Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) got the short end of the stick in 2015's The Force Awakens. The Stormtrooper Captain with an awesome chrome design was featured heavily in the film's marketing, but was heavily absent from most of the final film and tossed in the trash compactor of Starkiller Base by Finn and Han Solo.
The character did manage to survive (explained in a tie-in comic) and was built up for a rematch with Finn in The Last Jedi, though her screetime was once again limited to her battle with Finn (glimpsed in the trailer) aboard the heavily damaged Supremacy Star Destroyer, where the villain officially met her end.
This turn of events left a lot of fans disappointed and drew a lot of comparisons to Boba Fett from the original trilogy. In an interview with IGN, director Rian Johnson explained his reasons for not incorporating Phasma into more of the film's proceedings. “I mean, as you can see, man, we had a really full movie already," Johnson said. "We had a big, big movie with a lot of characters we were trying to serve, and the God’s honest truth is, every character had to find their natural place.”
“And Phasma supports Finn’s storyline, obviously, and there just… until she shows up to fight him at the end, look through the story that we have, there’s just not a lot of space to go into a big Phasma storyline in it. So the truth is it’s just a very big cast and you have to kind of pick your battles with it.”
Johnson's explanation is logical given how much was going on in the film, though it's still unfortunate we'll never get to see more of Christie in the role. Did you want to see more of Captain Phasma? Let us know in the comments!
About The Author:
Matt is a graduate of the Ryerson University School of Journalism, and has been a fan of superheroes since he picked up his first comic book issue as a child. While he works as a professional musician, Matt has a massive passion for comic books, films and heroes, along with participating in discussion and debate with the CBM community.