Gwendoline Christie is great!
Captain Phasma is great!
Don't get me wrong...when Phasma was on screen, she was just fine. No major complaints. I just wanted more of her. And I don't just mean a more epic and longer fight scene (which would have been nice). I wanted her story to be more substantial, especially, as it relates to her being a foil and motivator in Finn's Hero's Journey
So, I figured out how Phasma’s story could have been fleshed out a bit more with a small tweak to the story in The Last Jedi which would change her entire character in very interesting ways.
[WARNING: SPOILERS for the films, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, movie, the novel, Phasma and the comic series, Captain Phasma]
{I know it sounds completely random, but, trust me...this is just a part of the epic villainous journey that I think she deserves.}
But how would she have ended up in a dingy jail cell on Canto Bight? It all starts in a trash compactor on the doomed Starkiller Base. What if instead of covering her tracks and returning to her position of prestige, she was forced to flee, in disgrace, out of self-preservation before her cowardly betrayal was, inevitably, discovered by The First Order?
First, we need to go back even further to think about how she was introduced in the film, The Force Awakens. She is presented as a ruthless leader shrouded in mystery and discipline. She submits to orders from her superiors, even massacring defenseless prisoners, adheres to strict procedures, demands unwavering loyalty and inspires her underlings to constantly be striving for superior skills. And she appears to be completely devoted to The First Order.
After she lowers the defenses on Starkiller Base, the greatest weapon the galaxy has ever known, she states that she does not see this as a threat to The First Order, since she is so confident in the skills and loyalty of her troops that she knows that they’ll be able to restore the shields before the pathetic Resistance fighters can do any harm.
Or so she claims. But what if there was another explanation for her actions? What if she was willfully acting against the First Order, as I said...out a simple self-preservation. In the novel Phasma by Delilah Dawson, by exploring her past, we learn of an even darker side than even the sinister faceless evil. We meet a survivor who will stop at nothing if it means improving her chances of survival.
If after The Force Awakens, Phasma had fled Starkiller Base, she could have gone into hiding, starting a new life incognito without her chrome mask. Remember...no one, except possibly Hux, knows her face.
And where would she end up? No one that she knows from her home planet survived, not that she’d go back to that desolate existence regardless. And she knows no one in the Galaxy outside of The First Order. So, she seeks out the only people in the galaxy she has any contact with...the weapon suppliers...the war profiteers. She knows that with their financial influence, they are even more powerful than the First Order...which leads her to Canto Bight. Out a desperation, she hopes to leverage her inner knowledge of The First Order and it’s inner dealings into a position of power. But with no social skills and no real direct contacts, she finds herself unable to make any meaningful connections and ends up discarded on the streets. Poor, alone and seemingly defenseless, she gets caught fighting and ends up in jail, perhaps after killing an attempted mugger or worse.
She ends in a cell thinking herself truly lost and helpless...until who gets thrown in but FN-2187 and some naive Resistance Scum. With a new purpose, she intends to win back favor with The First Order, the only family she’s ever thrived in, by helping to bring their greatest traitor back for vengeance. Perhaps she has visions of falsely claiming it was he who was responsible for their defeat at Starkiller Base.
Finn, of course, has no idea who she is, so, after he and Rose free the faziers, they gladly accept her offer of a ride off Canto Bight with BB-8. Phasma, knowing the codes to enter Snoke’s ship, will lead them both to their doom. But on the journey back, Finn and the unmasked Phasma debate which side is good, which is evil and what lies in the self-preserving gray in the middle. This would be a similar discussion to what was in the film between Finn and DJ. The possibilities of this alternate scene between Boyega and Christie seem to be a fountain of dramatic potential.
It is only after she gets them back into her clutches on Snoke’s Star Destroyer does she call him FN-2147 as she alerts the guards to their presence. The next time we see her she has donned her chrome.
The rest of the movie pretty much goes the same. I just think that there was a really interesting missed opportunity if they had given Phasma a more substantial story arc plus a chance to interact with Finn in a fresh new ways. More importantly, the amazing Gwendolyn Christie would have a chance to act in really dramatic scenes who would no longer just give the sense of her talent, but would demonstrate her brilliance.
