About 90% if you ask me. I’m not even worried about that. I know things like Finnrey, Reysky and ForceFinn are gonna happen. Now how JJ works it all together and world builds is my concern.
I certainly hope so. If J.J. wants to blow up my heart he can give us Force-immune/Force Void Finn.
Now I’m not for a Kylo redemption personally. I’m more in the let him rot away in jail cut away from the force like Ozai or have him on the run as a wanted fugitive. Nevertheless, one thing I’ll never understand is why does everyone put Reylow and Kylo redemption in the same spot? cousins, siblings, former classmates, or party members in a Fortnite match, nothing is going to change the fact that Kylo and Rey aren’t friends or even close. At this point its clear as day that Finn and Rey are in love with each other and they’re both going to be fighting against Kylo.
Regardless of if Kylo lives, dies, goes into exile or prison, Kylo and Rey will never be anything other than enemies.
God tier is if Finn does turn out to be a Force Void, and after Rey distracts Ren by fighting him to a standstill Finn and Ghost Luke move in to cut Kylo’s ties to the Force, giving him an Ozai ending of powerlessness and jail. If Finn can invert his Force Void and project it on others he would have the raw power to neutralize Kylo’s threat permanently. Luke, who did it to himself in life, has the experience to guide Finn.
Afterward Kylo tries to throw his Force powers around like he’s used to, and imagine how ridiculous he would look–he reaches out at Finn to strangle him and nothing happens. He tries to snatch Rey’s lightsaber and it doesn’t even rattle. He tries to mind-trick the Poe, and at Poe’s order the Resistance tackle the Supreme Leader, cuffing him. (Bonus points if they can work in Leia watching sadly but impassively, maybe by screen.) Ren has an epic meltdown as he’s arrested and we all see him for the ridiculous manchild he is without making him some tragic martyr figure, in-universe or in the real world.
Finn going from unconsciously defending himself with his Force immunity to projecting it outward, btw, would also be a neat parallel to his character arc from being focused on protecting himself and those in his immediate sphere to making changes in the universe at large. If he is a Force Void it’s likely to be his innate powers responding to trauma and danger, so of course its first application would be to shield and defend himself. As he realizes he cannot be free without others and his sphere of protection expands, so the Force Void itself would turn outward and would ultimately reach the level of actively taking out threats.
So basically Rey is Zuko in this scenario who was tortured and mindfucked by Ozai before she defies and leaves him, but refuses to kill him despite having a clear chance because she sees it’s not her path. Ghost Luke is the Lion Turtle, a supernatural font of ancient lost wisdom who knows the source of all power and knows how to cut it off. Finn is Aang, brought up to be an emotionless fighting machine before he runs away, bearer of a unique power that earned him the Big Bad’s undying enmity before he learns the ancient knowledge and neuters the villain without killing him. It would be like the Avatar finale except better foreshadowed and more organically intertwined in the protagonist’s arc.
(And then we end IX with a great big Zukaang kiss, hopefully.)
I’m going to assume you meant “Jedha scenes” and not “Jedi scenes” (damn you autocorrect). If not please elaborate because then I have no idea what you’re referring to.
Truth be told I don’t think the chance is very great. In fact of all the pre-existing locations Jedha is probably the least likely. Not that it wouldn’t be a great place to revisit and I really hope Jedha would take a bigger and more significant place in canon given it past, but the climate of Jedha post- Death Star attack is not one that lends itself to extended outdoor location shooting.
Even though people kept living on Jedha for years after the Death Star’s attack it was a frigid hellscape plagued by constant dust storms, which required breathing masks to move about outside even then. And it was clear that it would only get worse from then on. So 34 years plus whatever timeskip there is between TLJ and IX, after it would likely take environmental suits or something to move about outside. And even if it didn’t take that much, creating extended dust storms in an outdoor location seems more bother than it’s worth.
As per the Roya News article posted yesterday the shooting at Wadi Rum took about three weeks, which is the same amount of time as the Jakku shooting in Saudia Arabia did for TFA. So we can expect something of the same length as the Jakku sequence in IX at wherever Wadi Rum is supposed to be.
Technically speaking if they were to recreate Jedha and have that long a sequence there, cgi, set pieces and green screen would to me make for a more logical choice things being what they are.
Plus Wadi Rum is basically big movie’s go to location for “rocky desert scenery” to the extend that Jordan have an industry catering exclusively to big movie companies that come there to shoot. So for any rocky desert location that JJ had in mind shooting at Wadi Rum would be a perfectly logical choice.
So yeah, I do think Jedha unlikely as much as I want to see the place again. If I were to place a bet on where Wadi Rum is my money would be on either Jakku doue to its significance for both Finn and Rey, and the fact that in early new canon it was being set up as a place of significance for the story, or somewhere new we’ve never heard of before.
~Mod Mara
Yeah I meant Jedha shots sorry for the confusion 😂 I agree Jedha isn’t very likely, I just wish they’d revisit its significance in some way if not the location since this is a trilogy purportedly about the meaning of the Force.
I’d be very excited if IX revisited Jakku especially if they deal with Finn and Rey’s history with the place. Maybe they’ll even use some of the EU plot threads, who knows.
Let’s see… The movie would open with Finn in the cockpit of the Falcon, which is being piloted by Chewbacca and copiloted by Poe. They’re on a recruitment mission with Rose. Finn is arguing that the remaining FO Stormtroopers are on the verge of mass defection because Phasma is no longer there to keep them in line, and Kylo Ren’s leadership is decimating the troops. Poe is skeptical. He doesn’t trust anyone involved with the FO and considers Finn an anomaly.
Resigned, Finn goes to the cabin to find Rey pacing the floor, book in hand, C3PO tottering beside her. She’s upset. She doesn’t understand the passage she’s reading. To his focused mind, the passage relates to the trooper uprising somehow. Rey says no, this book is about the events of the past. 3PO makes a comment that if it was actually about future events, it would explain other passages. Rey is stunned that she may be holding an actual book of prophesies and, frightened, puts it down.
Finn picks up the book and starts reading it with C3PO. It’s very cryptic, but he starts to put it together. Suddenly, he puts the book down and returns to the cockpit. They need to change course.
*
Basically, I would do three things: Center on Finn (and the Finn and Rey dynamic) again, put Finn in the Jedi storyline and have him lead the Stormtrooper uprising. I think the two latter things will have to overlap if they’re both going to happen.
Of course, the plot will involve Naomie Ackiee’s character. I’d like to see Ackiee as the current leader of a political organization that evolved off of Enfys Nest’s group, but had been separate from the Resistance. Convincing her to join the new rebellion will be a challenge. Members of her group, who are also skeptical, include alien characters played by Dom Monaghan (the film’s comic relief along with 3PO) and Matt Smith. They’ll come around, of course.
Lando, it turns out, is on the planet of the Enfys Nest group, and is stunned to see the Falcon. He knows Han is dead and thinks it’s been stolen – until he sees Chewbacca. He joins them without hesitation, ready to avenge his friend.
Lando will have Luke’s green saber somehow. He keeps it a secret until Finn shares with him that the famous saber was predicted to restore balance when it’s weilders (plural) use it in a battle to end the FO.
The FO plot is important to the uprising arc. I’d put Keri Russel in this arc. If I had full control, the Kylo Ren “angry white man” neonazi allegory would be even more clear. It would pick up what TLJ put down basically, no backtracking.
The FO will lose. Kylo Ren won’t have a happy ending, Rey and Finn will be the hope of the future, two new Jedi leading free ex Stormtroopers and the formerly enslaved from across the Galaxy.
Rey has reason to be upset about prophecies, too, given how she & Luke both made big mistakes by relying too much on their visions of the future. I hope during the time gap Rey & Finn help each other come to grips with the events of TLJ, what Kylo’s manipulation did to her, what being forced and blackmailed to stay with the Resistance and subsequently being willing to sacrifice himself did to him, and how what they each went through affects the other.
I think it’s possible. With JJ at the wheel, I don’t think either Finn or Rey will have an endgame romance with anyone else, but I think it’s possible that it ends like the first Pacific Rim, where Mako and Raleigh were together, but there’s no kiss or overt proof of romance.
I hated the ambiguity of Mako/Raleigh in PR, because it called to mind the ‘90s Hollywood movies starring Chow Yun Fat and Jet Li, where they could be heroes, but they couldn’t kiss the girl (not just the white girl – Jet Li’s kiss with Aaliyah in Romeo Must Die was cut because it made test audiences uncomfortable. Romeo Must Die was a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but test audience didn’t like the idea of a Chinese Romeo and a Black Juliet kissing). Or, more directly, Will Smith iRobot and I am Legend.
I think it’s more likely that Finn and Rey get a “safe” ambiguous ending together than an ending that shoots down Finnrey completely. I do think that would be cowardly. I don’t think it’s something JJ is afraid of – he unapologetically brought Spuhura to the screen even though it was an unpopular move with fans, including a huge number of passionate Spirk shippers. But, of course, JJ won’t have the last word.
The first two trilogies ended with hope for the future far more than romance. Both ended with Luke and Leia, and I think Luke and Leia will have a place in the ending of ix. The hope for the future, though, is Finn and Rey. It’s more important to me that Finn’s importance is made clear than anything else.
I’m rooting for an onscreen kiss but if they go with a strong and intimate friendship I won’t be broken up about it, just annoyed that Lucasfilm are being cowards in 20fucking19. I’ll just take John’s going to bat for Finnrey as canon confirmation, another reason I doubt Finnrose or Damerey would happen even if explicit Finnrey doesn’t. Daisy also shot down Damerey almost as hard as Reylow anyway. It would be even better if we get post-IX materials mentioning/featuring a Finnrey romance and children, since the franchise seems less gun-shy away from the big screen.
For Finn I could imagine that he might have some issues with the top down authority of organized military even though he knows that the Republic isn’t the First Order, given that he’s been abused by such authorities his whole life. He might be siding squarely with Leia in any power struggle. (Finn as Leia’s protege? Is that what John’s line is hinting at?)
Poe is probably having a massive case of divided loyalties. He’s a Leia fanboy if there ever was one, but he’s also very much a man of the Republic. He only went against them not just because he was convinced that there had to be done something about the First Order, but because if it was Leia Organa who asked him. If it had been anyone else who led the Resistance, I’m not so sure he’d have joined them no matter his issues with the Republic. When the inevitable power struggle between whoever leads the Republic navy (Laura Dern’s character?) and Leia he might not know who to back, he’ll likely argue for joint collaboration, but given how much of the Republic feels about Leia… that might not be possible.
This leads me to Rose Tico. If @lj-writes theory is correct and Rose, Paige and Cobalt Squadron are part of the Republic navy, they’d likely fall at the other end of the conflict. I could see Rose as someone young and idealistic, who looks up to Finn because “omg a real living hero!”, but who’s also very firmly on the side of the Republic and who might see the Resistance as dangerously volatile. Not to mention resent them – openly or covertly – for “causing” the Hosnia genocide. Even though she might logically know that the only one who caused that was the First Order when they first built Starkiller Base and then fired it at a civilian system. But logic can mean little when you’re as deeply traumatized as all genocide survivors are.
Is that what Rose and Finn are talking about here?
Rose being passionate about the Republic – and maybe showing some of her pain from the destruction of her home? Finn understand her pain and objectively her position, but still holding his own?
And this scene (from the BTS video)
Is Rose and Poe agreeing on something? Maybe the Republic navy’s stance on something, while Finn is taking Leia’s position?
Thanks goes to @lj-writes for that meta and for subsequent discussion in private about Rose, Finn and Poe. Her’s is half the ideas in this.
I love how you’ve pieced together the different interviews and pics to elaborate on what TLJ might look like in case of a Republic-Resistance conflict! Yeah, the picture of Finn and Rose now that I see it again in that light could be confrontational. At the very least it looks really passionate. FinnRose feels ❤
Finn could fall squarely on Leia’s side, but my guess is she’ll have to give him a lot of freedom if she wants to keep him that way. He’ll take a long time to trust authority if he ever does, and he’s likelier to throw in with her if she offers him a path to something he wants (a plan for Stormtrooper liberation, perhaps? Breaking abducted children out of a First Order facility? Finding his family?). My guess is, she’ll need to become a partner rather than an authority figure to him if she wants his trust.
Then there’s the question of whether SHE can trust HIM after his bald-faced lie to her near the end of TFA. I mean he did it for a good cause and delivered on lowering the shields anyway so I doubt she’ll hold it against him, but she should at least know this young man is at least as ruthless and reckless as she is when it comes to doing the right thing. I wonder if she sees in him the young woman she was, with trauma the size of a planet and nothing to lose. I would not be surprised if she trains him as a leader the Resistance needs.
No, Leia won’t hold a grudge, but she should be wary because Finn is a man who smashed his own idols (Jewish hero Jewish hero) and holds nothing and no one sacred except perhaps his friends. On that note, Poe could be the trusted bridge between these two formidable personalities. I mean Leia can cut some slack for her son Poe’s boyfriend, right?
Also! Speaking of planet-sized trauma, can we FINALLY have Leia grapple with being a genocide survivor as she interacts with the Republic refugees? How ironic is it that this may become a conflict between those who have survived the unimaginable, a clash of pain against pain? Will she find common ground with the Admiral and Rose and Paige? Will they find themselves clawing at each others’ bleeding wounds and doing things to each other they couldn’t have imagined? (No that is not meant to be kinky, you perverts. *is a pervert*) And can a Star Wars movie finally do more than squeak by the Bechdel test?
Finally, that last pic to me looks almost conspiratorial. Maybe this isn’t the final shot and they’re adding things like control panels and holos, but for now with that setup and lighting it looks like a clandestine meeting, with too few people and an odd composition of a new recruit, a mechanic, and a pilot to be a formal meeting. Is this where they discuss the mission to the casino planet? Is this the start of their Hail Mary pass out of the Republic-Resistance conflict?
Thanks for liking my addition and the great new thoughts! (I like how it took three tries for Tumblr to tag me.) Thanks to your find about Cobalt Squadron I am suddenly so fired up about this movie.
Reminder that this pre-TLJ speculation still makes for a MUCH better Resistance plot than the one we got. Even more frustratingly, if you squint this is the story told in TLJ except far more meaningful. This was also back when I was actually excited about Finnrose, smh.
I don’t get why people think Finn both being a military leader and having the Force is somehow strange for Star Wars. After all, we have a rather outsized example of this already.
It’s not just the combination of Force and military abilities either, but also the characters’ story positions. Finn being the “war” part of the triad gives him the position Leia should
have occupied in the OT, the character with ties to both the military
and the Force who embodies what the war is about: The human face of the
Empire’s atrocities, the survivor who chose to fight. Leia should have
been the central figure of the war and not Han’s plus-one on what
were essentially his plots and missions.
Done right Leia would have been
more like Katniss in The Hunger Games, damaged and traumatized from her
experiences, inspiring by her story and example. RO tried to shoehorn
Jynn into Katniss’s Mockingjay role except it never worked because Jynn
didn’t have the representative story. Obviously the Mockingjay figures
were Cassian and the Jedhans (Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze), but yet again SW
shied away from giving center stage to victims of wide-scale atrocities.
It shied away again with Finn in TLJ.
This refusal to have central Mockingjay figures, I believe, reflects SW’s basic ambivalence as a franchise that is more comfortable with destined saviors than with exploited and destroyed peoples saving themselves. Maybe that comes of SW being a USAmerican franchise dealing with fascism, the contradiction of a country that is fundamentally fascistic and imperialistic trying to tell itself a story of being antifascist and anti-imperialist. America can’t face the full implication of truly upending its fascist underpinnings, in fiction as in reality. Instead the brutal form of fascism is replaced by the “soft” fascism of worshipping benign supermen.
Then along comes JJ Abrams, someone in a position to know the contradictions and falsity in the story America tells about itself. He shows the New Republic’s compromise with fascism destroying it morally as well as physically, a year ahead of the 2016 election. He shows how the worship of the Skywalkers as the chosen line gave us Kylo Ren. He gives us Finn, one of the First Order’s victims, as a strong and central figure.
Finn in IX could be the character that Leia could have been–the one who ties it all together, the military plot and the Force plot, the story of war with the story of spirituality and morality. He could be the character that embodies both the evil of the First Order and the determination, on a personal, visceral level, to fight it. He could be the character that brings audiences face to face with what it means when people who are considered expendable in the quest for greatness stand up and fight back. He could solve the Star Wars dilemma and finally break the vicious cycle of destruction the galaxy far, far away has become trapped in. I certainly hope so.
I’ve been thinking about which roles Finn and Poe could be playing in the Resistance in IX. Since they’re both leadership types there would be a great chance of the two of them tripping over each other narratively if they fill a similar capacity, especially since the Resistance according to Oscar is still very small. But with the new Star Wars show “Resistance” once more emphasizing Poe’s role in espionage I think they might give us general Finn and spy master Poe.
It would let both men play to their strengths and experiences while not tripping over each other plot wise.
Finn is a talented leader and great at inspiration. He has knowledge of, and talent for, unconventional battle tactics that works. One of the reasons Phasma wanted him for the officers track in the First Order before he noped out of that fascist regime in epic fashion. With any kind of sizable time skip, which we’re almost certain to see, Finn would have had to gain experience as well making him an excellent general for the Resistance.
Poe has experience with intelligence gathering and espionage from before he became involved in the Resistance. And a tiny Resistance would rely heavily on correct intel and prior knowledge of targets if their attacks were to have any effect against the First Order and not cost themselves too dearly in soldiers and materiel they cannot afford to lose.
In fact such a division could make for a good set up for roles for the entire heroic quartet as @lj-writes pointed out to me, with Finn leading the Resistance’s martial arm, Poe’s its intelligence capacities, Rey at least for the time being representing its Jedi/mystical capabilities and Rose rounding out the leadership by representing the all important support personnel – mechanics, medics, ect – without which the Resistance would not survive long.
~Mod Mara
The Resistance relying so heavily on intelligence would also be a nice dovetail into Poe being the Resistance’s overall leader, something he was being set up for in… pretty much every piece of franchise material he appeared in, most explicitly in The Last Jedi and the Poe Dameron comic.
This sets up an interesting dynamic between Finn and Poe, among others, because Finn has never been… how shall we say it… good with orders and bosses. I mean, ask the aforementioned Phasma. Wait you can’t lmaoooo
Even aside from the part where Finn understandably flips the bird to fascists, Poe himself tried to give Finn something approaching orders twice in two movies and Finn was 0/2 in following them. “We’re going back to Jakku!” “No, that’s stupid.” “Come back, this mission is a bust!” “Hell 2 the No!!”
This independence of thought is part of Finn’s strength and in fact in the best tradition of the Rebellion, e.g. Cassian, Raddus, Lando…, but it does mean that Poe would be foolish to expect a traditional superior-subordinate relationship with Finn. It’s interesting to speculate how Poe will carry forward his experience with Holdo and Leia in dealing with Finn. (I’m fine with the Holdo episode being quickly forgotten, personally. I mean, literally, “That’s not how the Rebellion works!”)
I think the franchise’s recent emphasis on maintenance and materiel–most prominently fuel–looks promising for Rose’s role. It’s also part of the reason I speculated that supplies will be a major part of Episode IX. As you pointed out, Rose’s technical expertise makes her indispensable to this side of the Resistance’s operations, making her vital for both intelligence and military operations. Rose started her career in the Resistance as a flight mechanic, serving aboard a bomber and providing real-time support in the thick of battle, and with the Resistance understaffed as it is she could reprise that role. It would lead to personal challenges, too, because the Cobalt Squadron book tells us that being responsible for lives in battle took a toll on her preexisting anxiety issues and she always flew with Paige before. The first time she didn’t, well, that was when Paige died.
Rey’s role as the Jedi is the vaguest, in some ways. Like you I am not enamored with the idea of her getting yet a third confrontation with Kylo Ren. This isn’t the Luke situation with Vader, where Luke was able to avoid confrontation with Vader altogether in the first movie, suffered defeat and a shocking revelation in the second, and was primed for a rematch in the third. She’s already beaten Kylo 2 for 2, there’s nothing to prove by kicking his ass a third time. She explicitly tried to replicate Luke’s Vader redemption ending, that bridge is crossed and burned. He tried Palpatine-style temptation on her, again, didn’t work. She was going for the RotJ ending and he for the RotS one, and they both failed. There’s nothing left in that direction that isn’t a boring repeat. As I said before, I’d find it interesting if she took point on eliminating the Knights of Ren so they can’t tamp down discontent in the FO ranks, causing chaos in the FO, kind of a “defeat the middle bosses to unlock the big boss” situation.
It’s Finn, not Rey, who is in Luke’s situation with this series’ Big Bad. Only it’s Luke’s sequence reversed, with a defeat and injury in the first movie and avoidance of confrontation in the second, leaving tension for the final confrontation. His position representative of the Resistance’s martial arm places him on a direct collision course with Kylo Ren. Now that’s a grudge match I’m up for.
They have an already established relationship that goes back quite a bit before TLJ and Poe obviously likes Rose a lot. And Rose like Poe in return.
Not to mention that Poe’s, “How did did you two meet?”, followed by, “Good luck?”, when Rose answers, “Just luck”, can easily read as jealousy of Finn.
He has been developing romantic feelings for Rose but haven’t found the place and time to talk to her about it and now suddenly here’s Finn, the gorgeous, dashing young man who Rose obviously likes a lot and he feels defeated. Not that he think Rose owes him anything, he just wishes that Rose would look at him the way she looks at Finn.
And Rose clearly trust Poe above all else. Having outgrown her unhealthy hero worship of Finn and realized that she’s all the hero she’s ever going to need would make for an excellent basis for a romance between her and Poe.
Evidently there’s a passage in Star Wars Adventures where Rose saves Poe’s life by opening the Raddus’s hangar door where no one else knew how to. She’d just been… like… reading the manual like the giant dork she is. I can imagine her really standing out to him from that moment on.
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