The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special gives Finn the Jedi training he always deserved

Happy Life Day, and guess what? The impossible has happened — there’s a brand new Star Wars special available for streaming right now. The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is adorable, heartwarming, and contains far less nightmare fuel than the original Star Wars Holiday Special. It’s a Life Day miracle! 

Aside from wacky time travel, the return of Chewbacca’s family, a very brief encounter with Mando and Baby Yoda, and "Jingle Bells" sung in Huttese, the special features something that many fans wished the Star Wars sequel trilogy had included. At long last, Finn is getting some Jedi training. 

In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, it was strongly hinted that Finn is Force-sensitive. Interviews and printed materials have since confirmed that he was and is. Why this wasn’t stated outright in the film itself (or shown, which would have been great) is not entirely clear. What is clear is that Finn is finally getting trained. As a LEGO Minifig. 

It’s in LEGO, and it’s not John Boyega. It’s not Daisy Ridley as Rey who is teaching him, either... but it’s still fun to see. Rey struggles to train Finn, just as almost all masters in Star Wars have struggled before her. Through some timey-wimey Life Day magic, Rey sees the panoply of Master/Apprentice pairings throughout the saga, and comes to learn that friendship and connection matter more than old books and ancient text when guiding a Padawan.

It’s a good lesson for her to learn, and it gives the special a heartwarming catharsis that instantly makes it more enjoyable than the original special’s collection of "drugs all around" sketches. Rey returns to a Life Day party in full swing, ready to continue Finn’s training... after they all finish playing in the snow that randomly appears on Kashyyyk. 

As much fun as all of this is, we can’t help but feel the blow of lost potential. We love LEGO, and we love LEGO Specials. Something as big and important as Finn being trained as a Jedi, though? That’s live-action material. It really deserves to be. 

When the big media push for Star Wars: The Force Awakens began, John Boyega’s Finn was front and center with the Skywalker legacy lightsaber. That movie threw us a curve and had Rey ultimately wield it, and that was very satisfying. We love Daisy Ridley’s Rey, and we love her journey. Finn’s Jedi journey went nowhere, until the final film in the Skywalker Saga kind of came back to it, making us think that maybe Finn was Force-sensitive after all. The movie leaves you guessing, and Rey herself never really finds out. Seeing them finally train as LEGO Minifigs (close to a year after that movie came out) feels like a quick addendum, like a “btw, sorry we didn’t do this but here you go” kind of move. 

We don’t want to whine and moan (especially not on Life Day), but Finn being the future of the Jedi and actually getting some training is a big deal. It’s a big deal for 100 reasons. It would have been an all-caps MOMENT in The Rise of Skywalker. It deserves to be featured in something more substantial than a Life Day LEGO lark, delightful as it is. 

We can certainly hope for a book that goes more in-depth about Finn’s training. There might be a comic. For all we know there will be an animated series and we’ll go way past the events of the Skywalker Saga, and Finn’s story will go on. It likely won’t go on with John Boyega, though. He was capable of so much more, and he just wasn’t given the opportunity. Seeing these Minifigs train is great, but it does twist the vibroblade of lost potential just a little bit deeper. 

Still, it is Life Day, so here’s to LEGO Finn and Rey training on the Millennium Falcon. It’s not much, but it’s something. Lap it up. It's a major character moment happening in Minifig form long after the ship has sailed, but it's not Chewie's son watching porn? There's Life Day in 2020 all summed up. 

For more on anything and everything going on in Star Wars, join our heroes over on Jabba the Pod wherever you get your podcasts. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's, and do not necessarily reflect those of SYFY WIRE, SYFY, or NBCUniversal.