The Rise of Skywalker Doesn’t Give a Shit About Finn
If you asked any Star Wars fan about a character who seems like a missed opportunity in recent years, the answer would more often than not be John Boyega’s Finn. He’s the character we were led to believe could be the reason for the subtitle of 2015’s Force Awakens, wielding a lightsaber in the film’s marketing and looking ready to face off against Sith Lord Kylo Ren. But since the end of that film and Rey was revealed to be the actual Jedi, the sequel trilogy seemed to be…let’s say “uncertain” on what direction to take its former stormtrooper turned Resistance fighter.
Note: This contains full spoilers for the Star Wars sequel trilogy, including The Rise of Skywalker.
Though it seemed like the new Star Wars films had found something in having its first black Jedi in quite some time before Awakens’ third act reveal, the film have since been inconsistent with Finn just as a character in general. Between Awakens and 2017’s Last Jedi, Boyega shutting down the ‘Jedi Finn’ theory led to disappointment and fans wondering what his story would ultimately become, and the answer ended up largely lying inside his story during the incredibly divisive Last Jedi.
Picking immediately from Awakens’ conclusion, Finn wakes up from his medically induced coma and initially tries to run away as the Resistance is fleeing from an attack by the First Order. After being tasered by Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the two head to the casino planet of Canto Bight, both to find a way to smuggle onto the First Order ship leading the assault on the remains of the Resistance and shut it down. Their journey on Canto Bight lands them in jail, meeting a hawkish rogue named DJ who smuggles them on the First Order ship, but not before selling them out to make a quick buck.
Finn and Rose’s story is often cited as the worst part of Last Jedi, in part because he has to be told by a brand new character that the First Order is bad, despite already being a literal child soldier who defected just a few days ago. While Canto Bight is a missed opportunity in that we don’t see Boyega or Tran dressed to the nines looking as beautiful as they are in real life, it does its job in giving Finn a reason to stick around with the First Order. One thing that can’t be denied about Finn at the time was his tendency to flee and try to get out of dodge, it’s in fact something he did at least three times in the previous film. So for him to declare himself “rebel scum” after defeating the Order’s Captain Phasma feels like the culmination of a two-film arc for a character who has only truly looked out for himself. But there’s still one more movie to go, and there was frankly no way he was going to end up finding out who he was, so what do you do now? According to Rise of Skywalker, jack shit.
Like his character’s fans, Boyega wasn’t in love with what Finn went through in Last Jedi, and Rise of Skywalker seemed prime to give him a more action-focused story by putting him with Poe Dameron and Rey, the other two parts of the sequel trilogy’s triumvirate. But of this trio, Skywalker is just easily interested in him the least, building up a potential moment only to yank it away at the last minute.
During their travels to Passana, which is basically space Coachella, Finn, Rey, Poe, and the rest of their party get stuck in quicksand. When it seems they’ll die, Finn tries hurriedly tell Rey something, only to be cut off as they all sink to the floor. It’s a small moment brought up later in the film that sees no resolution, and the initial belief from many would be that he planned to tell Rey he loved her. They ultimately live, and despite being asked about it twice later in the film, he decides to leave whatever he wanted to say on the table for later.
Throughout the remainder of their adventure, the film all but explicitly says that Finn is Force-sensitive. The Force is ultimately how he fought his First Order programming as a child soldier, and Jannah and her band of ex-Stormtroopers had the same thing happen to them. He even senses when Rey has died after her confrontation with Palpatine.
Sure, this is incredibly obvious if you just watch the film, but then both Boyega on Twitter and director JJ Abrams during a film Q&A separately over the weekend had to state what Finn meant to tell Rey. You shouldn’t need to hop on Twitter over the weekend to get an actual hard confirmation of what a two and a half-hour film was sporadically building up to. When you stop and think about it, it makes no damn sense that he would take a moment when all of them are near death to reveal he’s Force-sensitive. In hindsight, not letting the film itself give him that moment to declare what he is winds up hurting Rey’s final moments on Tatooine when we she ignites her own custom made lightsaber. And one can argue that not every Force-sensitive person is a Jedi, but this falls apart since just two films ago, he was using the lightsaber of Luke Skywalker.
Finn’s adventures will likely continue in some other form eventually, because that’s just how the Star Wars machine rolls. Odds are, we’ll get an announcement of a Disney+ limited series in a year or two where he ignites his own saber and we all lose our minds. But as it stands, Skywalker has left one of its best assets, and the hype he inspired for its starting film, without any real sense of closure.
Justin is a Kansas City, Missouri, freelance writer and is on Twitter often, @GigawattConduit. He also is an avid lover of M&M McFlurries from McDonald’s, and accepts that he has an addiction to them.
