Despite being a consistent main character throughout the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the only movie that threw John Boyega’s Finn a suitable storyline. Introduced in 2015 ‘s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Finn is part of the sequel trilogy’s core trio, alongside the talented yet foolhardy Resistance pilot Poe Dameron and the scrappy scavenger Rey, who turns out to be Force-sensitive and a possible Jedi. Finn is portrayed as a onetime stormtrooper who, after witnessing the inhumanity of the First Order as they wipe out a small village on Jakku, decides to defect from the organization and forge his own path.

Throughout the sequel trilogy, Finn clashes with his individuality and free will after leaving the First Order, especially with the lore that he was kidnapped at birth and never knew his real family. However, through his adventures with the Resistance he comes to find a target where he may seem like he belongs, specifically with the trio of friends that he comes to realize is his new family.

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While Boyega generates an motivated action as Finn throughout all three films, his reference is frequently failed by the writing in both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars:The Rise of Skywalker. Neither movie really knows how to approach or develop Finn outside of the basic characteristics he was introduced with. However, Rian Johnson’s 2017 sequel, The Last Jedi, actually commits Finn some much needed character development. Despite the movie’s controversial nature among love, it is the first time that Finn is fully realized as an individual, and the first time that he’s analyse like a three-dimensional character.

Finn’s first debuted in The Force Awakens, and he was used a cunning action to both acquaint a protagonist unlike any followers had realized before and provide inside context on the galaxy’s newest menace, the First Order. When publics convene Finn at the start of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he’s accompanying Kylo Ren to a small village on Jakku, which the First Order unexpectedly bulldozes to the ground when Kylo doesn’t get what he’s looking for. It’s a terrifying vistum, and the moment that sews the first seeds of incredulity into Finn’s mind. So when the specific characteristics hops into an escape husk, an aid to free the newly captured Resistance pilot Poe, audience’s immediately root for him.

The film’s marketing yielded a distinct emphasis to Finn’s character, peculiarity advertisings and trailers in which he’s seen to be using Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, something he does do in the film. John Boyega once echoed during an interview the moment he detected he got the part, in which JJ Abrams told him, “John, you’re the brand-new sun of Star Wars.” And looking at the course Lucasfilm built up the promotional material for The Force Awakens, it seemed as if everyone was expecting for Finn to be the new primary hero of the story, a former stormtrooper turned Jedi.

However, that was ultimately not the case. Instead of examining the backlashes of Finn’s defection from the First Order, most of Finn’s screentime is squandered tantalizing a woo between him and Rey. And when Finn invents a hopeles scheme to rescue her, the carpet is pulled out from under the audience, and the movie reveals that Rey , not Finn, is the true Jedi of the brand-new adventure. Abrams even points the cinema with Finn being mortally wounded and placed in a stasis container, as if to officially sideline him in favor of Rey. If the cinema had been upfront about Finn’s purpose in the movie from the beginning instead of using him as a Jedi red herring, there would have been an opportunity to truly dive into the nuance of the character.

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When it was uncovered back in 2017 that JJ Abrams “wouldve been” replacing Colin Trevorrow as chairman on Episode IX, numerous love( as well as some of the actors themselves) were provoked that Abrams was going to come in and finish the floor he began with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, especially with the backlash against some of the story decisions made by Rian Johnson on Star Wars: The Last Jedi. One of “the worlds largest” predicted improvements to come out of the information was the relevant recommendations that Abrams would amply resolve the arc predicted by Finn’s character, either by diving into his backstory or by capitalizing on his relationship with the other stormtroopers in the First Order.

Unfortunately, neither one of these intuitions came to fruition. Almost as if it was intentional, JJ Abrams double-dealing down on all the commentaries of Finn’s character in The Rise of Skywalker, actively working against anything that would have given Finn some characterization. Once again he depletes most of the entirety of the movie chasing after Rey, to the point where images of him screaming the character’s name have become memes online. This wouldn’t have been so bad if Abrams had simply justified a romance between Finn and Rey, but the movie turns in the totally opposite direction and terminates with a kiss between Rey and newly-redeemed antihero Ben Solo. This is something that has proved to be controversial among followers, with Boyega himself making fun of developments in the situation on Twitter.

The movie likewise misses what would have been the most obvious conclusion for Finn’s character, which would have been a stormtrooper mutiny orchestrated by him. This was something that Trevorrow had planned for his version of Episode IX, and in his dialogue, Finn frequently tries to help stormtroopers he encounters. Nonetheless, Abrams has Finn encounter an part group of stormtrooper errors on the planet Kef Bir, led by a person listed Jannah. The two people ligament over their epoch as stormtroopers, and Jannah extremities up joining the battle at the end of the movie, but there’s no attempt to reckon with the larger ideas provided by the idea of rebelling stormtroopers. Neither character tries to empathize with any of the nameless stormtroopers they gun down , nor is it explained why Finn and Jannah are able to defect while so many others seemingly can’t. It’s simply another lack on Abrams’ part to add any extent to a persona he created.

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Unlike The Force Awakens or The Rise of Skywalker, The Last Jedi actually commits Finn a functional story arc all on his own, that doesn’t involve him being used as a red herring or sidelining him in favour of another character’s journey. Johnson picks up Finn’s story right where Abrams left it off, with Finn waking up from the near-comatose state he was put in at the end of The Force Awakens and desperately looking for Rey. While he dissolves up wreaking alongside them at the end of The Force Awakens, Finn never indeed commits to the ideals of the Resistance, instead joining them simply to be with Rey. Johnson takes this and emphasizes it by having Finn try and leave the Resistance fleet to find Rey, merely to be stopped by newcomer Rose Tico, who’s disappointed by his lack of commitment to the same standards that cost her sister her life.

Over the course of The Last Jedi, Finn and Rose are forced to go on a secret mission for the Resistance, which extends them to Canto Bight, a gambling cesspit that captivates the Star Wars galaxy’s wealthiest citizens. Finn soon is found that the dwellers of Canto Bight are also combat profiteers and child slavers, a defining moment in which Finn realizes that the struggles of conflict are more important than himself and that the war with the First Order is simply creating more orphans like him. This drives him for the rest of the movie, and when the two courages are captured by the First Order, Finn finally has the fearlessnes to stand up to and demolish his former superior, Captain Phasma. This is also the first time in the movie that Finn frankly commits to the ideals of the Resistance, telling Phasma once and for all that he’s “Rebel scum.”

Both The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker fumble the chunk and fail to dive into one of the more interesting brand-new characters in the sequel trilogy, but it’s Rian Johnson who learns a path to explore Finn’s inner struggle in an interesting way. Since John Boyega has said that he has no intention of returning to the Star Wars universe, fans can acknowledge The Last Jedi for absolutely rendering his persona an interesting story.

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