basically every tlj defense post I’ve seen focuses on old fans being nostalgic. these posts fail to address any sincere criticism of the writing in the movie itself, namely that the entire resistance subplot amounts to: trust authority no matter what, even when it looks like it’s working against your best interests.
if the person in charge insults you and demeans you at every opportunity, if the person in charge does literally nothing to earn your trust – and actually goes out of their way to sabotage it by being needlessly cryptic instead of saying ‘yes, I do have a plan, trust me’ for at least AN ATTEMPT at reassurance – just put your life in their hands because they’re in charge and hope is like the sun or whatever. like come on, it’s not about hope. it’s about leadership.
people can make the argument that, maybe holdo doesn’t want to take the time to actually connect with the people she’s leading, because either they trust her, or they don’t. that’s still pretty garbage leadership. you know what would be better leadership? listening to concerns, and actually responding to them without dismissing them entirely.
this is such an incongruous payoff for a series that supposedly revolves around taking down space fascism, a series that should probably take a harder stance against legitimizing leadership that’s uncomfortably close to authoritarian. and maybe that’s a reoccuring problem in star wars writing, I wouldn’t know because I’m not familiar with the series.
holdo has a great design, an incredible moment with leia, and by far the coolest scene in the entire movie. if there was a payoff that was about how communication and trust is important – in both directions, not just a one-way bias in favor of leadership – the resistance subplot could’ve been a lot more meaningful.
look, different strokes for different folks, but this is – imo – a pretty big flaw, and you can like the movie without dismissing all criticism as ‘people being mad for no reason’ or whatever.
look guys. authority that refuses to listen is bad. authority that makes no attempt to communicate or explain literally anything is bad. authority that goes out of its way to insult, demean, & dismiss subordinates is bad. authority that hides compassion under layers of aloof contempt is bad. authority that likes troublemakers, actually, is bad and uncomfortable if that authority spends the entire time insulting, demeaning, & dismissing that ‘troublemaker’.
poe’s character arc is packaged as him needing to realize that sometimes, the most heroic thing isn’t flashy cool shit. this isn’t conveyed well in the film because 1) the emphasis on holdo’s plan isn’t that it’s heroic, it’s that people are shocked it even exists in the first place, and 2) the most heroic thing holdo did was THE flashiest, coolest shit in the movie.
Yeah, see, that’s what happens when you’re a mega-corporation who assumes that it’s a very specific set of trappings (rebels vs. empire, lightsabers, death stars) which drew people to the series originally and do everything to recreate that without thinking too hard about the in-series continuity/worldbuilding, etc. I can’t speak to other fans, but I was drawn to Star Wars because of the underlying messages of moral responsibility, compassion, and hope. Even the Prequels end on a hopeful note after laying out the tragedy of what happens when people fail to confront evil and their own complicity in the same.
TLJ seems to be of the opinion that you basically can’t confront evil. Violence in the face of evil doesn’t stop it. Compassion in the face of evil doesn’t stop it. Self-sacrifice in the face of evil doesn’t stop it. The best you can hope for is to quietly slink away knowing that everyone you thought would help you abandoned you instead, but, hey, at least Force projection Luke showed up and a Force-sensitive kid was left enslaved by our heroes so…hope…somehow?
I get that there were people who liked it. There were aspects of it I really enjoyed too, but overall I just don’t love the messages it was sending.
What she means: Poe, Finn, and Rose are frequently blamed for losing the transports, but that assumes Holdo’s plan would have worked and the First Order is so colossally inept that it wouldn’t have occurred to anyone aboard that perhaps their targets were speeding towards a life-sustaining planet for a reason, or that it was worth investigating why the Raddus never deployed escape pods or made a last stand or appeared to take any life-saving actions throughout the hours-long pursuit. Realistically, even if the Resistance had slipped onto Crait without being detected, the First Order would have recognized it was probably not a coincidence their plotted course took them near a planet with a breathable atmosphere and looked into that. It seems just as likely that the Resistance fighters would have been discovered hiding on Crait with or without the interference of DJ, and perhaps Holdo’s plan shouldn’t be held up as a watertight example of military cunning that our protagonists fucked up with their reckless antics. However, the director really wanted to force the belief that those losses are on Poe because he undermined the leadership, so we receive no acknowledgement that Holdo’s plan was also a huge gamble and instead have to settle for Leia and Holdo being alarmingly cool with the fact Poe staged a mutiny during a time of crisis. In all this is a case of a director being so enamored with his narrative that he threw logic and characterization out the window in order to support it. The end result is a product that turns characters into convenient plot devices with inconsistent personalities as well as underestimates the audience’s intelligence, and I really hope the next movie does not follow the trend
Something that I really appreciate about The Clone Wars is that they make Anakin a likable, loving, genuinely good person while reaffirming and enhancing his more negative qualities. For example the show makes it clear that Anakin is a good person, but a selfish one.
In the arc where Ahsoka get’s kidnapped and hunted by lizard people we see this very subtle selfish quality of Anakin’s. When Ahsoka comes home from her traumatizing ordeal what is the very first thing that Anakin does? He makes things about himself. He makes things about his failure to protect her, his concern, his worry, his fear for her, his own shortcomings. He is obviously coming from a place of genuine love and concern for Ahsoka, but it’s still about him. There’s nothing evil about that kind of selfishness, seeing a situation from your own point of view doesn’t mean you don’t care, anyone who says that they don’t make things about themselves is almost definitely a liar but you can’t deny it. In that moment Ahsoka had to comfort Anakin. That moment is beautiful and poignant regarding their bond and their friendship, but it’s also very telling if you look at it through a slightly more cynical lens.
It reminds me of in AOTC when Anakin kneeled at his mother’s grave and talked about himself and his feelings of inadequacy rather than his mother herself. Or in ROTS when Anakin was concerned for Padme’s life and committed to saving it in a way he knew that she wouldn’t approve of. When he pledges himself to Palpatine he doesn’t say he wants to save her life because she deserves to love or anything that has to do with her. It’s because he couldn’t live without her, he needs her, he loves her, she can’t leave him because he couldn’t take that. It’s about him.
Anakin’s feelings of selfishness don’t mean that he doesn’t actually love or care about these people, his possessive nature and selfishness actually come from his love for these people. He just can’t separate the way he feels about these people from the individuals themselves. He always makes it about himself and his needs and desires, not theirs. It’s possible that the first person that Anakin really loved in a nonselfish way was Luke by the end of ROTJ.
I don’t know that I’m making sense here but this topic fascinates me.
What an excellent analysis that I 100% agree with. I used to know people who loved Anakin because they believed he was completely selfless, and I… disagreed with that interpretation because it was incomplete. (Also because they had a habit of woobifying Anakin to the point of being an apologist. Like, ugh.) He fell to the Darkside because he was selfless to the point of utter selfishness. Everything was about him, about possessing, about owning, about being responsible for. That was no doubt rooted from his childhood as a slave when his destiny, his very life, didn’t even belong to him, and then again from his upbringing with the Jedi when he was told his life still didn’t belong to him but in service to the Force, the galaxy, and he wasn’t allowed to love or own… basically the dude has never learned how to separate his own intense feelings from others, and it was a toxic combination.
Someone else has made independent, autonomous choices that put them into dangers? Oh no, Anakin failed to protect them! That’s what this is about, not the trauma that they’ve now endured! Visions of Padme dying in childbirth? That’s okay, he’ll fix it by teaming up with a Sith Lord and literally slaughtering innocent children! Padme, why are you crying? I fixed the problem, I have enough power to save you now!
I like analyses like this because it reminds me of why I like Anakin as a character – because he’s selfish, and his downfall is his own, and at the end of the day it’s his own choices, his own decisions, that lead to it. Taking that away from him makes him less of a complex figure, in my opinion.
Finn: Chooses to runaway from the First Order in shame and disgust in what they brought him up to be
Finn: Spares the life of the villagers he’s supposed to be slaughtering because he’s not fucking braindead evil
Finn: Sees Rey (a complete stranger at that point) being attacked; instantaneously runs to her defence because he sees danger
Finn: Takes Rey’s hand when he hears TIE Fighters and realises he’s marked her
Finn: Assures Rey if she’s okay after caught up in the blast
Finn: Takes care of Chewie after he was shot
Finn: Literally fucking requests Rey if she wants to go with him to the outer rim because he KNOWS how fucking dangerous the First Order are, and wants her to be safe from that shit
Finn: Warmly accepts her decline and says “take care of yourself. Please.”
Finn: Cancels the fuck out of his plans when star destroyer is used and fights
Finn: Fucking screams R E Y at the top of his lungs when she’s kidnapped by Ren
Finn: Goes back to his trauma, what he wanted to run away from to get his friend back
Finn: Fights Ren and literally ends up in a coma to defend himself as well as Rey
Finn: Wakes up in a coma and his first inquiry is Rey’s whereabouts
Finn: Literally wants to runaway with the beacon to ensure that when Rey returns, she doesn’t return to danger
LucasFilm: Finn needed to go to Canto Bight so he could learn to stop being a selfish assh0le!!1!1!
I agree with what @reystars, @rose-tico and others are saying about the intended *purpose* of Finn’s storyline: after a lifetime of being enslaved and brainwashed his instinct was to flee as far away as possible and take Rey with him to safety, and it was important for him to understand that there was no safety anywhere in the galaxy as long as the FO existed, because the war affected everything and people were supporting it for their own profit, and therefore Finn needed to join the Resistance and actively fight to defeat the FO in order to create a galaxy where the satefy for him and Rey and everyone else could become a reality. I understand that.
HOWEVER
– if the only way the director could think of to achieve this was to put Finn in a sideplot which nearly every reviewer agrees had no impact on the main storyline and felt tonally disjointed from the rest of the movie;
– if Finn, the male lead, is put in a sideplot instead of the main plot, period (and it was percieved as a sideplot, just check how few TLJ reviews in non-fandom media even mention the Resistance storyine at all);
– if Finn is not allowed to learn the truth about Canto Bight on his own e.g. by observing or overhearing something, figuring it out himself and only then asking Rose for a confirmation/more information, but Rose has to explain the world to a naive Finn instead;
– if Finn, the male lead, is repeatedly used for comic relief; repeatedly physically harmed, often for comedic effect as well; and generally not treated with the necessary respect and seriousness by the narrative (e.g. his duel against Phasma lasting only a couple of minutes and its gravitas diminished by silly quibs like “chrome dome” and Finn and Phasma’s relationship and shared past not further explored; scenes that would have given Finn more character depth and background about his childhood and life as a FO stormtrooper and set up a possible stormtrooper rebellion storyline for episode IX being cut; or even just Finn’s shirtless scene in the bacta suit being presented as something comedic and ridiculous (and used for queerbaiting) with his recovery from a life-threatening injury not further commented on, while Kyle was shown recovering from his injuries over time and his shirtless scene was presented as “sexy”);
…so in short, if the male lead is treated this way then it’s small wonder most viewers do not care about his arc or even realise what his arc is supposed to be in the movie.
Intentions: good, execution: piss poor 😦
Countless fanfiction authors have proven that it is absolutely possible to write a narrative where Finn learns about the state of the wider galaxy and decides to commit himself to the Resistance’s cause wholeheartedly *without* sidelining or disrespecting him, so TLJ could have and should have done better.
(Also Disney really needs to have a serious word with the guy in charge of the SW Facebook account 😦 )
Finn: Chooses to runaway from the First Order in shame and disgust in what they brought him up to be
Finn: Spares the life of the villagers he’s supposed to be slaughtering because he’s not fucking braindead evil
Finn: Sees Rey (a complete stranger at that point) being attacked; instantaneously runs to her defence because he sees danger
Finn: Takes Rey’s hand when he hears TIE Fighters and realises he’s marked her
Finn: Assures Rey if she’s okay after caught up in the blast
Finn: Takes care of Chewie after he was shot
Finn: Literally fucking requests Rey if she wants to go with him to the outer rim because he KNOWS how fucking dangerous the First Order are, and wants her to be safe from that shit
Finn: Warmly accepts her decline and says “take care of yourself. Please.”
Finn: Cancels the fuck out of his plans when star destroyer is used and fights
Finn: Fucking screams R E Y at the top of his lungs when she’s kidnapped by Ren
Finn: Goes back to his trauma, what he wanted to run away from to get his friend back
Finn: Fights Ren and literally ends up in a coma to defeat himself as well as Rey
Finn: Wakes up in a coma and his first inquiry is Rey’s whereabouts
Finn: Literally wants to runaway with the beacon to ensure that when Rey returns, she doesn’t return to danger
LucasFilm: Finn needed to go to Canto Bight so he could learn to stop being a selfish assh0le!!1!1!
so Finn is like my favorite character and I love him and I would die for him I’m not exaggerating and everything in this post was absolutely TRUE
BUT I think maybe what people are misinterpreting from the Star Wars facebook comments and The Last Jedi is what Finn’s arc in this movie was meant to be
it’s not Finn going from SeLfIsH AsShOlE to SELFLESS HERO
Finn has always been a selfless hero, he’s proved that time and time again (like all the points in this post).
But as a result of his upbringing and the events of TFA, he’s all about self preservation. He’s had to be. He hasn’t had any other choice. He joins the rebels out of necessity, not because he cares about the cause. His self preservation, once he meets Rey, extends to her now because she’s the most important thing in the world to him. He has morals, he’s a genuinely good person, but because of how narrow his life experience has been, he’s not worried about the cause, he doesn’t get the cause, he’s worried about Rey.
When he goes back to Starkiller, he doesn’t care about the mission. He says, “I’m just here for Rey.” He’s helping them because they’re helping him find the person who’s most important to him. He helps the mission succeed but ultimately he’s there for one reason, and that’s to save Rey. Otherwise, he would want nothing to do with the Rebels OR the First Order.
It’s not that he doesn’t care (he’s seen what the First Order can do and he knows they’re evil) but he’s just very singularly minded. He’s genuinely good hearted but that focus is on his own survival and the survival of those he cares about. That’s why at the beginning of The Last Jedi, Finn is on his way out. He’s abandoning the resistance because he wants Rey to be safe. And when Rose discovers a way that they might be able to save the resistance, Finn decides to help her because a. he does care about the people and b. because he wants to find a way to keep Rey safe. It’s still a very narrow field of view for him.
That all changes when he goes with Rose to Canto Bight. His reaction upon walking inside is “This is awesome!” He’s only experienced a small slice of the universe after breaking free of his storm trooper training so he’s taking in the sparkling lights and sounds and unfamiliar surroundings. It’s not until Rose tells him the reality of the place, that it was built off of dirty war money, that his attitude begins to change. He begins to really understand what the resistance is fighting for, and he gets to see that through the eyes of Rose, someone who has just lost her sister and who is passionate about the cause. Slowly she changes the way he sees the resistance and what it stands for. Instead of his focus being on himself and Rey, he starts to widen his scope and realize what the resistance is about and what it stands for.
by the end of The Last Jedi, Finn is actively fighting on behalf of the resistance because he’s finally found that he understands why they’re in the fight. And it’s no surprise that once he commits himself to their cause, he believes it to the point that he’s willing to sacrifice himself and die for it, because that’s who Finn is. He’s someone who gives his whole heart to the things he cares about, whether it’s the desert girl he just met, the pilot he helped escape, or the ragtag band of resistance members who are fighting an evil and corrupt organization.
that’s why his detour with Rose was important, and why Rose as a character was important. With as little as he’d experienced he needed time to grow as a character and open his eyes up. Finn has always been selfless, brave, and loving. Now, he’s also fighting, but this time he’s fighting for something he believes in, and by his own choice, not because circumstance has placed him somewhere.
This entire analysis above manages to be both antiblack and anti-Asian. Congratulations! Just when I think the Star Wars fandom can’t go any lower, I’m unpleasantly surprised.
Seriously. I tried to give @reystars’s analysis a chance, but all I got from it was that Finn must have a very shallow and abrupt arc indeed if all it took for him to go from “I only care about me and Rey” to “I will literally physically die for the Resistance” is a lecture from a character whose deep reserve of wisdom (barf) exists for the benefit of another character’s growth. It’s like a perfect storm of the naïve Black character who must be instructed about the realities of the world (despite having lived them for himself) and the wise Asian character who spits Truth and Wisdom with every breath. The way Rose is described in spoilers she doesn’t even sound like a character, she sounds like a thematic dialogue generator.
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 in Return of the Jedi as he was recovering from being frozen? A 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.
This show is definitely NOT afraid to shake things up create seismic change, is it? I love it!! No pussyfooting around here, TGD actually goes there with the consequences. The rest under the cut for spoilers.
– And here I thought, was hoping in fact, that Boo-Boo’s drug dealing was the one plot point that was going to end without consequence and hoo boy… I thought, didn’t I. They sure showed me.
One interesting thing about Cadillac is that, evil as he is, he’s a genuine believer in disco and its culture. It isn’t a combination I’ve often seen, the overlap of murderous crime lord and fanatic for his art. Both sides are genuine aspects of his character, making for a complex and layered characterization.
– After seeing the Season 1 finale (I refuse to call it the show finale, okay?) I can see that this was actually a conflict within the character, the part that wanted to break free.
– I am naming “You find something melodic about this situation?/The whole thing’s off-key to me” the best villainous exchange of all time.
Who would have thought the character crossing their Rubicon would be Lydia even more than Mylene? If I had any doubts about Ramon being an abusive piece of shit (I didn’t), his violence toward his wife and daughter sealed it. I mean, when people think of abuse they usually think of violence, but that’s not always true. A lot of abusers use violence as a last resort, when they feel their control slipping.
On a related note, I love that this show doesn’t shrink back from the complexities of freedom–criminality, objectification, commercialization, drugs, it’s all presented without sanitization. The Get Down Brothers and the Soul Madonnas each fought in their own ways to be free without selling out, to succeed without compromising who they were as people.
– I squealed when, backstage at the Ruby Con, Zeke gave Mylene pretty much the exact speech she game him in Part 1–that he could not be with her if she did not fight for her ambitions, that he loved her too much to watch her give up on herself. These two support each other and hold each other up so much, my heart melts every time I see them together.
– Some, of course, didn’t make it out. It was gutwrenching when Shaolin, who convinced Cadillac to break free by confronting his own history of abuse at Annie’s hands, himself ultimately went back to Annie to save his friends. This, when we already knew how he was affected by the abuse in the way his rage at Annie found its outlet in violence… just… no words.
– They were missing part of the footage in Mr. Books’s show, all right? They didn’t get to the part where the lights shone on the other side of the stage and there was Shao behind his turntable. I refuse to believe otherwise.
I think Jackie’s learned something about himself and his creative process from writing “Set Me Free.” Creative isolation is out, big, communal, spiritual party is in. It also looks like he’s kicked his addiction, or at least cut down/switched to less hard drugs? It may be amusing to think of the assortment of drag queens and musicians holed up in his hotel room as his church, but I think it serves pretty much the same function as Jackie himself told Ramon.
Papa Fuerte’s fall was an understated epic. He was used, betrayed, and
discarded, a visionary whose ambition came smack up against capitalistic greed and systematic
racism. He has a lot to say, indeed. He is called a criminal but I understand him more as a big man, a leader who takes responsibility for his constituents and allocates resources. Look at the way he provided for the community when the blackout happened. A lot of criminality in underserved areas can be understood as filling the void left by governments, I think.
Hearing the man moan like a wounded wolf at the sight of Lydia’s wounds may have been one of the most emotional moments of the show for me. The good-bye in her kitchen, her telling him she loved him, it was so heartrending and perfect.
– So like was anyone surprised at Mylene’s parentage reveal? …Anyone? No hands, I see. It was obvious from the moment her mother’s relationship with Papa Fuerte was shown and should have been obvious sooner, she really is a mix of them.
– I remember wondering more than once what the attraction to Ramon was and why Lydia couldn’t have been with the guy she loved in the first place. Ramon probably convinced her that she was a sinner who needed him to save her, and he can be very charming when things are going his way, i.e. when she was suitably submissive. The stability he represented, emotionally and socially if not financially, may have been a draw, too. And of course, if she was already committed to Ramon before she met his hot brother that would have presented impossibilities of its own.
– It was probably for the best anyway, she would have been put through unimaginably more shit as Papa Fuerte’s wife rather than his sister-in-law. Maybe that’s why he didn’t press the issue, he knew this would happen sooner or later.
– This is terrible of me but “pillaged my nest” may be the hottest euphemism for cheating I have heard.
Ra-Ra is autistic, right? I mean, I thought so from Part 1 but it became even clearer in Part 2. Watched Star Wars 57 times? (And I thought my watching Crimson Tide 17 times was a lot…) Finds it easier to explain concepts through pop culture? Talking sounds stilted, as though he’s taking the wording from books and movies which he’s all but memorized as references? Like, it’s so obvious. I’m pretty sure Dizzee is on the spectrum too.
I wish we’d seen more of the Zulu Queens because we did not see nearly enough female MCs and b-girls. I wish there was more of everything from this show, basically.
I do think it’s too soon to tell what Ep 9 will bring but Finnrey seems to be the most likely scenario to me. According to John Boyega, it seems like the scene was either written or directed to convey that Rey was a bit jealous. I personally intrepreted that scene as a mix of longing, regret, jealous, and affection. Honestly, I’m pretty biased with this but I think Finnrey is the endgame ship that would make the most sense at this point. Most of the other potential ships don’t really have enough screentime in the past two movies to make it believable and rewarding. Finnrey obviously also didn’t get much screentime in TLJ but they had way more than anyone else in TFA and throughout TLJ, Finn lit her way home and they were on each other’s minds a lot so even with limited screentime, still an important, positive relationship. There have already been hints of romance in both TFA and TLJ so there is already a foundation that would easily translate to canon romance.
JJ created Finn and Rey and their dynamic and was inspired by how well Daisy and John worked together. (And their chemistry received a lot of praise, as Daisy has mentioned frequently!) The last thing he wrote/directed for them Rey kissed Finn’s forehead. I think he’d probably be most inclined to go in that direction going forward. Orrrrrrr everyone ends up single.
I do think it’s too soon to tell what Ep 9 will bring but Finnrey seems to be the most likely scenario to me. According to John Boyega, it seems like the scene was either written or directed to convey that Rey was a bit jealous. I personally intrepreted that scene as a mix of longing, regret, jealous, and affection. Honestly, I’m pretty biased with this but I think Finnrey is the endgame ship that would make the most sense at this point. Most of the other potential ships don’t really have enough screentime in the past two movies to make it believable and rewarding. Finnrey obviously also didn’t get much screentime in TLJ but they had way more than anyone else in TFA and throughout TLJ, Finn lit her way home and they were on each other’s minds a lot so even with limited screentime, still an important, positive relationship. There have already been hints of romance in both TFA and TLJ so there is already a foundation that would easily translate to canon romance.
JJ created Finn and Rey and their dynamic and was inspired by how well Daisy and John worked together. (And their chemistry received a lot of praise, as Daisy has mentioned frequently!) The last thing he wrote/directed for them Rey kissed Finn’s forehead. I think he’d probably be most inclined to go in that direction going forward. Orrrrrrr everyone ends up single.
L.J.'s Obsessions 