A lot has already been said about the polarizing Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, but the consensus is the same: the trilogy is one of the biggest pop culture misfires ever seen. The trilogy started out with so much promise but failed to deliver, chief among these being Finn’s character, portrayed by John Boyega.
The ex-Stormtrooper made headlines for being the first Black Star Wars protagonist, but whatever hype he inspired was futile given how the trilogy did him really dirty. Long story short, Finn, John Boyega, and fans deserved a lot better.
10 Dropping His Romantic Tease With Rose Tico
The only other Star Wars character to get a stick’s end shorter than Finn’s was Rose Tico, the Resistance fighter who debuted in The Last Jedi. The two quickly formed a buddy-cop tandem before things escalated to romantic tension. However, this and literally everything about Rose was dropped in The Rise of Skywalker.
Despite how close they became after their exploits in Canto Bight and nearly dying in the Battle of Crait, their only interaction in the finale was Finn telling Rose to stay out of the mission. Whatever Finn and Rose could’ve been was invalidated by the sequel trilogy’s insulting and pandering conclusion.
9 Dropping His Romantic Tease With Rey
When Finn crash lands on Jakku, he immediately falls for Rey, a local junker with a lot more to her than she lets on. The two quickly become an unlikely battle couple, with Finn’s feelings for Rey being transparent at best. So obvious were Finn’s feelings that even Han Solo chimed in. However, the succeeding movies abandoned this.
The Last Jedi only had Finn and Rey together near the end. The Rise of Skywalker revisited their dynamic, but reduced Finn to yelling Rey’s name while turning his confession into yet another J.J. Abrams Mystery Box. Star Wars skipped the chance to have a major interracial relationship, and it’s lesser for doing so.
8 Dropping His Romantic Tease With Poe Dameron
One of the biggest missed opportunities in the sequel trilogy was the teased romance between Finn and Poe Dameron. They first met in The Force Awakens and immediately clicked, so much so that fans and the actors themselves were shipping the ex-Stormtrooper and the hotshot pilot. Unfortunately, this excitement went nowhere.
The Last Jedi split the two up, and The Rise of Skywalker brought the band back together but didn’t do anything interesting. Their friendship was limited to Poe calling Finn “buddy” whenever he could, which felt surface level and patronizing. What could’ve been Star Wars’ first gay relationship or even just close brothers-in-arms never came to be.
7 Not Allowing Him To Grow With The New Trio
On his own, Finn is already brimming with wasted potential. This was only exacerbated when he joined Rey and Poe to form the trilogy’s new trio. Finn had genuinely fun and meaningful moments with the two, which is a miracle given how weak their material was. Together, they had three times the wasted potential. Worse, Finn didn’t even spend enough time with them.
Finn joined Rey and Poe separately in The Force Awakens, he was with Rose for most of The Last Jedi, and their reunion in The Rise of Skywalker felt more obligatory than fulfilling. In the latter, Finn was basically still in square one of his friendships with Rey and Poe, which made their banter and camaraderie sound artificial and forced.
6 Ignoring His Jedi Potential
The Force Awakens set up mysteries that would ideally be answered over time. One of the biggest questions was Finn’s potential to be Force-sensitive or even a Jedi, shown in how he effortlessly used Luke’s lightsaber twice. Unfortunately, this and every other Mystery Box was forgotten by the end.
After losing to Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, Finn’s Jedi capacity was dropped. He never had a rematch with Kylo Ren, nor did he ever toy with The Force again. From The Last Jedi onwards, Finn mentioned The Force like every Star Wars character does, or he quipped about how vague its rules are. Any hopes for a new Black Jedi were crushed.
5 Removing The Best Part Of His Duel With Capt. Phasma
As shallow as their rivalry was, Capt. Phasma could be considered Finn’s nemesis. As his former commanding officer and a dedicated Imperial soldier, her defeat by Finn’s hand could’ve meant something. Instead, the ground collapses under her after she and Finn exchanged a few blows in The Last Jedi’s climax. A better version of this clash can be found in the sequel’s deleted scenes.
Here, Finn humiliates Capt. Phasma in front of her soldiers by calling out her hypocrisy and recounting how she helped the Resistance at gunpoint in The Force Awakens. She panics and shoots her own men before Finn lands a fatal gunshot. This was undoubtedly one of Finn’s best moments, and it’s nothing more than a DVD extra.
4 Losing Interest In His Arc As A Stormtrooper With A Conscience
What made Finn so promising was that he was a defecting Stormtrooper. For the first time, a Star Wars movie seemed interested in humanizing its central conflict by following a foot soldier and revealing the human toll of being forced to kill for galactic fascists. Unfortunately, the new trilogy showed the tip of the Stormtrooper iceberg and left it at that.
At most, Finn would angst about how being a Stormtrooper was bad because he was ordered to commit war crimes. By Star Wars logic, this is already a given. The Last Jedi practically forgot about this, while The Rise of Skywalker introduced yet another defecting Stormtrooper in Jannah, rendering Finn redundant.
3 Ignoring The Darkest Implications Of His Backstory
The Force Awakens reveals that Stormtroopers were children kidnapped by invading Imperial forces. In captivity, the children were trained to fight, kill and serve the Empire and/or First Order for life. This revelation gave Finn one of the darkest backstories in all of Star Wars canon, and the sequel trilogy did absolutely nothing with it.
Finn didn’t give many details about his experiences, losing the chance for added character depth or personal motive. To add insult to injury, the most he says about it came from his aforementioned deleted fight with Capt. Phasma. Instead of avenging his lost childhood or liberating the First Order’s child victims, Finn fought the Empire because they’re broadly bad.
2 Giving Him Almost Nothing To Do After The Force Awakens
A lasting criticism of Finn is that by the end of The Force Awakens, his arc was practically over. After finding a home within the Resistance and forging a new identity as Finn, the Stormtrooper formerly named FN-2187 had nowhere else to go. This worsened in The Last Jedi, where Finn’s heroic sacrifice was abruptly stopped by Rose.
If he crashed his craft into the First Order’s siege cannon, his otherwise prolonged arc as an ex-Stormtrooper who gained freedom and struck back at his former abusers would’ve been completed. Instead, he survived, delayed the First Order’s victory in Crait by a minute or two, and yelled “Rey!” ad nauseam in The Rise of Skywalker. It’s clear that the sequels had no clue what to do with Finn beyond letting him hang out with other characters.
1 Slowly But Surely Pushing Him Out Of The Spotlight
Finn made waves by being Star Wars’ first Black protagonist. Unfortunately, this monumental first was watered down with each succeeding movie, as Finn’s role was gradually reduced. It got so bad that in The Rise of Skywalker, Finn was nothing more than a glorified side character. Worse, this extended beyond the movies.
For example, the trilogy’s international marketing either shrunk Finn’s presence or outright omitted him. John Boyega rightfully called out Disney and Lucasfilm for their lack of action, the pushing of Persons of Color characters to the sides, and what seemed like an attempt to appease the worst of the Star Wars fanbase. Boyega’s future with Star Wars is currently vague, though he did have a call with Kathleen Kennedy about the franchise’s diversity issue.
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