Starkiller (Galen Marek) is commonly referred to as a Gary Stu and while I can somewhat agree with that I feel people focus to much on his power level and not his growth as a character. I grew up playing the force unleashed and I always felt like I had a special connection with the character and his redemption as he learns to carve his own path.
A soldier defecting from his faction and learning to undue his conditioning and become a better person should write itself but Disney messed up even that.
Well, they even messed up his own backstory by having him appear to be a part of an elite squad at the beginning of TFA and then later they include a line indicating he was a janitor on Starkiller Base just for laughs. It was god awful. Nothing about his personality matched up with anything, but all of the characters were like that. It's like they dropped 21st century millennials into a Star Wars movie and just told them to act normal. Rey should have been TOTALLY different if she grew up as a scavenger girl on a remote planet, but no, she's like your average college student taking a stroll down to the campus Starbucks for a latte. There was no thought about these characters and how their backstories should affect their personalities.
@@logicaldude3611 Your absolutely right, their acting was based on nothing in the fictional universe. Finn didnt act like a child soldier raised in the universe of star wars, he acted like he was apart of the drama club in high school.
I really liked the way John Boyega portrayed Finn, the actor did a great job. I also subscribe to the head-canon that Finn is force sensitive, because that's the only thing that really makes sense to me. The fact he was able to resist his programming and indoctrination indicates, to me at least, that the force was guiding him to a different path for a reason. He was also able to use a lightsaber in combat without any real issue (though obviously nowhere near as competent as a trained lightsaber duelist), which is another indication of force sensitivity.
How about if the sequel trilogy were instead an exaggerated story told by Rey to her children, so the next movie instead starts with her kids picking it apart, then bring in Kylo as the dad who asks why she killed him off at the end and points out that she was the one chasing Finn who is actually a powerful jedi and Rey is below average as a jedi. Also Kylo states that TROS never happened and TLJ went differently with Luke training both Finn and Rey. Just retcon the sequel trilogy with R2 telling how it really went, Rey hates R2 so BB8 was made up to replace R2.
just realized: Bad Batch, clones, created and designed to kill: "Those are our brothers... only stun them!" Finn, who couldn't see a fellow soldier die: "So anyway I started blasting!"
So much wasted potential. Mayfeld from The Mandalorian went through what Finn should have gone through in one episode while Finn couldn't in three movies. Great character concept that could have resulted in some interesting conflict and development which was ruined by terrible execution.
disney wanted a quick cash-in on nostalgia with literally no plan on what they would do with the franchise. the marvel properties side of the company should avoid that at all costs.
Quick real world facts relevant to Finn's character: - Conscription armies don't have janitors. Everyone does their share of work on the pemises. - Janissary were an elite corps in the Ottoman army, made up of enslaved children from the Balkans, converted to Islam, well trained and actually paid for their service. - Sokollu Mehmed Pasha is one of the more notable janissary, having risen as far as to be the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. I'm reminded of these three things whenever Finn's character comes up - he was humiliated to start with by being given a role he never should have had, and was then used as comic relief when he should've been able to rise to a prominent position, either as a soldier or a jedi. It just goes to show how little the people behind the sequel trilogy knew or cared about history, unlike George Lucas who knew exactly how and why to incorporate it into his movies.
I was so frustrated by the buildup to The Force Awakens: a short story described Finn as a skilled stormtrooper, only for us to find out he was a janitor. wth, they did him dirty. :(
The story of a child soldier escaping from his programming and trying to move into a normal life could have been an amazing and interesting story. To bad they turned him into a laugh track.
I’m sure when they were talking about the main protagonist, someone said I think John Boyega would make a good Jedi. It was a mistake to not make him more apart of the story or make the story center around him.
My buddies and I were hoping to have all three main characters be force sensitive. Shame it didn't happen. I was expecting the First order wanted to kill him when he demonstrated force abilities.
You know what i honestly wish Jon Favreau & Dave Filloni would pull one of their genius tricks again, and secretly get in touch with John Boyega and just invite him to reprise his role as "Finn", and secretly film him in a few scenes as a defecting storm trooper who turns up in either Season 3 of The Mandalorian, or Ahsoka or one of their spin-off shows. Just think how crazy that would be lol. They pulled it off with Mark Hamill and their reveal of a young Luke Skywalker, right under the nose of those igits at the Lucasfilm Story Group. Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to do either if they could manage to do it early, like around now, while Kathy Kennedy is over here in the UK, overseeing the production of Indiana Jones 5. I mean as long as they filmed his scenes asap, and just held them safe in a vault somewhere. Then they could start filming Season 3 Mando on schedule, and just cut and edit Finn's scenes into their show. Sounds radical i know, but do you realize just how many Fans would go nuts if they pulled off something like that!?
I read a thing recently, a deep dive on the Rebels episode Twin Suns. There was a lot made of a comparison of Finn and Darth Maul. Finn could have been a version of Maul that climbed out of the pit of toxic despair and pain that Maul lived and wasted his whole life in. That would have been an amazing set up. But it just didn't happen. And everyone is worse off for it.
I'm surprised you didn't address the whole "Finn being a Jedi was a whole marketing ploy which you fell for" argument I see so many ST defenders spew when people say that Finn had so much wasted potential. I think the majority of fans would have been happy with having Luke train Fin & Rey to be Jedi. That story pretty much writes itself. They have to work together to take down the more powerful Snoke & Krylo pair. To quote Benjamin Franklin "If fail to plan, you are planning to fail." They failed all the ST characters with their lack of planning. The bigger & older the franchise gets the more you need to plan. The sheer hubris of all those involved in the ST is appalling.
Yeah, the number one problem is that they never sat down to hammer out the sequel trilogy. If they had done that, they could have had different directors for each three movies and would have flowed just fine.
Finn and Rey could have both been Jedis in love. Both could have been shown to be training. They should have stretched the timeline to accommodate proper time needed for training in the force as well as build their relationship. They could have together beat Kylo Ren. BUT NO! They would rather have Rey be an extremely OP character who fell for the bad boy (an ironic trait that so many feminist characters share) while Finn is a POC janitor who played second fiddle to Rose Tico.
I 100% agree and if they try to make that romance now it will never work knowing Rey cucked Finn for the bad boy Kylo who murdered millions of people including his father in cold blood. But I guess that's what Rey loves a psycho man killer
@@aricaj.3006 I see where you are going with Han and Leia but Han was never pure evil the guy was a jerk at times but not a serial killer! Kylo is a Walmart Darth Vader that has little to no reason why he turned to dark side besides him being a spoiled brat. Also not to mention Adam driver(Kylo) is like 15 years older than Daisy Ridley who plays Rey kinda made me uncomfortable
@@dereklopez9060 She was supposed to be this young girl learning her powers and having an OLDER man especially in this day in age is super wrong to me! But ay maybe I should be looking at middle schoolers like Hollywood to find a 10 year difference romance but that's NOT ME
@@-Extra_Lives Exactly. A former trooper who became a sentient fighter for freedom and vagabond who wanted to find her place in universe. Sounds like perfect duo for rejecting things that caused the fall of Jedi Order and create something better learning on past mistakes and their experiences.
Episode 7 did not stand on it's own, it reintroduced, and promised a beautiful future, but that promise was absolutely shattered by the movies that followed. It was an act 1 that could not deliver it on it's own, nd depended on the stories being continued.
Something that I always found, in a sense, funny was how Finn became pretty much just a minstrel caricature by the middle of TFA. So much for representation.
And that's saying something. I wasn't even that hyped for TFA but was do stoked sitting in theater for TLJ. Of course after having expectations subverted..
@@skateman7151 and I hate when they say “pEopLe cHaNgE” then show me how he changes from the most hopeful person in the galaxy to an old hermit that wants to die. You pretty much can’t.
I absolutely loved Finn in the Force Awakens. He was conflicted and caught in the middle of a galactic war. The idea of a deserting storm troopers is really interesting, but that potential is completely thrown away in the later films. Literally all he does in the last Jedi and the rise of sky walker is provide physical comedy, quippy puns, yelling “Rey!” and provide the occasional stormtrooper kill.
Correction: he only asks where Rey is once in TLJ, which is understandable since the last thing he saw of her was getting force-thrown into a tree. TROS really dials it up to eleven tho. I don't think he was done *too* dirty in TLJ, but that would've involved there being a pay-off in TROS... which there wasn't.
The moment when Finn picks up the lightsaber and fights Kylo is admittedly one of my favorite scenes in the franchise. The fact that it was immediately squandered by Rey's "awakening" and never brought up again is beyond frustrating.
As soon as I heard about Disney buying Lucas film and immediately wanting to crank out sequels asap, I was not happy. Finn was the only glimmer of hope I left with after mulling over how flawed the Force Awakens was after my initial enjoyment of it, then they betrayed his potential.
I would have had Finn on Exegol, in stormtrooper armor minus helmet, and with a leftover green padawan lightsaber from the prequels' Jedi Temple (since he's force sensitive) leading an army of recently converted First Order Stormtroopers (still in white armor) in an all-out ground assault against the Sith Troopers of the Final Order, in their badass red armor. White Stormtroopers would finally get the chance to become the good guys in Disney Canon! This would replace the horse assault atop the Star Destroyer. That would have been epic.
that basically happened in DOTF script, but KK had to fire Colin because he couldn't write around Leia's death and Rian wouldn't give Luke alive to him... talk about being collaborative
Finn and Rey should have both been trained to be Jedi. One goes bad, and it's up to the other to redeem them and maybe Kylo. Would have checked the diversity box that Disney was apparently doing with all of their hollow political, social, gender, and orientation virtue signaling throughout their trilogy. Finn specifically would have been an amazing redemption arc not only for himself but also the other storm troopers. Send him on a journey to the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant and while there, also have him realize that the original clone army existed to protect the republic, even if they were being manipulated. So. much. wasted. potential.
In my opinion: Finn and Rey should have both be trained to be Jedi, and BOTH of them should have gone bad, or at least be on the verge of turning dark (Finn because he wants revenge, Rey because she's angry toward her parents), then Luke could have made an epic sacrifice, reminding them of the good there are in them and having them support each other from that point onward.
He should’ve led a first order stormtrooper uprising against the final order in rise of skywalker it would’ve been something different seeing stormtroopers fighting alongside rebels against sith troopers
In the script Trevorrow wrote, iirc, he goes to Coruscant and starts an uprising with the citizens. It was actually a great story and tied everything up nicely, redeemed characters.
No, they were very aware of it. But they were also very aware of China, and China is very very racist (and also against a lot of things diversity people champion), so you can get a checkbox filled and not much else. Hopefully the pandemic (and Star Wars' performance in China in general) demonstrates that the brand really doesn't need the Chinese market to profit.
My science teacher, who I had never talked to prior, pulled me aside after class to talk about Finn because I was wearing a Star Wars shirt. That’s how excited people were to see Finn become a jedi as the trailers were implying. Instead… well we all know the rest.
See, the problem, Thor, is: WE'VE DONE MORE THINKING ABOUT THIS STORY AND THE CHARACTERS, THAN THE ACTUAL CREATORS. Your ideas about him trying to save his fellow-First Order Troopers, and feeling ambivalence about combating them while supporting The Resistance and The New Republic, were excellent, and, above all, rational and linear.
@@Ariescz I actually believe that Filoni and Favreau are pretty much on the same page as Thor, Theory, EBN, etc. Hence, why We're getting such a (so far) great smorgasbord of interconnected, paralleled Star Wars storytelling, with The Mandalorian Saga. If the rumors are true, it wouldn't floor me, if by the end of this particular story, We might find out that, in the distant future, Finn, Rey, and Ben may end up with different life histories...esp. if The World Between Worlds/The Veil of The Force ends up being a factor.
R.I.P what could have been a pretty solid character I feel like he would be up there but not by the untouchables (Anakin/Vader, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Luke, Leia, Han,Chewie, R2, Palpatine and Rex if his potential wasn’t wasted
Picture this: If Finn was the new Jedi and Rey was completely absent. She felt completely tacked on. It could have been a great buddy comedy with Finn and Poe cruising around with Finn trying to come to grips with being a force user, and trying to find the Jedi while exploring his training (and possibly participation in) the and the scars to his soul from experiencing the pain and suffering of the victims of the Empire through the Force. It's a good base for a story. Makes more sense than the garbage that they produced.
The Force Awakens trailers baited us with a much better story and characters. What we ended up with was a Mary Sue and a somewhat racist portrayal of a comedy relief janitor simp.
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 Nothing explicit. Finn just feels like a Black person made continuously lesser to make the white MC look better. Though this conversation is much too complex to be perfectly summed up in a couple of YT comments
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 in the 2 first films he is Always scared he Rey to run while being a trained ruthless soldier, when hes in a fight he always endup KO, plus he always get teach a lesson by other, rose Even explain to him what its liké to be a slave. Always looking or following even when its his speciality.
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 its thé stereotypes of the black peoplet and i found it funny that Disney is trying to be inclusive while maintaining them, Finn is meant to be a soldier fully trained yet in a basic fight he either flee of get his ass beaten liké he is a noob,
I always see the polls for the characters who have names I don’t recognize, and never see the ones of characters I know, so I never get to vote on these..
Pitch Meeting summed it up best: "And then we meet Finn who's a former Stormtrooper!" "Wow, so really driving home the point that Stormtroopers are actual people." "And then Finn's going to kill a BUNCH of Stormtroopers!"
There is a parallels to the character Teal'c from Stargate sg1. However he always has great authority and respect, and is regularly trying to free his fellow jaffa from their indoctrination.
When we left the theater from The Force Awakens my husband asked what I thought. I told him how good it was would hinge entirely on how the next two movies answered it….
I remember seeing interviews with John Boyega in the lead up to the first film. He was very excited, and spoke of his love of Star Wars. You could tell he was a legitimate fan, and I was interested to see him in the film. I dont even need to explain what happened next, or how he feels about how the film went. It's just a shame.
If it were me, I’d give Finn the journey of Jaden Korr. Replace Luke with Kyle Katarn, replace Leia with Mara Jade, and replace Han Solo with Lando. Maybe a cameo by Thrawn, but that would be spoilers.
Jeez listening to all your ideas about better things that could have been done with Finn are making me realize just how easy it would have been to not f&@k up the sequels if they had *A* plan
Yep. Potential Wasted: The Trilogy. Finn had the most potential, but it's amazing how much of a racist stereotype they made him. Truly progressive. Why do so many people that champion diversity seem to make matters worse by making their diverse characters either 1) Completely Uninteresting 2) Miserable and Unlikeable 3) An Offensive Stereotype? Why is society going backwards?
One of the most frustrating things is, as John Boyega learned, he was picked for Finn simply because he was black. That appears to be as far as they went in thinking out his character, they needed a token black guy among the main characters. You've got this guy who is a good actor with a compelling backstory that they could have done SO much with, but in the end he simply ended up being comedic relief (intended and unintended). He's known for being goofy and for screaming "REEEEEEEEY" all the time, that's pretty much it. His personality didn't match his backstory whatsoever and they couldn't even get the backstory right, either. We see him on a very important mission at the beginning of TFA (at the side of Kylo Ren of all people) but then we get a line later for cheap laughs where he says he was a janitor on Starkiller Base. Like, what? None of it makes any sense. What a damn shame they squandered a character with his potential. They butchered him so badly that John Boyega doesn't even want anything to do with the character anymore. Crazy.
Something about Finn personnality feels really wrong, he doesnt act or feel like a guy that was brainwash since childhood to be a soldier. A life like that should have mess him up, when I hear this kind of backstory, I think about the movie 'The Soldier' with Kurt Russel who's character was also trained and brainwash from childhood to be the perfect soldier but in that movie he's cold almost robotic, he barely talks he was a tool for the army so he didn't really have a funny guy personnality, he even had a hard time acting 'human'
It makes me sad to see Finn so low on this list! I thought John Boyega was *so* charismatic and fun to watch in this role, despite how wasted his character was.
Finn could have been the next Kyle Katarn: storm trooper who defected from their regime, grapples with the ethical issues of fighting against people he knew and trained with, and eventually discovering his connection to the Force and being trained by Luke. I think John Boyega could have pulled it off: he's a solid actor. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be.
By the end of it, Finn was the only thing from the sequels that I really liked, and even so, that's mostly because of his potential. If they made a Finn solo movie or tv show, it would honestly be the only thing from the sequel era I'd want to watch but they screwed over Boyega so bad that he would never do it, unfortunately.
It was very clear from his interviews that he had been sold on the same idea we as fans had been baited with in the trailers, and was more or less betrayed by the utter incompetence of the writers and directors (and KK). I'd say he's not really hated at all, with most feeling disappointed and sorry for his poor treatment then anything. Boyega has every right to be pissed, not just from his treatment, but because this role like the rest of the cast was time out of his career he could have been pursuing better roles. Disney somehow turned the entire cast into Harrison Ford post ROTJ, I don't think I've heard about any of them being keen on returning for another go after this disaster.
Rey was the only star really allowed under Kathleen Kennedy's vision. None of the new other characters could amount to anything. Previous heros like Luke had to be killed off.
Truly wasted potential. They did Finn so dirty. I thought he was force sensitive for sure for resisting programming so thoroughly. I mean, empire programming was always invasive and violent. It takes great FORCE of will to not come out a full stormtrooper. Or so I thought...
Rey and Finn should have both been force sensitive. Rey could have even been the stronger force user so they can still have their strong woman moment. They find Luke to be trained and Rey could have fallen to the Dark and joined switched sides. Luke focuses all his training on Finn afterwards to prepare him to eventually fight Rey, Kylo, Smoke/or Palpatine. They could have thrown in a love plot between Finn and Rey(Grow some balls Hollywood and show the black and white woman kissing for once)where Finn wants to save Rey instead of killing ala Luke and Vader. There. I already came up with a better plot than what we got and that was off the top of my head
I was really exited to see what they were going to do with Finn and John Boyega did a great job of making the character likeable and interesting. What they ended up turning his character into was, honestly, a token ethnic. Worst, they turned his character into near comic relief. People's feelings about the character seems to be based more in how it was written and directed instead of Boyega's portrayal.
Let's be real about why Disney never made Finn the character he should have been, it's the same reason they shrunk his image on posters to China. There's zero doubt that the unpopularity of black characters (or what we call racism) in China influenced how large a role he could play. Disney bowed to racism in search of the almighty dollar.
A former stormtrooper (Finn) becoming a damn jedi knight would have been a way, way, better concept than what we got...I like to imagine it happened anyway...
Ah Finn's lack of guilt or any emotion for killing stormtroppers. Your thoughts are exactly how I felt about Tomb Raider 2013. Lara is horrified after killing the first guy, but then shows no remorse after killing hundreds more. Not even a scene where Lara walks through a load of bodies and you hear her inner thoughts about how she did what she had to, but hates herself for this.
Finn should have been Rey's main love interest. Never saw her and Kylo as a couple. I see them having more of a brother-sister relationship than a romantic one. Finn should have been part of an experiment to artificially create force sensitive storm troopers, but it went underground when the empire fell. Maybe he could have obtained the darksaber somehow, which I think would be cool as this would make Finn more unique and we could have seen the legendary blade in the films. He and Rey could have joined Luke and Leia's order and fight together while also falling in love.
When I first saw him in the trailers I was expecting quite the opposite of what we got in the actual film of force awakens. He definitely had the most promise, yet he was put to the wayside and made a joke of through all three movies.
It could be argued that the decisions that would lead to Finn being good would improve adjacently related scenes as well, possibly turning out a good movie. Forceful continuation of discussion.
I had unsubscribed from this channel for awhile just because, as much as enjoy Thor’s commentary, I’m so bored of sequel hate. I came by to see if that was finally in the rear view mirror, and sadly it’s not. Prequel hate lasted about 10 solid years so I guess we still have another few years of this. It’s a shame, so much else to talk about. But to each their own. I’ll be back in a few months.
Finn isnt dead... His story isnt over. The Skywalker saga should be about the Skywalkers and their journey. I guess im the only one who saw potential in a story with Lando, Jannah and Finn at the end huh?
An interesting thing I discovered relating to Finn (as well as others); thematically, it might have been possible to relate Finn (child slave/soldier, thinks that being strong means only ability to harm for others, may have been deprived of love, may see brutal methods as normal, alienation from familiar environment), Rey (grew up on a dead-end, hopeless, sandy planet where survival was an everyday struggle, doing a hopeless, exploitative job to survive, deprived, worked with scrap metal and may have been helped by the Force without knowing it), and Ben/Kylo (if given a backstory where high expectations isolated him, for example; self-hate, validation-seeking, immature personality, impulsive, and too much else to list) back to Anakin, as these three aspects of his character that turned him to the Dark Side; and that, by the end of the Trilogy, by all three reaching self-actualization and embracing the Light fully and unconditionally, it would be like a sort of second redemption for him, truly finishing what he started, especially if Ani is involved in nudging the events along like he should be. It’s like poetry, it rhymes, but it doesn’t mean it has to repeat the same way. I think Rey should be a Skywalker or declared adopted by Luke by this point, so if, say, she and Finn fall in love and promise to get married or something, the climax becomes a big family moment. I mean that would have required actual _planning_ and _good writing_ though.
Can't add anymore 1000% correct. The cherry on top of a rotten Sunday of disappointment!!! I was 7yrs old when it started, I expected & looked forward to a passing of the torch. What I got was the destruction of my hero's & nothing left to hold onto!!! 😣
sadly we can just say "well that's water under the bridge" because ultimately we're stuck with those movies forever now. Their impact on the saga and where things have ultimately led are it. Its as though they're set in stone.
i also don t have a problem with fin shooting at first order soldiers i mean he is a soldier/killer from very early on but i would have liked to see that more like beeing harsh or cold sometimes some struggles to regain his humanity i mean he quits and instantly is a dude like you and me
Finn literally went from a fascinating (if poorly executed) character concept to a joke janitor in one film. He could have been such a great character. One of the biggest disappointments of a disappointing trilogy.
Even without the stormtrooper character arch, he had potential to be a great character to co-star along side Rey as Luke's second attempt to rebuild the Jedi Order. Adding the stormtrooper thing just adds a great dynamic to his character potential, although, it could easily be given to somebody else. Regardless, John Boyega had incredible chemistry with everybody on set. Really making his backstory convincing would have solidified him as one of the greatest characters in SW history. But the scene I think would have really given great light to his character would be him waking up in TLJ, not in a medical facility, but in a small hutt. He gets up with pain, walks outside, and sees an island where Luke is training Rey. Rey then looks up and smiles at him, and the two of them spend half the movie training together under Luke.
Now with the Bad Batch we have this extreme contrast of the struggle done well: The bad batch ALWAYS uses the stun settings only, cause they still see them all as their brothers and know that they are manipulated by their inhibitor chips. Finn just blasts away and kills his brothers, no remorse.
Finn had such a promising introduction as a possibly-Force-sensitive storm trooper who breaks his conditioning during an emotional crisis, but he just got disappointingly marginalized from there. I don't mean to nitpick about a minor point in the video, but...why are humans spread throughout the Star Wars galaxy? The opening crawl to A New Hope says the movies take place 'long ago, in a galaxy far, far away' from Earth, so are the 'humans' we see really humanoid aliens that superficially resemble us? Maybe this is explained in one of the movies I haven't seen, so forgive me for asking. It just seems like the kind of thing to make an evolutionary biologist cry...and possibly a few linguists, too.
Imagine if they had a scene at the end of TFA where Finn is on his own, forced to kill his former comrades as their programming leaves him no choice. Afterwards he looks over the bodies and the his gaze turns to the gun in his hands. With a cry of rage he throws the gun aside and falls to his knees, then over the radio he hears of Resistance fighters are making progress towards the reactor and Finn realises just how many more of his former comrades will die if the Resistance succeeds. As that knowledge sinks in you then start seeing how smaller things tarts rattling about around him as his face twists between rage and grief, next crates/furniture are shifting, twisting and then as Finn stands up there is a brief calm before he throws his head back and SCREAMS launching everything around him away as his Force powers are at long last awakened... Then with a last look around he says "Enough, I will kill no more!"
I read online ages ago during an interview that finns original concept was he was meant to be kylo rens number 2 similar to rex to anakin. But leaves the first order due to the massacre, but during filming this was scrapped hense why when kylo meets finn again on starkiller base he screams traitor with such hatred and emotion towards him because of thier previous relationship and connection.... This would have been great to see on screen
Finn should be like Teal'c from "StarGate SG-1" - badass soldier of enemy faction, who defected because lost faith in regime and now he fights alongside good guys to liberarte Stormtroopers, enslaved by Empire/First Order. That way Finn not only would be interesting, layered and potentially internally conflicted character, but also he would be integral to the plot
I don't get the obsession with looks (in this case skin color) to relate to a person. First of all, I thought we, as Humanity, tried to get away from it, but we seem to regress back to it. Secondly, I can just as much relate to Sisko from Star Trek. I don't have to be black to do so. There's something fundamentally wrong with the direction society is heading. Character traits and the story should be the thing people relate to. Not sex, race or other superficial attributes.
I loved it when I heard that John Boyega was cast in SW, he was great in Attack the Block. I made the joke that they hired him because he had experience killing aliens, then later found out that JJ Abrams was a fan of the film and it was a big reason why he was hired. It's bad enough what they did to the character, made worse when you realise that out of all the options they could've gone for they chose to make the black guy a slave.
In general I think it would have made the sequel trilogy much more interesting to have Finn be the main character, and the Jedi (or at least one of them) of the trilogy. Rey's story feels like an inferior copy of Luke's, and we could have seen an entirely different story and set of struggles with Finn as the lead.
Just put up a compilation video of Finn yelling "WOOO!" or shouting "REY!". Me in 2015. "wow, a disaffected Stormtrooper who slowly regains his humanity played by the guy who really stood out in Attack the Block? Sounds great" Me in 2020. "well that was great for about 15 minutes until he was the comedy relief except when killing his old Stormtrooper buddies. And oh look he can't shut up about Rey" Does the Bechtel test apply to men? Because all his character did was quip and talk about Rey, or if Rey wasn't present, ask where Rey was. Total waste.
@Thor Skywalker I really think you, SWTheory, That SW Girl, GrayJedi, and other SW heavy youtubers should collaborate and create a revised Sequel Trilogy via graphic novel fan fic reading on your channels, voice actors, artwork, and your version of how they should have been .
If Finn had the storyline from the Trevorrow script where he liberates the Stormtroopers Les Mis style he might have scored a 4 or higher. Sadly, JJ had no idea how to write a satisfying ending for his own character despite it being dropped in his lap
JJ had no idea how to write a satisfying ending* You could have ended here, he always has no idea how to write endings, which further shows how KK messed up by firing Colin, she keeps making bad decisions... and isn't fired
Finn was such a waste of a character, I was hoping they would have made him a Jedi or made him mace windus long lost grandson or something, that would have been amazing
Respond to this comment with your nomination for which character we should do next, or vote with a thumbs up if already listed!
Starkiller (Galen Marek) is commonly referred to as a Gary Stu and while I can somewhat agree with that I feel people focus to much on his power level and not his growth as a character. I grew up playing the force unleashed and I always felt like I had a special connection with the character and his redemption as he learns to carve his own path.
Starkiller
George Lucas
Jacen Solo
Arc trooper echo
A soldier defecting from his faction and learning to undue his conditioning and become a better person should write itself but Disney messed up even that.
I forgot in the last jedi that Finn was even a stormtrooper once
Because China doesn’t care about black people, so he was downgraded to a bumbling idiot that can only shout Rey’s name and simp for her.
Disney isn't sure how to handle when people leave and undue their conditioning.
Well, they even messed up his own backstory by having him appear to be a part of an elite squad at the beginning of TFA and then later they include a line indicating he was a janitor on Starkiller Base just for laughs. It was god awful. Nothing about his personality matched up with anything, but all of the characters were like that. It's like they dropped 21st century millennials into a Star Wars movie and just told them to act normal. Rey should have been TOTALLY different if she grew up as a scavenger girl on a remote planet, but no, she's like your average college student taking a stroll down to the campus Starbucks for a latte. There was no thought about these characters and how their backstories should affect their personalities.
@@logicaldude3611 Your absolutely right, their acting was based on nothing in the fictional universe. Finn didnt act like a child soldier raised in the universe of star wars, he acted like he was apart of the drama club in high school.
I really liked the way John Boyega portrayed Finn, the actor did a great job. I also subscribe to the head-canon that Finn is force sensitive, because that's the only thing that really makes sense to me. The fact he was able to resist his programming and indoctrination indicates, to me at least, that the force was guiding him to a different path for a reason. He was also able to use a lightsaber in combat without any real issue (though obviously nowhere near as competent as a trained lightsaber duelist), which is another indication of force sensitivity.
Love this comment
I honestly didn’t like Boyega’s portrayal at all. Everything he did seemed exaggerated. Almost comically so.
That wasn’t boyegas fault that was jj and Ryan’s fault
How about if the sequel trilogy were instead an exaggerated story told by Rey to her children, so the next movie instead starts with her kids picking it apart, then bring in Kylo as the dad who asks why she killed him off at the end and points out that she was the one chasing Finn who is actually a powerful jedi and Rey is below average as a jedi. Also Kylo states that TROS never happened and TLJ went differently with Luke training both Finn and Rey. Just retcon the sequel trilogy with R2 telling how it really went, Rey hates R2 so BB8 was made up to replace R2.
What a fantastic comment and sums up everything I liked about Finn.
just realized:
Bad Batch, clones, created and designed to kill: "Those are our brothers... only stun them!"
Finn, who couldn't see a fellow soldier die: "So anyway I started blasting!"
bad batch literally killed their brothers in previous episodes
But at least they tried for a while
They are working hard to be less lethal
@@goodmind4940 tbf, the only time I remember them killing clones on purpose is when they're ambushed or not prepared for a fight
So much wasted potential. Mayfeld from The Mandalorian went through what Finn should have gone through in one episode while Finn couldn't in three movies. Great character concept that could have resulted in some interesting conflict and development which was ruined by terrible execution.
Facts
I'm the 20th like! Let's make Thor do a Mayfield episode!
Finn did that role in Force Awakens, from stormtropper to a Hero and He was great in that film.
@@zigurdur92 and then he was hero to janitor? 🤷🏾♂️
disney wanted a quick cash-in on nostalgia with literally no plan on what they would do with the franchise. the marvel properties side of the company should avoid that at all costs.
Yeah of all the characters, Finn’s disappointing story hurts the most
Quick real world facts relevant to Finn's character:
- Conscription armies don't have janitors. Everyone does their share of work on the pemises.
- Janissary were an elite corps in the Ottoman army, made up of enslaved children from the Balkans, converted to Islam, well trained and actually paid for their service.
- Sokollu Mehmed Pasha is one of the more notable janissary, having risen as far as to be the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
I'm reminded of these three things whenever Finn's character comes up - he was humiliated to start with by being given a role he never should have had, and was then used as comic relief when he should've been able to rise to a prominent position, either as a soldier or a jedi.
It just goes to show how little the people behind the sequel trilogy knew or cared about history, unlike George Lucas who knew exactly how and why to incorporate it into his movies.
Finn as a Janissary style character? Holy crap. That makes it even better and more dissapointment.
My friends asked me who is the most wasted potential character you have ever seen. I responded everyone in the Disney Trilogy of Star Wars.
I was so frustrated by the buildup to The Force Awakens: a short story described Finn as a skilled stormtrooper, only for us to find out he was a janitor. wth, they did him dirty. :(
Yes, Finn could have been a maintenance technician instead! 🤔😇👍
They called fans racist but Disney are the ones that shrunk him in the Chinese poster.
It's always 100% self projection.
Bingo. I’m still salty that Lucasfilm pointed the finger at the fans when we called them out for their shoddy work and desecration of Luke.
Gotta appease one of the most racist nations on Earth because they got the fat money stacks
The story of a child soldier escaping from his programming and trying to move into a normal life could have been an amazing and interesting story.
To bad they turned him into a laugh track.
I’m sure when they were talking about the main protagonist, someone said I think John Boyega would make a good Jedi. It was a mistake to not make him more apart of the story or make the story center around him.
My buddies and I were hoping to have all three main characters be force sensitive. Shame it didn't happen. I was expecting the First order wanted to kill him when he demonstrated force abilities.
Can't have black guy as main character, commies in China would not like that
You know what i honestly wish Jon Favreau & Dave Filloni would pull one of their genius tricks again, and secretly get in touch with John Boyega and just invite him to reprise his role as "Finn", and secretly film him in a few scenes as a defecting storm trooper who turns up in either Season 3 of The Mandalorian, or Ahsoka or one of their spin-off shows. Just think how crazy that would be lol. They pulled it off with Mark Hamill and their reveal of a young Luke Skywalker, right under the nose of those igits at the Lucasfilm Story Group.
Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to do either if they could manage to do it early, like around now, while Kathy Kennedy is over here in the UK, overseeing the production of Indiana Jones 5.
I mean as long as they filmed his scenes asap, and just held them safe in a vault somewhere. Then they could start filming Season 3 Mando on schedule, and just cut and edit Finn's scenes into their show. Sounds radical i know, but do you realize just how many Fans would go nuts if they pulled off something like that!?
Finn could've become the second Stormtrooper-turned-Jedi since Kyle Katarn. Nice screw up, Disney/Jar Jar Abrams/Ruin Johnson/Crapleen Kennedy.
I read a thing recently, a deep dive on the Rebels episode Twin Suns. There was a lot made of a comparison of Finn and Darth Maul. Finn could have been a version of Maul that climbed out of the pit of toxic despair and pain that Maul lived and wasted his whole life in. That would have been an amazing set up. But it just didn't happen. And everyone is worse off for it.
I'm surprised you didn't address the whole "Finn being a Jedi was a whole marketing ploy which you fell for" argument I see so many ST defenders spew when people say that Finn had so much wasted potential. I think the majority of fans would have been happy with having Luke train Fin & Rey to be Jedi. That story pretty much writes itself. They have to work together to take down the more powerful Snoke & Krylo pair. To quote Benjamin Franklin "If fail to plan, you are planning to fail." They failed all the ST characters with their lack of planning. The bigger & older the franchise gets the more you need to plan. The sheer hubris of all those involved in the ST is appalling.
Yeah, the number one problem is that they never sat down to hammer out the sequel trilogy.
If they had done that, they could have had different directors for each three movies and would have flowed just fine.
Finn and Rey could have both been Jedis in love. Both could have been shown to be training. They should have stretched the timeline to accommodate proper time needed for training in the force as well as build their relationship. They could have together beat Kylo Ren. BUT NO! They would rather have Rey be an extremely OP character who fell for the bad boy (an ironic trait that so many feminist characters share) while Finn is a POC janitor who played second fiddle to Rose Tico.
Even if they did made Finn from a stormtrooper to a Jedi, I can hear some might say he's a rip-off of Kyle Katarn which it wouldn't surprise me.
I 100% agree and if they try to make that romance now it will never work knowing Rey cucked Finn for the bad boy Kylo who murdered millions of people including his father in cold blood. But I guess that's what Rey loves a psycho man killer
@@aricaj.3006 I see where you are going with Han and Leia but Han was never pure evil the guy was a jerk at times but not a serial killer! Kylo is a Walmart Darth Vader that has little to no reason why he turned to dark side besides him being a spoiled brat. Also not to mention Adam driver(Kylo) is like 15 years older than Daisy Ridley who plays Rey kinda made me uncomfortable
@@damedrops5138 Harrison Ford was 35 and Carrie Fisher was 19 in 1977. Adam Driver was 32 and Daisy Ridley was 23 in 2015, what's your point?
@@dereklopez9060 She was supposed to be this young girl learning her powers and having an OLDER man especially in this day in age is super wrong to me! But ay maybe I should be looking at middle schoolers like Hollywood to find a 10 year difference romance but that's NOT ME
Great comment: Finn should have been a Jedi and Luke should have trained him.
That could have been so epic.
I suspect Disney would've still cocked up that premise somehow.
Honestly they could've had both of them be jedi. Him and rey, his story could've saved the sequels
@@-Extra_Lives Exactly. A former trooper who became a sentient fighter for freedom and vagabond who wanted to find her place in universe. Sounds like perfect duo for rejecting things that caused the fall of Jedi Order and create something better learning on past mistakes and their experiences.
Episode 7 did not stand on it's own, it reintroduced, and promised a beautiful future, but that promise was absolutely shattered by the movies that followed. It was an act 1 that could not deliver it on it's own, nd depended on the stories being continued.
Something that I always found, in a sense, funny was how Finn became pretty much just a minstrel caricature by the middle of TFA.
So much for representation.
Bill Burr's character from the Mandalorian (S2 in particular) was a much more interesting and nuanced take on a former stormtrooper.
This is one of the stupidest things about the sequels. Besides their treatment of Luke of course.
And that's saying something. I wasn't even that hyped for TFA but was do stoked sitting in theater for TLJ. Of course after having expectations subverted..
@@skateman7151 and I hate when they say “pEopLe cHaNgE” then show me how he changes from the most hopeful person in the galaxy to an old hermit that wants to die. You pretty much can’t.
I absolutely loved Finn in the Force Awakens. He was conflicted and caught in the middle of a galactic war. The idea of a deserting storm troopers is really interesting, but that potential is completely thrown away in the later films. Literally all he does in the last Jedi and the rise of sky walker is provide physical comedy, quippy puns, yelling “Rey!” and provide the occasional stormtrooper kill.
Correction: he only asks where Rey is once in TLJ, which is understandable since the last thing he saw of her was getting force-thrown into a tree.
TROS really dials it up to eleven tho.
I don't think he was done *too* dirty in TLJ, but that would've involved there being a pay-off in TROS... which there wasn't.
@@KetsubanSolo "I don't think he was done too dirty in TLJ"
*Rose Tico enters the chat*
The moment when Finn picks up the lightsaber and fights Kylo is admittedly one of my favorite scenes in the franchise. The fact that it was immediately squandered by Rey's "awakening" and never brought up again is beyond frustrating.
As soon as I heard about Disney buying Lucas film and immediately wanting to crank out sequels asap, I was not happy.
Finn was the only glimmer of hope I left with after mulling over how flawed the Force Awakens was after my initial enjoyment of it, then they betrayed his potential.
I would have had Finn on Exegol, in stormtrooper armor minus helmet, and with a leftover green padawan lightsaber from the prequels' Jedi Temple (since he's force sensitive) leading an army of recently converted First Order Stormtroopers (still in white armor) in an all-out ground assault against the Sith Troopers of the Final Order, in their badass red armor.
White Stormtroopers would finally get the chance to become the good guys in Disney Canon!
This would replace the horse assault atop the Star Destroyer.
That would have been epic.
that basically happened in DOTF script, but KK had to fire Colin because he couldn't write around Leia's death and Rian wouldn't give Luke alive to him... talk about being collaborative
Finn and Rey should have both been trained to be Jedi. One goes bad, and it's up to the other to redeem them and maybe Kylo. Would have checked the diversity box that Disney was apparently doing with all of their hollow political, social, gender, and orientation virtue signaling throughout their trilogy. Finn specifically would have been an amazing redemption arc not only for himself but also the other storm troopers. Send him on a journey to the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant and while there, also have him realize that the original clone army existed to protect the republic, even if they were being manipulated.
So. much. wasted. potential.
But then China came in and was like Nah we don’t like Africans or African descent people so if you wanna sell over here, don’t make Finn a big deal.
In my opinion:
Finn and Rey should have both be trained to be Jedi, and BOTH of them should have gone bad, or at least be on the verge of turning dark (Finn because he wants revenge, Rey because she's angry toward her parents), then Luke could have made an epic sacrifice, reminding them of the good there are in them and having them support each other from that point onward.
You have no idea how much I was praying Rey was turned or killed by Kylo, leaving Finn to pick up the pieces in a position he was not ready for.
He should’ve led a first order stormtrooper uprising against the final order in rise of skywalker it would’ve been something different seeing stormtroopers fighting alongside rebels against sith troopers
In the script Trevorrow wrote, iirc, he goes to Coruscant and starts an uprising with the citizens. It was actually a great story and tied everything up nicely, redeemed characters.
How Disney was so utterly blind to Finn’s potential is beyond me, I doubt Boyega would want to be back after they did him that dirty.
No, they were very aware of it. But they were also very aware of China, and China is very very racist (and also against a lot of things diversity people champion), so you can get a checkbox filled and not much else.
Hopefully the pandemic (and Star Wars' performance in China in general) demonstrates that the brand really doesn't need the Chinese market to profit.
I don’t think Boyega should go back. They don’t deserve him.
My science teacher, who I had never talked to prior, pulled me aside after class to talk about Finn because I was wearing a Star Wars shirt. That’s how excited people were to see Finn become a jedi as the trailers were implying. Instead… well we all know the rest.
See, the problem, Thor, is: WE'VE DONE MORE THINKING ABOUT THIS STORY AND THE CHARACTERS, THAN THE ACTUAL CREATORS. Your ideas about him trying to save his fellow-First Order Troopers, and feeling ambivalence about combating them while supporting The Resistance and The New Republic, were excellent, and, above all, rational and linear.
If Faverau ends up taking over LucasFilm, he should totally hire people like Thor and Theory to think up plot points, if not outright write stuff
@@Ariescz I actually believe that Filoni and Favreau are pretty much on the same page as Thor, Theory, EBN, etc. Hence, why We're getting such a (so far) great smorgasbord of interconnected, paralleled Star Wars storytelling, with The Mandalorian Saga. If the rumors are true, it wouldn't floor me, if by the end of this particular story, We might find out that, in the distant future, Finn, Rey, and Ben may end up with different life histories...esp. if The World Between Worlds/The Veil of The Force ends up being a factor.
R.I.P what could have been a pretty solid character I feel like he would be up there but not by the untouchables (Anakin/Vader, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Luke, Leia, Han,Chewie, R2, Palpatine and Rex if his potential wasn’t wasted
The bigest sin was finn nevee meeting luke and having him go on a stupid casino...
Picture this: If Finn was the new Jedi and Rey was completely absent. She felt completely tacked on. It could have been a great buddy comedy with Finn and Poe cruising around with Finn trying to come to grips with being a force user, and trying to find the Jedi while exploring his training (and possibly participation in) the and the scars to his soul from experiencing the pain and suffering of the victims of the Empire through the Force.
It's a good base for a story. Makes more sense than the garbage that they produced.
The Force Awakens trailers baited us with a much better story and characters.
What we ended up with was a Mary Sue and a somewhat racist portrayal of a comedy relief janitor simp.
Racist how?
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 Nothing explicit. Finn just feels like a Black person made continuously lesser to make the white MC look better.
Though this conversation is much too complex to be perfectly summed up in a couple of YT comments
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 in the 2 first films he is Always scared he Rey to run while being a trained ruthless soldier, when hes in a fight he always endup KO, plus he always get teach a lesson by other, rose Even explain to him what its liké to be a slave. Always looking or following even when its his speciality.
@@valentinlageot4101 ...But what does ANY of that have to do with his race?
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 its thé stereotypes of the black peoplet and i found it funny that Disney is trying to be inclusive while maintaining them, Finn is meant to be a soldier fully trained yet in a basic fight he either flee of get his ass beaten liké he is a noob,
I always see the polls for the characters who have names I don’t recognize, and never see the ones of characters I know, so I never get to vote on these..
Pitch Meeting summed it up best:
"And then we meet Finn who's a former Stormtrooper!"
"Wow, so really driving home the point that Stormtroopers are actual people."
"And then Finn's going to kill a BUNCH of Stormtroopers!"
There is a parallels to the character Teal'c from Stargate sg1. However he always has great authority and respect, and is regularly trying to free his fellow jaffa from their indoctrination.
When we left the theater from The Force Awakens my husband asked what I thought. I told him how good it was would hinge entirely on how the next two movies answered it….
I remember seeing interviews with John Boyega in the lead up to the first film. He was very excited, and spoke of his love of Star Wars. You could tell he was a legitimate fan, and I was interested to see him in the film.
I dont even need to explain what happened next, or how he feels about how the film went. It's just a shame.
If it were me, I’d give Finn the journey of Jaden Korr. Replace Luke with Kyle Katarn, replace Leia with Mara Jade, and replace Han Solo with Lando.
Maybe a cameo by Thrawn, but that would be spoilers.
Jeez listening to all your ideas about better things that could have been done with Finn are making me realize just how easy it would have been to not f&@k up the sequels if they had *A* plan
Yep. Potential Wasted: The Trilogy. Finn had the most potential, but it's amazing how much of a racist stereotype they made him. Truly progressive. Why do so many people that champion diversity seem to make matters worse by making their diverse characters either 1) Completely Uninteresting 2) Miserable and Unlikeable 3) An Offensive Stereotype? Why is society going backwards?
They’re just trying to check the boxes to get their money. They obviously don’t care about progress or anything like that. It’s disappointing
One of the most frustrating things is, as John Boyega learned, he was picked for Finn simply because he was black. That appears to be as far as they went in thinking out his character, they needed a token black guy among the main characters. You've got this guy who is a good actor with a compelling backstory that they could have done SO much with, but in the end he simply ended up being comedic relief (intended and unintended). He's known for being goofy and for screaming "REEEEEEEEY" all the time, that's pretty much it. His personality didn't match his backstory whatsoever and they couldn't even get the backstory right, either. We see him on a very important mission at the beginning of TFA (at the side of Kylo Ren of all people) but then we get a line later for cheap laughs where he says he was a janitor on Starkiller Base. Like, what? None of it makes any sense. What a damn shame they squandered a character with his potential. They butchered him so badly that John Boyega doesn't even want anything to do with the character anymore. Crazy.
1:15 Damn, Finn got ranked lower than Jar Jar Binks lol
i want to love every new starwars- star trek too.
i HATE that i can't do that.
Do a poll for the worst line from the Sequels. Mine is "They have jetpacks now?"
never so much potential has been squashed on a character.
Something about Finn personnality feels really wrong, he doesnt act or feel like a guy that was brainwash since childhood to be a soldier. A life like that should have mess him up, when I hear this kind of backstory, I think about the movie 'The Soldier' with Kurt Russel who's character was also trained and brainwash from childhood to be the perfect soldier but in that movie he's cold almost robotic, he barely talks he was a tool for the army so he didn't really have a funny guy personnality, he even had a hard time acting 'human'
It makes me sad to see Finn so low on this list! I thought John Boyega was *so* charismatic and fun to watch in this role, despite how wasted his character was.
Finn could have been the next Kyle Katarn: storm trooper who defected from their regime, grapples with the ethical issues of fighting against people he knew and trained with, and eventually discovering his connection to the Force and being trained by Luke. I think John Boyega could have pulled it off: he's a solid actor. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be.
By the end of it, Finn was the only thing from the sequels that I really liked, and even so, that's mostly because of his potential. If they made a Finn solo movie or tv show, it would honestly be the only thing from the sequel era I'd want to watch but they screwed over Boyega so bad that he would never do it, unfortunately.
It was very clear from his interviews that he had been sold on the same idea we as fans had been baited with in the trailers, and was more or less betrayed by the utter incompetence of the writers and directors (and KK). I'd say he's not really hated at all, with most feeling disappointed and sorry for his poor treatment then anything. Boyega has every right to be pissed, not just from his treatment, but because this role like the rest of the cast was time out of his career he could have been pursuing better roles.
Disney somehow turned the entire cast into Harrison Ford post ROTJ, I don't think I've heard about any of them being keen on returning for another go after this disaster.
Rey was the only star really allowed under Kathleen Kennedy's vision. None of the new other characters could amount to anything. Previous heros like Luke had to be killed off.
Truly wasted potential. They did Finn so dirty. I thought he was force sensitive for sure for resisting programming so thoroughly. I mean, empire programming was always invasive and violent. It takes great FORCE of will to not come out a full stormtrooper. Or so I thought...
Rey and Finn should have both been force sensitive. Rey could have even been the stronger force user so they can still have their strong woman moment. They find Luke to be trained and Rey could have fallen to the Dark and joined switched sides.
Luke focuses all his training on Finn afterwards to prepare him to eventually fight Rey, Kylo, Smoke/or Palpatine. They could have thrown in a love plot between Finn and Rey(Grow some balls Hollywood and show the black and white woman kissing for once)where Finn wants to save Rey instead of killing ala Luke and Vader.
There. I already came up with a better plot than what we got and that was off the top of my head
I was really exited to see what they were going to do with Finn and John Boyega did a great job of making the character likeable and interesting. What they ended up turning his character into was, honestly, a token ethnic. Worst, they turned his character into near comic relief. People's feelings about the character seems to be based more in how it was written and directed instead of Boyega's portrayal.
Let's be real about why Disney never made Finn the character he should have been, it's the same reason they shrunk his image on posters to China. There's zero doubt that the unpopularity of black characters (or what we call racism) in China influenced how large a role he could play. Disney bowed to racism in search of the almighty dollar.
Finn is the only character from the sequels I want to see more of.
Done dirty on that Chinese poster
Honestly they set up a good story arc for Finn, only to intentionally and deliberately screw it up.
A former stormtrooper (Finn) becoming a damn jedi knight would have been a way, way, better concept than what we got...I like to imagine it happened anyway...
REY!!!!!
Seeing Boba ranked #29 is beyond disappointing
The very subtle birdsong in the background is pleasant.
Man I really liked him in 7 he was such an awesome character...and then came 8 and 9
Ah Finn's lack of guilt or any emotion for killing stormtroppers. Your thoughts are exactly how I felt about Tomb Raider 2013. Lara is horrified after killing the first guy, but then shows no remorse after killing hundreds more. Not even a scene where Lara walks through a load of bodies and you hear her inner thoughts about how she did what she had to, but hates herself for this.
Finn should have been Rey's main love interest. Never saw her and Kylo as a couple. I see them having more of a brother-sister relationship than a romantic one.
Finn should have been part of an experiment to artificially create force sensitive storm troopers, but it went underground when the empire fell. Maybe he could have obtained the darksaber somehow, which I think would be cool as this would make Finn more unique and we could have seen the legendary blade in the films. He and Rey could have joined Luke and Leia's order and fight together while also falling in love.
I used to be a big supporter of the theory that Rey was Luke's daughter, and afterwards Reylo felt a bit too much like incest...
Gotta say thanks for featuring my comment in this one! Bout time. 😁
As always, a great video Thor and you seem to take the words right out of my mouth
Finn should’ve been the main character..
Wonder how that'd play out in the Chinese market.
When I first saw him in the trailers I was expecting quite the opposite of what we got in the actual film of force awakens. He definitely had the most promise, yet he was put to the wayside and made a joke of through all three movies.
Finn being good wouldn't make the Sequels good anyway. End of discussion.
It could be argued that the decisions that would lead to Finn being good would improve adjacently related scenes as well, possibly turning out a good movie. Forceful continuation of discussion.
Let this sink in the most memorable thing about Finn is that he screams "Rey"
I had unsubscribed from this channel for awhile just because, as much as enjoy Thor’s commentary, I’m so bored of sequel hate. I came by to see if that was finally in the rear view mirror, and sadly it’s not. Prequel hate lasted about 10 solid years so I guess we still have another few years of this. It’s a shame, so much else to talk about. But to each their own. I’ll be back in a few months.
Finn isnt dead... His story isnt over. The Skywalker saga should be about the Skywalkers and their journey. I guess im the only one who saw potential in a story with Lando, Jannah and Finn at the end huh?
Hello there
General Öntas
You are a bold one...
You fool
I was trained in your RUclips Arts
They did a great job with Finn and his stormtrooper background.
Stormtroopers are comic relief, and so is Finn.
This going to be painful
RUclips: [Buffering] [Title Loads]
Me: [SLAPLIKE!]
You should definitely do pong krell next xd
An interesting thing I discovered relating to Finn (as well as others); thematically, it might have been possible to relate Finn (child slave/soldier, thinks that being strong means only ability to harm for others, may have been deprived of love, may see brutal methods as normal, alienation from familiar environment), Rey (grew up on a dead-end, hopeless, sandy planet where survival was an everyday struggle, doing a hopeless, exploitative job to survive, deprived, worked with scrap metal and may have been helped by the Force without knowing it), and Ben/Kylo (if given a backstory where high expectations isolated him, for example; self-hate, validation-seeking, immature personality, impulsive, and too much else to list) back to Anakin, as these three aspects of his character that turned him to the Dark Side; and that, by the end of the Trilogy, by all three reaching self-actualization and embracing the Light fully and unconditionally, it would be like a sort of second redemption for him, truly finishing what he started, especially if Ani is involved in nudging the events along like he should be. It’s like poetry, it rhymes, but it doesn’t mean it has to repeat the same way. I think Rey should be a Skywalker or declared adopted by Luke by this point, so if, say, she and Finn fall in love and promise to get married or something, the climax becomes a big family moment.
I mean that would have required actual _planning_ and _good writing_ though.
I could flex faster than you can say that’s no moon.
Can't add anymore 1000% correct. The cherry on top of a rotten Sunday of disappointment!!! I was 7yrs old when it started, I expected & looked forward to a passing of the torch. What I got was the destruction of my hero's & nothing left to hold onto!!! 😣
sadly we can just say "well that's water under the bridge" because ultimately we're stuck with those movies forever now. Their impact on the saga and where things have ultimately led are it. Its as though they're set in stone.
i also don t have a problem with fin shooting at first order soldiers
i mean he is a soldier/killer from very early on
but i would have liked to see that more
like beeing harsh or cold sometimes some struggles to regain his humanity
i mean he quits and instantly is a dude like you and me
Finn literally went from a fascinating (if poorly executed) character concept to a joke janitor in one film. He could have been such a great character. One of the biggest disappointments of a disappointing trilogy.
Even without the stormtrooper character arch, he had potential to be a great character to co-star along side Rey as Luke's second attempt to rebuild the Jedi Order. Adding the stormtrooper thing just adds a great dynamic to his character potential, although, it could easily be given to somebody else. Regardless, John Boyega had incredible chemistry with everybody on set. Really making his backstory convincing would have solidified him as one of the greatest characters in SW history. But the scene I think would have really given great light to his character would be him waking up in TLJ, not in a medical facility, but in a small hutt. He gets up with pain, walks outside, and sees an island where Luke is training Rey. Rey then looks up and smiles at him, and the two of them spend half the movie training together under Luke.
Now with the Bad Batch we have this extreme contrast of the struggle done well:
The bad batch ALWAYS uses the stun settings only, cause they still see them all as their brothers and know that they are manipulated by their inhibitor chips.
Finn just blasts away and kills his brothers, no remorse.
Finn had such a promising introduction as a possibly-Force-sensitive storm trooper who breaks his conditioning during an emotional crisis, but he just got disappointingly marginalized from there. I don't mean to nitpick about a minor point in the video, but...why are humans spread throughout the Star Wars galaxy? The opening crawl to A New Hope says the movies take place 'long ago, in a galaxy far, far away' from Earth, so are the 'humans' we see really humanoid aliens that superficially resemble us? Maybe this is explained in one of the movies I haven't seen, so forgive me for asking. It just seems like the kind of thing to make an evolutionary biologist cry...and possibly a few linguists, too.
I honestly thought Finn would have been at least a 3.0.
He was made to be a jedi he looks so cool with a lightsaber in his hands
Imagine if they had a scene at the end of TFA where Finn is on his own, forced to kill his former comrades as their programming leaves him no choice. Afterwards he looks over the bodies and the his gaze turns to the gun in his hands. With a cry of rage he throws the gun aside and falls to his knees, then over the radio he hears of Resistance fighters are making progress towards the reactor and Finn realises just how many more of his former comrades will die if the Resistance succeeds.
As that knowledge sinks in you then start seeing how smaller things tarts rattling about around him as his face twists between rage and grief, next crates/furniture are shifting, twisting and then as Finn stands up there is a brief calm before he throws his head back and SCREAMS launching everything around him away as his Force powers are at long last awakened... Then with a last look around he says "Enough, I will kill no more!"
I read online ages ago during an interview that finns original concept was he was meant to be kylo rens number 2 similar to rex to anakin. But leaves the first order due to the massacre, but during filming this was scrapped hense why when kylo meets finn again on starkiller base he screams traitor with such hatred and emotion towards him because of thier previous relationship and connection.... This would have been great to see on screen
Finn should be like Teal'c from "StarGate SG-1" - badass soldier of enemy faction, who defected because lost faith in regime and now he fights alongside good guys to liberarte Stormtroopers, enslaved by Empire/First Order. That way Finn not only would be interesting, layered and potentially internally conflicted character, but also he would be integral to the plot
I don't get the obsession with looks (in this case skin color) to relate to a person. First of all, I thought we, as Humanity, tried to get away from it, but we seem to regress back to it.
Secondly, I can just as much relate to Sisko from Star Trek. I don't have to be black to do so. There's something fundamentally wrong with the direction society is heading. Character traits and the story should be the thing people relate to. Not sex, race or other superficial attributes.
I loved it when I heard that John Boyega was cast in SW, he was great in Attack the Block. I made the joke that they hired him because he had experience killing aliens, then later found out that JJ Abrams was a fan of the film and it was a big reason why he was hired.
It's bad enough what they did to the character, made worse when you realise that out of all the options they could've gone for they chose to make the black guy a slave.
In general I think it would have made the sequel trilogy much more interesting to have Finn be the main character, and the Jedi (or at least one of them) of the trilogy. Rey's story feels like an inferior copy of Luke's, and we could have seen an entirely different story and set of struggles with Finn as the lead.
Just put up a compilation video of Finn yelling "WOOO!" or shouting "REY!". Me in 2015. "wow, a disaffected Stormtrooper who slowly regains his humanity played by the guy who really stood out in Attack the Block? Sounds great" Me in 2020. "well that was great for about 15 minutes until he was the comedy relief except when killing his old Stormtrooper buddies. And oh look he can't shut up about Rey" Does the Bechtel test apply to men? Because all his character did was quip and talk about Rey, or if Rey wasn't present, ask where Rey was. Total waste.
@Thor Skywalker
I really think you, SWTheory, That SW Girl, GrayJedi, and other SW heavy youtubers should collaborate and create a revised Sequel Trilogy via graphic novel fan fic reading on your channels, voice actors, artwork, and your version of how they should have been .
If Finn had the storyline from the Trevorrow script where he liberates the Stormtroopers Les Mis style he might have scored a 4 or higher. Sadly, JJ had no idea how to write a satisfying ending for his own character despite it being dropped in his lap
JJ had no idea how to write a satisfying ending* You could have ended here, he always has no idea how to write endings, which further shows how KK messed up by firing Colin, she keeps making bad decisions... and isn't fired
Finn was such a waste of a character, I was hoping they would have made him a Jedi or made him mace windus long lost grandson or something, that would have been amazing