Boyega can likely do more than what he was given, but that's what he was given.

- It makes no sense how he was indoctrinated for practically his whole life, but suddenly has a change in conscious. Sure, he's never killed people before, but you'd think that preparing him to kill ALL those that are against them would've included videos of them killing innocents, and of the Deathstar blowing up planets. The dude had NO signs of disobedience, nor did his mental records show that he had any inkling of resisting the indoctrination. It makes no sense.

- Why is he so freaking enthusiastic, and informal? He's been indoctrinated, and trained, in a cold, harsh, and strict military environment for nearly his entire life. You'd think he would be more formal, very awkward with informal dialogue, and uncomfortable now that he was free of the First Order, because he's never lived without regulations, and rules.

- He describes the Stormtroopers as indoctrinated victims since either birth, or from toddler age, YET he has NO issue with casually killing them. In fact, he does so gleefully; yelling "WOOO!!" while doing so. I know he has to kill to survive, but he should feel bad because, not only are they victims of brainwashing, but he's grown up with them practically his entire life. There should be grief, and grimacing on his face, and then at some point he just forces himself to detach himself from the situation and do what needs to be done, but in his private moments he's seen with his head down.

- He's a coward and we know he was a janitor...so why not tie those two things together? How about, even tho he never showed any signs of dissent during his training, he always had a shyness towards violence which affected his performance, which is why he was given sanitation duty for a period of time. However his marksmen skills were undeniable, so he was brought back to complete his training, and eventually deployed on his first mission years later. Easy.

Fin's character is just a generic character with some unique aspects that were never built on.

I assumed the sudden change in conscious would be an important plot point later on with the multiple mentions of how unusual it is by First Order characters (and Kylo Ren's sensing of him at the start).

As for the rest...people tend to expect lightsaber fights and spaceship battles when they go to star wars films not deep and nuanced characters.

Thats true, but he is still best character from the whole movie. Which is quite an irony.

Its same with the Han Solo and Chewie.They aren't even the main character but...

Yep. The character is a mess. People just like him because Boyega is quite charismatic on screen

Yeah you nailed. The character is simply wrong written..

TR-8R solos

The worst part is that his turn comes moments after a significant scene where he watches one of his stormtrooper buddies die in his arms, and smears blood on his helmet in a gesture that I'd expect in something like a Band of Brothers/Generation War, usually followed by the witnessing character becoming enraged and charging the enemy. Yet instead, Finn shows absolutely no signs of being affected by this, and moments later has no problem killing many of his fellow stormtroopers when helping Poe escape. It's an absolutely poorly done scene, and should have been cut out entirely. It makes Finn look like a sociopath. Also, you don't break brainwashing that easily. You want to have a stormtrooper gone rogue, put some effort into it, dammit.

@orangebat: i don't think he smeared blood on his helmet. I think he just had blood on his hands and touched his helmet. Fin was a good character. He served a big purpose. He showed that the storm troopers were human. They never focused on the storm troopers before. They were just robot like fodder getting killed. He also was one of the best characters in the movie.

@christianrapper said:

As the stormtrooper is dying, you can pretty clearly see him raise his hand and touch Finn's helmet, leaving a bloody smear. If Finn's purpose was intended to be that stormtroopers are ordinary humans too, brainwashed for an evil purpose, they sure did a bad job of showing that in the actual movie, what with them getting blown away left and right like standard cannon fodder, and Finn getting demoted to more or less a comic relief character.

If you're looking to star wars (CU) for intelligent writing you're gonna struggle.

You guys are naive about this. You want something that's pseudo well written. Pseudo complex. Not actually well written.

Finn is ok with killing stormtroopers but not rebel scum.

I'd be happy if it just made sense, doesn't have to be complex in the slightest. As long as they don't just gloss over stuff, like the fact multiple planets were destroyed killing billions and they are like "Oh well, that shit happens all the time."

So you're ok with killing civilians but not soldiers?

I'm not ok with a supposedly elite stormtrooper being unable to kill enemies of empire due to feelings, but is ok with killing his brethren. Whether there are civilian casualties are not doesn't matter to me in this case, as they cooperate with Poe/the enemy.

Before the Awakening pretty much explains his character.

He's a terrible character.

It seems that you've watched wrong episode)

@rubear: 0_0...

Agreed, this bugged me even more than how much of a "Mary Sue" Rey is. I know Disney doesn't have much faith in the audience, but does every protagonist have to be lighthearted and one dimensional? Finn was inducted at such a supple age that he doesn't even remember his birth name. He's been raised as nothing more than a serial number in a regime of space Nazis, yet he's played off as the jovial comedic relief. Ultimately I can forgive the movie for being illogical, although it's hard not to be a bit disappointed when it starts out by feigning boldness.

That said, they still have at least two more entries to make sense of it all.

Idk, maybe hes special.

I dislike him for entirely different reasons. I wanted a hero young African-American boys could look up to and want to emulate, but instead we got a frightened space janitor that was a joke and so inept he ended up comatose. He's Jar Jar Binks 2.0.

I think Finn is going to be a Jedi. He spent his whole life being brainwashed to become a Stormtrooper and he was able to overcome it. During the first battle Kylo noticed Finn and I believe that is due to him being Force Sensitive. It is the same way Vader could sense Luke. Finn learned how to use the weapons very quickly on the TIE Fighter, Millennium Falcon, Blaster and even held his own for short time while using a Light Saber that is a sign of being in touch with the Force in my opinion. Killing unarmed civilians stood against his morals and killing other heavily armed Stormtroopers to survive is understandable and essence of the Light Side of the Force. When Finn and Solo when to the planet to look for Rey, Hans Solo asked him for his plan. Finn said "Let the Force guide us" and Solo said "That is not how it works!" when actually that is exactly how it works. I just noticed that Finn was lucky during the whole movie and I remember either Yoda or Obi Wan Kenobi saying that with the Force there is no such thing as luck.

No he's not force sensitive. Maz Kanata only gave him Luke's lightsaber because Rey wouldn't take it and she knew Rey would eventually pick it up when Finn failed. It was a trick to keep it close to her.

If he isn't then they did a bad job in creating his character because they had a bunch of signs that leads him in that direction. I just hope it's not 2 Jedi's taking on the whole Empire. I guess we will find out in 2 years.

@bigsoto74: no offense but I think you're reaching with your theories. Finn holding the saber and all that was JJ trying to misdirect attention from the fact Rey is the new Jedi/ movie hero. Just because he's not going to be a Jedi, at least I don't think he will, doesn't mean his character is bad or poorly developed. Han is awesome and he's no Jedi.

I know, I've read. However, you'll notice that these are two different Finn's

BTA Finn is a prodigy, tactical genius, adept at combat, agile, precise, has almost no sense of humor, is very serious, while still being somewhat lighthearted, and is VERY intelligent, with great insight. Most importantly, he cherishes the lives of his teammates, above even his missions.

TFA Finn is literally NONE of that.

What's sad is that BOTH the prequel novel, and the movie, are canon...but both contradict each other...

@chillinvillain: Not really. No person's personality is set in stone, it can and does change depending on the situation and experiences. When Slips dies at the start of the Force Awakens it changes Fin and all he wants to do is run.

No he isn't, he's Luke Skywalker. This is what he was in Episode One and then he got character development during the movie and got cooler in each one but in the beginning he was a whiny dweeb.

@chillinvillain: I agree completely, his transition should have been gradual and he should have been more of a badass about things, not the innocent child he was on screen.

This should be a stronger conflict within his character, he should feel genuine guilt for leaving the empire. To my mind it would have been best if he had been a loyal and honorable soldier, perhaps an officer, who believes in the Empires strong values. But then he's given an order he can't comply with and so begins the gradual eroding of his Imperial demeanor, that would of course be a much more interesting character.

One thing I wonder is why do these two even need to be force users? I mean perhaps they could get training later but Luke Skywalker doesn't enter into light-saber combat until the second movie.