If I Could Rewrite: Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Characters

(Spoilers for the entire Star Wars Sequel trilogy. I will need to discuss future movies to explain some of my choices.)

Creating new work is hard, but editing is easier. Today we’re tackling Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

I agree wholeheartedly with the popular consensus that these movies weren’t the best. I think the main problem with them was the presentation. The creators had plenty of cool ideas and concepts they wanted to explore, but their delivery was just a bit off. The movies feel half-baked and the characters under-developed as a result.

In this post, I will focus on changing some characters’ introductions/presentations to better fit the story’s overall themes. I plan on doing another post where I edit the events of the plot to make it flow better.

I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do the entire sequel trilogy or just this movie. If I tackle the other movies, the decisions I make in this post will carry over to those.

(I would like to point out that the only Star Wars content I’ve ever seen so far are the main movies and Rogue One. Thought I have been fact-checking myself using Wookieepedia for general accuracy, so if I drop some knowledge that’s not in the movies, the wiki is where it came from.)

Run, Finn, Run!

The first time we focus on Finn (then FN-2187), he is cradling the body of a fallen Stormtrooper. Finn witnessed him being gunned down by Poe, but he could do nothing to save his squadmate from the fatal blow. This death weakened Finn’s loyalty to the First Order, and Ben’s order to wipe out the villagers resulted in Finn’s defecting.

Here’s my problem, if Finn views Stormtroopers as people/friends enough that the death of one shook of his lifelong conditioning, why does he join the Resistance and start killing his former friends without a second thought?

It’s a bit of a plothole that puts Finn’s empathy into question. I have two potential fixes for this.

The first is to make the dying person in Finn’s arms a random villager. This way, the trigger for Finn’s defecting is his compassion for the innocent lives that the First Oder is trampling on. This would also explain Finn’s willingness to kill his former co-workers. He could reason that if they are still willing to stay after seeing what the First Order is capable of, then they might be beyond redemption in his eyes.

I don’t really like this idea because the entire point behind Finn’s character (and the whole franchise) is that anyone can choose to be redeemed. Finn gunning down his former allies despite this theme is a weird choice for this arc.

The second rewrite option is to remove Finn from combat entirely after defecting. Maybe give him a medical or mechanical background in the First Order that he can use to help the Resistance, or he could easily attempt to leave both groups behind after this movie.

(I might do some combination of the two for the plot post.)

Regardless of how I handle that, I want to make Finn more obviously Force-sensitive. The third movie implies that he is when Finn senses Rey’s death, but beyond that, he doesn’t really show it.

I’ll probably just have Maz or even Ben mention his abilities. Whatever I decide, it won’t really affect the overarching story the same way pacifist Finn would.

Another thing that needs to be changed is how flaky Finn is. I don’t think it was intentional for his character to come off as an untrustworthy, self-serving coward, but that’s all he is in this movie.

After Finn defects from the First Order (for moral reasons, to be fair), he lies about being in the Resistance to impress some girl, tries to run from the responsibilities of that lie entails when things get tough, and risks the lives of the Resistance and the freedom of the entire universe to save that same girl. That last one sounds noble, but it is incredibly selfish, especially since he saw what could happen if he fails. I believe he was meant to come off as an unlikely hero who would do anything for a friend, but it looks bad.

All the ways I can think of to fix that would be changing in the plot, so I’ll keep that to myself for next time.

Little Girl Lost

From here, that movie takes us to Rey. We see her scavenging the wreckage of a Star Destroyer, selling her loot, and going home alone with barely any food. While this does establish Rey’s isolation and her impoverished living situation, it fails to establish her place in the story.

In Luke’s first movie, he had a thirst for adventure (and his sister) and a quest to get vengeance for his father. Luke’s Force abilities are subtle since he has barely started training by the end of the movie. The plot was pushed forward by his desire to save Leia, help the Resistance, and trying to be a Jedi like his father.

Anakin’s first movie introduces him as a slave, but he gets freed after Qui-Gon realizes Anakin is The Chosen One. While their meeting was incidental, there wasn’t a question of why Anakin was important to the story. The heights that he would rise to in his future movies were telegraphed, but his Force abilities were still rather limited as a child.

Rey is one of the protagonists for The Force Awakens, and in this film, she’s just kind of there. When the plot needs her to bet Ben, she goes uses the Force like she’d been trained to use it.

She doesn’t want to leave Jakku but has to because she stood too close to Finn and is now wanted by the law. Even though she thinks the Resistance is impressive and Han is legendary, she doesn’t want to join either of them because she wants to return home. When she begins to exhibit Force abilities, she denies it and tries to run. The only reason she’s still around for the final act is that she was captured by Ben.

To fix this, I want Rey to show the audience that she’s Force-sensitive as early as possible. This way, the viewer at least understands that Rey has a bigger role to play in this narrative, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. There are a couple of ways I thought of doing this.

Rey’s first scene has her reaching into a compartment to grab a piece of tech from a crashed Stardistroyer. Why not put that scrap be just out of reach, so Rey has to use Force telekinesis to grab it? It could just be a small distance like a couple of centimeters that is easy to miss on first viewing, and Rey doesn’t even have to realize what she did.

Another opportunity we have is when she is cleaning her loot. During this scene, Rey starts staring at the woman sitting across from her for some reason. To show Rey is Force-sensitive, we could take this pointless moment and give it purpose. Maybe Rey can pick up a stray thought from the woman, which causes her to stare. She could be commenting on Rey’s living situation or something.

A super subtle way to show Rey’s abilities is to have people mention that Rey always gathers that most salvage. People with Force-sensitivity are more intuitive of their surroundings, like young Anakin piloting his podracer so well. Rey should be able to flourish as a scavenger because of her heightened awareness.

The last idea I have for adding early hints of Rey’s abilities is her using the Jedi mind trick to help her haggle. Again, Rey doesn’t need to know that she’s doing it. The exchange can go something like Unkar Plutt trying to cheat Rey, Rey demanding the proper pay for her labor, and Unkar Plutt paying her properly for once. This moment can happen in either the first scene where Rey trades in her salvage or later when she had BB-8 with her.

Beyond that, I would change Rey’s rejection of Han’s job offer to a noncommittal answer instead. I have a plan for what to do with this, but again, it is a plot change. You’ll have to be patient.

Twisting Your Mind, Smashing Your Dreams

Unlike Rey and Finn, a lot of the characterization for Kylo Ren doesn’t happen in this movie. Sure, we know things about him, like how Snoke enticed him towards that dark side and how he wanted to live up to Vader’s legacy, but we don’t really know him as a person.

I think this creates a major problem for the movie.

Ben acts as a villainous tritagonist, so it is important for the viewer to understand him and what drives him. He comes across as a petulant manchild who can’t control his emotions which undercuts the plotline of his parents wanting to save him.

Leia insists that there is still has good in Ben. While Leia might believe this, the viewer and Han have to take her word for it because Ben has done nothing to convince us of this.

We see him torture Poe, order the deaths of civilians numerous times, and try to indoctrinate Rey into his evil organization. There is no explicit scene that would make us believe Leia is right about her son. Just a subtle moment where he may have been trying to save Leia’s life.

When Han’s attempts to reach his son fail, he is rewarded with patricide. Ben murders his father because it makes him powerful, but for what reason. To make Daddy Snoke proud? And I’m expected to root for this guy later?

When Leia tells us that Ben was being influenced by Snoke, the depts of Snoke’s manipulation aren’t explained or explored. Considering how instrumental this is to Ben’s fall to the Dark Side, it is odd how we don’t really see how Ben was ensnared in this film.

So for this rewrite, I want to just add moments throughout the film where Ben hears voices.

I’m still trying to figure out how to make this change, but here’s what I came up with.

First, we can do something similar to the DnD spell dissonant whispers where a “discordant melody” is played softly during Ben’s scenes. (I guess the movies kind of already do this because Ben’s theme does borrow some of its notes and melodies from Palpatine’s theme.) It would signal something off about Ben, especially if it blares in scenes where he is alone.

Another way is to use old Star Wars quotes. We could hear past Sith, preferably from Vader’s, voices occasionally crop up in his scenes. As if nudging him to listen to them and follow in their footsteps. This especially works because Ben worries that he won’t live up to Vader’s legacy.

It could even be a constant low humming under Ben’sscenes that dissipates when he talks, indicating that despite having a constant whisper in his ear, he is the one who chose to follow that voice. This ensures that he isn’t let off scot-free for killing Han but still acknowledges that he was pushed to do this by Snoke.

(If I ever do a deeper dive comparing Ben’s story arc to Vader’s, I’ll explain why Vader’s fall from grace and following salvation is more earned. But that’s a topic for another time.)

If I don’t go with any of those, I think changing what Rey picks up from Ben’s mind could work. I would insert memories of young Ben hearing Snoke’s voice to clarify that Ben has been falling into the darkness for a while.

Love In The Air

(This kind of goes into the plot, but it’s subtle and has to do with character interaction, so it fits here too.)

I’d be remiss for not mentioning the pretty obvious love triangle building up between Finn, Rey, and Ben in this movie that is just dropped in later movies.

This isn’t just me reading into things either. Everything about Finn’s interactions with Rey mirrors Luke’s weird-ass crush on Leia in the original trilogy.

Meanwhile, the interrogation scene between Rey and Ben had a strange, almost sexual, energy behind it. It felt like Ben was trying to seduce Rey into complying with him. Based off of Daisy Ridley’s performance, it seemed like it was working, but Rey didn’t like that it was. Her reaction to his face just screamed, “Oh no, he’s hot!”

To be honest, I hate love triangles. I’ve never seen one in media where it wasn’t obvious which guy the girl will pick (girl/guy/girl love triangles are harder to pin down), but I would have been wrong if I had to guess from this movie. Finn and Rey develop a closeness that was half romantic/half platonic. I honestly expected them to be end game.

It feels like there was a disconnect within the production team. John Boyega seems to be acting Finn like he had feelings for Rey. The editing definitely shows there might be something more between them. The writing was what seemed the most conflicted about its feelings on FinnRey. One moment they’re writing in cute moments between the pair; the next, they’re giving Finn new love interests so Rey can be enemies to lovers with Ben.

Since this corner of the triangle’s romance goes nowhere, I would remove their romantic subtext from the movie. Both Rey and Finn lack a family for different reasons. Her because e of abandonment and him from getting kidnapped as a baby. Why not lean into the found family aspect of their friendship and get rid of the unnecessary romantic undertones?

In comparison, the Ben and Rey subtext in this movie does a great job at establishing their romantic plotline without taking away from the narrative of Ben’s final descent into the dark side. On my first watch, I wasn’t expecting the movie to revisit their attraction to each other or even for the attraction to be a romantic one. Still, the build-up in this movie sets the perfect stage for what follows in later installments.

Next time I’ll go over the changes I would make to the plot of The Force Awakens. That way, it can act as a better starting point for the overall narrative of this trilogy. Until then, see ya!

(All images came from Wookieepedia)