To me it seemed like Finn was either going to get hit before he made it, or crashing into the weapon wasn’t going to accomplish much. Basically, it seemed like he was making a sacrifice for the sake of it.
I think they made it clear that it was between him destroying the weapon and himself, or saving himself and the weapon. Rose clearly says that basically with the line of “more important to save those who we love, than defeat those who we hate”
Yeah but that line is the whole point. Attacking the weapon is a fruitless maneuver designed just to hurt them (like with the Dreadnaught at the start of the film). The Resistance was in a dire situation there even if the weapon was blown. The more important thing to do was to go back to the base and figure out most importantly how to save everyone they could, however they could.
Exactly. And this event parallaled the exact same thing that Poe Dameron did in the beginning of the movie; going for damage and loss (on the Dreadnought), rather than patience and perhaps survival for the people. Finn dooming himself would just be another small loss for the bastards their fighting, but an enourmous loss for the people who cared about him.
JEDIT: Sometimes it’s simply just about waiting for the oppurtune time, and this wasn’t it.