10 Simple Fixes That Would Have Saved Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker

4. Make FinnPoe An Actual Thing

Star Wars Finn Poe Romance
Lucasfilm

Whether you call them StormPilot or FinnPoe, it's hard to think of a ship in recent years that has exploded into the public consciousness with as much love and energy as the one revolving around Finn and Poe Dameron. Oscar Isaac and John Boyega possessed palpable chemistry onscreen, and while both actors were evidently eager to explore that angle together - Isaac in particular - it never came to fruition.

True LGBT* representation is almost impossible to come across in mainstream Hollywood. The Rise of Skywalker includes Star Wars' first gay kiss but more time is devoted to the giant space slug getting a hug, never mind the fact the two characters who do smooch barely have an onscreen presence. Episode IX also goes to great lengths to hint at heterosexual relationships for both Finn and Poe, with the former evidently invested in Rey, and the latter having a romantic link with Zori Bliss.

Whatever. Poe is clearly bisexual and his true love is obviously Finn. Not that the Episode IX we got was ever interested in portraying that romance though, with Abrams taking time to applaud the nano-second of queer representation he gave fans as something that wasn't "too loud of a deal." Yikes. YIKES.

Look, Isaac was game. Boyega was game. Disney, Abrams and Terrio should've pursued it as a genuine arc.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.