Not Politics: Why Rose Tico Should Have Been a Really Cool Character in The Last Jedi
Let’s get a few things straight right now about the much
maligned Rose Tico. The character was boring. She added very little to The Last Jedi, and her memorable moments were few. Now, this has nothing to do with the acting. Kelly Marie
Tran’s performance was solid, and her character's chemistry with Finn worked very well. The
toxic fandom backlash against the actress was at best misplaced and at worst
racist. The weakness in Rose had nothing to do with Tran and everything to do
with a really bad script.
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Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico in The Last Jedi.
Picture credit: By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61312733 |
Now, a really well-balanced article would spell out why we
believed Rose was such a lackluster character. To that we say, “watch the
movie.” Come on. “This is how we win?” The nonsense she has to say shreds the
story narrative to advance the plot in such disjointed ways that we’re not
going to go through that here for fear of spiking our blood pressure and stroking
out. Let’s just get to the huge missed opportunity that would have made Rose a much more compelling character.
Who was Rose? She was one of two sisters who volunteered to
join the Resistance to fight the First Order (thank you, Wookieepedia). Rose was
a maintenance person, but her sister Paige was featured in one of the more
memorable scenes in The Last Jedi. As
we recounted in the last Not Politics article, at the
start of the film, Poe was earnestly orchestrating the destruction of the
Resistance (you read that right…go read the article). His gambit to destroy a
Dreadnaught looked to be about to end in disaster when, through the heroic
actions of Paige, the last Resistance bomber successfully throat-punched the
First Order before being destroyed. Paige sacrificed her life to complete the mission.
Now, as we argued in the previous Not Politics, the attack
on the Dreadnaught was not only criminal, it was of questionable strategic
value. After all, General Leia herself wasn’t interested in the opportunity and
she’s not only in command but has made a career of saving the galaxy. So what exactly did Paige die for? Fighting tyranny? Or for Poe's ego?
In the movie, the impact of Paige’s death was boiled down to
this: Rose sniffling about it when we first are introduced to her, and maybe a
comment or two later in the film (honestly, we didn’t want to watch the whole
thing again to find specific references). But what should have happened was Rose learning that her sister
died in an ill-thought out attack by none other than hero of the Resistance Poe
Dameron. Suddenly, we have an interesting character dynamic that is way better than what TLJ
sort of tried to establish with that 30 minute mindless detour through Space Vegas
(actually called the casino city of Canto Bight, but Space Vegas is more fun to
say). There, we get introduced to class warfare for the first time in the Star
Wars universe, where Rose opines about the wealthy bleeding the poor and
fueling war by selling weapons and yada yada yada. It was tacked on, boring,
and forgotten as soon as they left Space Vegas (because what happened in Space
Vegas stayed in Space Vegas).
But had Rose known the
circumstances that led to her sister’s death, then she might have either
questioned the Resistance itself, or at a minimum questioned the capabilities
and intentions of Poe, who was, throughout TLJ, doing the same thing to Vice
Admiral Amilyn Holdo. Where should she put her allegiance? She could have even,
with some additional development, had a light/dark side internal conflict as
she grappled with anger at Poe and her devotion to the Resistance. All the
ingredients were in the movie to make Rose a compelling character. But the writers
decided that killing Luke and making him suckle at the teat of blue milk space
cows was more pressing.
Ah well.
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