At Star Wars Celebration, it was announced that Daisy Ridley would be reprising her role as Rey in a new film in the franchise. While this is exciting news for fans and the character, we’re left wondering if Rey will be joined by other characters from the sequel trilogy, especially her close friend Finn (John Boyega).
Finn was introduced in the sequels as a character with a great deal of potential, but the trilogy of films he appeared in really dropped the ball on his characterization. Boyega himself has been vocal about how the writers mistreated his character, but he remains a fan of Star Wars and seems to be warming to the franchise once again, so one can hope that he could make a return.
Finn Should Have Fought to Liberate Stormtroopers
Finn was introduced in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as a stormtrooper in the First Order whose first act is one of defiance. He had been taken from his family as a child and groomed to be a weapon, and yet, on his very first mission, he chooses not to follow orders. He defects after seeing the horrors the First Order perpetrates and spends his first outing understandably terrified and desperate to get as far away from the First Order as possible. Despite his efforts to make a new life for himself, Finn eventually decides to sacrifice his freedom in order to save Rey and help the Resistance.
The subsequent films do not lean into this narrative. Instead, in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Finn goes through the same arc of trying to leave the Resistance to find Rey. He instead encounters Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), who accuses him of being a coward. He spends the rest of the film trying to prove otherwise, almost dying twice in the process (this was after Finn nearly died at the end of The Force Awakens). Rose also spends way too much time on their mission on Canto Bight lecturing Finn about how much he’s enjoying the luxuries of the casino world when there are starving and abused children looking after Fathiers. The entire film neglects how Finn was kidnapped and turned into a child soldier, and still managed to be a good person. How is that cowardice?
It’s not until Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker that Finn is accepted as the hero he was introduced as, especially when he works alongside Poe (Oscar Isaac) as co-generals of the Resistance. In the film, he also meets a group of freedom fighters, made up of former stormtroopers like himself. But while they band together for the final battle against Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), Finn has no arc related to his former life — instead, he spends the majority of the film waiting for and worrying about Rey.
Throughout the sequel trilogy, there are several instances of long-lasting harm perpetrated by the First Order, often to people who had been taken from their homes as children, such as the Canto Bight children, the children stolen from Kijimi, Finn, and the former stormtroopers. But it’s not even implied that these people were helped, let alone saved. Finn could very well have had an arc where he saved those brainwashed by the First Order, especially when he met so many on Kef Bir. Bringing Finn back to the Star Wars universe would be a great way to explore this discarded plot and maybe even lean into the friendship between Finn and fellow defector Jannah (Naomi Ackie).
Finn’s See-Sawing Jedi Abilities
When Star Wars: The Force Awakens was being promoted, one of the more prominent images was Finn holding up a lightsaber. It seemed that Boyega was set to be the new Jedi hero of the franchise. We were wrong. Finn had two fight scenes using the lightsaber, and then he was unceremoniously dispatched in favor of Rey. While the franchise desperately needed a female Jedi in the lead, it needn’t have come at the cost of Finn’s journey.
It was obvious in Star Wars: The Force Awakens that Finn is Force-sensitive, despite him being unaware of how the Force works. He hears the cries of the people killed in the Hosnian system, has uncanny instincts when escaping the Rathtar, and easily uses the lightsaber. Finn’s arc in the first film was comparable to Rey's — Force-users destined to overthrow the First Order and begin a new era for the Jedi. But in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, there was no mention of Finn’s Force abilities whatsoever. In fact, much of the literature around the film pointed to Finn not being Force-sensitive at all, which made little sense considering the obvious nods to it in the first film.
To confuse things further, Finn’s Force abilities resurfaced with a bang in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Suddenly he can sense the presence of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), knows when a violent creature is in pain and not a threat, and which command ship is their real target. He and Jannah also share a moment where they talk about how they had a "feeling" that they should leave the First Order, just like Finn had on his first mission, which could indicate that Jannah is also Force-sensitive and that the First Order was rounding up Force-sensitive children. Finn also feels Rey’s death from miles away. Even though Finn is once again Force-sensitive, and tries to tell Rey about it throughout the film, the film ends without the story addressing his abilities.
While fans were left wondering about Finn’s Force status, subsequent Lego films have confirmed it, and Finn is already on the road to becoming a Jedi. In The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special, Finn (Omar Miller) is training under Rey’s (Helen Sadler) supervision, and though he’s off to a rocky start, Rey promises to help him get better. Then in LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation, Finn is visited by the Force ghosts of Jedi past, and there’s no greater proof of his connection with the Force than that.
Embarrassingly, the Lego movies built on Finn’s arc better than the sequel trilogy, and they open the door for Finn’s next arc. He is already training with Rey in these films, so technically, Finn is Rey’s first student and the start of a new Jedi Order. He’d be a perfect fit for the new film.
Finn was an important addition to Star Wars, but the writers have never known what to do with him. He was effectively only a bait-and-switch for the first film, and then the latter two sidelined Finn’s arc to the point where his only significant contribution appeared to be pining for Rey. He was constantly stuck in place. It didn’t help that the franchise creators kept rebooting Finn’s relationships — he started off the trilogy by making a close, brotherly connection with Poe Dameron, and a crush/close friendship with Rey, but then he spent the majority of Star Wars: The Last Jedi apart from them, instead spending time with Rose. But in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Finn was back with Poe and Rey, with Rose hardly on screen, and he bonded with Jannah and the other stormtroopers.
Finn’s been all over the place, but he hasn’t been allowed to grow or develop as a character. Boyega rightly pointed out that all the "nuance" of the writing went to Rey and Kylo Ren — Finn remains a blank canvas, and a return to Star Wars would mean him finally getting to live his own story, rather than living for someone else’s.