...and that says much about Kathleen Kennedy, et al., that in the PT, Lucas could create a little white boy who defined his plight as a slave, while in the ST--a series run by the most "socially progressive" people on earth (and they never let a moment pass by to remind everyone of that) Finn barely said a word about his background, or presented a valid reason (in between sweating spells) why he left the FO. We do not even have the sense of the FO doing anything of note to him that would inspire his need to flee. His greatest development was running, panting and being the Back Buffoon while every other main character had their own stories...and dignity.
In 1980, there were some movie-goers who held some resentment toward Lando for "betraying" Han and the others, ignoring that Vader did not give him a choice in the matter. Apparently, realistic character reactions soared right over their heads, since some thought Lando should have refused and/or made some stand. Yeah...they must have been asleep and missed the part about the Empire being this mighty force that even an opposing army was incapable of stopping.
Thankfully, that group was small in number, because Lando was treated as an instant hero by the majority.
Most audience members understood Lando had no choice the moment he told the others that Vader and Company arrived before they did. Its the Empire. Who was going to oppose that? His agreement was merely a formality to what that situation really was--a military takeover.
Thanks for your reply. I totally misunderstood where you were coming from when you were talking about opposition to Lando. Yes, I agree, within the story, I can see what you meant by some people being salty about Lando's actions. I look at it and how the character evolved as Lucas, Kasdan, etc. having fingers on the pulse of character development was lacking in the sequels or even in some of the other Disney Star Wars films (though I liked both Solo and Rogue One better than Episodes 7 and 8; I only put Episode 9 above Solo, but still Rogue One is my favorite of the Disney Star Wars films).
I hate to try to give Disney the benefit of the doubt on anything when it comes to Finn in Episode 7, however, I can imagine that they didn't explain why Finn left the First Order because the audience was supposed to grasp that they were evil (I mean they were the evil Galactic Empire in all but name) so therefore, with the seemingly simplistic black-and-white Star Wars worldview-with the First Order being evil, Finn rejected them because of conscience, because deep down he was good. I do wish we had gotten more complexity when it came to the First Order. (I'm not the biggest fan of Star Wars: Resistance, and have only watched Season 1 and the first episode of Season 2, but it seems like Disney is using that cartoon to show us more of the First Order side of things, even though it's too little, too late).
Though I will say Lucas also couldn't get past painting things in black and white either. I remember the Episode 3 scrawl said their were 'heroes on both sides' but he never depicted the Separatists doing anything heroic, so that made no sense. Though in one breath he could say the Republic was 'corrupt', we never saw much evidence of that either. When it comes to The Last Jedi, it was like Rian Johnson was toying with the idea of Grey Jedi or even there was some equivalency between the Resistance and the First Order in the Canto Bight scene, but he shies away from that later on when he has Ren fully turn to the dark side. Trying to depict moral complexity, ambiguity, has not been a strong point ever for this franchise (not counting books or comics here) it seems.
I would put even Lucas going back and changing that Han shot first in that as well. It was like Lucas couldn't hold in his head, or wanted kids who were watching to, that sometimes heroes could do bad things. This inability or unwillingness to show moral complexity really hurt when it came to the prequels and how Lucas depicted Anakin's fall. He didn't know how, or want to, depict a morally gray character so he first introduced us to Anakin as the most innocent of innocents (he even cut a scene that showed Anakin fighting another kid), and Lucas tried to create this great and tragic love story, to make Vader more of a tragic figure than the mass murdering villain we grew up with. It didn't quite work, though I still enjoyed a lot of Christensen's performance (more than Lloyd's).
You are right that we don't get why Finn broke from the First Order. Why did his conditioning break at just
that moment? It can now be explained or retconned away as The Force was guiding him, but we should've gotten more answers much earlier in the sequels, and beyond just that some soldiers need reconditioning. And we don't see Finn spending much time wondering about any of that. He's fully into running away when he's not fixated on Rey. The sequels missed a great opportunity to have Finn be the audience surrogate not into the Resistance (Dameron could've done that) but into the First Order. We also don't see Finn going on his own search for identity. He just wants to run, but why not try to find his family? Not sure how young he was when he was taken but I wonder if he was old enough to remember any of them, or where he was taken from. Or if he would try to find out. But those things didn't matter to Disney ultimately, because Finn doesn't really matter. Despite the charm and energy that Boyega poured into his performance, Finn wasn't meant to be much or do much. And when I look at how poorly developed the other sequel heroes were, though they were generally afforded more dignity than Finn was (especially in Episode 7 and parts of Episode 8), Disney didn't put much stock into creating compelling characters. To be fair, again, Lucas had an issue doing likewise in the prequels, but what he had going for him was the nostalgia of the original trilogy which he didn't disrespect like Disney did IMO with the many of the original trilogy heroes. And though some of the prequel characters were wooden most had left stronger impressions. And watching Palpatine snake his way to power during the prequels was one of that series many saving graces. There's no performance like that in the sequels. And nothing thrilled like when Maul brought out the double lightsaber in Episode 1. The prequels had a lot of memorable moments, more than the sequels IMO.
Lucas had to connect the dots and show how some beloved original trilogy characters got their start, whereas Disney had the challenge of taking the story to another level, and they mostly decided to just tread water instead.
