okay I wasn’t going to get into this #onhere BUT I've seen people saying that finn didn’t get enough to do and/or his and rose’s storyline and the canto bight sequence was “unnecessary” and that could not be further from the truth ???
this is one of the most purposeful movies of its kind I’ve ever seen. literally everything in it happens for a reason, and it’s all in service of the characters’ arcs and, in turn, the movie’s themes, which are of course summed up beautifully by the last shot: that “nobody” stable boy looking up at the stars w/ a broom in his hand and THE FORCE in his heart. the force doesn’t just belong to the skywalkers and their bullshit dynastic bloodline. it belongs to EVERYONE. and only by embracing that truth can the light defeat the darkness.
going along with this is the idea of finding one’s true place in the world and the triumph of collectivism over individualism: johnson rejects the notion of a singular “hero” with a special destiny and shows us that no only can anyone be heroic, but that heroism doesn’t always take the form we expect it to. this is, of course, what poe and holdo’s storyline shows us, as does paige tico’s death, and paige passes those values in their purest form along to her sister rose. rose as a character isn’t there to learn so much as to teach (which makes sense for a supporting character, imo). she first meets finn while he’s deserting the resistance to save rey: a “heroic”-looking but rash and, yes, selfish act that prioritizes rey’s survival over that of the resistance. rose, of course, stops him: resistance hero or not, nobody is above doing what’s right. crucially, he and rose then hatch a plan that will not only save rey but the whole resistance... break onto snoke’s ship and disable the device that’s tracking the resistance fleet thru lightspeed, allowing it to escape. this plan takes them to the casino on canto bight, a kind of intergalactic monte carlo populated by “the worst people in the galaxy”: the rich. when finn is dazzled by their wealth, rose reminds him that they acquired it at the expense of people like her family, and like the horse dog things (???) they race and the stableboys who care for them. pursued by the police, finn and rose liberate the horse dog things, smash up this “lousy beautiful town,” and escape — planting the seed that will blossom into that beautiful last scene. rose literally gives the stableboy her resistance ring, which we see him wearing it as he looks up at the stars. how much more explicit could johnson be here?
I don’t know why people think this is “pointless.” yes, finn and rose don’t accomplish their stated goal, which may be what’s tripping people up... but they learn and impart the most important lesson of this film in the process. the master codebreaker stuff is just plot, and plot on its own is nothing if it’s not in service of something higher. finn goes from trying to save rey (and, let’s be real, himself) at the expense of the resistance to nearly sacrificing himself to save the resistance, living the values that rose taught him AND passing them on to a new generation. anti-capitalism, collectivism, working together towards a greater good, anyone can be a hero, the force belongs to all of us, destiny is bullshit, etc. etc. etc. I don’t know what’s more necessary than that
