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Banned
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https://medium.com/@realslimwebby/de...i-551c00707139
Quote:
Narratively, the point of the Canto Bight subplot is to compromise Holdo’s plan for retreat to Crait, and align with the theme of inspiring a spark of hope in a new generation, epitomised by broom kid in the epilogue. However, on a character level this side narrative goes far deeper..
The whole point of the Canto Bight storyline is its pointlessness. How it endangers the Resistance, and forces Finn to shift motivation and commit to their cause. This side plot’s importance is not defined in traditional epic terms, instead taking the form of a mock-epic, with comic and tragic dimensions.
Poe initiates the plan because of issues he’s having with Holdo in his own arc. Even though it’s a risky and ridiculous plan, we expect it to succeed because bold plans historically work in films, Star Wars especially. [See Qui-Gon Jinn gambling Anakin’s future on the outcome of a podrace, Han evading Star Destroyers by flying into an asteroid field, or Luke confronting the all-powerful Emperor in vague hope of turning his father…]
When Holdo takes command of the Resistance, she gives a speech about restoring a spark of hope to the galaxy. She establishes the Resistance’s most important mission in that moment is surviving to inspire a new generation of freedom-fighters because the four-hundred they number at that point is not enough to combat the First Order.
Like Poe, Finn does not see the hope. Truly faithless is he who runs as soon as the road darkens. So he runs into Rose Tico, a woman who’s just lost her sister to a ‘heroic’ sacrifice at Poe’s hand but retains her optimism nonetheless. Finn is a distraction from her grief, but lets Rose down almost straight away. The new hero of the Resistance, scourge of Starkiller Base, proves to be just another coward eager to jump ship. The pair’s subsequent Canto Bight mission begins as an ointment to Rose’s pain and antidote to Finn’s embarrassment, but morphs into a quest of moral discovery.
Canto Bight itself is two short sequences that add ethical complexity to the universe, through a depiction of oligarchs who make money exploiting the military industrial complex. The rich elite on Canto Bight are strengthened by perpetual warring between First Order and Resistance. Status quo is the only thing that can hurt them. Meanwhile, Finn crosses paths with DJ, who becomes the Devil on his shoulder to Rose’s Angel. DJ looks out only for himself, as Finn is so-inclined, while Rose promotes doing the right thing regardless of personal reward. It should be noted that Finn and Rose only meet DJ because they unsubtly crashed into the Canto Bight beach, drawing heat from the police. They are super unqualified for this mission.
Canto Bight is Finn’s dark side cave, a mirror forcing him to confront his worldview and adjust it accordingly, in light of new information about the galaxy deprived from him by a youth spent as part of the First Order machinery. Rose’s story about herself and her sister’s home being mined and bombed by the First Order serves a related, important purpose. Finn believed spending his youth subjugated to the First Order system was justification to be permanently rid of them. Rose’s story shows him countless young lives have been destroyed by the First Order’s touch, and the correct response is not to run away, but to stand and fight against them, as she is doing, so no other children have to experience what they did.
Likewise, meeting DJ and witnessing his flip-flopping between aid and betrayal shows Finn there is a morality to picking sides. That remaining detached from any cause is pointless nihilism. He realises that nothing right in this world was ever achieved without a fight, and the only way to defeat the First Order is not to run away, or make them hurt — as he hurt the residents of Canto Bight with the Father stunt — but to inspire the galaxy to stand up to them, because a united wall of ideological opposition will hold up to any show of force. Interestingly, ideological opposition by show of the Force is exactly what Luke exhibits when facing Kylo Ren. It’s as if Rian Johnson does in fact understand how to construct a thematically consistent movie…
Finn never affiliated with the Resistance in The Force Awakens. He went to Starkiller Base under the ruse of insider knowledge in order to save Rey. The first word he utters in The Last Jedi is ‘Rey,’ when he wakes up in the bacta suit his first question to Poe is ‘where’s Rey’, and his first motivation is removing the binary beacon from the doomed Resistance ship so Rey will not return to a slaughter. Finn deserted the First Order in The Force Awakens out of hatred of their callous cruelty (murdering civilians on Jakku). All evidence considered, Finn smashing Phasma’s helmet and seeing her eye staring back as she calls him scum is an Empire-esque Luke seeing himself in Vader’s mask moment. Finn sees what he would have become if he’d stayed, someone who sees the rest of the galaxy as ‘scum’ to be controlled. Which leads to his triumphant affirmation that yes, he is ‘rebel scum’, because their cause is a just one of freeing the oppressed, not further enslaving them. A cause worth fighting for.
The Canto Bight storyline thus concludes with Rose preventing Finn’s suicide on Crait, finally teaching him the value of — as she eloquently puts it — ‘not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.’ That we resist tyranny not because we wish to destroy others, but because the values we hold dearest — respect for life, fairness, liberty — are worth defending. And they can’t be defended if the minority who recognise their importance self-immolate in futile heroic sacrifices, as Rose’s sister Paige falls victim to at the outset. There’s no such thing as a heroic sacrifice in Star Wars any more, especially when the lives of people we love are on the line. Luke becomes the last bastion of that outmoded virtue, and even his self-immolation is more of a peaceful ascension.
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