Quote Originally Posted by Bidoofdude View Post
Finn being somewhat able to use a lightsaber efficiently could be a small contribution to the notion of him being force-sensitive. Has there even been an instance of a force-user that is straight up just not a lot but only a little force-sensitive?
Efficiently? He stabbed some Stormtroopers which he managed to take by surprise, but in a duel against the Riot Trooper he was defeated (and was saved when the Riot Trooper was shot by Han Solo). He also lost against Kylo Ren (who probably would've beaten him faster if he hadn't been wounded by Chewie before the fight) and was saved by Rey. The ability to just pick up a lightsabre and use it to a limited capacity doesn't necessarily make one a "Force user" in the sense of a Jedi or Sith; after all, Han Solo once used a lightsabre in The Empire Strikes Back (and made a fairly precise cut on the Tauntaun's belly). A lightsabre is basically an energy sword; anyone can pick it up and swing it, and given that Finn would have had melee combat training as a Stormtrooper, yeah, he has some combat skill. But beyond that of a regular being? I don't know. And even if he did, I'm not sure how he could have improved his Force sensitivity without any training. Luke was trained by Obi-Wan in A New Hope and then tried to continue training himself between then and The Empire Strikes Back, but he had made fairly limited progress (he was still bested by a mindless Wampa). It was only after he received intense training from Yoda on Dagobah that he made leaps and bounds, but even then was still bested by Vader. In the years between Empire and Jedi Luke continued to train himself, which is why he was further improved by Return of the Jedi.

Finn showed no real Force potential in The Force Awakens and appeared to have no improvement in The Last Jedi. Suddenly in The Rise of Skywalker he's developed Force sensitivity? Now Leia did develop Force sensitivity in The Empire Strikes Back, but that's because it was later revealed that she's Luke's sister and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker; so she's already really powerful in the Force. And her Force sensitivity was only activated when Luke reached out to her. It's my understanding that the Organas deliberately avoided exposing her to any Force training in order to prevent any awakening of the Force within her, and the same with Luke's upbringing as a simple farm boy. I think that this was done to avoid allowing them to be detected by the Emperor and/or Vader. Because when Vader was attacking Luke in the Trench Run, he could sense that, "The Force is strong in this one," because indeed Luke's latent Force potential had already been activated. And the whole reason why Obi-Wan separated himself from the team on the Death Star was because he knew that Vader would sense his presence and while his primary objective was to shut down the tractor beam, his secondary objective was to distract Vader from Luke and company. Obi-Wan's more powerful presence masked Luke's; like a kind of Force misdirection.

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On a separate note, I'm still really not happy about how Rose Tico got sidelined as a character. I think the worst thing about this is not what it does to Rose, because she's just a fictitious character, but what it does for Kelly Marie Tran, who's a real person with actual feelings. We all know about the hate that spewed forth towards her because fans didn't like Rose; and we know that this kind of vitriol adversely affected the mental health of Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd. But Lucas tried to make things better for the fans and Best by improving the character of Jar Jar in Attack of the Clones (making him useful). By making Rose still useless but throwing her into the sideline, this feels like it's legitimising the fan hate towards Tran. It also made Jannah feel like she was a replacement for Rose... I think that much of Jannah's role in the movie, especially the assault on that Star Destroyer deck, could've been done by Rose. Rose should've teamed up with Finn to take out that tower. Why Jannah? One of the poignant things that Rose did in The Last Jedi was verbalise the Rebel/Resistance cause... when she saved Finn's life she said that they will win not by hate but by love. This is how Luke defeated Palpatine - through love (his love for Anakin and Anakin's love for him). And ultimately, it's how Rey was able to destroy Palpatine and how Ben was able to resurrect her - through love. And the whole reason why Palpatine won at the end of Revenge of the Sith was through hate. This has been a recurring theme in the Star Wars saga -- the struggle between love and hate, and it was Rose who articulated and embodied this over-arcing principle. But no, let's just make her... there.

Rose's uselessness in The Last Jedi is a legitimate criticism - one that I share. But I don't think that sidelining her was the answer. Just make her useful! The problem with Rose wasn't because she was Asian or that she kissed Finn or any of that stupid nonsense - it's because you could remove Rose from the story and nothing consequential would change. She was useless. And guess what? Same in The Rise of Skywalker! You could remove Rose from the story and nothing much would change. She doesn't do anything that no other nameless Resistance personnel could've done. There's no more compelling arc in her character... no reference to her sister or feelings for Finn. Nope nope nopety nope! She was arguably even MORE useless in Rise of the Skywalker than in The Last Jedi. It's just less noticeable because she has bugger all screen time.

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RE: Armitage Hux

I personally think that it was a nice surprise that he was the spy. It makes sense to me because Kylo Ren always treated him like crap, both in The Force Awakens, but especially in The Last Jedi. I liked how Hux said that he didn't even care if the Resistance won or lost, he just needed Kylo Ren to lose. This was a personal vendetta. On one hand, I do agree that his character was wasted and it would've be nice to see him do more... but on the other hand, having him be shot by Allegiant General Pryde also made sense as it showed that Pryde wasn't an idiot and is more attune to the old school Imperial way of dealing with under-performing officers. I liked the follow up line of, "We've found the spy." It felt similar to the spirit of, "You have failed me for the last time, Admiral." Although the even more menacing part with Vader was the follow up line of, "You are in command now, Admiral Piett!" Kinda sucks being promoted in the Empire.