Warning: SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Last Jedi are ahead!
Not only did Finn desert The First Order during Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was enough to draw Captain Phasma's ire, he also humiliated his former commanding officer later on by forcing her to drop Starkiller Base's shields and then tossing her into a trash compactor. So needless to say that Phasma was keen on exacting revenge, and she got her opportunity in The Last Jedi. While the original plan was for Phasma's troops to execute Finn and Rose Tico, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo crashing her cruiser at light speed into Supreme Leader Snoke's ship put the kibosh on that, and Finn and Phasma ended up battling. However, their original fight ended differently compared to what was shown in the theatrical cut, as you'll see in the deleted scene below.
In the final cut of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Finn managed to get the upper hand on Plasma and break off part of her helmet, which exposed her left eye. After declaring that her former subordinate was "scum," Finn responded, "Rebel scum," and then the floor beneath Phasma collapsed, tossing her into the fiery depths of Snoke's collapsing ship. In contrast, the deleted scene showed on the latest episode of The Star Wars Show depicts Finn being defeated and surrounded by Phasma and several stormtroopers. While Phasma's helmet is still partly broken, she's all too eager to kill Finn, but when he starts talking how she betrayed The First Order during The Force Awakens, she murders her troops so that her cowardly actions don't become public.
This gives Finn an opening to strike back, and with his riot control baton, he slices off Phasma's hands before she can gun him down. Despite the injury (one that quite a few Star Wars characters suffer), Phasma knocks Finn off his feet, leading to the same "scum" interaction seen in the final movie. However, this time around, rather than Phasma falling into the flames, Finn using one of the stormtroopers' cannons and blasts her off the platform. Whereas her demise was purely accidental in the finalized version of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in this version, Finn can take full credit for defeating the chrome-armored warrior.
Director Rian Johnson recently explained that the reason he cut this scene out of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was due to pacing. With everything going on at this stage of the movie, he needed to get rid of the extended interaction between Finn and Phasma and throw in a condensed version of the scene that ultimately resulted in the same outcome. While I understand Johnson's reasoning, I still wish that this version of the fight had been kept in The Last Jedi simply because it provided a little more insight into Phasma's psyche and did a better job of showing off her ruthlessness.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi will be available on Digital HD next Tuesday, March 13, and the Blu-ray and DVD release will follow on March 27. Finn will be back for Star Wars: Episode IX on December 20, 2019, and for all the major updates concerning that movie (including if Phasma will somehow make a surprise return), keep it here at CinemaBlend.
