John Boyega (Finn) vs Star Wars

[Dargaron]

I think he was sidelined by the powers that be to make Rey's star look brighter, but I can't be 100% certain. Since I can't really know the motive, I'll just go with that I thought Finn had the basis for a more interesting story than Rey, and that Boyega was done a disservice. I can't blame him for being resentful of the powers behind the scenes.

I think I've said this before, but I don't think Finn was sidelined so that Rey got more screentime: I think a lot of what could have been Finn's role was cannibalized by Poe. By The Last Jedi, Rey had been pretty well relegated to her role as Force Mystic and occasional pilot (Certainly this takes up a lot of screentime, but you can't easily replace Rey at scenes like the battle on Snoke's ship or the training on Ach-to, for instance). But Poe monopolized the military screentime in TLJ and was the one interacting with the Rebel command as if he were some newcomer who didn't know how things are done. Hmm, who else could play that role, I wonder?

They tried to hang the character weight of both "good-hearted military maverick" and "scoundrel with heart of gold" onto Oscar Isaac, with the result that all Boyega got was a half-hearted romance, a side-quest that went nowhere, and general hanger-on status for most of RoS.

Maybe it's the Dungeon Master in me talking, but I definitely would've loved to see the sequel trilogy play up just how dangerous storm troopers are. Make them fierce, crack shots with access to the most up-to-date military hardware and the training to use it. Have them drop Flashbangs while Rey is doing her cool acrobatics; have them pull shock batons when some fool tries to jump them up close. Then transfer that badassery to Finn: sure, Rey has the force, and that's good for her but make Finn a straight-up better fighter and tactician so that he has his chance to shine, while she can still get plenty of screentime with that lightsaber stuff we all know and love. In Dungeons and Dragons terms, sometimes you need a Fireball, but sometimes you need 2d8+24 points of slashing damage in just the right spot. The wizard can do one, and the fighter can do the other, and they can both look cool doing it without detracting from the other.

Heck, you don't even need to cut Oscar Isaac out of the film: have him suffer severe injuries just before the end of TFA. His plot can even follow many of the same beats, since he's now an invalid who's still determined to help the Resistance, but now he has to do so from the safety of a Command Post. He could clash with Holdo who sees him as a macho man who thinks he's too self-important to realize he's out of the fight, while he wrestles with the fact that maybe he isn't cut out for command. You could even have some touching scene where he knows he's sending good people to their deaths, and unlike every other time, he's not with them, risking his own skin. You could use this as an opportunity to show how war chews up the young and able-bodied and leaves them with irreparable wounds, while still giving Poe a chance to do heroics via Plucky Determination(TM) and give the classic "I've suffered, but for a good cause" speech.

[TGLS]

Heck, you don't even need to cut Oscar Isaac out of the film

I'm not too sure. I thought he was dead for most of the The Force Awakens. And then suddenly; "oh, you're not dead."

[Dargaron]

Oh, you definitely could cut him out (and IMO he probably should have died when the TIE crashed in TFA, since he'd fulfilled his purpose). But I'm not going to begrudge the man his work, and it's possible to use the character in TLJ and ROS without overshadowing Finn's character space the way he did, so might as well.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So Finn was written to echo Solo's path. He has a history of working with the Empire, then he joins a disparate journey across the galaxy. In the next movie he wrestles very early on with a desire to leave, but his plans are foiled by someone he later becomes intimate with. In the third movie they are with each other much of the time just like in Return of the Jedi.

[Jonathan101]

Knowing what we do about how the story for The Force Awakens developed, I wouldn't be surprised if Finn was one of the last characters created and he started out as just a plot device.

Rey and Kylo were both taken from elements of the Lucas script, and obviously the OT cast was always going to be there. Starkiller Base, as I understand it, was supposed to exist in all three movies before they decided they needed it for the climax of TFA.

I honestly think that they came up with Finn because they felt they needed someone who knew the layout of Starkiller Base, and that was meant to be his role in the story. When they wrapped that up in TFA they didn't have any other ideas for him because his planned arc was complete.

I don't think they put much a great deal of thought into the concept of "renegade Stormtrooper" beyond the needs of the script, at least initially. Same way Harrison Ford felt like Han was sort of superfluous after a while (except handled worse)- ultimately, Finn was never essentially to the main plot, even if that plot kept changing all the time.

[GreyICE]

One thing that strikes me reading this is that there's two great film trilogies, trilogies that absolutely set the gold standard for three packs. And those are Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones Trilogy, and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. And those set two models. Model 1, you do each movie as a standalone set, a self-contained story that uses nothing from the previous, and plays on its own. Model 2, you do them all at once, tie the story together, make it almost 1 movie in 3 parts. (Nolan used Spielberg's model for Batman - never snowballing enemies, never escalating, simply making each movie on its own)

Everyone, EVERYONE else seems convinced that they can just do this thing where it's a loose trilogy and they can tie the events together kind of sort of not really. And the only time I can remember that working three times in a row is Toy Story. You want to try and copy fucking Pixar? Really? Xmen crashed and burned. Spiderman. The fucking Godfather. Bourne did LOTR that for 2 and 3, and in retrospect 1 feels out of place. And we note back during Toy Story Pixar had a consistent creative team that lead to a lot of the same people doing similar things (just with way better software) in all three movies, giving them the consistency and thematic tie.

How much would it have cost to hire a good director and great screenwriters to conceive, write, and direct a complete trilogy, all at once, LOTR style? Offer a director a chance to be the next Peter Jackson. Surely there's some amount of money that it could be bought for. $30 million? $40 million? Hand it to the Russo Brothers or something. Somebody. This entire handoff thing was just a disaster, through and through.

[Jonathan101]

One thing that strikes me reading this is that there's two great film trilogies, trilogies that absolutely set the gold standard for three packs. And those are Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones Trilogy, and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. And those set two models. Model 1, you do each movie as a standalone set, a self-contained story that uses nothing from the previous, and plays on its own. Model 2, you do them all at once, tie the story together, make it almost 1 movie in 3 parts. (Nolan used Spielberg's model for Batman - never snowballing enemies, never escalating, simply making each movie on its own)

Everyone, EVERYONE else seems convinced that they can just do this thing where it's a loose trilogy and they can tie the events together kind of sort of not really. And the only time I can remember that working three times in a row is Toy Story. You want to try and copy fucking Pixar? Really? Xmen crashed and burned. Spiderman. The fucking Godfather. Bourne did LOTR that for 2 and 3, and in retrospect 1 feels out of place. And we note back during Toy Story Pixar had a consistent creative team that lead to a lot of the same people doing similar things (just with way better software) in all three movies, giving them the consistency and thematic tie.

How much would it have cost to hire a good director and great screenwriters to conceive, write, and direct a complete trilogy, all at once, LOTR style? Offer a director a chance to be the next Peter Jackson. Surely there's some amount of money that it could be bought for. $30 million? $40 million? Hand it to the Russo Brothers or something. Somebody. This entire handoff thing was just a disaster, through and through.

Russo brothers aren't a great example since they made stuff up on the fly all the time. The backstory for Thanos and his goals was only written for Infinity War, and that and Endgame retconned or ignored stuff from the previous movies; Civil War had lots of plot holes and was only green lit by the studio because they had heard that Batman V Superman was coming out.

As to why filmmakers generally avoid filming things back-to-back, I imagine it has a lot to do with concern about story leaks as well as scriptwriters generally liking flexibility- both Lucasfilm and Marvel Netflix made the fact that they didn't have a plan almost a point of pride because that's often what the writers they hire are looking for. LotR is different because it was a straightforward adaptation and the plot was mostly settled.

[GreyICE]

Russo brothers aren't a great example since they made stuff up on the fly all the time. The backstory for Thanos and his goals was only written for Infinity War, and that and Endgame retconned or ignored stuff from the previous movies; Civil War had lots of plot holes and was only green lit by the studio because they had heard that Batman V Superman was coming out.

As to why filmmakers generally avoid filming things back-to-back, I imagine it has a lot to do with concern about story leaks as well as scriptwriters generally liking flexibility- both Lucasfilm and Marvel Netflix made the fact that they didn't have a plan almost a point of pride because that's often what the writers they hire are looking for. LotR is different because it was a straightforward adaptation and the plot was mostly settled.

Any director who has to take over from someone else to finish their story is going to end up having tonal shifts. You magically think there's some director out there who can do it, but there isn't. There never has been. There never will be. Even the three directors, doing three different processes, lose the overall tone.

Hire the writers to write the entire thing, all at once, film it all at once, etc. "Point of pride" my ass. This is what pride gets you.

[Jonathan101]

Originally they asked Abrams to do all three movies, but he felt intimidated by the project and turned it down.

Not saying the "point of pride" thing was a good thing- both the sequel trilogy and the Netflix shows had a bunch of problems- I'm just speculating why they don't commit to it.

[McAvoy]

One thing that strikes me reading this is that there's two great film trilogies, trilogies that absolutely set the gold standard for three packs. And those are Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones Trilogy, and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. And those set two models. Model 1, you do each movie as a standalone set, a self-contained story that uses nothing from the previous, and plays on its own. Model 2, you do them all at once, tie the story together, make it almost 1 movie in 3 parts. (Nolan used Spielberg's model for Batman - never snowballing enemies, never escalating, simply making each movie on its own)

Everyone, EVERYONE else seems convinced that they can just do this thing where it's a loose trilogy and they can tie the events together kind of sort of not really. And the only time I can remember that working three times in a row is Toy Story. You want to try and copy fucking Pixar? Really? Xmen crashed and burned. Spiderman. The fucking Godfather. Bourne did LOTR that for 2 and 3, and in retrospect 1 feels out of place. And we note back during Toy Story Pixar had a consistent creative team that lead to a lot of the same people doing similar things (just with way better software) in all three movies, giving them the consistency and thematic tie.

How much would it have cost to hire a good director and great screenwriters to conceive, write, and direct a complete trilogy, all at once, LOTR style? Offer a director a chance to be the next Peter Jackson. Surely there's some amount of money that it could be bought for. $30 million? $40 million? Hand it to the Russo Brothers or something. Somebody. This entire handoff thing was just a disaster, through and through.

I'd argue you could perhaps put the OT Star Wars in there as well. Yes there was some retconning when Lucas was still figuring out everything from Luke to Leia to Vader. But overall it's a not bad trilogy when it comes to making each movie without thinking about the next movie.

Lord of the Rings has an advantage of already being a trilogy of books that has been written and digested and so forth. That and being green lit to do it as a trilogy. Also written like one long ass combined movie which is why we have that 30 minute ending.

But Lord of the Rings trilogy is easily the best trilogy because it goes seamlessly from one movie to the other.

Marvel is different. It's a collection of 20+ movies that wasnt really planning for a grand finale like Endgame in mind from the beginning. Only when Marvel movies was regularly making tons of money per movie that they had some sort of plan. Even then, each movie did seem like they had a freedom up to a point to do what they want with a movie.

Whereas we got the Sequel Trilogy. It's not as a mess as X-men movies but it still is a mess.