These are such interesting points -- I think your meta commentary is spot-on.
That said, I don't think the characters are drawn as badly as you say they are. Their storylines are not interchangeable.
You could not have sent Poe to Canto Bight (I love your misspelling, though ;) because he would have sneered at it even more overtly and angrily than Rose. You couldn't have sent Rey, because Rey wouldn't have been impressed -- all that bling means less than nothing to her. If Canto Bight had been an actual lush forest coupled with a city, think Lothlórien, maybe yes...but as it was, no.
Likewise, and I can't believe I'm saying that, because I thought there was wayyy too much time spent on Kylo Ren, I thought Rey's characterization holds water throughout the movie. First, her time on Ahch-To is lovely -- frustrated and lonely, sure, but oddly realistic for it; I could almost feel the cool chill from the sea and the gravelly rock under her feet. Then, of course, she's saddled with what I think of as the tired storyline of a sweet lady looking to redeem a young lord, which I have zero interest in...but of course, the storyline works because Kylo Ren is in fact irredeemable, and because ultimately Rey was not giving up even an inch of her soul. The Star Wars buzz about Rey "being tempted by the Dark Side" is utter horseshit; everything Rey wanted here was to drag Ren to the Light Side, kicking and screaming if need be! The fact that she willingly sacrifices her physical well-being and potentially her life is perhaps a little more Christian than Star Wars usually skews, but it doesn't change her fully fixed moral stance. And that, I think, is a powerful hero's journey right there.
Finn does have the smallest part of the tale, it's true, but again, I think it works for his character. Again, I disagree with the reviewers who talk about him wanting to desert -- he is not escaping because he fears for his own life; he is escaping for Rey, Rey who needs to be able to find him: He wants to be her beacon in the darkness of space. Does he factually desert? Haha, yes. But the Canto Bight story is about exactly that: Although your intent may be sweet and loving, its effects are devastating (Rose tells us as much, and again, she is not just a new sidekick; she and Paige stand in for all the previously nameless Resistance fighters that have kept the whole thing running). And on Canto Bight, Finn and no one else learns the lesson that you can't be a lone ranger, can't single-mindedly pursue your own end without destroying others' goals. One, he learns so because of his failed mission, and two, he learns so by example of DJ.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2018-01-05 05:05 pm (UTC)That said, I don't think the characters are drawn as badly as you say they are. Their storylines are not interchangeable.
You could not have sent Poe to Canto Bight (I love your misspelling, though ;) because he would have sneered at it even more overtly and angrily than Rose. You couldn't have sent Rey, because Rey wouldn't have been impressed -- all that bling means less than nothing to her. If Canto Bight had been an actual lush forest coupled with a city, think Lothlórien, maybe yes...but as it was, no.
Likewise, and I can't believe I'm saying that, because I thought there was wayyy too much time spent on Kylo Ren, I thought Rey's characterization holds water throughout the movie. First, her time on Ahch-To is lovely -- frustrated and lonely, sure, but oddly realistic for it; I could almost feel the cool chill from the sea and the gravelly rock under her feet. Then, of course, she's saddled with what I think of as the tired storyline of a sweet lady looking to redeem a young lord, which I have zero interest in...but of course, the storyline works because Kylo Ren is in fact irredeemable, and because ultimately Rey was not giving up even an inch of her soul. The Star Wars buzz about Rey "being tempted by the Dark Side" is utter horseshit; everything Rey wanted here was to drag Ren to the Light Side, kicking and screaming if need be! The fact that she willingly sacrifices her physical well-being and potentially her life is perhaps a little more Christian than Star Wars usually skews, but it doesn't change her fully fixed moral stance. And that, I think, is a powerful hero's journey right there.
Finn does have the smallest part of the tale, it's true, but again, I think it works for his character. Again, I disagree with the reviewers who talk about him wanting to desert -- he is not escaping because he fears for his own life; he is escaping for Rey, Rey who needs to be able to find him: He wants to be her beacon in the darkness of space. Does he factually desert? Haha, yes. But the Canto Bight story is about exactly that: Although your intent may be sweet and loving, its effects are devastating (Rose tells us as much, and again, she is not just a new sidekick; she and Paige stand in for all the previously nameless Resistance fighters that have kept the whole thing running). And on Canto Bight, Finn and no one else learns the lesson that you can't be a lone ranger, can't single-mindedly pursue your own end without destroying others' goals. One, he learns so because of his failed mission, and two, he learns so by example of DJ.