mad at me for crosstagging. As the late Admiral Ackbar said, “It’s a trap!”
So it’s not racist at all to have a Black character repeatedly hurt for humor and to take away his agency as long as there’s a plot purpose. Okay. Never mind that the plot could have been written in a completely different way. Obviously this was the only possible plot and Rian Johnson was forced to make choices that humiliated Finn.
You show contempt for Finn by talking about how pitiful his excuses are without the least empathy for his pain and fear. I mean you don’t even remember the part where he flew across the room and hit the wound on his back, which tells me how little his pain matters to you.
Since I must evidently spell every single thing out, I’m saying Rose stopping Finn was not a case of choosing lives over military gain because she condemned Resistance members, who are sentient beings, to death.
I laughed so long and hard at your “receipt” and had to reblog it for posterity because… how to break it to you? Tags to additions don’t show up in the main tags. They’re only relevant to my blog. The tags of my op, which you also faithfully screenshotted a few posts up, clearly show me staying out of the main and character tags. (I used #star wars because I assume it’s such a big and unfocused tag that no one really uses that to browse, but I can take it out or move it to the back so it won’t be searchable as tagged.) This is yet another case of you being mad at me for your own ignorance. Nice coloring job, though.
I really think you’re the one who should be checked for their reading comprehension skills. Especially since your argument keeps flip-flopping as you try to avoid debating what I’m saying.
Maybe use Rose critical, like you do your last jedi tag? I’m sure you’re smart, you can think of something.
And I’ll think I’ll quote what I said, since I have to evidently spell everything out for you.
She doesn’t know him, but, after all, he’s a Resistance hero, who bravely risked his life to fight against his former captors, and was quite skilled at it too, and – is that a bag?
She stuns him after pitiful excuses, like “it’s not what it looks like!”, and “i mean, i was planning on leaving, but not deserting, i swear!”. She’s heard it all before, presumably. And this Finn character – she doesn’t know him, and has no reason to trust that he was actually trying to help the Resistance.
First, it’s from the viewpoint of Rose in that moment (once again, assuming what the character would know, not the audience) and she has just spotted him trying to leave in a pod, after several other people – deserters – has also tried. He fails to explain his actions in a clear-cut manner under pressure, and thus, she would find those excuses “pitiful”, since it would seem similar to a many poor excuses thrown to her by deserters. She has also done this many times, and is understandably angry that many who had pledged themselves to the cause are now escaping like cowards when her sister had died for it.
Now, I’m sorry I did not unnecessarily bring my own personal thoughts of this moment into the paragraph, since apparently you need assurance on the moral fiber of my character. Here you go: I don’t hate Finn. I do not think his reasons for leaving were somehow sad or pathetic, but a natural extension of his loyalties and thought process seen thus far. I do not think he was trying to desert, or that he had sworn loyalty to the Resistance. I also do not think it is somehow sad that Finn failed to articulate his thoughts clearly under pressure, cause literally everyone does that. Are you happy, and will stop trying to derail my main point by making unnecessary accusations on my character now?
I’m also sorry for not remembering every minute detail of this movie that, at the time, I have no reference for while writing this considering it’s still in theaters.
Also, come on. I have explained to you in great detail why A: It is wrong to characterize Rose as violent or bad by her stunning Finn, and B: What purpose that scene did for that movie, as well as what purpose the stun gun, specifically, being included served. Yet, you persist. I just. Can’t continue repeating what I’ve been saying.
And, really, what you’re saying is false? This scene is literally the only one where A: Finn is hurt by an ally (I already explained the crash scene, just scroll up), and B: when it’s played for humor (? I don’t remember this being played for humor, but, I’ll trust you? Ugh). Hardly repeatedly.
Anyway, take his agency away, hardly. He eventually makes a new plan with Rose, of his own will. While saving Rey was noble, it was selfish and a hasty decision, as it placed his attachment to her over what she wanted to do, which was to return and help the Resistance (she didn’t even know Finn had the locator, she thought it was still with Leia) as well as place the Resistance in further danger, as it is (actually) repeatedly stated that they need Luke (who Rey was going to bring) to change the tide of the war.
And Finn and the rest of the pilot were told specifically to pull back by their leaders in that scene, as they determined it was an ultimately useless move as many pilots were being gunned down and that (say it with me now) the loss of lives was outweighing the need to take down the blaster. Finn continuing was not only disobeying orders, but putting an important member of the Resistance in danger for an, ultimately, futile quest.
You also tagged it rebelfinn in your original post which is, sorry to break it to you, a main character tag.
Thanks for the coloring compliment too, and do think it’s quite aesthetically pleasing! (Yes, I know that was sarcasm. The former was too).
And maybe insult me to my face, instead of hiding in the tags?
You’re saying the exact same content can be tagged “critical” and I wouldn’t be anti-Rose? Like, your sole basis for saying I’m anti Rose is for tag wording choice? Cool, I can change the tag.
Re empathy with Finn, you seem to be saying that Rose can’t empathize with Finn’s fear in that moment, that she has only contempt and anger for him and put an injured man through excruciating pain. With fans like these, who needs antis?
Your focus is so narrow that you are unable to comprehend what I’m saying. The scene was not some force of nature that had to happen, it was in there because Rian Johnson, the writer, wanted it to be in there. By your own admission it wasn’t necessary for even the story as it currently exists, because Finn came around to helping the Resistance of his own will and didn’t have to be hurt or made unconscious. I think that was bad and unnecessary and yes, his pain was portrayed as humorous where it didn’t have to be. There was no story purpose for that and it was very, very uncomfortable for many viewers, particularly Black audiences.
I think you should look up what passive voice is. When I said Finn was repeatedly hurt for laughs I didn’t mean just him being hurt by allies, I meant things like his literal first appearance after falling into a coma being falling out of bed. Like, holy goalpost moving, Batman.
Umm after Rose stopped Finn the cannon blasted a hole in the Resistance’s defenses and they were sitting ducks. Maybe Finn wasn’t acting out of hatred like Rose said, maybe he wanted to save lives? Or something? The dichotomy you posited doesn’t really work for that scene.
I tagged it rebelfinn because it’s about Finn, lmao. Those who don’t want to see Rose-critical content in the Finn tag can filter #anti rose tico and #rose tico critical. See how that works? But, you know, nice job wanting to drive Finn content out of the Finn tags. That makes a whole lot of sense.
How the hell does mocking you in my tags constitute hiding when you’ve literally screenshotted them twice in this very thread? You seem to be as obsessed with my tags as you are with what media I consume. I meant for you to see those, so… enjoy.
This might be new to you, but two different words with two different meanings will, in fact, continue being two different words with two different meanings that will change a statement based on what word you use. Shocking, I know.
And maybe all the posts about how much of a shit character Rose is and how she perpetuates violence and abuses Finn gives off the impression that you’re anti Rose? :/.
And how about your goalpost moving, Batman? First we got “you’re racist”. Then we got “you hold Finn in contempt”. Then “Rose isn’t emphatic”. I can hardly type with all these words being shoved into my mouth.
And, I don’t know, maybe Rose doesn’t have to immediately emphasize with someone whose is, to her, a celebrity abandoning his cause when stuff starts getting bad as she is grieving for her sister that recently died for said cause? I know, I know, once again, characters will not and it is illogical for them to have the same perception and emotions about a character than an audience will.
And Finn literally tripped in some wires. My God, I’ve been missing it all along! A character tripping or otherwise being clumsy has never ever been played for humor before and certainty not in this movie too! Those times Rey blasted a hole in the hut’s wall; when the fish people’s cart was knocked over by a boulder; Hux flying into a wall; Kylo Ren utterly failing every time he tried to even lay a hand on Luke! It can’t just be a classic example of humor that has dated back from the Three Stooges days! It’s got to mean something! Something with racism, I’m sure!
Anyway, buddy, Finn tripping in some wires would mean something if A: He was solely/frequently used for humorous purposes in that manner, or like the stunning scene, which, still not sure was 100% humor, B: He was the only character used in this manner/frequency, or any other character used in this manner were POC, and C: Clumsy/Bumbling moments were defining traits or framed in a way to make him appear less competent than the other main characters. Considering none of these apply, I’m going with D: You’re overreacting.
Also a decision made out of free will ≠ cannot being influenced by other factors. I’ll give you something that was, once again, already stated in my posts, but needs to be restated for you. Finn made a decision he believed was right, and, being very determined about said cause and headstrong, wanted to do said decision, immediately, without talking to anyone about it. He was ready to leave, and when Rose started opposing him, started to leave, but faster. He wasn’t gonna sit down and listen, no way, cause he was on a time crunch. With Rose physically restraining him and putting him a position where he had to explain what he was doing, it led to said decision being debated, and alternative, more permanent solution being proposed (aka keep Rey away from danger in Resistance, to get Resistance out of danger). Finn takes to this and also modifies and ultimately proposes said new plan to Poe. Thus, he changed his mind out of his own free will, but said situation didn’t pop up until it was influenced to do so. Amazing.
And please point me to some mainstream audiences who have a problem with it? Cause’ the only people I see who do is a small portion of the already niche tumblr audience, who also happen to be fanatic finnrey shippers and thus, considering Rose kissed Finn, seem to already have a reason why they would try to hate Rose. Cause in tumblr, you can’t just dislike something! You can’t just say “this makes me uncomfortable”! You gotta have a reason that relates to social justice in some way so you also get to call your opponents nasty names and be morally justified for it!
I don’t even know why you’re debating why Finn should live and why a sacrifice he was making for a canceled mission shouldn’t happen and that Rose isn’t somehow a violent character for stopping him.
And the importance of the scene is that it is a freakin’ parallel. Poe ignores orders to stop mission to destroy important FO weapon. Many bombers die before said mission is completed. Poe encourages bomber (Paige Tico) to risk like (unknowingly on risk life part, of course) to stop said weapon. Is ultimately determined by superior officer (Leia) that the loss was not worth the gain.
In the cannon scene, Poe calls off mission to take out important FO weapon after heavy loss of fighters, determining the loss was not worth the gain. A lone fighter (Finn) ignores said orders to take out the weapon, is then stopped by Paige’s sister (Rose). Boom, done, we can all go home now.
“I keep my TLJ-critical posts out of the main tag and the character tags.’
“…Me staying out of the main and character tags…”
Guess what? Rebelfinn is a main character tag, and you don’t get to redefine what you’ve been saying this entire time to say “gotcha!” and go jerk off in your personal tags on your reblog cause your ego is so desperate for a lift that literally seeing the next post on your blog counts as an obsession now.
And you know what? Acting like you’ve got a moral highground for complaining about characters in a movie you haven’t seen is sad. And I’ll bring your lack of knowledge on this movie up as many times as you try to mock it as an irrelevant point, cause, hey, you don’t need to see a movie to review it!
Oh, looks like I’d missed this in my notes. I’m bored so lemme shoot some fish in a barrel.
I mean people might actually want to filter certain tags and, in general, ‘anti X character’ is a more common convention than ‘X character critical,’ but comprehending that requires you actually have a sense of consideration and courtesy (or any idea how tumblr works) so I won’t expect so much of you.
Idk maybe questioning writing decisions is a legit thing and Rose was shittily written because RJ is a shitty writer? 😂 If you don’t think I was not excited about Rose or Finnrose pre-tlj you might want to check my rose tico and finnrose tags, since you like stalking my blog so much.
Thanks for pointing out that TLJ has a lot of shitty humor, though I don’t remember the wires part (god, what a painful movie to get through). And guess what? Despite your attempt to gerrymander the definition, similar tropes can be racist when applied to a character of color, especially when he’s treated unseriously in general, because there is actually such a thing as a history of media and cultural context.
I’m not talking about influence, I’m talking about violence. But thanks for playing!
You also really have to learn the difference between Doylian and Watsonian viewpoints and why derailing the former with the latter is an ass move. I’m ignoring your increasingly repetitive and boring attempts at deflection until you show an inkling of this basic concept.
Maybe don’t lie and try to pretend you got here through the rebelfinn tag lol. If you think that tag was free of tlj critique post-tlj, oh honey, I have news for you. It’s also a tag Finn stans created specifically to get away from people like you who salivate at the thought of him being hurt and humiliated.
Lack of knowledge of a movie is a pretty funny thing for you to be throwing around when you didn’t even remember Finn being thrown against a wall, lol. I guess it’s just that forgettable a movie. Also thanks for confirming your main interest is in mocking and harassing me despite the fact that you could easily have stayed away from tlj critical content and tags, I guess…?
As for mainstream critique of TLJ, acknowledgement of its divisive reception among fans for various different reasons is all over the web, so your idea that it’s just a Tumblr thing has no merit. You can find these articles easily by googling.
L.J.'s Obsessions 