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. 

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Exposing the Bionic Man, Part 3: The Unspoken Costs

-
Image
In part one of this series, we discussed the financial costs of the bionic man program started by the US Government during the 1970s. In this, the third in our groundbreaking and daring expose, we look at the opportunity costs of Steve Austin. In other words, what did America have to do without because we not only purchased a bionic man, but also maxed out all the options, including the most suave mustache ever deployed in American history. Just TRY to argue with us. Plus, look at that collar. Dang. If he had been wearing that during his ill-fated crash, he could have simply bailed out and glided home. The operating costs were explosive. For example, during one mission, many of the details of which remain highly classified, Mr. Austin was forced to confront a Soviet “probe” designed to survive the rigors of the planet Venus. In the ensuing conflict, Austin’s nuclear-powered arm was heavily damaged. NUCLEAR-POWERED ARM. And Dr. Rudy Wells had spare parts enough to rep
Read more

The Bionic Man Exposed!

-
Image
Steve Austin, cyborg stud. On March 6, 1973, the U.S. Government quietly authorized $6 million for use on a secret, state-of- the-art weapon system without the knowledge or consent of Congress. A weapon system, as one unnamed source reported, to take care of “certain jobs where ships, planes, [or] a multiplicity of personnel, would be problematic.” In fact, none of the traditional national security apparatus – the CIA, FBI, C.O.N.T.R.O.L - was aware of the program. This was no small feat. After all, not only was $6 million a significant sum of money back in 1973 (an amount that could have purchased a top of the line fighter jet or the votes of half a dozen senators), but the program cost an additional half to $1 million dollars per year to sustain it. Plus, spinoff weapons of similar cost were eventually deployed as well. Damper 3 recently launched an investigation of “Six Million Dollar Man,” Colonel Steve Austin, and the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), th
Read more

Building the Bionic Man: A Look at OSI

-
Image
Spycraft is of course a dangerous profession. Agents of communism and world domination have prowled the globe, and the United States rose to the threat by investing resources into some pretty cutting edge technology to defend her interests. From cellular phones hidden in shoes decades before the first such phones ever hit the commercial market, to cones of silence, to nuclear-powered cyborgs, America’s spies have been equipped with the best the nation has to offer. The origins of the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) are murky, but the organization started sometime prior to 1973 as the Office of Strategic Operations (OSO). Keep in mind that at the time there were three other key spy agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and CONTROL (the counterspy agency organized in the early 20th Century to counter the international organization of evil, KAOS). While the need for a new spy agency isn’t clear, it seems likely tha
Read more