[ SECRET POST #4246 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4246 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 27 secrets from Secret Submission Post #608.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

But... the reason that it's not a good romance storyline is because it's not actually a romance storyline. It's hints at a romance storyline possibly existing in the future.

And also, Rose and Finn had plenty of time interacting with each other and getting to know each other - they devoted enough time to it that it's one of the major things that haters of the film bitch about. If they had wanted to play that romantically, they could have easily done so.

[(Anonymous)]

They meet under unusual circumstances and get off on the wrong foot but are thrown together for a common cause that also happens to be dangerous. He sets off on a doomed course only to be rescued by her, he's distraught at the idea she might be hurt or dead and they kiss. Please explain how that's not a romance storyline.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not saying that it's unromantic. I'm saying that it's not the main point of their storyline as it's presented in this specific film. Those elements exist, and they could easily be emphasized more in a future film. But it wasn't the central point in this film. One of the ways that you can tell this is by the fact that, if you consider it primarily as a romantic storyline, it's a very unsatisfying one.

[(Anonymous)]

You've moved the goalposts. First you said it wasn't a romantic storyline at all, now it's oh yeah, the elements of a romantic storyline exist but it's not the main point (which no one ever claimed, btw). Are they setting it up for further development? Probably. But look at their arc, it's so typically romance arc it's practically a cliché. Even if you argue that it's a set up for further development (another point nobody is arguing with, btw) that doesn't mean it's beyond criticism in the context of this one movie. That'd just be silly.

[(Anonymous)]

I've moved the goalposts all the way from "hints of a romantic storyline" to "elements of a romantic storyline".

OP's saying that it's not a good romance because they didn't spend enough time on the romance storyline. What I'm saying is that the romantic aspect of it isn't the main point of it in TLJ, even though it might be the point of their storyline in a future movie. It's an intentional choice to have a storyline that focuses on other things - on Finn's character development, mostly - while keeping the romantic hints (or elements) in the background. It has romantic elements but that's not the primary significance that it has in the context of the movie, or the primary emotional resonance.

If you think I'm arguing that there's no romance whatsoever, that is certainly not what I'm saying.

[(Anonymous)]

The secret objects to having a romance arc shoehorned into an action film if they're going to do a crappy job. That's a valid point. You saying it's not a romance storyline at all is demonstrably incorrect and a rather silly claim to make when the secret image is of two people kissing. The point you seem to be missing is that just because romance isn't the main focus doesn't mean there's no romantic storyline at all. There is. Movies can and often do have multiple storylines. TLJ definitely has multiple storylines. Finn and Rose and thir budding romance is one of those storylines.

If you think I'm arguing that there's no romance whatsoever, that is certainly not what I'm saying.

I know. Your argument makes even less sense - you're saying that romantic elements =/=romantic storylines. And you could be right...but in this case, the romantic elements absolutely add up to a storyline - not the ONLY storyline, but definitely a storyline.

[(Anonymous)]

They didn't shoehorn in a romance arc because there is no romance arc. At worst, you could say that they shoehorned in a kiss.

There's a storyline between Finn and Rose in the movie. And that storyline has romantic elements, but it's not primarily a romantic storyline - it's a story about Finn learning something about the universe and about himself. If you look at that storyline and grade it on whether or not it's a good romance, of course it looks terrible, because it's not trying to be a good romance.

It's not a romance story. The fact that Rose and Finn kiss, and might kiss more later, is fundamentally ancillary to the main thrust of their storyline in TLJ, and judging their storyline based on whether or not it succeeds at the kissing aspect is unfair because of that. That is my whole point here.

[(Anonymous)]

I 100% don't care whether you call it an undeveloped storyline or "hints for the future"

shoving in a compulsory climactic heterosexual kiss with no actual development of the feelings that prompted it, in the movie that the kiss itself is in, is clunky and shoved in and desperately overused and I am just so tired of it

I will stan for literally every other part of this movie but I hated the kiss. if they wanted to "set up for future romance" then fine, keep their getting-to-know-you adventures, keep saving Finn and even have Rose use the word "love", but let it be an embrace or a forehead kiss or something, anything, that isn't our cinematic language's biggest symbol for ROMANCE ACCOMPLISHED. save that for the next movie if that's when they want to build the actual romance storyline

(yes I know in real life people kiss before they date sometimes/are sure of their feelings/whatever. but in movies everything is compressed and heightened, especially movies of the scale and dramatic tone of star wars.)

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. It's so weird that someone is looking at a secret where the couple in question is about to kiss at a climactic moment in the film and in their relationship and going nope, there's no romantic storyline here.

[(Anonymous)]

If you don't think they should have kissed, sure, fair enough, go off. I think it is kind of shoehorned in there.

But I don't think that you should treat the kiss as the point of the broader Finn & Rose storyline in the movie TLJ, and judge everything that they do on the movie on the basis of whether or not it adequately leads up to the kiss, because that's just not the point of what they're doing in the whole rest of the movie. The storyline is about something else, and happens to feature romantic feelings and a kiss.

[(Anonymous)]

Arguing that other people shouldn't develop opinions on a movie because they're not according to YOUR guidelines of how the movie ought to be judged us going to be a non starter.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like you're completely misconstruing our complaints? Like. no, nothing they do beforehand leads up to the kiss, and it has nothing to do with the rest of their themes. Yes. Yes, that is exactly the thing I dislike. Because like it or not, a dramatic double-sacrifice, grand thematic one liner, and then a surprise kiss are all movie language for "this is the culmination of this whole thing." And it doesn't sit right.

I like the Finn&Rose subplot. I like it a LOT. I like that there's actual space to grow between 'cares about his friend' and 'cares about this wider cause' instead of there being only one homogenous 'not evil anymore therefore Good Guy' moral option, and that it gets explored. I like the casino as a new inverse hive of scum and villainy. I think DJ and Rose and Finn set up some great moral and thematic foils, and also that DJ is just incredibly fun. I love the shit out of the girl-frees-abused-wild-animal-rampage fantasy sequence, I think it's powerful and shameless and great and fun. I love the "rebel scum" moment. I like how all their failures combine to enhance the main theme.

It was a great adventure plotline. But it either was not a romance plotline/had romances chunks thrown in, or it was a great adventure plotline and simultaneously a really shitty romance plotline, and I think the difference between those two descriptions is almost entirely semantics. And either way, I wish they could have just let the great adventure plotline be itself with the shoehorned romance. Even if they're going to pick up camaraderie from the adventure plotline to develop into romance later, they shouldn't put romance in when they haven't developed it, and I think trying to do so actually weakens the strength of the adventure plotline, because it retrospectively makes me go...."did I miss something? was all that moral back-and-forth growth just supposed to be UST? what actually was happening here?"

And I think that's a shame.

[(Anonymous)]

I think, fundamentally, that it's a great adventure plot with an extraneous kiss in it. And I agree that the kiss is bad! But I don't think that you should ignore the good adventure plot, and it seemed like OP was writing off the actual plot elements that were there, and instead just evaluating them on the fact that they weren't romance elements. The fact that the movie tempts people to understand the storyline through the lens of the kiss is a problem with the movie, especially because that absolutely isn't the way that the storyline is actually set up.

To my mind, it's not a badly done romance at all, it's a well-done adventure storyline with a kiss in it. And I don't think it's a semantic difference *at all*, it changes the whole way that you understand and view the storyline. OP seems like they're approaching it like the problem with the story was that it wasn't romantic enough, and I just don't think that's accurate to what happened in the movie. The way to fix the issue is not to have more romance. The way to fix that is to have less kiss.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're seriously reading this into the secret when it isn't there.

"What I hate is that this movie....seems to feel the need to include a romance in their action film, but they don't bother taking the time to write a decent one."

"the need to include a romance" and "not a decent one" are JOINTLY the problem. It could be fixed EITHER by better emotional development of the romance as a parallel or support to the adventure (which some movies can pull off! which some star wars movies have pulled off! YMMV by taste obviously).

"IF they're going to do it, at least do a good job, dammit..."

Nowhere in the secret does it say anything about the quality of the storyline otherwise. Because the secret's not about that! And TBH given the high pressure for four-factor appeal in blockbusters, they probably wouldn't be allowed to drop the romance element entirely. But I don't see anything in the secret that 1) denigrates the storyline in general or 2) would object to less kiss as the solution. It just sounds like they're resigned to kiss probably existing. And in that case it's perfectly reasonable to wish it were done better.

[(Anonymous)]

After reading this thread, I'm not sure you understand what "romance" or "romance arc" means because you are consistently (perhaps willfully?) failing to recognize one even when people spell it out for you. Assuming you are not trolling, your logic is all over the place.