Do you want to talk about how badly The Force Awakens shortcharged Finn’s character? One thing that no one to my knowledge is talking about is his phenomenal skill with blasters. This is LucasFilm’s fault, not the audience’s, because it was shown right on the screen but never properly foregrounded.
I don’t mean the time he picked up starfighter gunning with a ten-second tutorial, then combined that with lightning-fast tactical judgment in a thirty-second firefight to get himself and Poe out alive while still minimizing Stormtrooper casualties. No, that was an amazing scene that blurred by too fast for almost any reasonable viewer to fully appreciate, but it wasn’t… what’s the word… unthinkable.
What’s unthinkable, and what passed right under the audience’s noses because LF filmed it but didn’t emphasize it, is what Finn does with a handheld blaster. As I will discuss, his style is very different from the way we’ve seen the heroes use blasters but also different from the way Stormtroopers use them, combining his training with his own astounding skills and strength.
For reference, this is what I’m talking about:
[Image: Finn, on one knee, shoots one Stormtrooper down, then turns to shoot another.]
And this:
[Image: Finn runs at and shoots down a Stormtrooper who is firing at him]
I hesitate to even call this style “good,” because it could be very bad indeed for certain purposes, e.g. survival. It does, however, showcase his athleticism and sheer boldness in a breathtaking way.
This is hard to tell, though, on a casual viewing because it goes by so fast and is treated more as background action to Poe’s aerial acrobatics than a focus in itself. I didn’t realize just what was so special about this sequence until I did a deliberate comparison with how other characters and groups used different types of blasters in different situations. Let me explain below the fold just why Finn’s blaster style shown here is incredible and unique.
