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If there is one thing that always bugged me about The Disney Sequel Trilogy... well there's a lot but if I had to work from a Trilogy wide problem it would be the main protagonist of said Trilogy. There's no nice way to say this, Rey, Finn and Poe were butchered in The Last Jedi and they will likely never recover from that film. Part of that is down to Rian Johnson handling of the characters due to his apparent dislike of the latter two and his disinterest in the former but the blame can also be laid at JJ Abrams' feet too.

See the problem I have with how the Trio is handled is the core concepts to said characters are good but the execution is questionable at best, bad at worst and the one character screwed over most by this Trilogy is Finn. I remember Rian Johnson once saying that he just didn't find Finn interesting and that he couldn't really figure out how to make him interesting hence why he ends up just relearning his lesson from the first film, to get put others ahead of himself and to save his friends. Sadly this is something that extends to his use of The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker, no one really seemed to know what to do with Finn so just relegated him to tag-along who's most notable contribution is screaming Rey's name a lot.

What's makes this worse is around the time TDST was being released She-Ra and the Princesses of Power were also being released and it's main protagonist, Adora aka She-Ra, basically was Finn just, you know, done right. She was a minion of evil who saw the Empire for what it truly was and turned Rebel Hero who found she had a connection to great powers. And decades before that we hand Kyle Katan who was also a former Storm Trooper turned Rebel Hero who turned out to have a connection to the Force and was trained to be a Jedi.

Adora and Kyle are both great and show that this premise of evil minion turned rebel hero who becomes a Knight with Magic Powers CAN work and can be great... So what happened with Finn? Thus we arrive at the true purpose of this post, fixing Finn and by that I mean making Finn, sorta, the main character of the Trilogy instead of Rey.

Now one thing I should note is that I would change the character's gender to that of a woman and the reason for this is simple, the main protagonist of this Trilogy was always intended to be a girl. In his original plans for the Sequel Trilogy the mysterious other was suppose Luke's long lost twin-sister whom Luke would mentor as she went to battle the Emperor in the final Trilogy of this saga. And over in the Original Sequel Trilogy, aka The Thrawn Trilogy, Mara Jade was the main protagonist of that Trilogy. Therefore I propose that Finn or rather Kira (the name Lucas gave to her before they changed it to Rey cause I guess it wasn't obvious enough) to be a woman.

And before anyone comments on me screwing over John Boyega I honestly would just cast him as Kyle and make an adaptation of Dark Force into a TV Series. I honestly think that Boyega would be perfect for the role and it would be a better use of his talents and let him be cast as a fan favorite character.

Back TDST I would have Kira's arc in the first movie be a more refined and developed version of Finn's arc in The Force Awakens. She's a Storm Trooper who's comes to see the First Order for what it truly and becomes friends with members of the New Republic (in this version Jaina Solo and Ben Skywalker (played by Daisy Ridly and Adam Driver)). At first the three find themselves in situation where they must come to depend on one another to survive even though they largely distrust each other but as the film goes on Kira comes to see them for the good people they are.

It also becomes clear that Kira is strong in the Force even if she doesn't realize it which is shown in her taking up a lightsaber and being able to go toe-to-toe with her former best friend/future love interest which I would have be a Night Sister or someone who is trained in the use of Magic instead of the Force.

One thing I'm torn on is the use of Kira's Storm Trooper armor. I'm not sure if it's removed over the course of the film or only at the very end of the third act. On the one hand allow us to see a characters face would help to humanize them to the viewer but on the other hand not seeing her face keeping the ST armor on as long as possible could also work as shown in The Mandalorian and even Vader. I guess it would be up to the actor in question but I lean more towards armor on for most of the movie.

Another point is that of Luke himself in relation to Kira. In this version instead of Luke running away to hide from the fact that this is all his fault and just lazily retreading his arc from Return of the Jedi Luke is a Jedi Master. He shows up at the end of the film to save our heroes and fights off the Trilogy's real main villain, a former Jedi but not one who's become a Sith but instead someone who's taken the Jedi's teaching to their extremes.

The long and short of her journey is Kira has problems really mastering the ways of the Force but gets enough of a hang of it to win in her final duel against the Fallen Jedi (which would be designed to emulate the final duel in Tenchi Universe with the hero and villain silhouetted against a blinding light).

In the end Kira would become a Jedi Knight, get the girl, stay with her found family and best of all not be relegated to person who screams REEEEYYY for most of the Trilogy.

Thoughts?

Funny, my idea of fixing it is to make it seem like Rey is the hero, than reveal it was Finn all along and he and Poe become love interests and Rey is the final big bad who Finn redeems because she gave him hope once and he wants to do the same for her.

Honestly if I was going to rewrite Rey, Finn and Poe to make them better characters for the Sequels then it would have to be changing the storyline overall too.

I would also address the handling of the old cast too. I get it Ford was done with Star Wars and Fisher had a untimely death. Still have Chewie and Luke and even Lando.

Plus how the First Order came about. Have the main villian for all three movies be the Leader whether it's Snoke or a released ancient Sith after Palpatine's death. Ben Solo starting out as a Jedi in movie or as a Sith Lord in the beginning. But it would be Han Solo still with the Falcon for the first movie either with his son or looking for his son. Not a deadbeat Dad looking for his impounded car, I mean ship.

Total revision of Luke to not be some space hobo drinking blue milk from the teet. Poe and Finn both work in the first movie, s it would just be a continuation of their characters.

Though with Poe, I would keep the basic idea of him being too brash from the second movie but obviously fix it so it makes more sense and possibly in a different scenario. Finn keeps going on from the first movie, so we don't get a rehash of his arc from the first nor do we get him just calling out Rey in the third.

Rey is harder. You could go with what she was in the movie, tweaked so she has her failures and slow down her mastery of the Force. But of course make her just a regular human with nobody parents.

Generally we could have basically the three same movies if the script writing and characters were tweaked a bit.

Though with Luke it would be a bit harder to explain why he has, secluded himself. Perhaps it is a Jedi Academy training new Jedi or maybe calling themselves something else. Somehow have Rey thinking she wants to be a Jedi but some nice philosophical discussion about Jedi and Sith and what Luke wants to do with his students. So that in a way, Luke is not a Jedi anymore but Rey is.

Winter wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 6:04 am See the problem I have with how the Trio is handled is the core concepts to said characters are good but the execution is questionable at best, bad at worst and the one character screwed over most by this Trilogy is Finn. I remember Rian Johnson once saying that he just didn't find Finn interesting and that he couldn't really figure out how to make him interesting hence why he ends up just relearning his lesson from the first film, to get put others ahead of himself and to save his friends. Sadly this is something that extends to his use of The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker, no one really seemed to know what to do with Finn so just relegated him to tag-along who's most notable contribution is screaming Rey's name a lot.

This is kinda the central problem of the Disney Sequel Trilogy. They said they wanted it to be nothing like the prequels but at least the prequels fit together like a proper trilogy because Lucas was the creative force behind it. For the sequels each film had a different writer and director which is why its more of a big mess.

In the end Kira would become a Jedi Knight, get the girl, stay with her found family and best of all not be relegated to person who screams REEEEYYY for most of the Trilogy.

Thoughts?

Well, having Finn as a force user is an interesting idea. I would add though, if you are going to make Finn/Kira the 'new Luke' then Rey should be the 'new Han.'

Finn/Kira would be the sort of idealist who's fighting to make the galaxy a better place while Rey would be more like a mercenary simply trying to make her own way in the galaxy, much like Han was at the start of ANH. Maybe she would be a young bounty hunter on her first big mission and the person that hired her turns out to be none other than Han Solo himself. This could make for some great interaction between them; Han seeing Rey as the person he used to be before he met Luke and Leia and, like them can see the person, Rey could become and like Han she helps the heroes in the end and is on the path to greatness.

The last scene of TFA would be Han, a general in The New Republic, giving medals to each of our heroes (much like the last scene of ANH) and congratulating them on their victory.