Poor Finn, his character was so mishandled. The most interesting thing about him from TFA was a stormtrooper who turned (showing storm troopers could be more than just drones) that would have been something totally new and have his character build upon that with the Star Wars brand. (Which the leak Dual of the Fates script built upon, that was a good direction IMO)
… and then in this movie … the crew meets up with A WHOLE PLATOON OF TURNED STORMTROOPERS who essentially said “Hey, you know what was cool and unique with your character at the beginning of the trilogy, not so unique anymore! (cue in Nelson’s “Ha Ha!”)”
Anyway, with the whole thing regarding Finn’s proclamation of not telling Rey something. It was still baffling in theaters what HE wanted to say to her, but also, the context of the scene. (Yes, we see throughout the movie it heavily implies he is force sensitive, but again, not really points to what he wanted to say to her.)
The crew, made up of close friends, are probably about to be buried in quicksand and die. The last thing while he wants to say before he dies to his close friend is “I may be force sensitive?!”
Just think about it. The logic and context of the scene is baffling. Let’s say you are with a bunch of friends swimming in the ocean and you all get caught by an under current. You are all about to drown, and one of your friends turns to you and says: “INSERT NAME HERE, I always wanted to tell you I can bowl a perfect 300 game!”
Impressive. Yes. Interesting? Sure. But in that context, makes no sense to blurt out as his/her dying last words.
So although I don’t think you can get around that scene, the context of it MAKES NO SENSE for him to shout that out. You ASSUME you are about to die. That’s what his last dying word(s) will be for that moment? So for me its the context of the scene. That’s what I have a problem with it, personally. On top of that … he then keeps it as a secret the whole time? Really?
That ends my TED Talk.
TFA set up the cards to make him an interesting, unique idea.
A nameless faceless stormtrooper who turns into a new hero, maybe even a Jedi…that adds something to the SW universe. It explores the philosophy/joke that every SW fan has made for decades about whether the Stormtroopers deserved sympathy for just regular people doing their jobs.
TLJ and ROS had no idea what to do after that point. JJ sort of had the “secret Jedi” in the works but never actually followed through, and Rian did the weird “subverted expectations” suicide and tacked on romance, neither of which meant anything.
The Duel of the Fates script gave a far far better completion to his arc that didn’t even NEED the secret Jedi aspect, yet they didn’t go with that either.
Maybe it will be possible someday to Deepfake some sort of Stormtrooper rebellion?