Yeah, it’s pathetic. There was a lame, half-assed stab at SJWness on the casino planet, but that entire scene was pointless, boring, and stupid anyway. Hands down, the weakest part of the film, and it highlighted that Finn should’ve been killed at the end of Episode VII—an uninteresting character who has nothing to do.
I was really, badly hoping Rey and Ben Solo would team up, though. That would’ve been a really interesting turn to match the movie’s theme of “let the past die.” They have to do something, b/c “Star Wars” as a concept appears to be a huge universe, but it’s actually quite limited. I applaud Rian Johnson for trying something new.
“Finn should’ve been killed at the end of Episode VII—an uninteresting character who has nothing to do.”
The sad part is, he didn’t have to be uninteresting. Han Solo (at least in the “extended universe”) was an Imperial deserter too, but he wasn’t uninteresting. The filmmakers just seem too busy trying to build up Rey the Super Jedi Girl to give him anything really interesting to do that might develop his character.
I think they should have put a couple years between this movie’s plot and the last one. They could have started the movie with Finn having been doing something else that might have given him some other motivations besides “I’m worried about Rey”. Plus Rey could have been studying with Luke for a while instead of magically learning new Jedi powers in a few days even though Luke didn’t actually bother to try and teach her much of anything.