Well, mainly admiral Holdo and Rose but even Phasma was forced.
They did such a poor job writing in Holdo that her role in this film was completely unnecessary especially when we had Leia, Ackbar and Po. They could have taken the story in so many better directions utilizing these characters. Instead they kill off Ackbar almost the same moment he appears, make a fool out of Leia putting her in a mystical sleep, and undermine the bad ass resistance pilot we saw in the previous film in order to make way for this nonsensical character Holdo. They brought her in out of thin air with little to no background and made her look like a power trip who just wanted to be respected and trusted without proving herself so she could make a statement with her death and be a hero. It made no sense not to just tell Po other than creating multiple unnecessary subplots for Her and Rose to be apart of. Without Holdo's ridiculous plan and intent to keep it a secret for no reason, Roses character and role in the film become obsolete and non existent.
I don't see Holdo that way at all. I mean, I agree that she has no real backstory, but then, neither did Admiral Ackbar in ROTJ. Or General Madine. Or General Dodonna. Or General Rieekan. Or Mon Mothma. Pretty much everyone who wasn't Leia has no backstory as far as their role within the Rebellion or the Resistance. Why is the Alliance fleet suddenly commanded by some random fish dude? It's never explained. You're just supposed roll with it. Same story here.
I think what sets folks' teeth on edge about Holdo is two things.
1. She puts Poe in his place.
I see this as entirely appropriate. She doesn't have to tell Poe what her plan is or her reasoning. Poe's an idiot in this film. And the fact that he's an idiot in this film doesn't destroy his badassery, so much as recontextualize it. I've seen other folks discuss how Holdo should've been more forthcoming with her plan to Poe. To this, I say: Why? Why does he deserve an explanation? Why does he deserve anything other than "Shut up and follow my orders,
Captain." From my perspective, he doesn't.
Consider the circumstances for a second. Poe's recklessness didn't just endanger Poe himself. It endangered -- indeed, cost the Resistance --
all of it's heavy bombers. He deliberately disobeyed orders to pursue an idiotic mission that, yes, destroyed a dreadnought, but for no ultimate purpose. Attacking the dreadnought was foolish, wasteful, and short-sighted. Poe's mission was to
delay the enemy fleet and provide cover for the escaping fleet. It was not to
destroy the enemy dreadnought. But he was only thinking tactically, and about how they could take out a big ship. Well, BFD. The First Order has a gajillion big ships, and blowing this one up will not mean a damn thing. Meanwhile, the cost to the Resistance is extremely high both in terms of personnel and materiel. After that, he gets demoted and the fleet jumps out...only to be followed by the First Order, which kills the bulk of the command staff, nearly kills Leia, and leaves only Holdo in command....and now Poe is demanding to know what's going on? As I recall, at that point, nobody's 100% sure how the First Order is following them. It could be a tracker, but the tracker could've been planted by a spy who'll report back to the First Order what any plans are, so telling anyone outside of the command staff anything may be putting the entire Resistance at risk. Plus, Holdo has the stress of being in command now with basically nobody else left...and in the midst of this, here comes some pain in the ass hotshot who acts like he's owed any information at all, when he's lucky he wasn't spaced on the spot for disregarding orders and costing the Resistance so many lives and so much equipment.
I think, however, that the response people have to this is "WTF? She should tell him what's going on, and not be such a jerk to him!" And I think they have this response because of...
2. Latent sexism.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the people who respond badly to Holdo are themselves raging sexists who affirmatively believe that women are inferior. Rather, I think they're more likely falling victim to, and failing to realize the impact of, the sexism in society at large. The first response for many when seeing Holdo in charge is "Who the hell is this?!" From that flows pretty much every other criticism of her character, from being high-handed and needlessly secretive, to her being rude or mean or whatever. It's all based on this underlying notion that she doesn't belong in that position. It's not even a conscious notion, really, and it sits right alongside everyone absolutely accepting (for example) that Leia is running the entire Resistance. No problem there. But that doesn't mean it isn't coming as a result of sexism.
The way I see it, try a little thought exercise. Take Laura Dern out of the film, replace her with, say, Idris Elba or Bruce Greenwood or Brian Cox or (etc., etc., etc.), and ask yourself if you'd really have a problem with the character. You don't have to answer me, but I'm betting that a lot of people, if they're being honest, would probably have a lot less of a problem with any of these actors in that role. That's sexism. Not conscious, "go make me a sammich" sexism, but unconscious discomfort at a woman (A) being in a role traditionally held by a man (or a fish-man), and (B) talking down to a man, especially one who has previously proven himself in combat (even if he also proved himself to be a fool in his last sortie). Again,
I am not saying that you're some kind of woman-hating knuckle-dragging MRA red-pill blogger. I'm saying that your response is a kind of conditioned response borne of the sexism inherent in our society, and that's exactly why having roles like Holdo are important: they break that sort of thing down.
You know what the ideal response to a character like Holdo should be?
Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Nobody bats an eye at it, whether Holdo is a woman, a man, a fish-man, a fish-
woman, or whatever. It shouldn't matter at all. But because we live in a sexist society, when people try to push back against that, it sticks out and folks respond. Which, to me, proves that there needs to be
more challenging of those kinds of norms, because they're arbitrary, artificial, and wholly unnecessary.
So, now we have Rose who takes Fin out of the main picture to go on a marry goose chase to kill time. It felt so unattached. Then She completely contradicts herself and ruins what could have been the best character moment for Fin. He has spent all his time running from the First Order selfishly to save himself or Rey, now at a time when all seems lost for the rebellion he decides to give his life in scrifice to save what he has come to love, the rebellion. But then Rose stops him and says you don't want to win by fighting what you hate, you have to do it by saving what you love. Which totally contradicts what her sister died for, trying to win by destroying the dreadnought that fought for the first order which she hated in order to save the rebellion which she loved and is exactly what Fin was trying to do. Rose sacrificed nothing so that Finn would survive but the rebellion could be destroyed? It's totally nonsense!
Rose's character indeed does not end up being introduced if Finn doesn't try to leave the ship. And Finn doesn't try to leave the ship if Poe doesn't tell him to do so, because Poe is an idiot (still, at this point) and thinks he knows best. So, that part I'll give you, although I dispute that that makes the character "forced." She's not "forced." She's organically involved in the story, based on the events that play out. It's not like "Hey, we need an Asian woman who isn't as conventionally attractive as a character we'll show to be her now-dead sister who joins Finn on his chase. So...uh...write me a storyline that fits her in, k?" The storyline is playing out without Rose, and Rose ends up caught up in those events --
exactly like Finn did in TFA. Rose also doesn't contradict herself. To the contrary, she
learns from her sister's mistake. Rose's sister gave her life for the Resistance...and it was a waste. Yes, they took out a dreadnought. But they didn't need to. She didn't need to die. None of the bomber crews did. That was Poe's mistake, and again, it came partially from a view of fighting because you hate the First Order, not because you're trying to protect what you love. Or at least not
enough because you're trying to protect what you love.
As for Finn's character arc, the arc of "no more running" already happened. That was in TFA. It's how he wound up in the medbay: he decided to fight for the Resistance and his friends, and to try to help Rey (and it got him slashed up the back by Kylo Ren's lightsabre). That wasn't his arc in this film. In this film, he's fully on board as part of the Resistance. But he's still operating at least partially out of a place of hatred towards the First Order (understandably, given his experiences).
I'm going to try to put this into a context that may make more sense on the issue of "Fight for what you love."
A couple of months ago, I was driving around town. Usually I drive my daughter to daycare, so she spends a lot of time in the car with me. She wasn't in the car with me that day, but I'll get to that in a second. Anyway, I'm driving around town for whatever reason, and I'm in the left-hand lane on a 2-lane street in an urban center, as a guy in a pickup truck is driving along maybe 2 feet in front of me in the righthand lane. There's a car double-parked about 100 feet ahead, and I'm pulling forward, as the guy in the trick starts slowing down. I suspect that he's about to cut over into my lane, but I'm already there, I've got traffic behind me, and he hasn't bothered to put his turn signal on anyway. So I drive ahead as he starts coming over anyway, and I beep my horn at him. He then proceeds to tailgate me for another two blocks, until we come to a red light, at which point he angrily climbs out of his truck, walks over to my car, and starts pounding on my window. My drivers' side door was unlocked at the time, and he yanks that open and starts screaming at me to get the F out of the car because I knew what he wanted to do and he's gonna kick my ass now. I just look at him, say "No," pull the door shut, and lock it. He pounds on the window a couple more times, then stalks angrily back to his truck. When the light turns green, at his first opportunity, he races ahead of me at full speed.
I told my wife about the story, and was thinking about what I would have done if our daughter was in the car. And this is where the Poe/Finn thing comes in.
Option 1: Get out of the car and fight the sonofabitch because he would've terrified my daughter, and any ******* who does that is stepping into a world of hurt.
Option 2: Nothing. Lock the doors, stare straight ahead, and drive away at the first opportunity.
The Poe/Finn response is Option 1. Makes perfect sense, from a certain perspective...until you start thinking about the longer-term costs. What happens when I kick this guy's ass and he sues me? How is my fighting him going to make my daughter any less terrorized in the moment? What if I lose the fight? What happens then? My daughter is stranded in the car, with her father badly hurt or worse (because this dude was NUTS, and who knows what he'd have done), and she's now doubly terrified AND in danger. So, the upside here is that I prove that I'm a badass, I back this guy off or beat his ass, and life goes on. That's the best case scenario. Every other scenario is BAD for me and worse for my daughter. Daddy goes to jail. Daddy is in the hospital. Daddy is dead on the sidewalk, and she's stuck in the car. I know a LOT of guys who would instinctively just go with Option 1.
And you know what? That's the dumbest ****ing thing in the world that you could do, unless this guy was
directly threatening my daughter. In the meantime, I have options (e.g., Option 2) that are far safer AND which keep my daughter safe. And it comes at the cost of...what? My ego? Maybe this guy breaks my side mirror? Big deal. I can get that replaced. And then I'll stick him with the bill and have him arrested for making terroristic threats. Option 2 is better unless and until I have no other choice. And if I have a choice, I should pick Option 2.
Why? Because I'm protecting what I love more with Option 2 than with Option 1. Even if Option 1 is the more "traditionally heroic" choice. It's also the deeply stupid, dangerous, and reckless choice that accomplishes next to nothing and comes at extreme cost to the people I love. That's the lesson that Finn learns by the end of the movie, adn that Poe learns as well.
Regarding Phasma, Ok we thought she was dead in the last film but Ok whatever she's cool give us some developement...nah 4 minutes in...dead for real this time, I mean why even bring Her back just to give us nothing but a quick fight scene? Forced. There is so much more but it's tiring.
Phasma's sex is irrelevant, as I see it. Male, female, doesn't really matter. She's the Boba Fett of this trilogy: cool looking armor, crap combatant, in spite of her reputation. That the character is female strikes me as entirely beside the point, and not any more "forced" than Boba Fett was.