Finn didn’t kill Phasma. The hype did.

The new Star Wars franchise is flourishing with opinions from both the light and dark side of the force, but could there be more of the light if it weren’t for the overload of hype that’s come with it?

Captain Phasma was one of the most anticipated characters of The Force Awakens. An epic new Storm Trooper to lead them all, played by the insanely talented Gwendoline Christie. The shiny new uniform was pasted all over cinemas, trailers and our Facebook feeds. She was set to be epic.

In The Force Awakens however, she had barely any screen time and was left with a cliffhanger ending about her death with a clever reference to A New Hope’s garbage shoot scene. Not to worry, Annie Leibovitz gave us an epic spoiler with her Vanity Fair photoshoot revealing Phasma’s appearance in The Last Jedi. Thanks Annie.

The hype begins again.

How did Phasma survive the garbage shoot? Will she get revenge? What pose will she do on the next poster?

After a long wait The Last Jedi is released and yet again she’s given minimal screen time with a disappointing death. Oh well.

“I mean, as you can see, man, we had a really full movie already.” Johnson explains in response to criticism on the subject. Rian’s approach to the film was over the top, introducing far too many characters and subplots, leaving little room for what J.J. Abrams had introduced in the first place.

Phasma is now remembered as an underdeveloped character burning in the hype inferno. Our knight in shining armour didn’t arrive.

But wait, does a character like this need to be developed? Did we need her entire backstory to make more sense of the main narrative? Would more screen time have served her the justice she deserved? Maybe Johnson and Abrams were right to give her such little screen time. Maybe less is more with a character like this.

Boba Fett is one of Star War’s most beloved villains, yet he only has 6 minutes and 32 seconds of screen time and found himself thrown in the Sarlac after a clumsy attempt at assassinating Luke Skywalker.

And the mysterious DJ, a modern addition to the story being neither on the light or dark side of the force. With no hype at all he’s made quite the impact into how we view the Star Wars universe. Again with minimal screen time.

Captain Phasma could’ve lead the same legendary status if we hadn’t been bombarded by her existence through all the teasers, the teaser to the trailer, the official trailer, the trailer trailer, the teaser interviews to tease the trailer teaser trailer teaser trailaepiubgesin…

Let’s go back to when she first walked out of her ship, leading a battalion of Stormtroopers in the first scene of The Force Awakens. Her anonymous and dooming figure reflects the chaos around her and she confidently walks across the battle field. A menacing voice from the deepest levels of evil is amplified through her helmet. What dark character lies inside? She clears the area and captures the people they came for as Kylo Ren enters the scene. She creates a terrifying sense of power from the First Order.

What an epic entrance, diluted by the hype.

Maybe the marketing team got too excited and wanted us to know about everything they’ve been up to since first announcing the new films. Or maybe they’re chucking as many characters at us as possible to create a fruitful comic book series.

Either way Disney, stop killing characters with the hype. Let them speak for themselves.

R.I.P Captain Phasma.