Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[PhoenixKnig]

If I may add something to the Poe Holdo debate
Was it really Poe's plan or just one he just ok an plan

[Crazedwraith]

If I may add something to the Poe Holdo debate
Was it really Poe's plan or just one he just ok an plan

Can you rephrase that, please? I'm not sure what you mean.

Poe's plan was really more of brainstorm between him, Rose and Finn but I'm pretty sure he proposed the steal a craft and do an end run around Holdo part of it. He was also the one that blabbed over the radio.

Holdo meanwhile, I'm not sure she formulated 'her plan' either. Leia was in charge for the jump to the system and the initial dash towards Crait. IIRC all Holdo really did was hold the course on Leia's plan.

[PhoenixKnig]

If I may add something to the Poe Holdo debate
Was it really Poe's plan or just one he just ok an plan

Can you rephrase that, please? I'm not sure what you mean.

Poe's plan was really more of brainstorm between him, Rose and Finn but I'm pretty sure he proposed the steal a craft and do an end run around Holdo part of it. He was also the one that blabbed over the radio.

Holdo meanwhile, I'm not sure she formulated 'her plan' either. Leia was in charge for the jump to the system and the initial dash towards Crait. IIRC all Holdo really did was hold the course on Leia's plan.

Rephrase that: I was asking was it Poe's plan or he 'just run with it'

[Civil War Man]

Rephrase that: I was asking was it Poe's plan or he 'just run with it'

He probably just ran with it. Finn came up with the idea to infiltrate the FO flagship to disable to tracker. Maz referred them to the slicer on Canto Bight, but Finn was probably the one who thought to call Maz since there's nothing to suggest that Poe or Rose ever met her. Poe's only real role is that he stayed behind to keep an eye on what was going on with the fleet and possibly cover for Rose and Finn (though that last part wasn't apparently needed in practice, since no one seemed to notice that they were gone). It's probably closer to say that it was Finn's plan.

As a side note, the fact that no one on the fleet seems to notice Rose's absence, implying that she's regarded as some invisible grunt by the organization, doesn't really mesh well with the supplemental material crediting her with basically inventing the cloaking tech on the transports. You'd think the Resistance would at the very least want to keep an eye on her, to make sure nothing bad happens to her.

Also, Honest Trailer for The Last Jedi dropped yesterday. The main theme is using the current and original voice guys to illustrate how the fandom is split over the movie.

[Galvatron]

This old article amused me:

https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-7-8-a ... ive-63006/

[The Romulan Republic]

I popped back in thanks to the hyperdrive ramming thread, and since I'm here, and this thread hasn't been dead for too long, I suppose its only fair that I address your points reg. Holdo.

I would just like to point out a few things.

First, the film gives us no indication Holdo has a record of success, only that she was present at a given battle. I don't know if that means she won a great victory or just got more people out when a slaughter was expected. I don't even know if she's not being mentioned for an infamous act or not. Had he survived, people could have said 'Oh yeah that's Porkins, from the Battle of Yavin' but if all he did was get clipped and bug out that means jack shit.

I'm basing that conclusion on two things: first, that Poe recognizes her name from a prior engagement, in a manner that at least suggests that she did something notable. And second, that he expresses disappointment (I forget his exact words- something along the lines of her not being what he expected?) after seeing her in person, which suggests that whatever she did, it wasn't "Fuck things up spectacularly". So at the very least, she has a combat record Poe is familiar with, and not one that would immediately lead him to think "Yeah, she's a fuck up."

She could be an idiot who lucked out, I suppose, or her notability might be due to something other than tactical/strategic/leadership skill (like she was a junior officer who engaged in some act of courage/heroism in combat, but not one necessarilly denoting great intelligence). But the most straightforward and likely interpretation is that the film intended her to be a seasoned commander.

Secondly, she's clearly not making an effort to preserve her personnel.

Her entire plan (or, as noted subsequently in the thread, possibly Leia's plan) throughout the film amounted to "Sacrifice the ships to buy time to save the personnel."

This is, I think, one of the most dishonest parts of the storytelling. The captain of the medical frigate is left behind to die for absolutely no good reason. No autopilot is set, no droid is left to pilot the ship isn't even just left unattented- he stays behind because....? This is really just exploiting the 'captain goes down with the ship' trope, which makes sense when the chance for survival is limited. Not enough room on the lifeboats? Fine, captain stays, whatever. But this is intentionally used to trick us, because in this instance that's simply not the case. The Raddus is grotesquely undermanned and experienced captains are a valuable resource. This is where Holdo's depiction turns really stinky to me. She could have easily ordered that captain to jump on one of the transports and head over, but she let him die. It's hard to see that as 'preserving personnel'.

I've gone over this already with Fax_Modem, I believe, but I might as well readdress it.

From what I recall of the film's dialogue for that scene, I think that they had only just finished the evacuation when the ship went up, so its not like the captain stayed and pointlessly died after his crew was safe. Now, they could have left the bridge running on drone mode, maybe- but what happens if there's a malfunction and someone needs to take manual control? In addition to the general cultural wariness Star Wars seems to have of relying on drone ships (they certainly have the technology for them, yet nearly all ships are manned).

So someone has to stay on the bridge. The captain doing it himself, rather than abandoning ship and ordering a subordinate to stay and die in his place, is expected. If he had been shown to have abandoned his post, the audience would rightly interpret that as cowardice and dereliction of duty.

It can also be taken, out of universe, as possibly foreshadowing Holdo staying behind on the Raddus while her crew evacuates.

No, we don't see all those reasons for the captain to stay play out on-screen, but its a logical inference. The audience is given partial information, yes. That may lead to a false conclusion, yes. But I don't see that in itself as "dishonest", really. In fact, its basically the only way to make a plot twist happen without actually lying to the audience.

More over, this is done in service to fooling the audience (and to some degree no doubt Poe) who are naturally going to assume the captain died because there was no better alternative. Holdo was so dead set on keeping her OpSec she let this guy die to preserve the illusion there was no plan. That's at least the medical frigate- there's another death on her hands if her old ship the Ninka likewise went down with a captain. We don't get a goodbye scene, only some transports arriving at the Raddus so who knows there. Point remains there was no good reason to let the captain die other than to fool Poe/the audience into believing there was no plan.

This is what I mean about people taking the most negative possible interpretation of the film.

I'm willing to bet that in almost any other film, the captain's death would have been accepted as a heroic, tragic sacrifice by an officer who stayed at his post until his crew was safe. Not as an example of incompetence. There are legitimate criticisms to be made, certainly... but I rarely, if ever, have seen a film subjected to such relentless nitpicking and hair-splitting.

"Captain goes down with his ship while his crew are evacuated, therefore Holdo has no concern about preserving the lives of her personnel" is a really tenuous interpretation, even before you get into the fact that it directly contradicts more explicit on-screen evidence of Holdo's/Leia's intent.

As a side note, Rose is supposedly the one who creates and fits the shuttles with cloaks- something she clearly did before heading to Canto Bight (or being stuck on deserter watch). This is, however, never mentioned or brought up, not even when Poe 'spills the bean' over the communications. Which means a few things. One, DJ has no way of knowing the ships are cloaked or to inform the First Order of such.

If it is correct that DJ had no way of knowing it, then that's a questionable plot point, yeah. I'll have to re-watch the film to check weather that is the case.

He could still have said "There are ships here, better do a high-intensity scan/check for cloaked ships". But it is a little weaker, yeah.

Two, Rose is a fucking idiot for not telling Poe "oh she had me rig up cloaks on those" because that is a MAJOR fucking change in circumstance- more importantly it implies Holdo has a plan. But we can't have the audience thinking that, so we get Holdo saying nothing, captains dying, Rose remaining silent and DJ pulling shit out of his ass.

I'm not sure how much I'd fault Rose, really, given that a) she had a lot of other shit on her mind and spent very little time communicating with Poe, and b) more importantly, that information was likely classified (and pretty clearly something Poe was not authorized to know).

TRR, shame that you're taking a break from the forum. Hopefully we can continue this when you return.

Regarding Holdo's background:

Going by the film itself, unless it's meant to be a cultural or planetary thing, all we know is that she was in a previous battle, and that visually, as used to convey things in Star Wars, she wears non-practical clothing, has time to dye her hair (unless that's supposed to be her natural color), and doesn't brief her officers. That's the reason it gives off a bad impression. She comes off as more of a foil to Leia, in how not to lead, when we were given examples of Leia's leadership at the beginning, where she addressed her people's concerns immediately, which made them move on to being productive.

Yes, this is all set up for the twist regarding Poe's lack of perspective, but as stated, it makes the audience regard her plan as not well thought out.

I agree that the film was giving partial information to mislead the audience, in order to set up a twist. That's obvious. The problem, in part, is that people are taking the set-up as canon and ignoring the subsequent twist.

As to Holdo's appearance, if "wears non-practical clothing" is a measure of poor command ability, then Leia is incompetent as well. Granted, Holdo's outfit is not what I would recommend for an admiral, but at the same time, and admiral is generally not going to be engaging in strenuous physical activity. They're going to be sitting/standing on a starship bridge.

This is also sensitive ground, because while you've made it clear that this is not your motivation, there is a long history of female leaders being denigrated based on their appearance. So its easy to stray into "unfortunate implications" territory when using Holdo's clothing and hair to critique her as a leader or character.

I will also reiterate that we don't know that Holdo briefed none of the officers, and in fact have some reason to believe that she did brief some people (the crews prepping the transports) on at least part of her plan. She didn't brief Poe, and I would contend she had no good reason to under the circumstances (at least from her point of view). But this is another example of the audience being given partial information, so I'm not sure we can really say how many people were kept in the loop, unless the EU deigns to comment on it.

Now, as you are pointing out, Starfighter escort.

We see Finn and Rose leave without taking one of the escorts. If they're really needed to cover the Raddus, as mentioned, Finn and Rose are able to bring in refueling and reinforcements without taking them.

Yes, although the ship they took was fairly small, and the fuel and personnel it could have taken were quite limited, and the vessel might have been better used to evacuate personnel and equipment with the other transports.

Its not a bad plan, though, or at least it has no obvious glaring flaws.

Even if Mon Mothma's peace at any price plan was her way to re-election, it thematically ruins what the heroes accomplished. It also makes both the heroes and the villains seem less dangerous due to idiocy.

Sure, in-universe, there might be a wave of peaceniks screaming to disarm the New Republic military, but thematically, it points to the heroes having failed at saving the day. And the only reason this is a factor is to justify Holdo's plan of being fired on for a day to hide. Its not a logical progression of story, but one used to justify bad writing.

I'm pretty sure that the NR being gone was going to happen either way, in order to facilitate a return to the Empire vs. Rebels type of conflict. That's a questionable decision, but its not a product of the Holdo plotline (which has some questionable plot-points, but no more than a lot of SF battles, I think).

And yes, I think an NR peace movement makes sense in-universe, especially given the pressure the NR would be under to differentiate itself from the Empire's style of government. Nor do I think that this means that the OT heroes failed to save the day. They just failed to save it permanently. History doesn't end. That's life. Its shitty, but its life. And also an inevitability if you want to have sequels.

There should be something left of the New Republic to run to. But since the ST is so bad at world building, it comes off as either the New Republic being idiots, or the Resistance leadership.

Clearly there are some factions that aren't completely subjugated by the FO- that's who Leia calls to for help. But in Leia's place, I'd be really wary about running to NR worlds for aid, given that the government pretty much has to be riddled with collaborators, as well as those who would view the Resistance as terrorists who fought an unsanctioned war and brought the FO's wrath down on the Republic.

Regarding morale:

Yes, Holdo had less than a day, Leia seemed to have less than fifteen minutes, and addressed morale better. I understand that we're being bamboozled by the film, but as I stated, it leaves the impression that she doesn't know what she's doing.

Even if Poe is a moron when it comes to tactics, delegation of some responsibility, even if it's clearing the loading bays, or working triage, would keep him busy, and take weight off her shoulders. Even if those are already covered, sending him there would help speed things up.

A simple: 'Poe, get us reinforcements, I don't care how, I'll work on the rest' would have worked.

It could also be argued that Poe was working on Leia's original plan of disabling the tracking, and Holdo and Poe never communicated about it due to them butting heads.

Again, we don't really see how Holdo interacted with the crew in general. We see how she interacted with Leia (briefly), and with Poe.

I'll acknowledge she made no real effort to address Poe's concerns, and treated him dismissively at times. I'll also point out that most admirals in a crisis would likely have little concern for soothing a single insubordinate, recently demoted officer who questions their leadership.

I do like the idea that both Poe and Holdo were working on different aspects of Leia's plan, and clashed due to a failure of communication.

This is why morale and relations are important in a militia. And I understand that things are chaotic, but a 30 second general brief might have worked. Old plan and new plan fighting each other to the detriment of the planners.

A general briefing would have been a security risk, unless it was so vague that it would have been unlikely to allay Poe's concerns.

Regarding FO stupidity:

If having the villains HAVE to be idiots for the heroes to not die is a plot requirement, then the story needs a redraft. Poe's little 'prank call' sabotages the idea that the First Order is a threat, as Leia should have broadcast to the First Order fleet that she has their collective noses, and they better surrender if they want them back.

As shown in my previous posts, you can have the First Order outwitted by the Resistance, without making both sides look bad for not grasping obvious solutions.

The villains should not be utter buffoons in a film where they are meant to be threatening, but if your villains have significantly more resources than the heroes, then the only way the heroes can win is luck, or greater competency. The latter, to me, is generally more satisfying. So there has to be some competency gap.

The call to Hux was taking it too far, I agree. It was ham-fisted filmmaking, and a poor note to start the film on.

Kylo is handled better- he is often inept due to his emotional instability and insecurities, but is also allowed to show moments of genuine creativity and savvy- like his successful assassination of Snoke, or having the sense to throw all available firepower at Luke rather than pull his punches or immediately resort to a one-on-one duel.

That said, I like that the ST generally avoids making fascists seem "cool" or "bad ass". That's not a message society needs to hear.

Regarding theme:

Luke rectifying the belief that it's the poor dying while the rich gamble. If that's the intention, it didn't connect with me. Instead, it came off as a failed Hail Mary, and that instead, at best, we'll get a children's Jedi crusade. Maybe it's a failure of mine to pick it up, but I also believe that the various subplots were supposed to connect to each other in theme, as opposed to just sit by each other, and sabotage each other.

Maybe IX will tie things together better.

I didn't take the kid using the Force at the end as "The next film is going to have an army of little kid Jedi emerging because of Luke's sacrifice." Because that would be insane. I take it simply as a symbolic nod to (in-universe) Luke's death inspiring future generations, and (out-of-universe) an acknowledgement of Star Wars as a franchise that is beloved by children, and hopes that the films will be appreciated by a new generation of fans. Its symbolism, not a plot point.

[Kojiro]

So at the very least, she has a combat record Poe is familiar with, and not one that would immediately lead him to think "Yeah, she's a fuck up."

What it fails to establish though is why Poe should trust her in light of her actions. He's not instantly mutinous, he certainly gives her a chance, but she doesn't deliver. He is the one who just destroyed Starkiller base yesterday- his credit is good, as is his standing with the character we know is a good guy- Leia. Hers is much more dubious and Poe's mutiny should indicate her record is not that impressive. It's part of the bait and switch.

But the most straightforward and likely interpretation is that the film intended her to be a seasoned commander.

The Resistance isn't so big that Leia's top operative, their best pilot and their starfighter commander shouldn't have met her. Again, more bait.

Her entire plan (or, as noted subsequently in the thread, possibly Leia's plan) throughout the film amounted to "Sacrifice the ships to buy time to save the personnel."

From what I recall of the film's dialogue for that scene, I think that they had only just finished the evacuation when the ship went up, so its not like the captain stayed and pointlessly died after his crew was safe. Now, they could have left the bridge running on drone mode, maybe- but what happens if there's a malfunction and someone needs to take manual control? In addition to the general cultural wariness Star Wars seems to have of relying on drone ships (they certainly have the technology for them, yet nearly all ships are manned).

So someone has to stay on the bridge. The captain doing it himself, rather than abandoning ship and ordering a subordinate to stay and die in his place, is expected. If he had been shown to have abandoned his post, the audience would rightly interpret that as cowardice and dereliction of duty.

Sorry but that's all incorrect.

They have at least one astromech on board that can certainly pilot a ship assuming the ships can't be left to just fly straight (like when we see Holdo watching the shuttles leave. And remember, these ships are supposed to be heavily automated as well.

NOTHING prevents them from evacuating the Ninka before it runs out of fuel, or from the captain abandoning ship on Holdo's orders. The ship doomed, he's ordered to move to the Raddus. Done, he's following orders- you know saving lives that don't have to needlessly die? I'm sure that came up somewhere in this film... not throwing lives away or something... Following your commanding officer is the very antithesis of dereliction of duty and no one things leaving a doomed ship is cowardice, it's 2018, not 1918. And shit, it's not like Leia stayed behind right?

But Holdo doesn't tell him to come over or leave it to a droid. She let's him die to preserver the impression there is no better option. I do not know how you can say, with a straight face, she's trying to preserve valuable crew while simultaneously allowing her XO to die. And let's actually address that for a moment- the guy is *not* the captain of the Ninka, that's Holdo. If Holdo wanted him off the bridge, it's her bridge, even if she is currently on the Raddus.

It can also be taken, out of universe, as possibly foreshadowing Holdo staying behind on the Raddus while her crew evacuates.

Foreshadowing dumb doesn't make it not dumb.

No, we don't see all those reasons for the captain to stay play out on-screen, but its a logical inference. The audience is given partial information, yes. That may lead to a false conclusion, yes. But I don't see that in itself as "dishonest", really. In fact, its basically the only way to make a plot twist happen without actually lying to the audience.

Because there is no reason- that's why the XO dying is dishonest. With no reason for it given, a man *dies*, gives his life and Holdo does nothing to prevent it when she clearly could have. We know people don't die for shits and giggles and we're supposed to be seeing the heroes. If they let someone die they had no other options. Johnson rests on that simply concept to deceive the audience into thinking there are no options. It's not a twist unless you want to say 'heroes don't let heroes die without reason' is an assumption the audience shouldn't be making.

I'm willing to bet that in almost any other film, the captain's death would have been accepted as a heroic, tragic sacrifice by an officer who stayed at his post until his crew was safe. Not as an example of incompetence. There are legitimate criticisms to be made, certainly... but I rarely, if ever, have seen a film subjected to such relentless nitpicking and hair-splitting.

Don't backslide into this. Argue the points, please. The XO's death was seen as a heroic, tragic sacrifice while people believed there was no better option. Once it's revealed a better option exists- and not one that if found later but planned all along- his actions become tragic and wasteful.

"Captain goes down with his ship while his crew are evacuated, therefore Holdo has no concern about preserving the lives of her personnel" is a really tenuous interpretation, even before you get into the fact that it directly contradicts more explicit on-screen evidence of Holdo's/Leia's intent.

Sorry but you can't have her concerned about saving her people and letting her people (and herself!) die when they don't need to. We see that the Raddus can happily fly along without anyone at the helm and we know from basic physics that it doesn't take a whole fucking lot to just keep going straight in space. Or you know, astromechs? Autopilots are a thing too. The ships absolutely do not need a living person on them, unless you can provide some evidence of this?

I'm not sure how much I'd fault Rose, really, given that a) she had a lot of other shit on her mind and spent very little time communicating with Poe, and b) more importantly, that information was likely classified (and pretty clearly something Poe was not authorized to know).

She's in on the whole planning and vid call to Maz. Hell she helps form the plan, as well as consenting to go on it. She's abandoning her post, going behind Holdo's back and supporting Poe. I think we can safely say she's thrown in with Finn and Poe at this point. Consider also that the same transports were used to ferry personnel to the Raddus without being picked off (a task we know the FO are quite capable of).

[FaxModem1]

I popped back in thanks to the hyperdrive ramming thread, and since I'm here, and this thread hasn't been dead for too long, I suppose its only fair that I address your points reg. Holdo.

First off, welcome back. I enjoy our discussions.

I've gone over this already with Fax_Modem, I believe, but I might as well readdress it.

From what I recall of the film's dialogue for that scene, I think that they had only just finished the evacuation when the ship went up, so its not like the captain stayed and pointlessly died after his crew was safe. Now, they could have left the bridge running on drone mode, maybe- but what happens if there's a malfunction and someone needs to take manual control? In addition to the general cultural wariness Star Wars seems to have of relying on drone ships (they certainly have the technology for them, yet nearly all ships are manned).

So someone has to stay on the bridge. The captain doing it himself, rather than abandoning ship and ordering a subordinate to stay and die in his place, is expected. If he had been shown to have abandoned his post, the audience would rightly interpret that as cowardice and dereliction of duty.

It can also be taken, out of universe, as possibly foreshadowing Holdo staying behind on the Raddus while her crew evacuates.

No, we don't see all those reasons for the captain to stay play out on-screen, but its a logical inference. The audience is given partial information, yes. That may lead to a false conclusion, yes. But I don't see that in itself as "dishonest", really. In fact, its basically the only way to make a plot twist happen without actually lying to the audience.

Kojiro handled this well, but I will reiterate, they had better options, which makes the 'heroic sacrifices' an utterly pointless waste of resources.

TRR, shame that you're taking a break from the forum. Hopefully we can continue this when you return.

Regarding Holdo's background:

Going by the film itself, unless it's meant to be a cultural or planetary thing, all we know is that she was in a previous battle, and that visually, as used to convey things in Star Wars, she wears non-practical clothing, has time to dye her hair (unless that's supposed to be her natural color), and doesn't brief her officers. That's the reason it gives off a bad impression. She comes off as more of a foil to Leia, in how not to lead, when we were given examples of Leia's leadership at the beginning, where she addressed her people's concerns immediately, which made them move on to being productive.

Yes, this is all set up for the twist regarding Poe's lack of perspective, but as stated, it makes the audience regard her plan as not well thought out.

I agree that the film was giving partial information to mislead the audience, in order to set up a twist. That's obvious. The problem, in part, is that people are taking the set-up as canon and ignoring the subsequent twist.

As to Holdo's appearance, if "wears non-practical clothing" is a measure of poor command ability, then Leia is incompetent as well. Granted, Holdo's outfit is not what I would recommend for an admiral, but at the same time, and admiral is generally not going to be engaging in strenuous physical activity. They're going to be sitting/standing on a starship bridge.

This is also sensitive ground, because while you've made it clear that this is not your motivation, there is a long history of female leaders being denigrated based on their appearance. So its easy to stray into "unfortunate implications" territory when using Holdo's clothing and hair to critique her as a leader or character.

I will also reiterate that we don't know that Holdo briefed none of the officers, and in fact have some reason to believe that she did brief some people (the crews prepping the transports) on at least part of her plan. She didn't brief Poe, and I would contend she had no good reason to under the circumstances (at least from her point of view). But this is another example of the audience being given partial information, so I'm not sure we can really say how many people were kept in the loop, unless the EU deigns to comment on it.

For all we know, she only briefed a few people, and that's why it took the course of a day for them to make progress to fuel a few transports. Everyone else was panicking and running to escape pods because their leaders didn't brief them and instead danced around each other.

As for Holdo's attire. What is our nearest cultural comparison for her? No one else in Star Wars, a rather martial setting, is dressed like her, except for the the Senators from the Prequel era, and the rich snobs from Canto Bight.

Even Leia's clothing in this film is purposeful, and looks, uncontemporary and stylish, still seems functional.

Leia, while wearing a dress, looks like she could fit in on the trenches with that jacket.Leia in badass coat

And let's talk costuming visual language:

As discussed here, Leia is modeled to be regal, a queen. But it still looks functioning. Holdo was specifically made to look pretty, and the costume designer notes that this was on purpose:

Fashionista

General Leia Organa is in a less tactical look with regal cape-outfits and very notable jewelry. Where did you look for inspiration for the looks, and what does the change from Episode VII tell us about her?

She was very rough and tumble [in VII] and J.J. [Abrams, "The Force Awakens" director] had his point of view of how he wanted her to [look] as a general commanding the ship, and he loved the idea of her wearing coveralls. Rian wanted her to look more regal, as you said, and more like a princess. So I thought capes were good, especially when she's in the cave and on the battlefield. There are pictures of Queen Elizabeth II wearing a military cape that inspired me. We made all the jewelry. She's wearing one ring from Episode VII, but the rest of the jewelry is all new for Episode VIII. I wanted her to look as beautiful and regal as possible and I think the shape and the cloak she's wearing is very "Star Wars," but very elegant, as well.

She has two costumes that are somewhat similar because they're both capes. One is metallic woven fabric and the other one which is much more simple — a gray-green cape that she wears until the end of the film. I love how it frames her face. Rian loved how it looked when [the camera] hit her face and you just saw her eyes. Toward the end of the film, there's a beautiful shot of her looking above the cape, with just her eyes, with the the collar spiraling around her head and face. It's a beautiful moment.

Leia is modeled off royalty, but military royalty. She has jewelry and makeup, but is still in a commanding role. It gives us the image that while she is a person of power wealth, she is still their leader.

Now here's the image of Holdo: Holdo briefing the troops

More importantly, here's what it looks like from the back: back view

Here's what the costume designer has to say:

Why does Vice Admiral Holdo wear a more high-fashion gown [which, editor's note looks amazing from the back], as compared to the rest of the Resistance?

Rian wanted to see her body language and wear something that was close-fitting and yet elegant. I thought we were just going to put her in a uniform, but Rian said, 'No, I want her in a gown.' So, I looked back to the beautiful clothes that Madame Grès did in the '30s and '40s and used this beautiful jersey fabric in this crazy color, which I think is called puce. There's something a little Grecian about it and she was very happy. I think she looks very beautiful

Now here's the citizens of Canto Bight:https://cdn.movieweb.com/img.news.tops/ ... sino goers

The director did this on purpose, and we subconsciously connect Holdo to the wealthy on Canto Bight. Or at least I did.

Now, while Leia is also wearing a dress, she looks like she belongs with the Resistance members much more than the casino gamblers, and has a history of wearing a uniform when necessary. Holdo looks like she doesn't belong with the group she's in charge of. And since in every film in Star Wars, costuming has given us a sense of who these characters are, we get a negative impression.

This is why, even in Attack of the Clones, teenage Anakin had black leather in his Jedi robes, while every other Jedi just used cloth. This was also visual foreshadowing that he would become Vader, a villain dressed in an all black leather and metal armor.

This is also why Luke and Leia are in almost all white in A New Hope, showing their heroic natures and innocence.

Now, as you are pointing out, Starfighter escort.

We see Finn and Rose leave without taking one of the escorts. If they're really needed to cover the Raddus, as mentioned, Finn and Rose are able to bring in refueling and reinforcements without taking them.

Yes, although the ship they took was fairly small, and the fuel and personnel it could have taken were quite limited, and the vessel might have been better used to evacuate personnel and equipment with the other transports.

Its not a bad plan, though, or at least it has no obvious glaring flaws.

Thank you. This is why refueling and bringing extra for everybody else seems like a better idea than a slow March of death. And since the plot requires the slow March of death, we have to wonder if they had better options, which they did, and didn't pursue, because Holdo doesn't talk to Poe, and maybe her other subordinates. Enough to which she had to face a mutiny.

Even if Mon Mothma's peace at any price plan was her way to re-election, it thematically ruins what the heroes accomplished. It also makes both the heroes and the villains seem less dangerous due to idiocy.

Sure, in-universe, there might be a wave of peaceniks screaming to disarm the New Republic military, but thematically, it points to the heroes having failed at saving the day. And the only reason this is a factor is to justify Holdo's plan of being fired on for a day to hide. Its not a logical progression of story, but one used to justify bad writing.

I'm pretty sure that the NR being gone was going to happen either way, in order to facilitate a return to the Empire vs. Rebels type of conflict. That's a questionable decision, but its not a product of the Holdo plotline (which has some questionable plot-points, but no more than a lot of SF battles, I think).

And yes, I think an NR peace movement makes sense in-universe, especially given the pressure the NR would be under to differentiate itself from the Empire's style of government. Nor do I think that this means that the OT heroes failed to save the day. They just failed to save it permanently. History doesn't end. That's life. Its shitty, but its life. And also an inevitability if you want to have sequels.

Again, this is where I point out my South Korea example, in that unilateral disarmament to the point that a terrorist group is threatening without allies while neighbors with a hostile power is dangerous and suicidal. And that there's a difference between making peace with your enemy, and being an Idiot who sells out to the enemy.

It runs counter to sense. And yes, shit happens. But you can make shit happen without making your heroes accomplishments pointless and for nothing. Thematically, it means our heroes' actions led to nothing.

There should be something left of the New Republic to run to. But since the ST is so bad at world building, it comes off as either the New Republic being idiots, or the Resistance leadership.

Clearly there are some factions that aren't completely subjugated by the FO- that's who Leia calls to for help. But in Leia's place, I'd be really wary about running to NR worlds for aid, given that the government pretty much has to be riddled with collaborators, as well as those who would view the Resistance as terrorists who fought an unsanctioned war and brought the FO's wrath down on the Republic.

If Rey is correct, and the Republic only has a matter of weeks left in it, then time for holding your cards in reserve is pointless. Any port in a storm would be a better option than hoping they don't notice you. Or pursuing the above mentioned 'courier grabbing supplies, fuel, and reinforcements' plan.

Though, maybe that would have gotten in the way of the crucial scene where Rose and Finn are freeing animals but leaving the slave children to rot.

Regarding morale:

Yes, Holdo had less than a day, Leia seemed to have less than fifteen minutes, and addressed morale better. I understand that we're being bamboozled by the film, but as I stated, it leaves the impression that she doesn't know what she's doing.

Even if Poe is a moron when it comes to tactics, delegation of some responsibility, even if it's clearing the loading bays, or working triage, would keep him busy, and take weight off her shoulders. Even if those are already covered, sending him there would help speed things up.

A simple: 'Poe, get us reinforcements, I don't care how, I'll work on the rest' would have worked.

It could also be argued that Poe was working on Leia's original plan of disabling the tracking, and Holdo and Poe never communicated about it due to them butting heads.

Again, we don't really see how Holdo interacted with the crew in general. We see how she interacted with Leia (briefly), and with Poe.

I'll acknowledge she made no real effort to address Poe's concerns, and treated him dismissively at times. I'll also point out that most admirals in a crisis would likely have little concern for soothing a single insubordinate, recently demoted officer who questions their leadership.

I do like the idea that both Poe and Holdo were working on different aspects of Leia's plan, and clashed due to a failure of communication.

This is why morale and relations are important in a militia. And I understand that things are chaotic, but a 30 second general brief might have worked. Old plan and new plan fighting each other to the detriment of the planners.

A general briefing would have been a security risk, unless it was so vague that it would have been unlikely to allay Poe's concerns.

This is why, as I have stated before, crisis management is important. Telling everyone you have a plan, but it's compartmentalized for security might not go over well, but at least it's better than saying that you have no plans at all, which inspired panic and mutiny. Holdo doesn't do anything like that. She's telling the Hero of Starkiller base to shut up and go away, when he could be settling the crews' nerves. It's a waste of resources, and backfired on her hard.

And if he can get followers for a mutiny, others must worry about her leadership as well, because her stated 'Have hope' plan is costing them ships and maybe people.

Regarding FO stupidity:

If having the villains HAVE to be idiots for the heroes to not die is a plot requirement, then the story needs a redraft. Poe's little 'prank call' sabotages the idea that the First Order is a threat, as Leia should have broadcast to the First Order fleet that she has their collective noses, and they better surrender if they want them back.

As shown in my previous posts, you can have the First Order outwitted by the Resistance, without making both sides look bad for not grasping obvious solutions.

The villains should not be utter buffoons in a film where they are meant to be threatening, but if your villains have significantly more resources than the heroes, then the only way the heroes can win is luck, or greater competency. The latter, to me, is generally more satisfying. So there has to be some competency gap.

The call to Hux was taking it too far, I agree. It was ham-fisted filmmaking, and a poor note to start the film on.

Kylo is handled better- he is often inept due to his emotional instability and insecurities, but is also allowed to show moments of genuine creativity and savvy- like his successful assassination of Snoke, or having the sense to throw all available firepower at Luke rather than pull his punches or immediately resort to a one-on-one duel.

That said, I like that the ST generally avoids making fascists seem "cool" or "bad ass". That's not a message society needs to hear.

Okay, answer me this. Would Raiders of the Lost ark have been better if the Nazis in that film were the bad guys from Hogan's Heroes? Would we have been worried about Indy surviving serious peril if he's dealing with the likes of Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz?

I would think not, because it would be impossible to take seriously. Same issue here.

I agree that we don't want the First Order to be too invincible, or too cool that the fans want to be them. At the same time, we want our heroes to be capable of dealing with a serious threat that the audience cants immediately see a way out of. Having the hero trying to get out of a burning building, while desperately pulling on the door that says 'Push', while next to a fire axe, water hose, and fire extinguisher isn't exciting, it's goofy.

And to me, and a lot of others, that's what a non-serious threat means if they're only winning because the good guys are dumb, but the bad guys are even dumber. That's not exciting drama, It's a farce.

Sidenote: I've been to Disneyland, and First Order troops are available for photo opportunities, so not making them cool to avoid inspiration is clearly not a priority for Disney.

Regarding theme:

Luke rectifying the belief that it's the poor dying while the rich gamble. If that's the intention, it didn't connect with me. Instead, it came off as a failed Hail Mary, and that instead, at best, we'll get a children's Jedi crusade. Maybe it's a failure of mine to pick it up, but I also believe that the various subplots were supposed to connect to each other in theme, as opposed to just sit by each other, and sabotage each other.

Maybe IX will tie things together better.

I didn't take the kid using the Force at the end as "The next film is going to have an army of little kid Jedi emerging because of Luke's sacrifice." Because that would be insane. I take it simply as a symbolic nod to (in-universe) Luke's death inspiring future generations, and (out-of-universe) an acknowledgement of Star Wars as a franchise that is beloved by children, and hopes that the films will be appreciated by a new generation of fans. Its symbolism, not a plot point.

Maybe, but it wasn't executed well, and leftus with contrasting themes in all the subplots. A good story has the various plots wrap together, tie in together, or contrast each other, in theme and action. Otherwise, we're just wasting time that could be spent better elsewhere.

[Patroklos]

I've gone over this already with Fax_Modem, I believe, but I might as well readdress it.

From what I recall of the film's dialogue for that scene, I think that they had only just finished the evacuation when the ship went up, so its not like the captain stayed and pointlessly died after his crew was safe. Now, they could have left the bridge running on drone mode, maybe- but what happens if there's a malfunction and someone needs to take manual control? In addition to the general cultural wariness Star Wars seems to have of relying on drone ships (they certainly have the technology for them, yet nearly all ships are manned).

So someone has to stay on the bridge. The captain doing it himself, rather than abandoning ship and ordering a subordinate to stay and die in his place, is expected. If he had been shown to have abandoned his post, the audience would rightly interpret that as cowardice and dereliction of duty.

It can also be taken, out of universe, as possibly foreshadowing Holdo staying behind on the Raddus while her crew evacuates.

No, we don't see all those reasons for the captain to stay play out on-screen, but its a logical inference. The audience is given partial information, yes. That may lead to a false conclusion, yes. But I don't see that in itself as "dishonest", really. In fact, its basically the only way to make a plot twist happen without actually lying to the audience.

...

This is what I mean about people taking the most negative possible interpretation of the film.

I'm willing to bet that in almost any other film, the captain's death would have been accepted as a heroic, tragic sacrifice by an officer who stayed at his post until his crew was safe. Not as an example of incompetence. There are legitimate criticisms to be made, certainly... but I rarely, if ever, have seen a film subjected to such relentless nitpicking and hair-splitting.

"Captain goes down with his ship while his crew are evacuated, therefore Holdo has no concern about preserving the lives of her personnel" is a really tenuous interpretation, even before you get into the fact that it directly contradicts more explicit on-screen evidence of Holdo's/Leia's intent.

You are again running face first into the shitty story telling of this movie. I agree with you whole heartedly that in another film the "Captain Goes Down With The Ship" trope would be accepted. I will go further that this trope would be accepted in SW if it was made to conform to the universe. The problem is that its not, as we know the level of technology available and the movie makes no excuse to massage the drama mechanic into the setting.

Additionally its all in service to this stupid ticking clock chase scene plot that makes no sense and is tonally inappropriate, but that's the movie so there is no undoing that

It goes further than that though, because even if they had crafted the medical frigate scene perfectly so that the audience accepts it, twenty minutes later the movie cuts the legs out from under that captains sacrifice by telling us having a warship auto piloted after evacuation without the need of a human pilot, and this time with the necessity of fooling the FO that the ship hadn't been evacuated, was exactly what they were going to do for the Raddus!

The movie, explicitly, tells us that what the medical frigate captain did was unnecessary. Pretty in Pink had no intention of staying behind on the Raddus until she sought suicide in the face the shame of her failed plan and assumed pending unnecessary but 100% predictable death of all her charges. Sure you can claim her ramming maneuver might require a human helmsmen, but Vice Admiral Versace confirms the capabilities of autopilot for what the Raddus was expected do post 100% evacuation is canon. Autopilot works. The Rebels have no issue using is for very critical things.

If it is correct that DJ had no way of knowing it, then that's a questionable plot point, yeah. I'll have to re-watch the film to check weather that is the case.

He could still have said "There are ships here, better do a high-intensity scan/check for cloaked ships". But it is a little weaker, yeah.

More importantly, if finding them means you need some sort of scan warships in actual combat are not currently implementing, these ships are essentially unstoppable super weapons. Coupled with the facts that these cloaks can be cobbled together from random parts present on a cruiser, and that any random HAXOR can now hack through shields with whatever laptop is handy and five minutes, the setting is completely broken.

I'm not sure how much I'd fault Rose, really, given that a) she had a lot of other shit on her mind and spent very little time communicating with Poe, and b) more importantly, that information was likely classified (and pretty clearly something Poe was not authorized to know).

Yeah, I am pretty sure that once Rose is engaging in mutiny because of a lack in confidence in anyone other than Poe being able to save the entire Resistance, classification levels are sort of out the window.

And yeah, when racking your brain on ways to save the lives of literally everyone and believing those everyone are the only hope for saving the entire galaxy, forgetting to mention this superweapon you casually cobbled right together right over there is a big deal.

As to Holdo's appearance, if "wears non-practical clothing" is a measure of poor command ability, then Leia is incompetent as well. Granted, Holdo's outfit is not what I would recommend for an admiral, but at the same time, and admiral is generally not going to be engaging in strenuous physical activity. They're going to be sitting/standing on a starship bridge.

You see this is a very good point on your part. As my boy Ackbar will tell you. Hey A-dog tell TRR about how safe starship bridges are...

Fish Face, where you at ?...

Shit, where did Leia go? Oh no, NIEN NUNB!!!!

This is also sensitive ground, because while you've made it clear that this is not your motivation, there is a long history of female leaders being denigrated based on their appearance. So its easy to stray into "unfortunate implications" territory when using Holdo's clothing and hair to critique her as a leader or character.

This line of preemptive self-consciously defensive position staking failed the last three times you tried it, it doesn't work any better this time. Wardrobe and the world building that partially relies on it are valid to criticize. There are whole awards categories that rely on it for a reason. Until you prove someone questioning the character appearance choices are not related to story telling or practicality, you are just betraying your lack of confidence in your water carrying.

I will also reiterate that we don't know that Holdo briefed none of the officers, and in fact have some reason to believe that she did brief some people (the crews prepping the transports) on at least part of her plan. She didn't brief Poe, and I would contend she had no good reason to under the circumstances (at least from her point of view). But this is another example of the audience being given partial information, so I'm not sure we can really say how many people were kept in the loop, unless the EU deigns to comment on it.

The problem is the reason Poe is not briefed is not an in world reason, its because the director has to keep him in the dark so the audience is kept in the dark. When you don't hide these real world decisions with the smoke and mirrors of a story and visuals, also known as making a movie, the audience is taken out of the movie. This was as simple to avoid as having Holdor throw Poe in the brig based on knowing Leia chastised him earlier.

I'll acknowledge she made no real effort to address Poe's concerns, and treated him dismissively at times. I'll also point out that most admirals in a crisis would likely have little concern for soothing a single insubordinate, recently demoted officer who questions their leadership.

Number of actual Admirals TRR knows : 0.

No TRR, when a senior officer of your staff, one of the few surviving, who also happens to be a hero character who just blew up a fucking world sized super weapon AND a dreadnought in 24 hours (so fucking stupid), each of which dwarf anything DressedToKill could have possibly done for her reputation, you listen. If not, you need to provide a damn good reason, which this movie does not.

A general briefing would have been a security risk, unless it was so vague that it would have been unlikely to allay Poe's concerns.

Like it was in AHH? Or do you mean like it was in RotJ? No no no I got it, like it was in TLJ, which was just yesterday...

If, IF, they had established an insider threat suspicion plot line this would make sense. I think this would have been a great idea and would have played to the paranoia of such a situation. Its certainly a better idea that what they actaully shot, chasing down a mole being infinetly more interesting that anything they did with Casino Royale. The problem is the idea that Poe would be that insider threat is stupid given he again just destroyed Star Killer base and a dreadnought, that's a shit tone of damage to inflict on yourself as the FO just to place a mole.

Essentially what the Raddus subplot was attempting was some sort of Crimson Tide scenario where two completely well meaning personality within a crew were both doing what they thought was their duty, but with irreconcilable opinions on what that entailed, and being isolated from help or further information to appeal to authority. The problem is this scenario, if you don't want one side to be an evil imbecile (Holdor) relies on both sides being 100% open on what they intend to do and disagreeing, not one side just holding all the cards and letting most everyone else fear for their lives with no ready alternative to have any input into their fate.

The villains should not be utter buffoons in a film where they are meant to be threatening, but if your villains have significantly more resources than the heroes, then the only way the heroes can win is luck, or greater competency. The latter, to me, is generally more satisfying. So there has to be some competency gap.

No, a smart film accomplishes this via clever devices and circumstances. What writers are paid to do. In the real world the winners are not automatically smarter. And in movies, its often the opposite of what you suggest, the underdog beating the superior threat via some unique and well thought out non obvious twist.

The "I was always better than you at everything anyways, so obviously I won" probably fits into a certain portion of a modern audiences wish fulfillment, the hallmark of today's narcissism and assumption of superiority over all those sheeple, but most people don't show up to heavy weight vs welter weight fights for a reason. They want to be surprised, they want to be in suspense until the actual resolution, and being obviously superior in every way from the opening crawl to the ending credits does nothing but provoke yawns.

That said, I like that the ST generally avoids making fascists seem "cool" or "bad ass". That's not a message society needs to hear.

They need to be good at whatever makes them threatening. If its a slasher flick and the murder kills by convincing hot coeds to follow him back to his house of horrors, he needs to be cool or charismatic so the audience believes sorority girls will willingly follow him. If your enemy is a overbearing military juggernaut, then they need to be good at military things or the audience will wonder why anyone is concerned about them doing military things. In the case of Star Wars, the FO/Empire need to be perceived as being "badasses", because our heros beating badasses via martial means makes them BIGGER badasses.

And if you are doing a subversion, ie you beat the military badass via being a badass as something else not readily assumed by the audience, this doesn't absolve you from having your enemy be military badasses. The point is that them being baddasses in that way was a folly and you didn't need to beat them toe to toe. RofJ sort of fails at this because it had this whole Luke vs Emperor thing where he wins by not fighting on the Emperor terms, but then the Rebels still beat the Imperial fleet and ground forces and blow up the death star anyway without anything Luke does impacting the situation. The Rebels were able to beat the Imperials conventionally the whole time.

[The Romulan Republic]

What it fails to establish though is why Poe should trust her in light of her actions. He's not instantly mutinous, he certainly gives her a chance, but she doesn't deliver.

It does at least establish that she has a not-obviously-terrible combat record.

And does Poe really give her much of a chance? He expresses disappointment in her after one short speech, and does an end-run around her in favor of his own plan very shortly after she assumes command. Which is all the more baffling because Poe does think well of her initially. The only explanation I can see in-universe for this sudden reversal is that Poe is acting on emotion, not reason- that he is being driven by his fears to act impulsively. Out-of-universe, of course, its to set up the plot twist.

The claim that Holdo "doesn't deliver" rests entirely, so far as I can see, on her not giving Poe, or the crew in general, a briefing on her battle plans. In which case, I ask again why an admiral should be obligated to either a) give a general brief of their plans in a situation where the secrecy of those plans is vital to any chance of success, or b) go out of her way in a crisis to pacify a single officer who was just demoted for insubordination.

These points have come up again and again, but I have yet to see anyone satisfactorily answer them.

He is the one who just destroyed Starkiller base yesterday- his credit is good, as is his standing with the character we know is a good guy- Leia. Hers is much more dubious and Poe's mutiny should indicate her record is not that impressive. It's part of the bait and switch.

Minor quibble: Do we know exactly how much time passed between the destruction of Starkiller Base and Holdo taking command? It doesn't really affect this point one way or the other- I just don't recall it being stated. It obviously wasn't very long, but could have been more than a day, depending on when Rey left to find Luke, how long the evacuation took, and weather Rey's scenes line up with the Raddus scenes exactly chronologically.

In any case, Poe may have recently blown up Starkiller Base, but he was even more recently demoted for reckless and insubordinate actions. You can't use the one to defend his credibility, while ignoring the other.

The argument that the mutiny proves Holdo's incompetence has been gone over again and again, and its frankly a circular argument. "Poe mutinied because Holdo was incompetent." How do we know she's incompetent? "Because Poe mutinied."

I'll just reiterate that no one has demonstrated (because it cannot be demonstrated unambiguously based on on-screen evidence) that the crew generally supported the mutiny. Nor does the mere fact of a mutiny prove that the mutineers' complaints were necessarily justified.

The Resistance isn't so big that Leia's top operative, their best pilot and their starfighter commander shouldn't have met her. Again, more bait.

This is admittedly a questionable plot point. If I were to try to justify it (barring an EU explanation of which I am unaware), I would say that Holdo was likely acting as an emissary of Leia's to the NR, and possibly serving in the forces of an NR member state, and thus had been away from Resistance HQ for some time, until the collapse of the NR made her prior assignment moot. That is, of course, based on nothing in the film- its just how I would explain the omission if I were in charge of canon.

Sorry but that's all incorrect.

They have at least one astromech on board that can certainly pilot a ship assuming the ships can't be left to just fly straight (like when we see Holdo watching the shuttles leave. And remember, these ships are supposed to be heavily automated as well.

No one is denying the existence of droids in Star Wars. What I am saying is that droids are very seldom given control of a ship without a human pilot/commander also in attendance (the only major exception I'm aware of being CIS droid fighters in the Clone Wars). There is no technical reason for this to be the case that I can see- their AIs are quite up to the task. It is presumably a cultural reluctance to rely on droids. It may be illogical, but it is consistent with what we see throughout canon, and Holdo's actions are in no way anomalous here.

NOTHING prevents them from evacuating the Ninka before it runs out of fuel,

Because the film gives us a clear timeline for how long the evacuation should have taken, and does not explicitly state that the evacuation had just been wrapped up before the ship was destroyed.

Oh. Wait.

or from the captain abandoning ship on Holdo's orders. The ship doomed, he's ordered to move to the Raddus. Done, he's following orders- you know saving lives that don't have to needlessly die? I'm sure that came up somewhere in this film... not throwing lives away or something... Following your commanding officer is the very antithesis of dereliction of duty and no one things leaving a doomed ship is cowardice, it's 2018, not 1918. And shit, it's not like Leia stayed behind right?

No one thinks leaving a doomed ship is cowardice, but a captain acting to save themselves before their crew is safely evacuated? Yeah.

Yes, Holdo could have ordered him to evacuate. But there are legitimate reasons why a captain might remain at his post on a doomed ship, and even the most conscientious officer accepts that there are times when a subordinate may have to lay down their life in the course of their duty.

I'd say the fact that Holdo volunteered to personally stay behind on the Raddus to cover the escape, even against Leia's wishes IIRC, speaks volumes about her concern for the lives of her subordinates.

But Holdo doesn't tell him to come over or leave it to a droid. She let's him die to preserver the impression there is no better option. I do not know how you can say, with a straight face, she's trying to preserve valuable crew while simultaneously allowing her XO to die. And let's actually address that for a moment- the guy is *not* the captain of the Ninka, that's Holdo. If Holdo wanted him off the bridge, it's her bridge, even if she is currently on the Raddus.

See above.

"Captain goes down with his ship" is a very old trope that does not immediately signify incompetent or callous superiors sending said captain to his death, especially when there is a reason given (as I recall, the evacuation was still in-progress until right before the ship was destroyed) for the captain to remain at their post. There is room for multiple interpretations of a scene, of course, but this is a very tenuous one to take, much less to insist that it is the only possible valid one, even when it contradicts the film's obvious intent.

You can say that the contradiction is due to it being deliberate misdirection to fool the audience, but even then... the first time I saw this film, I expected that they would go for "Holdo is incompetent/a traitor" (and was pleasantly surprised when I was proven wrong), but I don't think I for a moment thought that this particular scene was evidence of Holdo's indifference to the lives of her subordinates.

Even if you think Holdo is a terrible officer, or that TLJ is a terrible film, it just seems like this is some really shaky ground on which to base your argument.

Also, another minor quibble, but if Holdo is an admiral, then she wouldn't be captain of the Ninka, would she? She'd have a captain under her commanding the ship, not just an XO. Or am I mixing up naval ranks?

Foreshadowing dumb doesn't make it not dumb.

Are you saying it was stupid foreshadowing, or that the thing it was foreshadowing (Holdo's death) was stupid?

Because there is no reason- that's why the XO dying is dishonest. With no reason for it given, a man *dies*, gives his life and Holdo does nothing to prevent it when she clearly could have. We know people don't die for shits and giggles and we're supposed to be seeing the heroes. If they let someone die they had no other options. Johnson rests on that simply concept to deceive the audience into thinking there are no options. It's not a twist unless you want to say 'heroes don't let heroes die without reason' is an assumption the audience shouldn't be making.

So is Johnson trying to trick the audience into thinking that Holdo is a horrible officer who callously let an officer die for no good reason, or is he trying to trick them into thinking that there were no other options but for the captain to sacrifice himself?

And yeah, I don't think there's a big twist here. I'm not sure that there's supposed to be. I'm taking this scene more or less at face value: The captain died by remaining at his post while his crew was evacuating. Holdo (presumably) didn't order to him to abandon ship because he was doing his duty. It shows the desperation of the Resistance's situation. We are given incomplete information, yes- we are lead to think that Holdo has no larger plan to save her people throughout much of the film. But the captain's death, I think, is exactly what it appears to be, and I don't think that the subsequent revelations about Holdo's plan changes that.

The film does try to misdirect the audience as to Holdo's character, but this isn't the best example of that, in my opinion.

Don't backslide into this. Argue the points, please.

I don't think its unreasonable to say that TLJ is subjected to a level of hostile examination and criticism beyond what most films are subjected to. To some extent, of course, that's an inevitable consequence of how high-profile Star Wars is, and how passionate a fan base it has. But I am skeptical that 95% of Hollywood SF would stand up any better to the same level of scrutiny.

Which isn't to say that we should just accept whatever we are shown without criticism, of course. But there has to be some willingness to suspend disbelief; to, if not take a film on its own terms, then at least extend it the benefit of the doubt.

As to points, the thing is that the point you are trying to make here is based on an exceedingly tenuous interpretation of the evidence. Hell, there are much stronger arguments that can be made both for Holdo being a bad officer and for the film being "dishonest", even if I don't personally agree with them.

The XO's death was seen as a heroic, tragic sacrifice while people believed there was no better option. Once it's revealed a better option exists- and not one that if found later but planned all along- his actions become tragic and wasteful.

Huh? So your argument now is that because Holdo actually turned out to have a plan, that means that she pointlessly threw her officer's life away?

In what way would Holdo's plan have rendered the death of the Ninka's captain unnecessary? Holdo clearly wasn't ready to launch the transports that far out from Crait. The Ninka was running out of fuel. Its personnel had to be evacuated to the Raddus. From what I recall of the on-screen dialogue (please correct me if I'm wrong on this point), the evacuation was only just concluded before the ship ran out of fuel. The captain stayed at his post during said evacuation, and then went down with his ship, presumably because he had no time to evacuate himself. None of this changes in light of Holdo's plan being subsequently revealed.

Sorry but you can't have her concerned about saving her people and letting her people (and herself!) die when they don't need to.

This seems to me the key point of this debate: your main argument rests entirely on the claim that these deaths were unnecessary and pointless.

I have given reasons, consistent with on-screen dialogue and how ships are normally operated in the Star Wars universe, for why there would be a living person at the helm. You have not actually refuted either of these points, except to assert that the ships could have been auto-piloted. Which is technically true, but also contrary to routine practice in the Star Wars universe. The reluctance to leave a ship entirely in droid hands is nothing remotely peculiar to Admiral Holdo.

We see that the Raddus can happily fly along without anyone at the helm and we know from basic physics that it doesn't take a whole fucking lot to just keep going straight in space. Or you know, astromechs? Autopilots are a thing too. The ships absolutely do not need a living person on them, unless you can provide some evidence of this?

Strictly speaking, of course its possible to have an autopiloted ship in Star Wars. That is not under contention, and I have no intention of defending an argument I never made. But that is not how ships are generally operated in Star Wars. If Holdo doesn't care about the lives of her personnel because she doesn't rely on droid-operated ships, what of the commanders at Yavin, or Endor, or any other battle, who ordered thousands of sapient beings into harm's way when they could have conducted the battle with drones (of course, this isn't even getting into the question of whether Star Wars droids are intelligent enough to be considered people as well). Nor is the practice of keeping a living pilot aboard entirely irrational. Suppose the autopilot malfunctions, and someone has to assume manual control?

When do we see the Raddus fly without anyone on the bridge, by the way? Aside from when the bridge was bombed, which was obviously not anything like an ideal or intended situation.

She's in on the whole planning and vid call to Maz. Hell she helps form the plan, as well as consenting to go on it. She's abandoning her post, going behind Holdo's back and supporting Poe. I think we can safely say she's thrown in with Finn and Poe at this point. Consider also that the same transports were used to ferry personnel to the Raddus without being picked off (a task we know the FO are quite capable of).

Fair enough.

[The Romulan Republic]

First off, welcome back. I enjoy our discussions.

Thanks.

Kojiro handled this well, but I will reiterate, they had better options, which makes the 'heroic sacrifices' an utterly pointless waste of resources.

I'll admit, I don't really get where Kojiro is coming from on this.

I mean, if you want to substitute an entire alternate battle plan from very early in the film, maybe you could come up with a scenario in which those deaths are avoidable. But once things got to the point where they were cornered by an FO fleet and running out of fuel, I don't think the death of the Ninka's captain could have been averted, short of having him abandon his post before the evacuation was completed.

As to Holdo- her death was technically avoidable, but it probably wouldn't have ended well for anyone. Had she left the Raddus unmanned, then she would presumably have died with everyone else on the transports. Had she left another in her place, the Resistance might or might not have survived, but then she would have been consigning someone else to death or capture in her place. Had she not rammed the FO fleet, the Resistance would have been wiped out, excluding possibly Rey, Chewie, R2, and maybe Holdo herself (as an FO captive).

The only way to avert that would have been to come up with an entirely different battle plan from the start. We've argued various alternatives back and forth. Now, I think Holdo's plan has its merits, and likely would have saved most of the personnel at the cost of the ships if not for Poe's idiocy and DJ's treachery (well, unless Snoke or Kylo sensed the hidden transports through the Force). That said, I will acknowledge that any plan has room for improvement, especially since most SF battle plans are written by professional writers, not professional soldiers. I'll be damned if I can come up with a better overall plan, though (perhaps because I am likewise an actor/writer by profession, not a soldier or military theorist), presuming the primary goal is to save the personnel, not the ships (if the primary goal is to save as many ships as possible, then have the escorts scatter and sacrifice the Raddus and any personnel that can't be evacuated from it to the smaller ships in time).

Let's review the options that have been raised: Sending small ships/distress calls out to summon aid might get the word out without having to reach Crait first, but it won't save the fleet, unless said aid shows up very quickly with a capital ship fleet. Sending out ships to bring more fuel is a big question mark- how quickly could they return, and how much fuel could they carry for the Raddus, even assuming they could find a safe harbor? Sending out the escorts will leave the Raddus open to enemy fighter attack. I doubt that there would be time to evacuate the Raddus to the escorts and have them scatter (though that might be the optimal plan if possible), given that as we saw, there was barely time to evacuate the Ninka's presumably smaller compliment to the Raddus before the Ninka ran out of fuel.

In any case, as long as the Raddus was being tracked, it was doomed. Unless they can get rid of the FO's tracking, then wherever the Raddus goes, it will be followed by a force it cannot defeat in battle. If it goes to a friendly world, it will bring that fleet down upon it. Short of summoning a capital ship fleet that can match the FO in open battle, the Raddus had to be abandoned.

The Resistance simply have very limited options here. If Hux/Snoke had shown more initiative and tactical creativity, then they could have mopped up the fleet before Holdo even had a chance to take command, and her abilities or lack thereof would have been irrelevant.

quote]For all we know, she only briefed a few people, and that's why it took the course of a day for them to make progress to fuel a few transports. Everyone else was panicking and running to escape pods because their leaders didn't brief them and instead danced around each other.

I agree that its likely that Holdo only briefed a few people.

What I disagree with is that this is in any way a sign of poor leadership on her part. A plan on which the survival of your faction depends, which relies on secrecy to succeed, should not be general knowledge. Especially if the loyalty of much of your crew is in question. This is "need to know"- Holdo's job was to brief the people who needed to be briefed for the plan to be carried out. Its possible that Holdo underestimated the seriousness of the morale situation, but we also don't really know how general dissatisfaction with her command was. And frankly, asking your crew to keep their shit together for one day so that you can execute your battle plan without leaking it to the entire force is not unreasonable.

I mean, Holdo could have said "Yes, I have a plan, honest." But without specifics that it would be dangerous to divulge, would Poe have accepted that at face value? His on-screen actions lead me to suspect that the answer is "no".

As for Holdo's attire. What is our nearest cultural comparison for her? No one else in Star Wars, a rather martial setting, is dressed like her, except for the the Senators from the Prequel era, and the rich snobs from Canto Bight.

Again, Leia wears dresses and fancy hairstyles all the time (particularly in the OT era). And don't even get me started on the odd bikini-wearing female Jedi. Frankly, Leia gets a pass on a lot of the same criticisms that are leveled at Holdo.

Going off on a tangent, I'd also dispute that Star Wars is "a rather martial setting", or at least notably more so than the real world is. I mean, compared to the TNG Federation or something, sure, but there are plenty of people just living ordinary peaceful lives on quiet worlds. We just see more of the military side of the galaxy because that's the focus of the films.

Even Leia's clothing in this film is purposeful, and looks, uncontemporary and stylish, still seems functional.

Eh, she and Holdo both wear dresses. I admit that I'm pretty much fashion-blind, but I don't see much difference there.

Leia, while wearing a dress, looks like she could fit in on the trenches with that jacket.Leia in badass coat

Leia's coat is cool, no argument there. But contrast that to her various princess dresses over the course of the franchise. No one argues that Leia is incompetent as a result.

And let's talk costuming visual language:

As discussed here, Leia is modeled to be regal, a queen. But it still looks functioning. Holdo was specifically made to look pretty, and the costume designer notes that this was on purpose:

Fashionista

General Leia Organa is in a less tactical look with regal cape-outfits and very notable jewelry. Where did you look for inspiration for the looks, and what does the change from Episode VII tell us about her?

She was very rough and tumble [in VII] and J.J. [Abrams, "The Force Awakens" director] had his point of view of how he wanted her to [look] as a general commanding the ship, and he loved the idea of her wearing coveralls. Rian wanted her to look more regal, as you said, and more like a princess. So I thought capes were good, especially when she's in the cave and on the battlefield. There are pictures of Queen Elizabeth II wearing a military cape that inspired me. We made all the jewelry. She's wearing one ring from Episode VII, but the rest of the jewelry is all new for Episode VIII. I wanted her to look as beautiful and regal as possible and I think the shape and the cloak she's wearing is very "Star Wars," but very elegant, as well.

She has two costumes that are somewhat similar because they're both capes. One is metallic woven fabric and the other one which is much more simple — a gray-green cape that she wears until the end of the film. I love how it frames her face. Rian loved how it looked when [the camera] hit her face and you just saw her eyes. Toward the end of the film, there's a beautiful shot of her looking above the cape, with just her eyes, with the the collar spiraling around her head and face. It's a beautiful moment.

Leia is modeled off royalty, but military royalty. She has jewelry and makeup, but is still in a commanding role. It gives us the image that while she is a person of power wealth, she is still their leader.

Now here's the image of Holdo: Holdo briefing the troops

More importantly, here's what it looks like from the back: back view

Here's what the costume designer has to say:

Why does Vice Admiral Holdo wear a more high-fashion gown [which, editor's note looks amazing from the back], as compared to the rest of the Resistance?

Rian wanted to see her body language and wear something that was close-fitting and yet elegant. I thought we were just going to put her in a uniform, but Rian said, 'No, I want her in a gown.' So, I looked back to the beautiful clothes that Madame Grès did in the '30s and '40s and used this beautiful jersey fabric in this crazy color, which I think is called puce. There's something a little Grecian about it and she was very happy. I think she looks very beautiful

Now here's the citizens of Canto Bight:https://cdn.movieweb.com/img.news.tops/ ... sino goers

The director did this on purpose, and we subconsciously connect Holdo to the wealthy on Canto Bight. Or at least I did.

The background information on costumes is highly interesting, but nothing I see there definitely establishes that Holdo's look was chosen to make the audience think that she was incompetent or to associate her with Canto Bight. Its possible, and I wouldn't put it past Johnson, who drops a lot of subtle hints and misdirection throughout the film, but its pretty much speculation at this point.

And even if it was deliberate misdirection to make the audience think Holdo was incompetent or corrupt, it wouldn't demonstrate that Holdo is a poor commander in-universe. It would, rather, be playing on real-world prejudices to make the audience think that Holdo is inept, which is ultimately revealed not to be the case.

Now, while Leia is also wearing a dress, she looks like she belongs with the Resistance members much more than the casino gamblers, and has a history of wearing a uniform when necessary. Holdo looks like she doesn't belong with the group she's in charge of. And since in every film in Star Wars, costuming has given us a sense of who these characters are, we get a negative impression.

This is why, even in Attack of the Clones, teenage Anakin had black leather in his Jedi robes, while every other Jedi just used cloth. This was also visual foreshadowing that he would become Vader, a villain dressed in an all black leather and metal armor.

This is also why Luke and Leia are in almost all white in A New Hope, showing their heroic natures and innocence.

Of course a director can use a character's costume to symbolically say something about that character, or to create a certain impression of them. You may be right about the intent behind Holdo's costume, or you may not. Either way, however, it doesn't say anything about her actual ability in-universe. At worst, it shows that the misdirection was too effective, so that audiences took the misdirection at face-value and ignored the subsequent revelation.

I'd also note that Star Wars has a history of female characters in princess attire being portrayed as competent and heroic fighters and leaders. Leia in the OT being the most obvious, but Padme comes to mind as well (even if she admittedly did tend to ditch the dresses in combat).

Thank you. This is why refueling and bringing extra for everybody else seems like a better idea than a slow March of death. And since the plot requires the slow March of death, we have to wonder if they had better options, which they did, and didn't pursue, because Holdo doesn't talk to Poe, and maybe her other subordinates. Enough to which she had to face a mutiny.

Its simply not reasonable to suggest that a commander provoked a mutiny because she didn't reveal a plan which depended on secrecy to a single disgruntled officer who didn't need to know the plan and was recently demoted for reckless insubordination. Frankly, if she made a mistake with Poe, it was accomadating him as much as she did. I'd have brigged the jackass.

As to whether your plan is ultimately better, that hinges on a number of unknowns: How much fuel could the small ships bring back? How quickly could they do so? Was there a safe port they could go to within range to fuel up? It might work. It might not.

Arguably the film should have done a better job of establishing why Holdo's plan was the best option. But I'm willing to largely give it a pass on this, because at the end of the day, its a Star Wars film, not a tactical manual, and we wouldn't want it to get bogged down in exposition.

Again, this is where I point out my South Korea example, in that unilateral disarmament to the point that a terrorist group is threatening without allies while neighbors with a hostile power is dangerous and suicidal. And that there's a difference between making peace with your enemy, and being an Idiot who sells out to the enemy.

It runs counter to sense. And yes, shit happens. But you can make shit happen without making your heroes accomplishments pointless and for nothing. Thematically, it means our heroes' actions led to nothing.

I'm not saying that the NR's actions are smart. Just that they are explicable within the context of the setting.

I don't think, however, that this invalidates the actions of the OT heroes. They defeated the Empire and bought the galaxy years of peace and freedom. That does not change simply because others' ineptitude ultimately squandered those gains. The fight goes on, but the only reason it can go on is because of the efforts of the OT heroes.

I do not share the view that because a victory is not permanent, it is pointless. By that standard, all of human history is pointless. And yes, some people would argue that, but its a bit too cynical and nihilistic a view for me.

If Rey is correct, and the Republic only has a matter of weeks left in it, then time for holding your cards in reserve is pointless. Any port in a storm would be a better option than hoping they don't notice you. Or pursuing the above mentioned 'courier grabbing supplies, fuel, and reinforcements' plan.

In point of fact, laying low in the face of massed conventional firepower is pretty much how insurgencies operate. Leia undoubtably knows this from personal experience. And laying low and hoping you aren't noticed is definitely a better option than going to a port full of possible collaborators.

Again, this is something Leia has personal experience in. Remember Empire Strikes Back, where the Falcon was running from the Empire on a disabled hyperdrive, and they took a chance on a dubious ally by going to Lando at Cloud City? Remember how that ended? I can bet you that Leia remembers. She remembers being captured by the people who tortured her and blew up her home world. She remembers being used as bait to lure her brother into a trap. She remembers watching the man she loved being tortured and frozen in carbonite. Hell, even Cloud City ended up getting screwed over because of their presence there.

That's the kind of hard lesson one is not likely to quickly forget.

Though, maybe that would have gotten in the way of the crucial scene where Rose and Finn are freeing animals but leaving the slave children to rot.

The plight of the slave children vs. the plight of the animals probably should have gotten more attention (though that would have made for a considerably more depressing film), but I don't really see what Rose and Finn could have realistically done about it under the circumstances.

This is why, as I have stated before, crisis management is important. Telling everyone you have a plan, but it's compartmentalized for security might not go over well, but at least it's better than saying that you have no plans at all, which inspired panic and mutiny. Holdo doesn't do anything like that. She's telling the Hero of Starkiller base to shut up and go away, when he could be settling the crews' nerves. It's a waste of resources, and backfired on her hard.

Could she have done more to appease Poe? Yes. Is she obligated to pander to the concerns of a single disgruntled, recently-disgraced subordinate? No, and its not an obvious conclusion that failing to do so will result in a mutiny.

If she did have reason to believe that Poe might mutiny, she should have brigged his ass.

And as I said to Kojiro, you can't cite Poe's actions at Starkiller Base in his defense, while ignoring his more recent demotion for recklessness and insubordination. Both are a part of his record.

Yes, Holdo could have said, and maybe should have said "There's a plan, but its compartmentalized." I'm not convinced that that would have made any difference with Poe, however, based on his actions on-screen. I mean, does one normally assume that a commander has no plan unless they immediately state that they have one?

And if he can get followers for a mutiny, others must worry about her leadership as well, because her stated 'Have hope' plan is costing them ships and maybe people.

It is frustrating to have to keep debating the same points over and over again.

The fact that a handful of people are shown participating in the mutiny does not in any way prove a general dissatisfaction with Holdo's leadership. Granted, the fact that most of the crew appeared to sit it out isn't a resounding endorsement of Holdo's leadership, but I get the sense that most of the crew basically said "Screw this" and got on with their jobs. Though there's really insufficient evidence to say for certain.

Okay, answer me this. Would Raiders of the Lost ark have been better if the Nazis in that film were the bad guys from Hogan's Heroes? Would we have been worried about Indy surviving serious peril if he's dealing with the likes of Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz?

I would think not, because it would be impossible to take seriously. Same issue here.

I agree that we don't want the First Order to be too invincible, or too cool that the fans want to be them. At the same time, we want our heroes to be capable of dealing with a serious threat that the audience cants immediately see a way out of. Having the hero trying to get out of a burning building, while desperately pulling on the door that says 'Push', while next to a fire axe, water hose, and fire extinguisher isn't exciting, it's goofy.

And to me, and a lot of others, that's what a non-serious threat means if they're only winning because the good guys are dumb, but the bad guys are even dumber. That's not exciting drama, It's a farce.

I don't get the impression that the heroes are stupid in TLJ (well, Poe aside), though the FO is definitely more inept. As I said, I think that this was more or less necessary, to a point, and I think that you are overstating somewhat the ease with which the heroes could have escaped the FO, or their reliance on FO incompetence. But I agree that the villains need to be somewhat threatening, and while there were points in the film where we got that, there was some stuff (most notably the Hux phone call scene, as I already noted) which was just excessive. A lot of directors and writers have problems introducing humor to a dramatic film in a manner that allows them to compliment, rather than clashing with, each other. The Prequels had the same problem, notoriously.

Sidenote: I've been to Disneyland, and First Order troops are available for photo opportunities, so not making them cool to avoid inspiration is clearly not a priority for Disney.

I think its fair to say that the writers/directors may have different priorities from the marketing/merchandising people. In fact, I'd be pretty disappointed if they didn't.

Maybe, but it wasn't executed well, and leftus with contrasting themes in all the subplots. A good story has the various plots wrap together, tie in together, or contrast each other, in theme and action. Otherwise, we're just wasting time that could be spent better elsewhere.

I think that a certain amount of thematic ambiguity was to some extent a deliberate choice in TLJ. Weather that works for you or not is somewhat a matter of personal taste. I'm not unsympathetic, because there are points that I wish the film had been more clear and less deceptive on myself.

I'm not certain how the particular bit with the kid at the end contradicts the films' themes, though.

Oh, by the way, is it alright with everyone if I just let Patroklos's post be? I'm already arguing this topic with two other posters, and a lot of Patroklos's post appears to be just rehashing the same points.

[Kojiro]

It does at least establish that she has a not-obviously-terrible combat record.

I disagree. It establishes nothing but her presence at a certain event. Now if she'd some out in uniform, covered in medals or had someone refer to her as 'the hero of X and Y' you'd have a point. But we don't get that. We get 'The line of succession is clear, it's Vice Admiral Holdo.' which is immediately commented on by Poe in what is expositional code for 'I don't know this person'. Those are choices by the director, do downplay her achievement (if any) and to make Poe, our established proxy, unfamiliar with her. Imagine if, instead of Holdo it has been announced that Akbar was now in command? Or Lando? Fuck it, even Nien Nub would have come in with more established trust than Holdo. Surely you can see how such writer/director choices are intended to deceive the audience?

And does Poe really give her much of a chance?

Yes, he does. He gives her multiple chances to explain. In the end his mutiny is only staged to buy them time.

1:27:00 "We had a fleet and now we're down to one ship, and you've told us nothing. Tell us you have a plan! That there's hope!" Holdo has been in command for at the least 10 hours at this point, probably closer to 16. This is where Poe finds the transports are being fuelled after Holdo gives him the bullshit about hoping through the night.
"We're abandoning ship? That's what you got? That's what you've brought us to? Those transport ships are unarmed and unshielded! We abandon this cruiser and we're done, we don't stand a chance!"
That right there is the perfect time to tell him 'Oh by the way the transports are cloaked AND WE HAVE A SECRET BASE JUST OVER THERE.' Perfect. Time. But no, she doesn't. She let's Poe, and by extension the audience, remain ignorant. Cloaks are never mentioned. Again, this is to deceive the audience.

The claim that Holdo "doesn't deliver" rests entirely, so far as I can see, on her not giving Poe, or the crew in general, a briefing on her battle plans. In which case, I ask again why an admiral should be obligated to either a) give a general brief of their plans in a situation where the secrecy of those plans is vital to any chance of success, or b) go out of her way in a crisis to pacify a single officer who was just demoted for insubordination.

She's a new character clashing with an established hero character the audience trusts. In universe, sure she's no obligated to brief anyone (leaving aside that Rose must know about the cloaks) but part of leadership is morale and boy, she failed spectacularly there. Poe isn't a 'single officer'. Rose and Finn are with him, as are several others and we know that a guard is needed on the escape pods. So no, she doesn't 'have' to tell anyone, let alone the trusted hero. But if you want to go that path you have to accept she's a terrible leader who can't manage her own people- evidenced by the mutiny.

Minor quibble: Do we know exactly how much time passed between the destruction of Starkiller Base and Holdo taking command? It doesn't really affect this point one way or the other- I just don't recall it being stated. It obviously wasn't very long, but could have been more than a day, depending on when Rey left to find Luke, how long the evacuation took, and weather Rey's scenes line up with the Raddus scenes exactly chronologically.

Given a shitty, cobbled together hyperdrive (such as the one on the shuttle Finn and Rose take) can get across the galaxy in 5-6 hours it's a short time span. The directorial decision to link Ach-To, via Force projection, strongly implies a sense of linked continuity- nothing appears out of sequence at the least. But in this case it simply can't be that long unless someone is deliberately stalling, which is doubtful.

In any case, Poe may have recently blown up Starkiller Base, but he was even more recently demoted for reckless and insubordinate actions. You can't use the one to defend his credibility, while ignoring the other.

You're conflating audience credibility with in universe authority. Even if the audience believes Poe to be in the wrong, they still trust he's a good guy and was doing what he felt was best for the Resistance.

The argument that the mutiny proves Holdo's incompetence has been gone over again and again, and its frankly a circular argument. "Poe mutinied because Holdo was incompetent." How do we know she's incompetent? "Because Poe mutinied."

At the very least, in terms of caring for your troops morale, she was incompetent, and yes, mutiny is a pretty good indicator that your crew is either a) treacherous and evil or b) has their morale in the toilet, and we know it's not a).

I'll just reiterate that no one has demonstrated (because it cannot be demonstrated unambiguously based on on-screen evidence) that the crew generally supported the mutiny. Nor does the mere fact of a mutiny prove that the mutineers' complaints were necessarily justified.

This is somewhat of a problem as it seems most of the crew were ambivalent about it, with only those close enough to Poe or Holdo bothering to do much while everyone else just continued doing what they were doing. Personally I think this is unlikely, I think a crew who has been given no hope, no plan, has their trusted leaders taken and finds themselves at deaths door is far more likely to be desperate than stoically proceed to their deaths.

This is admittedly a questionable plot point. If I were to try to justify it (barring an EU explanation of which I am unaware), I would say that Holdo was likely acting as an emissary of Leia's to the NR, and possibly serving in the forces of an NR member state, and thus had been away from Resistance HQ for some time, until the collapse of the NR made her prior assignment moot. That is, of course, based on nothing in the film- its just how I would explain the omission if I were in charge of canon.

There's a ton of potential ways to explain it but we don't get any of them. We don't even get to see Leia and her speak prior to Leia's return, to establish there's any friendship there at all. There are so many ways a writer/director could establish Holdo but it seems she's literally plucked out of thin air- no prior mention of her before she assumes command.

No one is denying the existence of droids in Star Wars. What I am saying is that droids are very seldom given control of a ship without a human pilot/commander also in attendance (the only major exception I'm aware of being CIS droid fighters in the Clone Wars). There is no technical reason for this to be the case that I can see- their AIs are quite up to the task. It is presumably a cultural reluctance to rely on droids. It may be illogical, but it is consistent with what we see throughout canon, and Holdo's actions are in no way anomalous here.

What? This is the perfect time to give over control to a droid! Or just the autopilot. Or just to leave the controls entirely. Holdo was able to come down to the hangar and say her goodbyes to Leia- who was piloting then? Either way, 'cultural reluctance' would have to be epic in order for someone to let themselves or others die for it and I really don't think SW is there.

Because the film gives us a clear timeline for how long the evacuation should have taken, and does not explicitly state that the evacuation had just been wrapped up before the ship was destroyed.

Oh. Wait.

Yeah sure, but that's fucking retarded. Do they not have a fuel gauge? Why the fuck have they waited until the last possible moment to evacuate? We're immediately told after it's destruction that fuel reserves are at 6 hours- meaning this is roughly 12 hours into the chase, which is ample time to clear out its crew of 170.

No one thinks leaving a doomed ship is cowardice, but a captain acting to save themselves before their crew is safely evacuated? Yeah.

Sure, but as I said, 12 hours to evacuate. Get the crew off then let a droid take over- that ship has it's own freaking droid bay even so they're definitely present. By all means, be the last one off but get off.

Yes, Holdo could have ordered him to evacuate. But there are legitimate reasons why a captain might remain at his post on a doomed ship, and even the most conscientious officer accepts that there are times when a subordinate may have to lay down their life in the course of their duty.

And you're yet to provide one of these reasons why simultaneously claiming she's trying to save lives. No, a distrust of droids is not sufficient.

I'd say the fact that Holdo volunteered to personally stay behind on the Raddus to cover the escape, even against Leia's wishes IIRC, speaks volumes about her concern for the lives of her subordinates.

Almost like she knew they'd be betrayed and require some special, never before seen move that would just coincidentally happen to perfectly work! Or she was an idiot who chose to deprive the Resistance of a valuable officer because she couldn't trust the autopilot or BB-8 to keep the ship flying in a straight line like it already was.

Also, another minor quibble, but if Holdo is an admiral, then she wouldn't be captain of the Ninka, would she? She'd have a captain under her commanding the ship, not just an XO. Or am I mixing up naval ranks?

We're not really shown how it all works, but she was a Vice Admiral as the commanding officer (captain) of the Ninka. Presumably her XO was made acting captain in her absence but either way she retains authority.

Are you saying it was stupid foreshadowing, or that the thing it was foreshadowing (Holdo's death) was stupid?

The action itself- stay on board a doomed ship when alternatives exist- is dumb. Showing multiple people doing it renders it no less stupid.

So is Johnson trying to trick the audience into thinking that Holdo is a horrible officer who callously let an officer die for no good reason, or is he trying to trick them into thinking that there were no other options but for the captain to sacrifice himself?

To me it appears he's trying to trick the audience into thinking there's no better option than dying on the doomed ship. In the moment of the film, where the audience has no idea there's a plan, this seems like there's nothing Holdo could do. It's only in retrospect, when you realise she had a plan all along, that you have to question why she let him die. I don't think Johnson is trying to make the audience think she's horrible- I believe it's an unintended consequence of her letting someone die without adequately explaining why he had to die screaming in a fireball.

And yeah, I don't think there's a big twist here. I'm not sure that there's supposed to be. I'm taking this scene more or less at face value: The captain died by remaining at his post while his crew was evacuating.

See above. 12 hours is a long time.

Holdo (presumably) didn't order to him to abandon ship because he was doing his duty. It shows the desperation of the Resistance's situation.

That's screen manufactured desperation. They had plenty of time and it's onerous on the heels of 'Bad Poe! You got people killed!"

We are given incomplete information, yes- we are lead to think that Holdo has no larger plan to save her people throughout much of the film. But the captain's death, I think, is exactly what it appears to be, and I don't think that the subsequent revelations about Holdo's plan changes that.

See above. 12 hours.

I don't think its unreasonable to say that TLJ is subjected to a level of hostile examination and criticism beyond what most films are subjected to. To some extent, of course, that's an inevitable consequence of how high-profile Star Wars is, and how passionate a fan base it has. But I am skeptical that 95% of Hollywood SF would stand up any better to the same level of scrutiny.

I think you'll find people entrenched on both sides. But how would you take it if someone implied you were only interested in defending it for dubious reasons? That's a rhetorical question, mind you.

Which isn't to say that we should just accept whatever we are shown without criticism, of course. But there has to be some willingness to suspend disbelief; to, if not take a film on its own terms, then at least extend it the benefit of the doubt.

I would perhaps be more inclined to extend it that benefit if it weren't a writer/director combo. What we see on screen is going to be 'truer' than a mixed comb where a director puts their own slant on things.

As to points, the thing is that the point you are trying to make here is based on an exceedingly tenuous interpretation of the evidence. Hell, there are much stronger arguments that can be made both for Holdo being a bad officer and for the film being "dishonest", even if I don't personally agree with them.

Bad officer is a broad term and I really only apply it to her managing of personnel and morale. I do not, for example, nor have I mentioned her hair or outfit (other than to say above that a military uniform with awards would help establish her, which I think is pretty obvious). My issue with the film is how she's used as a tool, her function in the plot because throughout the whole film, my SoD was absolutely shot. I only see her as the tool of plot she is and the contradictions that seems to raise. I would, however, love to hear your complaints regarding her.

Huh? So your argument now is that because Holdo actually turned out to have a plan, that means that she pointlessly threw her officer's life away?

Is that so hard to understand? What prevented her from saving him?

In what way would Holdo's plan have rendered the death of the Ninka's captain unnecessary? Holdo clearly wasn't ready to launch the transports that far out from Crait.

Irrelevant. Bring him over with the rest of the crew until you are ready.

The Ninka was running out of fuel. Its personnel had to be evacuated to the Raddus. From what I recall of the on-screen dialogue (please correct me if I'm wrong on this point), the evacuation was only just concluded before the ship ran out of fuel. The captain stayed at his post during said evacuation, and then went down with his ship, presumably because he had no time to evacuate himself. None of this changes in light of Holdo's plan being subsequently revealed.

Again, 12 hours in at this point. You're not wrong that the evacuation was just completed but this is another contrivance.

I have given reasons, consistent with on-screen dialogue and how ships are normally operated in the Star Wars universe, for why there would be a living person at the helm. You have not actually refuted either of these points, except to assert that the ships could have been auto-piloted.

Oh come on, this is poor. We know they have autopilots, we know they have an astromech (if not more). We know that Holdo can be down in the hangar while the ship flies just fine. Are you seriously asserting that having a giant ship continue forward with its momentum is a task requiring a living person present?

I'm going to skip a bit here, because it all comes down to excuses why Holdo had to be on the bridge. Now to me, and I'm sure others, none of this cuts it. We don't even know why you can't just let it keep flying, let alone why the autopilot couldn't be trusted, why a remote couldn't be rigged up (hey they had time to rig up dozens of cloaks!) or why any droid, if not not an astromech, couldn't have done the job. Autopilots and astromechs are routinely trusted with flying ships- it's their fucking purpose- and to imply they're suddenly untrustworthy to the point of suicide is stretching it.

When do we see the Raddus fly without anyone on the bridge, by the way? Aside from when the bridge was bombed, which was obviously not anything like an ideal or intended situation.

When Holdo is down in the shuttle bay and everyone leaves (1:37:00 or so).

I think we're honestly analysing it differently, with me coming from a more writing/constructing type angle while you seem more intent on enjoying the flow. I'll state I'd prefer to be looking at it from your side, but with SoD broken that's not really an option. Too many things pulled me out of it (and perhaps too many discussions afterwards about it) but I just can't see anything but badly constructed narrative any more. Holdo to me, is a bad plot device to forward a bad story, nothing more.

[FaxModem1]

Kojiro handled this well, but I will reiterate, they had better options, which makes the 'heroic sacrifices' an utterly pointless waste of resources.

I'll admit, I don't really get where Kojiro is coming from on this.

I mean, if you want to substitute an entire alternate battle plan from very early in the film, maybe you could come up with a scenario in which those deaths are avoidable. But once things got to the point where they were cornered by an FO fleet and running out of fuel, I don't think the death of the Ninka's captain could have been averted, short of having him abandon his post before the evacuation was completed.

As to Holdo- her death was technically avoidable, but it probably wouldn't have ended well for anyone. Had she left the Raddus unmanned, then she would presumably have died with everyone else on the transports. Had she left another in her place, the Resistance might or might not have survived, but then she would have been consigning someone else to death or capture in her place. Had she not rammed the FO fleet, the Resistance would have been wiped out, excluding possibly Rey, Chewie, R2, and maybe Holdo herself (as an FO captive).

The only way to avert that would have been to come up with an entirely different battle plan from the start. We've argued various alternatives back and forth. Now, I think Holdo's plan has its merits, and likely would have saved most of the personnel at the cost of the ships if not for Poe's idiocy and DJ's treachery (well, unless Snoke or Kylo sensed the hidden transports through the Force). That said, I will acknowledge that any plan has room for improvement, especially since most SF battle plans are written by professional writers, not professional soldiers. I'll be damned if I can come up with a better overall plan, though (perhaps because I am likewise an actor/writer by profession, not a soldier or military theorist), presuming the primary goal is to save the personnel, not the ships (if the primary goal is to save as many ships as possible, then have the escorts scatter and sacrifice the Raddus and any personnel that can't be evacuated from it to the smaller ships in time).

They had 18 hours, that's more than enough time to come up with alternate solutions. Especially since I came up with a few while sitting there in the theater. Hell, Poe and company come up with one after an hour. However, Holdo wasn't open to discussing anything with anyone, that we know of. That Holdo couldn't discuss things immediately is fine, considering they were going through a crisis. That she refused to speak with Poe multiple times over the course of a day speaks of dismissing an asset without considering what he has to say. Even if you don't like the source, if someone has a point, it's a good idea to listen.

It was only at the tail end, when two ships were lost, after a mutiny, and Poe forgot about Commsec and Opsec that they ran were out of options.

That is the problem. Holdo already gave up on the rest of the fleet, followed a plan that might only work if everything goes right, and didn't try alternate plans in the meantime with her plan being a fallback.

Let's review the options that have been raised: Sending small ships/distress calls out to summon aid might get the word out without having to reach Crait first, but it won't save the fleet, unless said aid shows up very quickly with a capital ship fleet.

18 hours to have a fleet rally up at Crait, meet them in the chase, do a pincer tactic of their own against the First Order, or get bombers for hit and run attacks to discourage the enemy from pursuing. Or a dozen different things I haven't even thought of. Someone might have the contacts, like Maz for instance. I'm sure a lot of her clientele might be happy to give the First Order a black eye.

Point is, Holdo didn't even try. She hoped her Hail Mary of a plan works. To use a metaphor from SFDebris, betting the entire pot on 00 in Roulette isn't a sound strategy, and even if you do win, it's not because of great strategic thinking, it's because you got lucky.

Holdo bets the mortgage money on the roulette wheel landing on 00 several times in a row.

Sending out ships to bring more fuel is a big question mark- how quickly could they return, and how much fuel could they carry for the Raddus, even assuming they could find a safe harbor? Sending out the escorts will leave the Raddus open to enemy fighter attack.

Please prove that the escorts were necessary for fighter defense. As it was, there has been no proof that they were needed to stop fighters. Especially as the Raddus went hours without them and wasn't facing fighters attacking them.

Having one of the fleet escorts or Hyperdrive capable ships (like the one Rose and Finn we're on for example) stop at a fleet yard and purchase some ships, whether fuel tankers, transports, fighters, or a wing of bombers, enabling the fleet to either abandon ship (Holdo's plan), get reinforcements so that they could fight the First Order (Poe's 'blow stuff up' plan), or refuel so that they can run longer, giving them more time to call for help or run to a friendly place.

I doubt that there would be time to evacuate the Raddus to the escorts and have them scatter (though that might be the optimal plan if possible), given that as we saw, there was barely time to evacuate the Ninka's presumably smaller compliment to the Raddus before the Ninka ran out of fuel.

It they refuel, or stop the First Order with a few more bombers, or they just refuel all the transports I'mmediately, since Holdo doesn't give a crap about preserving any of their fleet, and just run away while the Raddus is on autopilot, they could have saved more lives and potentially, ships.

In any case, as long as the Raddus was being tracked, it was doomed. Unless they can get rid of the FO's tracking, then wherever the Raddus goes, it will be followed by a force it cannot defeat in battle. If it goes to a friendly world, it will bring that fleet down upon it. Short of summoning a capital ship fleet that can match the FO in open battle, the Raddus had to be abandoned.

Or a wing of bombers, see above.

The Resistance simply have very limited options here. If Hux/Snoke had shown more initiative and tactical creativity, then they could have mopped up the fleet before Holdo even had a chance to take command, and her abilities or lack thereof would have been irrelevant.

No, she had 18 hours to pursue other plans with her 'hide on Crait and hope we're not noticed to be used as a fall back. Especially since we see Poe and company trying their own failed plan.

For all we know, she only briefed a few people, and that's why it took the course of a day for them to make progress to fuel a few transports. Everyone else was panicking and running to escape pods because their leaders didn't brief them and instead danced around each other.

I agree that its likely that Holdo only briefed a few people.

What I disagree with is that this is in any way a sign of poor leadership on her part. A plan on which the survival of your faction depends, which relies on secrecy to succeed, should not be general knowledge.

Many hands make light work. Imagine if all transports were fueled and ready to go by hour 4 of the chase. They could have abandoned the Raddus immediately and the First Order couldn't find them.

Also, since the topic of traitors or spies was never brought up by Holdo, only how she dislikes Poe for being a trigger happy pilot, it didn't seem to be a concern for her. Especially since Poe was able to make outgoing calls twice, once to Maz, and once to Finn, and she, or the crew of the Raddus never noticed. Shame on Poe for getting his friends killed due to incompetence, but shame on Holdo and company for not monitoring comms.

Especially if the loyalty of much of your crew is in question. This is "need to know"- Holdo's job was to brief the people who needed to be briefed for the plan to be carried out. Its possible that Holdo underestimated the seriousness of the morale situation, but we also don't really know how general dissatisfaction with her command was. And frankly, asking your crew to keep their shit together for one day so that you can execute your battle plan without leaking it to the entire force is not unreasonable.

I mean, Holdo could have said "Yes, I have a plan, honest." But without specifics that it would be dangerous to divulge, would Poe have accepted that at face value? His on-screen actions lead me to suspect that the answer is "no".

When is it in question? Holdo never brings it up. Competence, yes, but never loyalty.

And remember that once the plan was explained to Poe, he fell into line and did as asked. He still disregarded Opsec, but he was loyal.

So your observations of his on-screen actions are faulty.

snip fashion and costume talk

The point I'm trying to make is that the cost of the audience misdirection is that, Holdo's actual capability and loyalties aside, the framing is that she doesn't seem to belong here, and belongs more with the weapon sellers and slavers at Canto Bight. When Star Wars, for the entirety of the franchise, has had significance behind it's costume design to signal who is what, this is betrayed in this film, and is a big reason why Holdo seems so off putting. It punishes audience members for using their ability to spot patterns, rather than reward them as they did before.

Or in simpler terms....
[image]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sta ... 0105194513[/image]
One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong....

Thank you. This is why refueling and bringing extra for everybody else seems like a better idea than a slow March of death. And since the plot requires the slow March of death, we have to wonder if they had better options, which they did, and didn't pursue, because Holdo doesn't talk to Poe, and maybe her other subordinates. Enough to which she had to face a mutiny.

Its simply not reasonable to suggest that a commander provoked a mutiny because she didn't reveal a plan which depended on secrecy to a single disgruntled officer who didn't need to know the plan and was recently demoted for reckless insubordination. Frankly, if she made a mistake with Poe, it was accomadating him as much as she did. I'd have brigged the jackass.

It is when her big plan seems to be let's let everyone die, because we have hope. That is a rather dangerous morale killer that makes it lucky she wasn't fragged, and only had weapons set on stun pointed at her. At best, it seems like you have no plans for surviving. And at worst, you're sacrificing everyone's lives to try and rally the galaxy Into action. Both are worrying for a crew who wants to see tomorrow.

As to whether your plan is ultimately better, that hinges on a number of unknowns: How much fuel could the small ships bring back? How quickly could they do so? Was there a safe port they could go to within range to fuel up? It might work. It might not.

Arguably the film should have done a better job of establishing why Holdo's plan was the best option. But I'm willing to largely give it a pass on this, because at the end of the day, its a Star Wars film, not a tactical manual, and we wouldn't want it to get bogged down in exposition.

Better than praying that a multitude of things go right and that the crew is okay with pointless deaths until you go, 'Psych, I wasn't actually to have you all die pointlessly, only the captains of the other ships.' this is why her run and hide plan should have been the fallback, not the main course of action. Her entire plan hinged on everything working.

Again, this is where I point out my South Korea example, in that unilateral disarmament to the point that a terrorist group is threatening without allies while neighbors with a hostile power is dangerous and suicidal. And that there's a difference between making peace with your enemy, and being an Idiot who sells out to the enemy.

It runs counter to sense. And yes, shit happens. But you can make shit happen without making your heroes accomplishments pointless and for nothing. Thematically, it means our heroes' actions led to nothing.

I'm not saying that the NR's actions are smart. Just that they are explicable within the context of the setting.

I don't think, however, that this invalidates the actions of the OT heroes. They defeated the Empire and bought the galaxy years of peace and freedom. That does not change simply because others' ineptitude ultimately squandered those gains. The fight goes on, but the only reason it can go on is because of the efforts of the OT heroes.

I do not share the view that because a victory is not permanent, it is pointless. By that standard, all of human history is pointless. And yes, some people would argue that, but its a bit too cynical and nihilistic a view for me.

No, I'm pointing out that it seems, even with Leia as part of the Republic leadership, and Luke as leader of the new Jedi, our heroes ruined everything they fought for. It could work, if the point of the story is that it's a tragedy over time, like King Arthur's Britain. But it's not, it's what they chose in order to have the sequels resemble the original trilogy, no matter the cost. It's destructive to the theme of Star Wars.

If Rey is correct, and the Republic only has a matter of weeks left in it, then time for holding your cards in reserve is pointless. Any port in a storm would be a better option than hoping they don't notice you. Or pursuing the above mentioned 'courier grabbing supplies, fuel, and reinforcements' plan.

In point of fact, laying low in the face of massed conventional firepower is pretty much how insurgencies operate. Leia undoubtably knows this from personal experience. And laying low and hoping you aren't noticed is definitely a better option than going to a port full of possible collaborators.

Again, this is something Leia has personal experience in. Remember Empire Strikes Back, where the Falcon was running from the Empire on a disabled hyperdrive, and they took a chance on a dubious ally by going to Lando at Cloud City? Remember how that ended? I can bet you that Leia remembers. She remembers being captured by the people who tortured her and blew up her home world. She remembers being used as bait to lure her brother into a trap. She remembers watching the man she loved being tortured and frozen in carbonite. Hell, even Cloud City ended up getting screwed over because of their presence there.

That's the kind of hard lesson one is not likely to quickly forget.

Remember when being a peaceful world on the sidelines, and not joining together with those already fighting grants your world survival, until the fascist empire blows up your world to set an example? I bet Leia also remembered that one too, and how a couple decades later, the same thing happened to the galaxy again from the First Order due to the New Republic and the Resistance not working together and putting an end to it immediately by joining forces, but instead hiding away hoping not to get noticed.

I bet she remembers that one especially well.

Besides, Leia is in a coma for most of the film, and isn't making decisions until Act 3.

Though, maybe that would have gotten in the way of the crucial scene where Rose and Finn are freeing animals but leaving the slave children to rot.

The plight of the slave children vs. the plight of the animals probably should have gotten more attention (though that would have made for a considerably more depressing film), but I don't really see what Rose and Finn could have realistically done about it under the circumstances.

Mostly it's a gripe that the film makes our heroes into Greenpeace while there's freaking child slaves wanting help. It shows that the film needed rewriting and someone to point out that the scene was saying oppression matters more for animals than for kids to our protagonists. Especially since Canto Bight was a bit of a plot cul de sac taking away screentime and didn't use the story it was developing.

This is why, as I have stated before, crisis management is important. Telling everyone you have a plan, but it's compartmentalized for security might not go over well, but at least it's better than saying that you have no plans at all, which inspired panic and mutiny. Holdo doesn't do anything like that. She's telling the Hero of Starkiller base to shut up and go away, when he could be settling the crews' nerves. It's a waste of resources, and backfired on her hard.

Could she have done more to appease Poe? Yes. Is she obligated to pander to the concerns of a single disgruntled, recently-disgraced subordinate? No, and its not an obvious conclusion that failing to do so will result in a mutiny.

If she did have reason to believe that Poe might mutiny, she should have brigged his ass.

And as I said to Kojiro, you can't cite Poe's actions at Starkiller Base in his defense, while ignoring his more recent demotion for recklessness and insubordination. Both are a part of his record.

Yes, Holdo could have said, and maybe should have said "There's a plan, but its compartmentalized." I'm not convinced that that would have made any difference with Poe, however, based on his actions on-screen. I mean, does one normally assume that a commander has no plan unless they immediately state that they have one?

You do if her briefing is, 'Have hope, we'll get the rest of the Galaxy to take up arms through our glorious deaths.'

And if he can get followers for a mutiny, others must worry about her leadership as well, because her stated 'Have hope' plan is costing them ships and maybe people.

It is frustrating to have to keep debating the same points over and over again.

The fact that a handful of people are shown participating in the mutiny does not in any way prove a general dissatisfaction with Holdo's leadership. Granted, the fact that most of the crew appeared to sit it out isn't a resounding endorsement of Holdo's leadership, but I get the sense that most of the crew basically said "Screw this" and got on with their jobs. Though there's really insufficient evidence to say for certain.

The only other crew response we seem to get is 'Abandon ship'. Mutiny, unless your crew really are pirates and cutthroats, is a sign of bad leadership. That's proof enough that she wasn't up to the job.

Okay, answer me this. Would Raiders of the Lost ark have been better if the Nazis in that film were the bad guys from Hogan's Heroes? Would we have been worried about Indy surviving serious peril if he's dealing with the likes of Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz?

I would think not, because it would be impossible to take seriously. Same issue here.

I agree that we don't want the First Order to be too invincible, or too cool that the fans want to be them. At the same time, we want our heroes to be capable of dealing with a serious threat that the audience cants immediately see a way out of. Having the hero trying to get out of a burning building, while desperately pulling on the door that says 'Push', while next to a fire axe, water hose, and fire extinguisher isn't exciting, it's goofy.

And to me, and a lot of others, that's what a non-serious threat means if they're only winning because the good guys are dumb, but the bad guys are even dumber. That's not exciting drama, It's a farce.

I don't get the impression that the heroes are stupid in TLJ (well, Poe aside), though the FO is definitely more inept. As I said, I think that this was more or less necessary, to a point, and I think that you are overstating somewhat the ease with which the heroes could have escaped the FO, or their reliance on FO incompetence. But I agree that the villains need to be somewhat threatening, and while there were points in the film where we got that, there was some stuff (most notably the Hux phone call scene, as I already noted) which was just excessive. A lot of directors and writers have problems introducing humor to a dramatic film in a manner that allows them to compliment, rather than clashing with, each other. The Prequels had the same problem, notoriously.

Glad you agree that the enemy should be menacing in some fashion, and that the heroes have to be the ones to win somehow, either by outfighting, or outsmarting the enemy. But they can't look like bullies picking on someone too idiotic to fie his own shoes.

Maybe, but it wasn't executed well, and left us with contrasting themes in all the subplots. A good story has the various plots wrap together, tie in together, or contrast each other, in theme and action. Otherwise, we're just wasting time that could be spent better elsewhere.

I think that a certain amount of thematic ambiguity was to some extent a deliberate choice in TLJ. Weather that works for you or not is somewhat a matter of personal taste. I'm not unsympathetic, because there are points that I wish the film had been more clear and less deceptive on myself.

I'm not certain how the particular bit with the kid at the end contradicts the films' themes, though.

Oh, by the way, is it alright with everyone if I just let Patroklos's post be? I'm already arguing this topic with two other posters, and a lot of Patroklos's post appears to be just rehashing the same points.

It's not the kid at the end, it's the entire Canto Bight subplot with the fighters being sold to both sides, showing that the fight is just profiting the rich, Luke calling for the death of the Jedi, the Resistance being wiped out aside from who is on the Falcon, and Ren throwing away any possible redemption, the New Republic losing, Luke dying, etc. leads us to a universe where every decision they've made only fueling the rich upper class, while the poor are dying or mistreated as cattle slaves.

Maybe the kid will become a Jedi. Maybe, with Kylo Ren around, he'll become like Anakin, a former slave turned powerful force user who wipes out anyone in his way, because that's the way the Star Wars galaxy rolls when it comes to it's cycles.

[Civil War Man]

Not really a response to anyone, but just a thought regarding the "how much is Holdo obligated to tell her subordinates (specifically Poe) of the plan" debate.

Now, obviously a commander is not obligated to tell every subordinate every detail of every plan (because of compartmentalization, Opsec, etc), but I think we can all agree that they are under an obligation to make sure each subordinate is up-to-date on all of the details they need in order to carry out their orders.

Where things get tricky in TLJ's case is that Poe's place in the chain of command is rather nebulous for most of the movie's run time. He's explicitly named as being in charge of the Resistance's fighter wings, which puts him pretty high up there, but he's not able to do much with that because it's hard to be in charge of the fighters after they all get destroyed. He butts heads with Holdo (and Leia to a lesser extent early on), and gets locked out of the planning process, but he never gets officially relieved. When Holdo sacrifices herself, he's almost immediately put in charge of the remaining forces, but a lot of that is Leia's influence and by that point every other viable candidate is dead, but the movie also never really shows anyone other than Holdo outranking him after most of the command staff is wiped out in the attack on the bridge.

So I guess the big question for me is whether Poe was still considered part of the line of succession prior to the mutiny, and if so, how far down the list was he? If he was next in line for command while also being locked out of command consultations, that is actually pretty irresponsible, because it impedes a smooth transition of command if something were to happen to Holdo prior to Poe learning the details of the plan. At best you'd have delays while the new CO gets caught up, at worst you get conflicting orders generating confusion in the ranks. If he wasn't in line for command during that time, then just telling him that a plan existed and then giving him something to do to keep him busy would probably have been plenty.

[Galvatron]

Having seen some of his other videos about certain scenes that he's re-edited, I'm looking forward to his version of TLJ quite a bit.

[Elheru Aran]

To be quite frank, I see no particular reason to exclude Poe, seeing as apparently the entire damn Resistance was aboard the Raddus, and therefore it's not like they have plenty of officers to go around. It's quite realistic that he might end up being the sole officer in command, and should therefore be in the know. Adhering to a strict chain of command, in this situation, can only hurt them. And I can believe that's what happened. Doesn't make it any less stupid.

[Civil War Man]

To be quite frank, I see no particular reason to exclude Poe, seeing as apparently the entire damn Resistance was aboard the Raddus, and therefore it's not like they have plenty of officers to go around. It's quite realistic that he might end up being the sole officer in command, and should therefore be in the know. Adhering to a strict chain of command, in this situation, can only hurt them. And I can believe that's what happened. Doesn't make it any less stupid.

That is a little bit of what I was trying to get into with my post. If he's next in line to command, or close to it, it is irresponsible to not keep him up to date on the plan, or at least make sure he knows the general outline and who he needs to talk to if he has to take over.

It reminds me of something that happened in the state I live in over a decade ago. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor were from different parties, and the Governor and his people mostly just shut the Lieutenant Governor out of day-to-day operations as a result. Then, one day, there was a nasty snowstorm that blew through. Problem is, the Governor was out of the country at the time, and his staff were still locking the Lieutenant Governor out of the process even though she was supposed to be taking over in the Governor's absence. The whole thing turned into a massive clusterfuck, of the "school buses full of kids stranded in the snow for 5 hours because they didn't let school out early enough" kind of clusterfuck.

[The Romulan Republic]

I disagree. It establishes nothing but her presence at a certain event. Now if she'd some out in uniform, covered in medals or had someone refer to her as 'the hero of X and Y' you'd have a point. But we don't get that. We get 'The line of succession is clear, it's Vice Admiral Holdo.' which is immediately commented on by Poe in what is expositional code for 'I don't know this person'. Those are choices by the director, do downplay her achievement (if any) and to make Poe, our established proxy, unfamiliar with her. Imagine if, instead of Holdo it has been announced that Akbar was now in command? Or Lando? Fuck it, even Nien Nub would have come in with more established trust than Holdo. Surely you can see how such writer/director choices are intended to deceive the audience?

The fact remains that Poe specifically referred to Holdo's combat record, and that he was disappointed by seeing her in person, which implies that he was impressed by her reputation. Its vague, yes, but that's the obvious interpretation, and those are director choices also.

And its telling that your main arguments for the scene not establishing Holdo as a capable officer are "She's not in uniform" (falling back on criticizing her appearance) and "She's not an OT character). Which, yeah, of course an OT character would have a more established rep with fans. That's kind of unavoidable.

Yes, he does. He gives her multiple chances to explain. In the end his mutiny is only staged to buy them time.

He doesn't immediately mutiny, but he expresses disappointment in her after seeing her talk for a minute, then immediately questions her leadership, and follows up by almost immediately conducting a dangerous covert op behind her back. He was already challenging her leadership right from the get-go.

1:27:00 "We had a fleet and now we're down to one ship, and you've told us nothing. Tell us you have a plan! That there's hope!" Holdo has been in command for at the least 10 hours at this point, probably closer to 16. This is where Poe finds the transports are being fuelled after Holdo gives him the bullshit about hoping through the night.
"We're abandoning ship? That's what you got? That's what you've brought us to? Those transport ships are unarmed and unshielded! We abandon this cruiser and we're done, we don't stand a chance!"
That right there is the perfect time to tell him 'Oh by the way the transports are cloaked AND WE HAVE A SECRET BASE JUST OVER THERE.' Perfect. Time. But no, she doesn't. She let's Poe, and by extension the audience, remain ignorant. Cloaks are never mentioned. Again, this is to deceive the audience.

We're still coming back to the same point: the idea (ridiculous, in my opinion) that Poe is entitled to know Holdo's battle plan, and that Holdo is at fault for not telling him. Despite him not needing to know, the plan relying on secrecy, and Poe being a recently demoted insubordinate officer.

And yeah, I'm sure most officers would have a nice, patient sit-down with a subordinate who's ranting at them in front of their bridge crew in the middle of her crisis.

As I've said before, Holdo made a mistake here, I'll acknowledge, but it wasn't failing to bend over backwards to accomadate Poe. It was not brigging the idiot.

She's a new character clashing with an established hero character the audience trusts.

If your argument is "The audience is biased in favor of Poe because they know Poe"... well, yeah. Its the same reason Leia largely gets a pass despite her plan and actions being very similar to Holdo's. But this is in no way evidence that Holdo is incompetent in-universe. I think we need to separate these two issues. Obviously the film is exploiting the audience's biases to deceive them about Holdo, in order to set up a twist. That's not in contention. But it does not follow that Holdo actually is incompetent, once the full picture is revealed.

In universe, sure she's no obligated to brief anyone (leaving aside that Rose must know about the cloaks) but part of leadership is morale and boy, she failed spectacularly there. Poe isn't a 'single officer'. Rose and Finn are with him, as are several others and we know that a guard is needed on the escape pods. So no, she doesn't 'have' to tell anyone, let alone the trusted hero. But if you want to go that path you have to accept she's a terrible leader who can't manage her own people- evidenced by the mutiny.

I like how you keep insisting that Poe is a "trusted hero" and ignoring the fact that no less a figure than General Leia had just demoted him for being insubordinate and getting a bunch of people killed. But I guess blowing up Starkiller Base gives him carte blanche to disregard the chain of command forever?

As to Finn, he's not even a formal part of the Resistance at this point, knows nothing about Holdo, never meets her, and its shown again and again that his loyalty up to this point is to Rey and Poe, not the Resistance or its cause. His going against Holdo says nothing about her leadership one way or the other, though it is entirely in-keeping with his characterization.

A few other Resistance personnel go against Holdo, yes. Leia backs her up. Most aren't shown taking sides at all. This does not in my opinion prove a general opposition to Holdo's leadership, nor, for that matter, does the mere fact that a mutiny occurred prove that the commander was incapable- sometimes things break down no matter how good the commander is, if the situation is that hopeless.

We've been over this again and again.

Given a shitty, cobbled together hyperdrive (such as the one on the shuttle Finn and Rose take) can get across the galaxy in 5-6 hours it's a short time span. The directorial decision to link Ach-To, via Force projection, strongly implies a sense of linked continuity- nothing appears out of sequence at the least. But in this case it simply can't be that long unless someone is deliberately stalling, which is doubtful.

Source on the quality of the hyperdrive? Just out of curiosity.

But yeah, high hyperspace speeds are well-established. And its obviously not a very long time. It would just be nice to be able to pin it down more precisely. But as I said, I don't think it affects the point much one way or the other.

You're conflating audience credibility with in universe authority. Even if the audience believes Poe to be in the wrong, they still trust he's a good guy and was doing what he felt was best for the Resistance.

I didn't mean to conflate the two, though I think the two have gotten a bit conflated.

I'm not contesting that the audience is meant to take Poe's side until the reveal. That's obviously the film's intent. But you appear to also be arguing that Holdo is incompetent/a bad officer in-universe, and that's what I'm addressing here.

Poe's destruction of Starkiller Base may give him credibility with the audience, but its not a reason why Holdo should trust him in-universe.

Though for that matter, the demotion by Leia, and the reasons for it, should also be fresh in the audience's minds. Though genre clichés have predisposed audiences to believe that the rogue hot head who disobeys orders will turn out to be in the right.

At the very least, in terms of caring for your troops morale, she was incompetent, and yes, mutiny is a pretty good indicator that your crew is either a) treacherous and evil or b) has their morale in the toilet, and we know it's not a).

Or perhaps just that people have their breaking point, and that situation would try anyone's resolve.

Holdo did try to do the encouraging speech thing at the start (opinions may vary on its effectiveness ). After that, she seemed to be more focused on the practical issues of getting her people out of danger on a very tight timeline. Which, hard to fault her really. We also, again, don't really see much of how she interacts with the rest of the crew, beyond Poe.

Its probably fair to say that she's not the most charismatic or inspiring officer. I just don't think that rises to the level of being generally incompetent.

This is somewhat of a problem as it seems most of the crew were ambivalent about it, with only those close enough to Poe or Holdo bothering to do much while everyone else just continued doing what they were doing. Personally I think this is unlikely, I think a crew who has been given no hope, no plan, has their trusted leaders taken and finds themselves at deaths door is far more likely to be desperate than stoically proceed to their deaths.

Well... yeah?

I mean, I'm saying, essentially "The crew's reaction suggests that not everyone necessarily shared Poe's viewpoint that Holdo was leading them to their deaths." And your response is basically "Its an unrealistic reaction for people who believe they are going hopelessly to their deaths."

So... yeah? It seems like your kind of supporting my point, which is that the crew's actions don't really tally with the claim that Poe's view was generally held by the entire crew.

There's a ton of potential ways to explain it but we don't get any of them. We don't even get to see Leia and her speak prior to Leia's return, to establish there's any friendship there at all. There are so many ways a writer/director could establish Holdo but it seems she's literally plucked out of thin air- no prior mention of her before she assumes command.

I won't deny that there are plot holes in the film. At the same time, I'm not going to come down too hard on it for not filling in every blank in detail for the audience. Its an action movie, and not getting bogged down with minor details is not a bad thing, within reason.

Its a fine balancing act. I suppose there's room to debate exactly where the line should be drawn. Personally, I think Holdo and Poe not having previously met is a pretty minor plot contrivance, and not one that needed a lot of justification.

Should Holdo have been previously established? Yes, if the audience was meant to sympathize with her from the get-go. But they weren't. Again, I think that we have to separate two issues that have become someone conflated. The audience was certainly meant to suspect Holdo and side with Poe prior to the reveal. This is a separate issue from weather, with the benefit of hindsight, Holdo is a poor commander in-universe.

The problem here seems to be, in part, that the misdirection was so effective that a lot of the audience refused to accept the subsequent reveal and insists on treating the misdirection as though it were canon.

What? This is the perfect time to give over control to a droid! Or just the autopilot. Or just to leave the controls entirely. Holdo was able to come down to the hangar and say her goodbyes to Leia- who was piloting then? Either way, 'cultural reluctance' would have to be epic in order for someone to let themselves or others die for it and I really don't think SW is there.

I'm not saying it would necessarily be a bad idea to put the ship on autopilot (although there is still the possibility of a scenario where the autopilot fails and someone needs to take manual control). Though leaving a droid is arguably just leaving someone to die again, if you define Star Wars droids as sentient (that's a whole other debate, of course). But the fact remains that droid-controlled ships are something that is just generally not done in Star Wars, from what we've seen. Admittedly TLJ was an atypical situation, but I don't think Holdo's actions were out of line with the standard practices of the setting.

The question of who was on the bridge while Holdo was saying goodbye to Leia is a valid one, yes. Its the sort of detail most audience members probably wouldn't notice unless they were examining the film very critically, in my opinion, but having noticed it, it does raise a difficult question. So I'll acknowledge that this is a genuine plot hole.

Yeah sure, but that's fucking retarded. Do they not have a fuel gauge? Why the fuck have they waited until the last possible moment to evacuate? We're immediately told after it's destruction that fuel reserves are at 6 hours- meaning this is roughly 12 hours into the chase, which is ample time to clear out its crew of 170.

No one is suggesting that they waited until the last moment to begin evacuating. I'm simply saying that evacuations take time, and the battle takes place over a fairly short timespan.

That I raise the fact that the may simply have run out of time to evacuate, and you immediately jump to "they're stupid for waiting to the last moment to evacuate" is another example of what I mean by people immediately latching on to the most negative possibly interpretation of any evidence.

A better question is why they had such small fuel reserves to begin with. This I would probably explain by saying that they were forced to abandon their fuel reserves during the rushed evacuation from their prior base at the start of the film. But again, no such explanation is given on-screen, and I will acknowledge that this is probably a fault on the part of the filmmakers.

I also feel that I should point out that, while I'm aware that its a common insult on this board and I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, "retarded" is considered by many to be a slur these days.

Sure, but as I said, 12 hours to evacuate. Get the crew off then let a droid take over- that ship has it's own freaking droid bay even so they're definitely present. By all means, be the last one off but get off.

Which, again, presumes that they had time to evacuate. I don't recall twelve hours before the Ninka's destruction being specified, but even if that is correct, how many personnel are on-board? What about vital equipment? How many available small craft do they have to transport people to the Raddus (especially with the Raddu's fighter bay blown up)? Did the Ninka suffer battle damage that would hinder evacuation efforts? Do they have to transport wounded? Some personnel will have to remain at their posts to keep the ship operational (and man the guns, since they could come under fighter attack again) until the last moment. Etc.

Once the evacuation was finished, of course the captain should leave if possible. At the point, there's not really reason to even leave a droid.

And you're yet to provide one of these reasons why simultaneously claiming she's trying to save lives. No, a distrust of droids is not sufficient.

I have in fact provided a series of reasons:

-Cultural distrust of droids.
-The need to have someone on-hand to assume manual control if necessary.
-The possibility (for all the reasons listed above) why they might have run out of time to evacuate (which you then absurdly interpreted as "they're too stupid to evacuate until the last minute").

Almost like she knew they'd be betrayed and require some special, never before seen move that would just coincidentally happen to perfectly work! Or she was an idiot who chose to deprive the Resistance of a valuable officer because she couldn't trust the autopilot or BB-8 to keep the ship flying in a straight line like it already was.

Or like she didn't know what was going to happen, but knew that there was a possibility that something might go wrong and that the longer the Raddus was acting as a distraction, the better chance the transports would have of slipping away unnoticed, and acted accordingly.

We're not really shown how it all works, but she was a Vice Admiral as the commanding officer (captain) of the Ninka. Presumably her XO was made acting captain in her absence but either way she retains authority.

Well, of course the ultimate authority is her's. But its my understanding that an admiral's flagship will usually have a captain commanding the ship under the admiral. Of course, that makes sense when the admiral is responsible for a fleet. Not sure how it works when the admiral is commanding just one ship.

In any case, its fairly tangential to the rest of the discussion. Just a technicality that I wanted to clarify.

The action itself- stay on board a doomed ship when alternatives exist- is dumb. Showing multiple people doing it renders it no less stupid.

If that was what happened, yes, that would be very stupid. What is under contention is that their were superior, viable alternatives. The film is admittedly somewhat vague on this point, so its likely that neither of us will be able to definitively prove our entire argument, barring the EU clarifying these points.

To me it appears he's trying to trick the audience into thinking there's no better option than dying on the doomed ship. In the moment of the film, where the audience has no idea there's a plan, this seems like there's nothing Holdo could do. It's only in retrospect, when you realise she had a plan all along, that you have to question why she let him die. I don't think Johnson is trying to make the audience think she's horrible- I believe it's an unintended consequence of her letting someone die without adequately explaining why he had to die screaming in a fireball.

I feel like we've got all turned around here. I thought the issue here was that the film was trying to fool us into believing that Holdo was a bad commander to set up the twist later on, and that that gave the impression that Holdo was incompetent/corrupt. But now you seem to be arguing that the film was trying to fool us into believing Holdo was doing the only thing possible, only for it to turn out in the end that she was actually a horrible officer.

I mean, I get what you're saying: that if Holdo let someone die when she could have saved him, she's a terrible person and a terrible commander. What I don't get is how Holdo's plan as revealed later in the film would avert the need for that sacrifice.

See above. 12 hours is a long time.

I'd appreciate it if you would cite where they said twelve hours before the Ninka died, but even assuming that that is correct, we have no way of really knowing how long the evacuation would take under those circumstances. The obvious intent of the film was that they simply ran out of time to evacuate, unless my recollections of it are completely off-base.

That said, you can certainly interpret the failure to evacuate in time as evidence of incompetence. I just don't think its as clear-cut as you're making it out to be.

That's screen manufactured desperation. They had plenty of time and it's onerous on the heels of 'Bad Poe! You got people killed!"

Again, I don't think that there's a way to definitively establish how long the evacuation would have taken, so I go with the obvious intent of the filmmakers, which is that they were doing their best in a bad situation and simply ran out of time.

See above. 12 hours.

I'm afraid I'm still not sure how this relates to Holdo's plan with the transports, or how that plan invalidated the need for the captain of the Ninka to sacrifice himself.

I suppose they could have used the transports on the Raddus to speed up the evacuation of the Ninka, maybe, though that would have risked tipping their hand to the First Order. Is that what you're getting at?

I think you'll find people entrenched on both sides. But how would you take it if someone implied you were only interested in defending it for dubious reasons? That's a rhetorical question, mind you.

No doubt people get entrenched in their positions. I'm sure I'm more defensive of the film than I otherwise would be because I feel that it is being unfairly attacked. But I don't think I've seen this degree of fan backlash to a film since... well, since Phantom Menace.

That said, I made no speculation as to your motives, and I'm sorry if it came off that way.

I would perhaps be more inclined to extend it that benefit if it weren't a writer/director combo. What we see on screen is going to be 'truer' than a mixed comb where a director puts their own slant on things.

I suppose having a different writer/director makes it more difficult to determine the intent behind the film, but what we see on-screen is still what we see on-screen, and I tend to take it at face value unless I have a good reason to do otherwise. Though there are, of course, other approaches one can take.

Granted, TLJ is probably the most difficult Star Wars film to analyze, because it relies so heavily on misdirection, and there are a lot of subtle things that I missed the first time around.

Bad officer is a broad term and I really only apply it to her managing of personnel and morale. I do not, for example, nor have I mentioned her hair or outfit (other than to say above that a military uniform with awards would help establish her, which I think is pretty obvious).

I'm curious as to how you view her as a tactician in combat. Fax_Modem has raised some criticism of her overall battle plan, but I can't recall, off-hand, what if anything you've said on the subject.

I would agree that inspiring the morale of her crew is probably not her strongest suit, but I also think the criticisms are somewhat exaggerated, particularly given the severity of the situation she was dealing with, and the limited on-screen evidence we have to work with.

I emphatically disagree that she needed to say a damn thing to Poe beyond "Enjoy your stay in the brig."

My issue with the film is how she's used as a tool, her function in the plot because throughout the whole film, my SoD was absolutely shot. I only see her as the tool of plot she is and the contradictions that seems to raise. I would, however, love to hear your complaints regarding her.

Off the top of my head:

I would say that the strongest arguments against her leadership in-universe are:

1. The fact that most of the crew appears to have stood by rather than actively assisting her in putting down the mutiny. This is not as damning as if they had all supported the mutiny, but still could reflect poorly on their confidence in her.

2. That she waited until a large number of transports were destroyed before ramming the FO fleet. Hesitancy to engage in a kamikaze attack is understandable, and generally commendable, but if she felt that that was the only option, then she should have committed to it before her hesitancy cost further lives.

3. As mentioned above, not brigging Poe. I also think that while its understandable, and she owed him no explanations, she was needlessly argumentative in her dealings with him. Understandable, but either ignoring him or locking him up would likely have been better.

In terms of the writing of the character:

1. Her initial exchange with Poe, when she derisively calls him a "flyboy" IIRC. And Poe saying she's not what he expected or some such almost the moment he sees her. Maybe its just me, but I felt like they way they talked to each other had undertones of a gender conflict (this is true with both characters). It probably played into how politicized the arguments over Holdo sometimes become, because the film (intentionally or otherwise) set it up as a gender conflict between a female leader and a male subordinate, as well as a personal conflict and a differing approach to leadership. Those issues of gender conflict are worth discussing, but if you're going to go there... don't half-ass it.

2. The film could perhaps have done more to establish Holdo's actual capabilities as a leader post-reveal. In particular, by showing more of the crew siding with her rather than Poe.

In terms of the film being "dishonest": Not so much with Holdo's plot, but there was a lot of bait and switch over weather Rose and Luke would survive at the end, and it tried my patience.

All of these points, while certainly arguable, have more basis than the notion that she pointlessly let the Ninka's captain die, and are in my opinion not so clearly at odds with the intent of the filmmakers.

Is that so hard to understand? What prevented her from saving him?

This question seems to hinge primarily on weather they had sufficient time to evacuate. We can assume one of two things based on the available evidence:

1. They deliberately squandered their time, delayed evacuating to the last moment, and threw away a man's life (despite the whole focus of Holdo's plan, and a theme of the film, being that they are trying to preserve the lives of the Resistance personnel).

2. For whatever reason, the evacuation took that much time, and they simply ran out of fuel/time, so the captain died at his post.

I choose to assume the latter, as it is closer to the seeming intent of the filmmakers and does not require assuming either gross incompetence or deliberate malice on the part of Holdo or other Resistance figures.

Irrelevant. Bring him over with the rest of the crew until you are ready.

It all comes back to the same point- was there time to evacuate? This is impossible to answer with certainty based on on-screen evidence, but I prefer to favor the interpretation which does not require Holdo to be completely incompetent, a traitor, or a sociopath, and which does not contradict the obvious intent of the filmmakers and the themes of the film.

In any case, the subsequent revelation of Holdo's plan has no bearing on weather the captain of the Ninka's death was unavoidable. Either there was time to evacuate him to the Raddus or there wasn't. The subsequent revelation of Holdo's plan with the transports is, as you say, irrelevant.

Again, 12 hours in at this point. You're not wrong that the evacuation was just completed but this is another contrivance.

Arguably, but I don't personally that think its a huge contrivance, given the circumstances. I can easily come up with reasons why the evacuation might have taken a long time. I would say that I was able to suspend disbelief for this scene, but I can't even really say that, because I honestly don't think it even occurred to me, watching the film for the first time, that this was something I needed to suspend disbelief for.

Oh come on, this is poor. We know they have autopilots, we know they have an astromech (if not more). We know that Holdo can be down in the hangar while the ship flies just fine. Are you seriously asserting that having a giant ship continue forward with its momentum is a task requiring a living person present?

No, of course I'm not arguing that, and to be honest, I feel that you are engaging in a straw man here.

What I am suggesting, as I've stated numerous times, is that there are legitimate reasons to have a person on-board to assume manual control if necessary. I'm also suggesting that the longer the Raddus is operational, the better the chance the transports have. Holdo might not have known that she would end up ramming the FO fleet, but a forward-thinking commander could anticipate scenarios in which having the Raddus capable of taking action might increase the chances of success, and plan accordingly.

I've already acknowledged that Holdo talking to Leia in the hanger is a plot hole, if in my opinion a fairly minor one. It doesn't change the fact that there is a good reason to have the bridge manned at all times.

I'm going to skip a bit here, because it all comes down to excuses why Holdo had to be on the bridge. Now to me, and I'm sure others, none of this cuts it. We don't even know why you can't just let it keep flying, let alone why the autopilot couldn't be trusted, why a remote couldn't be rigged up (hey they had time to rig up dozens of cloaks!) or why any droid, if not not an astromech, couldn't have done the job. Autopilots and astromechs are routinely trusted with flying ships- it's their fucking purpose- and to imply they're suddenly untrustworthy to the point of suicide is stretching it.

I've gone over most of this again and again. If you simply refuse to acknowledge the point, I can't help that.

I will simply point out that astromechs are routinely trusted with assisting in flying ships- not with flying them without the supervision of a living pilot, and that equating the two is like equating a car with an on-board computer and GPS to a genuine self-driving car.

The only new point is the suggestion that they could have rigged up a remote control. Its an interesting thought, but again, not something that we often, if ever, see being done with Star Wars ships. I have no idea why remote-controlled drone ships are not a more common feature of the setting in-universe (out-of-universe, I expect its because of genre conventions and the fact that they want to have human actors in the fights for the audience to identify with). If I have to speculate, I would suggest that the risk of someone either hijacking the drone, or jamming the signal from the remote control, is deemed to be too great (we know battlefield jamming is a thing in Star Wars).

When Holdo is down in the shuttle bay and everyone leaves (1:37:00 or so).

You are correct. And I acknowledge that this is a plot hole, even if its not an SoD-breaking one for me.

I think we're honestly analysing it differently, with me coming from a more writing/constructing type angle while you seem more intent on enjoying the flow. I'll state I'd prefer to be looking at it from your side, but with SoD broken that's not really an option. Too many things pulled me out of it (and perhaps too many discussions afterwards about it) but I just can't see anything but badly constructed narrative any more. Holdo to me, is a bad plot device to forward a bad story, nothing more.

That's about right, but not entirely. We should be able to analyze the writing of the film, and I enjoy a good analysis of a story. But part of that is taking into account the intent of the filmmakers, and in any case, I think that we should give the film the benefit of the doubt, and ask if there are non-stupid explanations for something, before concluding that it is simply badly written or that the characters are evil or stupid.

But yes, I do tend to be generous to new films, unless they are truly detestable. Particularly new Star Wars films, both because I'm a fan and because they tend to receive a particularly harsh backlash.

I also think that TLJ opens itself up to this kind of criticism by being a film that is so reliant on misdirection, by being deliberately ambiguous, and by attempting to be simultaneously an homage to and a deconstruction/reconstruction of the franchise. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad film, but its an approach that invites controversy, and will inevitably off-put many audience members. It took me two viewings to decide weather I liked or hated this film, and looking back on my thoughts before I saw the film, the things I wanted to see and the things I was afraid they'd fuck up, I'm still impressed by how many boxes TLJ managed to check on both lists.

[The Romulan Republic]

To be quite frank, I see no particular reason to exclude Poe, seeing as apparently the entire damn Resistance was aboard the Raddus, and therefore it's not like they have plenty of officers to go around. It's quite realistic that he might end up being the sole officer in command, and should therefore be in the know. Adhering to a strict chain of command, in this situation, can only hurt them. And I can believe that's what happened. Doesn't make it any less stupid.

That is a little bit of what I was trying to get into with my post. If he's next in line to command, or close to it, it is irresponsible to not keep him up to date on the plan, or at least make sure he knows the general outline and who he needs to talk to if he has to take over.

It reminds me of something that happened in the state I live in over a decade ago. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor were from different parties, and the Governor and his people mostly just shut the Lieutenant Governor out of day-to-day operations as a result. Then, one day, there was a nasty snowstorm that blew through. Problem is, the Governor was out of the country at the time, and his staff were still locking the Lieutenant Governor out of the process even though she was supposed to be taking over in the Governor's absence. The whole thing turned into a massive clusterfuck, of the "school buses full of kids stranded in the snow for 5 hours because they didn't let school out early enough" kind of clusterfuck.

I forgot about this, but this is actually probably the strongest argument I've seen anyone make yet for why Holdo should have told Poe, and I ought to have addressed it in my last post to Kojiro.

I would still say that there's a strong argument for not telling Poe given that he was just demoted for insubordination and recklessness that got people killed, and persists in being insubordinate. And we don't actually know the whole chain of command. But the possibility that Poe might end up in command creates an argument for putting Poe in the "need to know" category.

That said, I would assume that command would have passed from Holdo to the captains of the Ninka and the medical frigate first, before going to Poe (I'm assuming a frigate's CO ranks higher than a fighter squadron commander). So I can't imagine that he was higher than fourth in the chain of command (third after the Ninka's captain died). And that's a high-end estimate.

[Kojiro]

And its telling that your main arguments for the scene not establishing Holdo as a capable officer are "She's not in uniform" (falling back on criticizing her appearance) and "She's not an OT character).

That's bullshit. I never criticised her appearance- suggesting an alternative may be better is not the same thing as criticising what's there. Whinging is not debate.

He doesn't immediately mutiny, but he expresses disappointment in her after seeing her talk for a minute, then immediately questions her leadership, and follows up by almost immediately conducting a dangerous covert op behind her back. He was already challenging her leadership right from the get-go.

Because the leadership demonstrated was to do nothing and they already knew how that ended.

We're still coming back to the same point: the idea (ridiculous, in my opinion) that Poe is entitled to know Holdo's battle plan, and that Holdo is at fault for not telling him. Despite him not needing to know, the plan relying on secrecy, and Poe being a recently demoted insubordinate officer.

No, that's not the point and I specifically said she wasn't obligated to tell him.

And yeah, I'm sure most officers would have a nice, patient sit-down with a subordinate who's ranting at them in front of their bridge crew in the middle of her crisis.

A good one wouldn't need to, they'd have addressed serious concerns with morale well before it got to that point.

As I've said before, Holdo made a mistake here, I'll acknowledge, but it wasn't failing to bend over backwards to accomadate Poe. It was not brigging the idiot.

Bend over backwards? All she had to do was tell him there was a plan. How the fuck is that 'bending over backwards'? Doesn't even have to tell him what it is- just that it exists. How hard is that?

She's a new character clashing with an established hero character the audience trusts.

If your argument is "The audience is biased in favor of Poe because they know Poe"... well, yeah. Its the same reason Leia largely gets a pass despite her plan and actions being very similar to Holdo's. But this is in no way evidence that Holdo is incompetent in-universe. I think we need to separate these two issues. Obviously the film is exploiting the audience's biases to deceive them about Holdo, in order to set up a twist. That's not in contention. But it does not follow that Holdo actually is incompetent, once the full picture is revealed.

I don't give a shit if Holdo is competent or not- she's an inconsistent plot device. No, I don't care if she's got purple hair, or a ball gown or is a woman or any of that shit. She's a poorly written tool that cannot, in my mind, be coalesced into a functional character because of those inconsistencies and limited screen time. I think you've misunderstood, or I've communicated badly, that (outside of morale handling) I don't really consider her a bad officer, or anything.

I like how you keep insisting that Poe is a "trusted hero" and ignoring the fact that no less a figure than General Leia had just demoted him for being insubordinate and getting a bunch of people killed. But I guess blowing up Starkiller Base gives him carte blanche to disregard the chain of command forever?

I'm exploring the idea of a deceptive director and audience manipulation, not making an argument for ignoring the chain of command.

As to Finn, he's not even a formal part of the Resistance at this point, knows nothing about Holdo, never meets her, and its shown again and again that his loyalty up to this point is to Rey and Poe, not the Resistance or its cause. His going against Holdo says nothing about her leadership one way or the other, though it is entirely in-keeping with his characterization.

See above.

Source on the quality of the hyperdrive? Just out of curiosity.

TFA ICS. It's described as a 'cheap knockoff' built from easily available parts and is no bigger than a mini fridge by the look.

I'm not contesting that the audience is meant to take Poe's side until the reveal. That's obviously the film's intent. But you appear to also be arguing that Holdo is incompetent/a bad officer in-universe, and that's what I'm addressing here.

As I said above, I don't think Holdo is written to be incompetent or callously evil, but it's an unintended consequence. With 12 hours to evacuate I can't see any reason any human would be required to stay at the helm. SW ships don't suddenly start veering off course the moment people's hands aren't on the controls.

Poe's destruction of Starkiller Base may give him credibility with the audience, but its not a reason why Holdo should trust him in-universe.

What? He's their best pilot and Leia's top operative. Surely Holdo, if she's any friend to Leia and has been working int he Resistance, knows of Poe. Surely.

Holdo did try to do the encouraging speech thing at the start (opinions may vary on its effectiveness ). After that, she seemed to be more focused on the practical issues of getting her people out of danger on a very tight timeline. Which, hard to fault her really. We also, again, don't really see much of how she interacts with the rest of the crew, beyond Poe.

This is where I think we really start to differ. Again, I'm looking at it from a written narrative sense, where in we see Holdo let at least one captain die. My claim is that his death is a tool, a deliberate choice by writer/director, to convince the audience that there's no plan. Just like Holdo's refusal to tell Poe there's no plan. Just like how Rose doesn't tell Poe about the cloaks- the cloaks Holdo ordered her to install. The way there's a base there but no one but Holdo knows about it. There's all these factors that go into denying the audience (and Poe) a real chance to understand. Hence it's not a twist- we're not given honest concepts to make lazy assumptions off- it's outright deception, and deception is a poor storytelling mechanic.

Should Holdo have been previously established? Yes, if the audience was meant to sympathize with her from the get-go. But they weren't. Again, I think that we have to separate two issues that have become someone conflated. The audience was certainly meant to suspect Holdo and side with Poe prior to the reveal. This is a separate issue from weather, with the benefit of hindsight, Holdo is a poor commander in-universe.

I think you're getting closer to our actual disagreement here. I think Holdo is intended to be a good commander, but the actual writing doesn't support that intent. It doesn't make her automatically incompetent- more (at least to me) leaves her in this odd zone of making little sense.

The problem here seems to be, in part, that the misdirection was so effective that a lot of the audience refused to accept the subsequent reveal and insists on treating the misdirection as though it were canon.

See above. I think the misdirection overstepped it's bounds, most notably when a man who was clearly a loyal Resistance member died in a fireball for no good reason.

Admittedly TLJ was an atypical situation, but I don't think Holdo's actions were out of line with the standard practices of the setting.

I think such a desperate situation requires that, to preserve an officer like her, when you're so depleted as is, you gotta take the risk. Everything is a risk anyway- it's not like the FO couldn't have detected the shuttles some other way. Maybe now the escorts are gone, they send fighters again? Maybe some zealous sensor operator notices 'hey, how come their ship is now reading a single life form?'. Or maybe even a good old 'How about I run a full scan just to be certain?' I'm sorry I just can't see how her staying there does anything. I mean, if she leaves, what's worst that happens? What is the worst thing the ship can do if simply abandoned?

The question of who was on the bridge while Holdo was saying goodbye to Leia is a valid one, yes. Its the sort of detail most audience members probably wouldn't notice unless they were examining the film very critically, in my opinion, but having noticed it, it does raise a difficult question. So I'll acknowledge that this is a genuine plot hole.

Thank you. In fairness, I think both sides are pressing the point. The more it was attacked the more it would be defended, and the more it was defended the more it would be scrutinised.

No one is suggesting that they waited until the last moment to begin evacuating. I'm simply saying that evacuations take time, and the battle takes place over a fairly short timespan.

But it's been 12 hours. They just don't have that many people to evacuate and they had to know, well before hand, that they'd run out of fuel before they got anywhere. Holdo had to know they were 18 hours from Crait and unless she utterly ignored any discussion of logistics, that they had 12 hours worth of fuel. If nothing more she had to know that she needed those people on the Raddus' transports if she wanted any hope of saving them with her cloak plan.

A better question is why they had such small fuel reserves to begin with. This I would probably explain by saying that they were forced to abandon their fuel reserves during the rushed evacuation from their prior base at the start of the film. But again, no such explanation is given on-screen, and I will acknowledge that this is probably a fault on the part of the filmmakers.

The whole fuel thing is... ugh. So bad. There should have been a discussion where the captains of the other ships told Holdo their fuel situations (not necessarily on screen, but it should have happened) and that being taken into account. I'm honestly surprised they didn't dock with the Raddus and begin a fuel/materials transfer under the circumstances.

I also feel that I should point out that, while I'm aware that its a common insult on this board and I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, "retarded" is considered by many to be a slur these days.

I apologise if I offended.

Which, again, presumes that they had time to evacuate. I don't recall twelve hours before the Ninka's destruction being specified, but even if that is correct, how many personnel are on-board?

On board the Ninka? 23 people. The Anodyne had 170. Their shuttles carry 60 a piece.

What about vital equipment? How many available small craft do they have to transport people to the Raddus (especially with the Raddu's fighter bay blown up)?

According to the ICS, the Raddus has 50 transports in her secondary hangar.

Did the Ninka suffer battle damage that would hinder evacuation efforts? Do they have to transport wounded? Some personnel will have to remain at their posts to keep the ship operational (and man the guns, since they could come under fighter attack again) until the last moment. Etc.

No damage we're aware of and oddly both Finn and Leia were not put on the medical frigate but kept on the Raddus. In Leia's case.. I don't know, maybe the Raddus was the best place for her. Finn however would have had to be evacuated to the Raddus, which seems like an odd place to ship wounded, if they have any. I would assume the wounded would just go the medical frigate for obvious reasons. Any evacuation though has a point where even the necessary people (unless they're really necessary) head to a life pod. Plus those ships are heavily automated as is.

-Cultural distrust of droids.

I've seen no such evidence of it. Astromechs and autopilots exist specifically to assist in piloting and many ships have droid brains.

-The need to have someone on-hand to assume manual control if necessary.

That 'if necessary' has to be sufficiently large that Holdo's willing to die for it. I don't know why it would be necessary- if the ship was attacked or damaged it's just as likely manual controls would become unresponsive as anything else (it's all electronics after all). Staying to die, on the off chance something occurs that you can actually fix manually seems wasteful, especially when you're so low on personnel.

-The possibility (for all the reasons listed above) why they might have run out of time to evacuate (which you then absurdly interpreted as "they're too stupid to evacuate until the last minute").

I simply don't buy that 12 hours- let's say they discuss it for 2- 10 hours isn't sufficient to move 200 odd people from the escorts. 20 people per hour seems extremely reasonable.

Or like she didn't know what was going to happen, but knew that there was a possibility that something might go wrong and that the longer the Raddus was acting as a distraction, the better chance the transports would have of slipping away unnoticed, and acted accordingly.

At this point we don't even have reason to believe the Raddus would do anything but fly forwards- either while she's down in the hangar bay or while she's at the window being horrified. Had the FO not discovered the transports there's no reason to believe she'd be able to, or required to, ever sit back down in that chair.

I'd appreciate it if you would cite where they said twelve hours before the Ninka died, but even assuming that that is correct, we have no way of really knowing how long the evacuation would take under those circumstances. The obvious intent of the film was that they simply ran out of time to evacuate, unless my recollections of it are completely off-base.

We're told they have 18 hours worth of fuel when they begin the chase. Immediately after the captain dies/evacuation scene we get a comment from Fischer's daughter about reserves being at 6 hours. I believe the timestamp is above, very close to Poe's intrusion onto the bridge. We can fudge the numbers a bit but even if, as I said, it was only 10 hours, that's still a long time to move a relatively small number of 200. Certainly, between this point and their near exhaustion- no more than 6 hours- they manage to evacuate 1,300 or so people from the Raddus.

I suppose they could have used the transports on the Raddus to speed up the evacuation of the Ninka, maybe, though that would have risked tipping their hand to the First Order. Is that what you're getting at?

Simply that there's no plausible reason it took them 12 hours to move 200 people when they're later shown evacuating 1,300 in less than 6 hours. The only way they 'run out of time' is if they start extremely late.

I'm curious as to how you view her as a tactician in combat. Fax_Modem has raised some criticism of her overall battle plan, but I can't recall, off-hand, what if anything you've said on the subject.

This is something that I'm puzzled about a bit. I'm not certain Crait was the intended destination because they dropped out of hyperspace so far away from it. I'm wondering if it wasn't simply that, because Holdo and Leia shared a history involving it, Holdo didn't choose it as a last resort. We know she ordered the shuttles retrofitted with the cloak at some point between her taking command and Rose leaving (because it's done, according to the ICS, by Rose). Where she found the time or materials to retrofit 50 shuttles I have no fucking idea, but that's the canon material. Now there's a few things I don't like there. First, the ability of Rose to just whip up scores of cloaks form what's lying around is incredibly dubious, never mind she's apparently on lifepod duty or off the ship. We're still stuck with her not bothering to tell Poe/Finn that Holdo has ordered her to do so when it's a clear game changer. Imagine if she'd told Poe 'Oh I've rigged up a bunch of transports with cloaks- we can leave the ship anytime without detection!' It'd change Poe's whole interaction when he finds out she's fuelling the transports because he knows they're cloaked transports.

If Crait was the intended destination why were the Anondyne and Ninka there? Neither had the fuel to make it to Crait and should have jumped to some galactic service station, then rendezvous there later. Had they gone their separate ways though Holdo would not be present to assume command though.. so that's fortunate. Just as it's fortunate she happened to know of Crait base and fortunate that Rose invented the cloaks....

There is one other mild criticism, which is that the cloaks are untested against FO sensors. On the heels of 'they have just done the impossible and tracked us through hyperspace' it's a painful gamble to assume your backyard cloaks will fool their sensors. Indeed, as we see the only thing making the cloaks work is that the FO radar techs don't utilise their equipment fully for... reasons.

One other path that could have occurred, which probably should have, was once the escorts were down, the FO should have launched boarding parties. They have literally thousands of storm troopers at their disposal and they have to realise capturing the Raddus will yield intelligence about their allies. By all accounts Holdo had no plan for this possibility and flying directly into the hangar bay also seems entirely plausible. This actually fits with their lack of immediate action to destroy the Raddus.

So her plan to me is built on a house of cards- just incredibly lucky coincidences. I'll grant that she's making the best of what she's been dealt but the deck was heavily stacked to allow it.

I emphatically disagree that she needed to say a damn thing to Poe beyond "Enjoy your stay in the brig."

I believe that'd have hurt morale even more. Remember, people were trying to escape even before Poe did anything. And these people have to know escape pods are going to be picked up by precisely one group at this point...

1. The fact that most of the crew appears to have stood by rather than actively assisting her in putting down the mutiny. This is not as damning as if they had all supported the mutiny, but still could reflect poorly on their confidence in her.

We do see, when Poe accuses her, several concerned looks. Rightly so, given his claims the transports are vulnerable is to the best of his knowledge (and likely theirs) entirely true. I believe it wasn't just Poe that was excluded but virtually everyone.

2. That she waited until a large number of transports were destroyed before ramming the FO fleet. Hesitancy to engage in a kamikaze attack is understandable, and generally commendable, but if she felt that that was the only option, then she should have committed to it before her hesitancy cost further lives.

I can forgive her this. Aside from the unorthodox nature of her tactic (my initial thought was that she was simply going to try and body block for the transports) there's got to be a part of her that is thinking 'Poe was right, my plan isn't going to work'. That'd stun just about anyone.

3. As mentioned above, not brigging Poe. I also think that while its understandable, and she owed him no explanations, she was needlessly argumentative in her dealings with him. Understandable, but either ignoring him or locking him up would likely have been better.

I don't think she could ignore him- he came onto the bridge even when banned, but until he did that I don't think he warranted brigging, so it's a catch 22. Let's just agree she should have told him, and her people, there is a plan, even if she can't reveal exactly what it is.

Those issues of gender conflict are worth discussing, but if you're going to go there... don't half-ass it.

Those are honestly not of interest to me. No character's gender improves or diminishes anything about them as far as I'm concerned.

2. The film could perhaps have done more to establish Holdo's actual capabilities as a leader post-reveal. In particular, by showing more of the crew siding with her rather than Poe.

I think if there'd been a scene, a holo call perhaps between Leia, her and the other captains during hyperspace, there could have been a chance to show Leia's trust/friendship with her, which I'd prefer, but that undercuts the whole audience deception a bit. A scene where, say the above boarding attempt happens and she commands the repelling of them could be great. We'd get a genuine sense of her fighting for the Resistance and her capabilities, that Leia's trust was not misplaced. Again, the undercuts the deception though.

In terms of the film being "dishonest": Not so much with Holdo's plot, but there was a lot of bait and switch over weather Rose and Luke would survive at the end, and it tried my patience.

I have no idea how Rose is alive. She managed to teleport back to Finn and hit him so I presume she teleported back to the base too.

2. For whatever reason, the evacuation took that much time, and they simply ran out of fuel/time, so the captain died at his post.

Already addressed above I believe.

I will simply point out that astromechs are routinely trusted with assisting in flying ships- not with flying them without the supervision of a living pilot, and that equating the two is like equating a car with an on-board computer and GPS to a genuine self-driving car.

Does Luke not let R2 pilot his Xwing on occasion? Do we not get a line when they're leaving Hoth about how Luke would like to remain in control for a while?

But yes, I do tend to be generous to new films, unless they are truly detestable. Particularly new Star Wars films, both because I'm a fan and because they tend to receive a particularly harsh backlash.

I will concede I am particularly harsh on all media- I would not want you to think this film was getting exceptional treatment, at least from me. I understand that's not something you can readily differentiate on a forum.

[Batman]

Ahem. '400 of us. On 3 ships. We are the very last of the Resistance'

[Kojiro]

Ahem. '400 of us. On 3 ships. We are the very last of the Resistance'

I'm going off the stated numbers in the ICS. 1,139 on the Raddus, 170 on the Anodyne and 23 on the Ninka. And those numbers are listed as 'skeleton crew' assisted by augmentation. 400 people is barely 1/3rd of what you'd need to run the Raddus, let alone her and two other ships.

The other thing to consider is they launched 30 tranports (that hold 60 people a piece plus 3 crew). That's 1,800 people worth of space. With 90 crew, they're only using up about one sixth of their capacity. Now the obvious assumption is that the other five sixths is full of supplies of some sort, and this would actually line up with what we see. Six transports are seen on the final shot approaching Crait and roughly 50 or so people are seen in the hangar when Rose comments 'Is this all that's left?'. On the odds, they should have 60 odd people. But they should also have five shuttles worth of supplies, which doesn't at all line up with the inventory Rose gives.

Interestingly I found this:

This implies that the cloaks were installed prior to the film fleet wide. This would make their cloak, one would think, reasonably common knowledge. Certainly it'd be known to the Flight Commander Poe. Which makes Poe's outburst somewhat less understandable- he's got to know she's planning to hide. It does explain why the FO doesn't detect or follow Finn and Rose, but then we've got to ask why they didn't start moving people off with that transport since it has a hyperdrive (or put the hyperdrive on one of the bigger transports).

It also begs the question of how the FO detected their scout and followed back to their base in TFA. It implies they've defeated the cloak previously and should be aware of it.

[Batman]

My quote comes straight from the movie so unless you can make a case for Holdo either lying or being woefully underinformed on what the Resistance had left (or not) in the way of resources that number stands.
Not that I see what your problem with it is-it makes the evacuation problem easier by a factor of 3-4 or so

[Kojiro]

My quote comes straight from the movie so unless you can make a case for Holdo either lying or being woefully underinformed on what the Resistance had left (or not) in the way of resources that number stands.
Not that I see what your problem with it is-it makes the evacuation problem easier by a factor of 3-4 or so

I'm not going to argue she's lying, just pointing out that 400 is far too few for the Raddus by itself, let alone split between three ships, and not by a small margin. The kind of margin that says you don't have the manpower to put one of your best engineers like Rose on guard duty. Either Holdo or the ICS are wrong, I don't care which. I'm just going to put it into the whole writer has no real idea of scale basket.

[ray245]

To be quite frank, I see no particular reason to exclude Poe, seeing as apparently the entire damn Resistance was aboard the Raddus, and therefore it's not like they have plenty of officers to go around. It's quite realistic that he might end up being the sole officer in command, and should therefore be in the know. Adhering to a strict chain of command, in this situation, can only hurt them. And I can believe that's what happened. Doesn't make it any less stupid.

That is a little bit of what I was trying to get into with my post. If he's next in line to command, or close to it, it is irresponsible to not keep him up to date on the plan, or at least make sure he knows the general outline and who he needs to talk to if he has to take over.

It reminds me of something that happened in the state I live in over a decade ago. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor were from different parties, and the Governor and his people mostly just shut the Lieutenant Governor out of day-to-day operations as a result. Then, one day, there was a nasty snowstorm that blew through. Problem is, the Governor was out of the country at the time, and his staff were still locking the Lieutenant Governor out of the process even though she was supposed to be taking over in the Governor's absence. The whole thing turned into a massive clusterfuck, of the "school buses full of kids stranded in the snow for 5 hours because they didn't let school out early enough" kind of clusterfuck.

I forgot about this, but this is actually probably the strongest argument I've seen anyone make yet for why Holdo should have told Poe, and I ought to have addressed it in my last post to Kojiro.

I would still say that there's a strong argument for not telling Poe given that he was just demoted for insubordination and recklessness that got people killed, and persists in being insubordinate. And we don't actually know the whole chain of command. But the possibility that Poe might end up in command creates an argument for putting Poe in the "need to know" category.

That said, I would assume that command would have passed from Holdo to the captains of the Ninka and the medical frigate first, before going to Poe (I'm assuming a frigate's CO ranks higher than a fighter squadron commander). So I can't imagine that he was higher than fourth in the chain of command (third after the Ninka's captain died). And that's a high-end estimate.

Except Poe was basically asking on behalf of the entire surviving crew. For Holdo to not tell everyone about a plan and demoralise the entire crew further ( prompting others to join Poe on his mutiny) is a sign of bad leadership.

What she did was to make Poe look like a reasonable person with a plan in front of everyone, in public.