Is Holdo a good leader?

[Jub]

It depends on who is in charge of LFL. Marvel has decent world-building because it's run by someone that do care about world-building in Kevin Feige.

Marvel has decent world-building, for a comic book based property, and even then it has plot holes, dropped plot threads and other loose ends that wouldn't have been acceptable in pre-Disney Star Wars canon. When Disney Star Wars is looking up at those standards...

SW is run by a president that dumped the world-building responsibility onto a team and let directors have full control over world-building ( or lack of it). You don't need super complicated and in-depth political narratives to do decent world-building. Giving the audience some idea about how the galaxy as a whole functioned is sufficient.

I'd agree. I think that the people in charge of SW are being super risk-averse to avoid any possible damage to a property that they know will print money. The average fan won't care about a lack of world-building or fan backlash over women and PoC main characters and the faithful won't be driven away by anything short of a colossal flop that would also drive away the casuals.

If casual viewers can sit through blockbuster shows like Game of Thrones that spent ages on politics, introducing political elements to the SW movies will not alienate the casual viewers. The main problem is Disney tried to do a quick cashgrab by trying to invoke as many nostalgic moment for the OT fans as possible, even at the expense of building an interesting world worth exploring post ROTJ.

GoT's an exception and not something a big studio would want to risk emulating with a multi-billion dollar franchise. Disney is very safe and conservative and will never push an inch past what is obviously safe and general audience friendly.

[The Romulan Republic]

Regarding the "is Poe Holdo's XO" question, discounting the part about not referring him to his immediate superior (the Resistance, being an irregular or semi-regular force, may have been more lax in enforcing protocols like that), it is not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that he is based on a) no one else being established as Holdo's XO, and b) the Resistance having been recently decapitated when the bridge was blown up. It's possible that everyone who would have been between Holdo and Poe in the chain of command was killed.

It is highly unlikely that a recently demoted fighter squadron commander would be higher in line that the COs of the escorts to assume overall fleet command. In fact, we know at least one of them was, because Holdo was commander of the one of the escorts before she assumed command of the Raadus. So I would guess that the other escort's commander, at least, is likely between her and Poe.

In any case, its purely speculative. FaxModem1 asserted it as a fact, as evidence of Holdo's supposed bad leadership.

Holdo needs to be a competent leader for such a subversion to work. However, Rian Johnson failed to create a narrative where Holdo is a competent leader from a different perspective.

It's one of the reasons why I think it would have been better if Holdo was instead written to not buy the hyperspace tracker story and was instead convinced that there was a mole.[/quote]

That would have been stronger, yes. Out of universe, this is a fair criticism of the film.

Edit: Reg. all the Disney-bashing- remember they also oversaw the MCU. Infinity War was not a safe film. Black Panther was not a particularly safe film. Even GotG strayed from the formula a bit in style. Which makes the world-building and plot weaknesses in Star Wars all the more inexplicable.

[Crazedwraith]

Marvel has decent world-building, for a comic book based property, and even then it has plot holes, dropped plot threads and other loose ends that wouldn't have been acceptable in pre-Disney Star Wars canon. When Disney Star Wars is looking up at those standards...

You are vastly overstating the quality of pre-disney star wars and its EU if you think it had no plot holes, dropped threads or other loose ends.

[Jub]

You are vastly overstating the quality of pre-disney star wars and its EU if you think it had no plot holes, dropped threads or other loose ends.

EU be damned, I'm talking about the films alone. If you applied current MCU world building standards, as well as general ideology and road mapping, to Star Wars starting with ESB we'd have a worse franchise, full stop. The Disney Star Wars team's attention to detail has been even worse than that...

[Crazedwraith]

If you took the production of SW and made it create 20 films in a 10 year period it would also have similar problems. So what's your point and does it have anything to do with Holdo?

[ray245]

Eh, I think it would be quite easy to fill the gaps with some stand alone films. You can do a lot to show an old film in a new light with a strong sequel- I'll cite Infinity War, which actually strengthened Civil War for me retroactively, by negating one of my main complaints (that there were no real, lasting consequences for said civil war). Or Rogue One, which arguably made an already strong film (A New Hope) even stronger, by showing just how much effort and sacrifice went into getting those plans.

Edit: Mind you, I don't think JJ Abrams is likely to be the best man for the job.

Too bad they squandered the stand-alone films by making a film no one asked for, and then putting a halt on all stand-alone film because the film that no one asked for underperformed. The management of LFL are terrible at understanding what fans really want ( and fans often don't know what they want either).

JJ Abrams got the job because every SW fans and film journalists were all screaming about how he's the perfect man for the job just because he gave SW fans a ST films that feels similar to ANH.

Marvel has decent world-building, for a comic book based property, and even then it has plot holes, dropped plot threads and other loose ends that wouldn't have been acceptable in pre-Disney Star Wars canon. When Disney Star Wars is looking up at those standards...

As long as the overall narrative is consistent, most viewers are perfectly fine with ignoring the minor inconsistencies.

I'd agree. I think that the people in charge of SW are being super risk-averse to avoid any possible damage to a property that they know will print money. The average fan won't care about a lack of world-building or fan backlash over women and PoC main characters and the faithful won't be driven away by anything short of a colossal flop that would also drive away the casuals.

The sooner Disney realised the 40-50 years old fanboys aren't really worth listening to, and listening to the loudest of them yelling on the Internet or writing poor articles in print media, the better it will be for SW.

GoT's an exception and not something a big studio would want to risk emulating with a multi-billion dollar franchise. Disney is very safe and conservative and will never push an inch past what is obviously safe and general audience friendly.

Disney is already hiring the creators of GoT to make some more SW movies/TV shows for them. The only problem is the damage to the sequel trilogy has already been done.

It is highly unlikely that a recently demoted fighter squadron commander would be higher in line that the COs of the escorts to assume overall fleet command. In fact, we know at least one of them was, because Holdo was commander of the one of the escorts before she assumed command of the Raadus. So I would guess that the other escort's commander, at least, is likely between her and Poe.

In any case, its purely speculative. FaxModem1 asserted it as a fact, as evidence of Holdo's supposed bad leadership.

The problem with Poe is he is still someone with enough influence over the resistance to convince people to join his plan. He's a war hero and people under his command are willing to die for him.

Whether he is formally the XO is of no issue here. He's someone that can be a potential replacement for Holdo in the eyes of the resistance members.

That would have been stronger, yes. Out of universe, this is a fair criticism of the film.

Too bad it took so long for people to listen to any legitimate criticism of Holdo. Knowing how Disney tries to "over-correct" for the Prequels, they will probably listen to the wrong feedback from fans once again.

Edit: Reg. all the Disney-bashing- remember they also oversaw the MCU. Infinity War was not a safe film. Black Panther was not a particularly safe film. Even GotG strayed from the formula a bit in style. Which makes the world-building and plot weaknesses in Star Wars all the more inexplicable.

The real person in charge of MCU is Kevin Feige, who dared to do things different from the comics and don't care too much about what the fandom is saying or complaining about. Kennedy has not show herself to be the same calibre of a president as Feige, and this makes any decent world-building problematic. When the boss is uninterested in managing the storytelling and world-building, you end up with a directionless franchise.

We need to stop going off-topic again.

[Jub]

If you took the production of SW and made it create 20 films in a 10 year period it would also have similar problems. So what's your point and does it have anything to do with Holdo?

I was only ever using the MCU as a best case comparable for nuWars. You're the one that latched onto it and tried to start a debate around it.

As for Holdo, her issues as a character are due to the same issues the entire new trilogy (as well as the stand-alone films) are suffering from. A lack of development that would have allowed for a deeper connection.

Had Holdo been featured in the TFA and shown as a leader there we probably wouldn't question her leadership in TLJ even if Poe, a viewpoint character, did. The lack of a unified vision and plan for the movies will always hurt the characters, especially characters like Holdo, Snoke, Phasma who were secondary to the main plot and needed effective screentime to be made memorable and to build them up as important before ultimately discarding them.

-----

As long as the overall narrative is consistent, most viewers are perfectly fine with ignoring the minor inconsistencies.

Where did I say otherwise? I even mentioned that the average fan won't be driven away due to a lack of world building which we, the super fans, will start months-long debates about.

It's simply that as fans, prior to Disney coming in, we could expect a unified vision and long term world building from the movies and, to a lesser extent, the TV shows.

The sooner Disney realised the 40-50 years old fanboys aren't really worth listening to, and listening to the loudest of them yelling on the Internet or writing poor articles in print media, the better it will be for SW.

Then we get MCU level popcorn flicks until the wheels fall off, not much different than we have now but with a little more risk-taking in filling out the universe around the set pieces.

Disney is already hiring the creators of GoT to make some more SW movies/TV shows for them. The only problem is the damage to the sequel trilogy has already been done.

That doesn't mean that they plan to make anything with GoT level complexity. It just means that Disney is eating up top talent and putting them on a large project which is exactly what we should expect them to do.

[FaxModem1]

Regarding the "is Poe Holdo's XO" question, discounting the part about not referring him to his immediate superior (the Resistance, being an irregular or semi-regular force, may have been more lax in enforcing protocols like that), it is not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that he is based on a) no one else being established as Holdo's XO, and b) the Resistance having been recently decapitated when the bridge was blown up. It's possible that everyone who would have been between Holdo and Poe in the chain of command was killed.

It is highly unlikely that a recently demoted fighter squadron commander would be higher in line that the COs of the escorts to assume overall fleet command. In fact, we know at least one of them was, because Holdo was commander of the one of the escorts before she assumed command of the Raadus. So I would guess that the other escort's commander, at least, is likely between her and Poe.

In any case, its purely speculative. FaxModem1 asserted it as a fact, as evidence of Holdo's supposed bad leadership.

Still waiting on a reply to my response. And for another example, Lando didn't seem to have anyone between him and Ackbar back at Endor. So leaders of 'a mere squadron of fighters' seems pretty important in Rebel/Resistance leadership.

Maybe Lando should have shut up and obeyed Ackbar when he said that they needed to run away?

[The Romulan Republic]

Lando was more than a squadron commander and had a higher rank than Poe (general as opposed to captain/commander) and you know it.

The fact that you keep blatantly misrepresenting canon and outright lying isn't lending your position any more credibility.

Edit: I will also note that when Lando disagreed with Ackbar's order, he did not go behind Ackbar's back or mutiny. He explained why he believed the order was mistaken, and Ackbar appeared to agree with his decision. In short, Ackbar made a snap judgement that failed to take into account the larger strategic situation, Lando raised objections, and Ackbar was persuaded that Lando was correct and his original judgement was in error.

Lando was also not recently disgraced and demoted for refusing orders and getting a bunch of people killed needlessly, which might explain why Ackbar gave his judgement a little more weight than Holdo gave Poe's.

That said, I will agree that Ackbar/Lando is obviously an example of much more functional interaction between two officers.

[FaxModem1]

Lando was more than a squadron commander and had a higher rank than Poe (general as opposed to captain/commander) and you know it.

The fact that you keep blatantly misrepresenting canon and outright lying isn't lending your position any more credibility.

So are you going to respond to this post or not?

[The Romulan Republic]

Lando was more than a squadron commander and had a higher rank than Poe (general as opposed to captain/commander) and you know it.

The fact that you keep blatantly misrepresenting canon and outright lying isn't lending your position any more credibility.

So are you going to respond to this post or not?

I am, but I have a lot of things to respond to and its a fairly lengthy post. I simply haven't found time for it yet.

Are you going to concede that you have repeatedly misrepresented canon to bolster your arguments, and are demanding that I answer your post to deflect from admitting that?

[FaxModem1]

Lando was more than a squadron commander and had a higher rank than Poe (general as opposed to captain/commander) and you know it.

The fact that you keep blatantly misrepresenting canon and outright lying isn't lending your position any more credibility.

So are you going to respond to this post or not?

I am, but I have a lot of things to respond to and its a fairly lengthy post. I simply haven't found time for it yet.

Are you going to concede that you have repeatedly misrepresented canon to bolster your arguments, and are demanding that I answer your post to deflect from admitting that?

The reason I ask is that it's in the response:

I have no diagram of how the Resistance leadership goes, but he is clearly of an advanced enough rank to be in charge of a squadron(as he is by the end of the movie), with pilots that are under his command. He is her subordinate, and as an officer, should be able to challenge her leadership if he feels that she is making poor choices, on behalf of everyone involved, or going higher up in the chain of command. IF there is someone between him and Holdo, she should have told him to report to that person and follow the chain, she doesn't. So either Poe is skipping the chain of command, or he's next to her in the chain, and can and should talk to her if he has reservations.

That's my answer. I don't know if there's someone between Poe and Holdo. It seems likely with the leadership decapitation the First Order did by blowing up the Raddus bridge. If there is, Holdo sure as heck didn't tell that person to square Poe away. If there isn't, she's telling someone she should be briefing on the situation to go away, which is a mistake in a command situation in case she gets killed, as her replacement won't be able to continue the plan.

That's why I asked if you read the post, the answer is there.

Look, Rommie, may I call you Rommie? I like you, I agree with you on most things, and I always try and be civil with you in conversation. And accusing me of lying is not doing you any favors in that regard.

[The Romulan Republic]

Watch the scene again:



Unless she relieves him of duty, which she didn't(maybe that's another strike against her?), he is still serving and she's telling him to not do anything. Waste of resources and limiting her options by not utilizing a war hero. She had her chance(the briefing speech to 'have hope' to the fleet). It's not Poe's fault that her briefing is, "I have nothing, just have hope, okay?"

While I don't think she'd have been justified in relieving Poe of duty at that point, she absolutely was and should have had him put in the brig after his subsequent tantrum on the bridge. I have repeatedly acknowledged in the past that she was in error not to do so.

Poe isn't immediately confrontational. He IS inquisitive. Holdo's in charge, and as leader, she should roll with a subordinate asking for answers, even if it's a "One moment, I'm busy with ten different things right now, I'll get to you in a minute." Instead, she is insulting and confrontational. His words are asking for a direction to go, asking for leadership. She's the one starting a fight. That shows a fault in her as a leader.

He misrepresents his rank to her, which you ignore.

That is a wasted opportunity, as first impressions are important, and she just squandered hers, as she seems like the type of leader who will throw away a perfectly good subordinate to settle some sort of grudge that the subordinate wasn't even aware of. Especially as there are pilots he's still in charge of that he could be delegating to and accomplishing needed tasks with.

Um... the rest of the fighters were blown up in hanger during Kylo's attack, with at least some of the pilots? Remember?

Granted, she didn't make a great first impression, but it seems pretty nitpicky to condemn her overall abilities based on this single point, especially when Poe also starts off giving her a very negative impression.

I have no diagram of how the Resistance leadership goes, but he is clearly of an advanced enough rank to be in charge of a squadron(as he is by the end of the movie), with pilots that are under his command.

So you admit that you made a false assertion (ie lied) to bolster your argument.

He is her subordinate, and as an officer, should be able to challenge her leadership if he feels that she is making poor choices, on behalf of everyone involved, or going higher up in the chain of command. IF there is someone between him and Holdo, she should have told him to report to that person and follow the chain, she doesn't. So either Poe is skipping the chain of command, or he's next to her in the chain, and can and should talk to her if he has reservations.

I'm going to go with option a) (Poe is skipping the chain of command) as more likely, given everything else we see.

Or the Resistance has a more informal rank structure, which is possible.

You do realize that you're talking about the same movie in which Leia is blown out of the ship and flies right back in, after the bridge is blown up?

Here's the two scenes in question:



So yeah, that kind of thing DOES happen. Only usually without someone with force powers flying back in.

You do realize the difference between someone blowing a hole in the bridge window, and the ship's main reactor going boom?

They tracked them through Hyperspace, their sensor capability is already proven to be superior.

Which demonstrates that they can see through Resistance stealth how?

They did, because the flotilla was immediately tracked after jumping to lightspeed. They KNEW they were being tracked. Splitting the fleet up would have shown which ship was being tracked, and maybe split the number of pursuers, potentially evening the odds.

If the First Order fleet had split in pursuit... each individual ship would still have been hopelessly outgunned.

Again, it is generally considered poor tactics to split your forces in the face of a numerically superior (and more mobile) opponent.

And I believe my question was more "did they know that just the Raadus was being tracked, or all of the ships?"

A plan that relied on First Order stupidity, and everything going right. It didn't, because of lack of Commsec(Poe talking on an open channel like an idiot).

As noted previously, no plan would have worked if Hux were competent, because the odds were that stacked against them.

You are correct that the failure of the plan was Poe's fault, not Holdo's. This proves she's a bad leader how, exactly?

Sigh, okay. Let me quote something for you:

Here are the Navy regs: Navy Regs

Here is the section on relieving your CO:

1088. Relief of a Commanding Officer by a Subordinate.
1. It is conceivable that most unusual and extraordinary circumstances may arise in which the relief from duty of a commanding officer by a subordinate becomes necessary, either by placing the commanding officer under arrest or on the sick list. Such action shall never be taken without the approval of the Commandant of the Marine Corps or the Chief of Naval Personnel, as appropriate, or the senior officer present, except when reference to such higher authority is undoubtedly impracticable because of the delay involved or for other clearly obvious reasons. In any event, a complete report of the matter shall be made w the Commandant of the Marine Corps or the Chief of Naval Personnel, as appropriate, and the senior officer present, setting forth all facts in the case and the reasons for the action or recommendation, with particular regard to the degree of urgency involved.
2. In order that a subordinate officer, acting upon his, or her own initiative, may be vindicated for relieving a commanding officer from duty, the situation must be obvious and clear, and must admit of the single conclusion that the retention of command by such commanding officer will seriously and irretrievably prejudice the public interests. The subordinate officer so acting:
a. Must be next in succession to command.
b. Must be unable to refer the matter to a common superior for the reasons set forth in the preceding paragraph.
c. Must be certain that the prejudicial actions of the commanding officer are not caused by instructions unknown to him or her.
d. Must have given the matter much consideration, and have made such exhaustive investigation of all the circumstances as maybe practicable.
e. Must be thoroughly convinced that the conclusion to relieve the commanding officer is one which a reasonable, prudent and experienced officer would regard as a necessary consequence from the facts thus determined to exist.

Here's the precedent for someone like Poe to relieve Holdo. Leia is in a coma. And he believes that relieving Holdo is a reasonable, prudent decision as an experienced decision.

You conveniently leave out where the regs. require that the officer relieving their superior must be next in line of succession (is this why you lied and asserted that Poe was next in line?), must be unable to refer the matter to a superior (see above), must have thoroughly considered the matter and investigated to the extent practicable, and must file a report to justify their actions after the fact.

This is the Army Field Manual on Leadership. Read it. See what applies to those of the Resistance, and those who don't. A few key quotes:

Principle X-Employ Your Command in Accordance
With Its Capabilities
a. You must have a thorough knowledge of capabilities and limitations of your command if you are to employ it properly. Individuals in your command must be assigned duties commensurate with their capabilities. You must use sound judgment in the employment of your unit. Failure to accomplish the mission causes a loss of confidence, which in turn destroys efficiency and brings about the collapse of morale and esprit de corps.
b. Techniques for application.
(1) Know, understand, and apply the principles of war.
(2) Keep yourself informed as to the relative operational effctiveness of various elements of your command.
(3) Be sure that the accomplishment of tasks assigned to subordinates is reasonably possible, but do not hesitate to demand their utmost effort in order to achieve a quick victory or to avoid defeat.
(4) Analyze any task assigned. If means at your disposal appear' inadequate, inform your immediate commander and request additional means.
(5) Make every effort to equalize tasks proportionately, over appropriate periods of time, among the several elements of your command.
(6) Utilize the full capabilities of your unit before requesting assistance.

a. You must seize the initiative in the absence of orders. By seeking responsibility, you develop yourself professionally and increase your ability. Accept responsibility for all your unit does or fails to do.
b. Techniques for application.
(1) Learn the duties and responsibilities of your immediate supervisor.
(2) Seek diversified assignments that will give you responsibility and command experience.
(3) Take advantage of any opportunity that offers increased responsibility.
(4) Perform every task, large or small, to the best of your ability. Your reward will consist of increased opportunity to demonstrate your fitness to perform bigger and more important tasks.
(5) Remember that you are responsible for all your command does or fails to do.
(6) Accept justified criticism and admit mistakes.
(7) Adhere to what you think is right; have the courage of your convictions.
(8) Insure that a subordinate leader's failure was not due to some error on your part before considering his relief. Get to the basic cause of his failure-manpower is valuable-and his replacement may be worse.
(9) Seize the initiative when a decision must be made and specific orders from higher headquarters are not forthcoming. Do what you think your superior would order if he were present.

Note the bolded. Holdo did not straighten out or relieve Poe, or utilize him to the best of her abilities. In fact, there's an entire section about what happens if your subordinates are losing combat effectiveness due to their emotions taking control:

Agreed that Holdo did not utilize Poe fully, with the caveat that Poe's primary duty (fighter commander) was one he could not fill due to the destruction of the fighter compliment, and that failing to make proper use of a single officer in an extraordinary crisis is a fairly minor failing. This merely proves Holdo is imperfect, not generally incompetent.

Agreed that she should have relieved him from duty prior to the mutiny.

65. Factors Adversely Affecting Combat Effectiveness
a. Factors adversely affecting the combat potential of the command include fear, panic, discouragement, isolation, and lack of confidence by the individual in himself, in his unit, or in his leaders. The presence of fear and a tendency to panic fluctuate with changes in condition of the troops, in degree of tactical success, and physical conditions on the battlefield. Normally, it is the commander of the small unit who must sense the development of situations interpreted by the troops as critical and who must take personal action to eliminate conditions conducive to fear and panic. However, it is largely the commander of the large unit who trains and indoctrinates the small unit commander and who initiates policies

Note that Holdo gave a speech to have hope. That was her total ineffective policy when it came to morale. Let's look at this some more, shall we?

Here's the bit about rumors:

67. Rumors
a. Rumors are essentially anonymous communications that yield readily to distribution. Those which seem plausible under existing conditions ciruculate rapidly. Rumors destroy confidence and create uncertainty. In combat, when soldiers may be uncertain and insecure, rumors may create an illusion and a critical situation where, in reality, none exists. Thus rumors create a condition of
high susceptiblity to emotional and irrational behavior. The hearers become excited and react in an unreasonable fashion to even weak suggestions.
Additional rumors can incite a mob action or panic.
Rumors are most effective when the individual sees them as plausible or suitable to his circumstances. However, once the characteristics of mass psychology destroy the ability to reason, rumors no longer require credence to be acceptable. This was one
of the bases of the propaganda campaigns of our adversaries in World War II. The most fantastic rumors were accepted without analysis because people were fearful and lacked factual information in a critical situation.
b. A rumor that supports a suspicion or a hatred, verifies a fear, or expresses a hope will be repeated and reinforced by the emotions of the teller. When rumors spread rapidly and far, it means that hates, fears, or hopes are common to the many people who are doing the repeating. Rumors are repeated even by those who do not believe them because they provide a chance to express an emotion which would otherwise have to be suppressed.
c. Confidence varies continually between overconfidence and shaken confidence. Rumor causes
violent fluctuations between these extremes. For this reason, rumors must be controlled. Effective rumor control requires an attentive ear to detect and identify rumors and specific action to discredit and eliminate them at the source. Rumors originated by the enemy necessitate counterintelligence measures to determine their source. Specific control measures applicable to all rumors include-
(1) Information programs.
(2) Disseminating information on plans and operations as complete as security requirements permit. Give the troops as
many facts as possible.
(3) Finding out and attempting to eliminate the basic conditions creating uncertainty and frustrations before they accumulate.
(4) Keeping informed regarding current rumors in the unit. A long range program of instilling faith in the information passed out by the chain of command is better than a point-for-point rebuttal of rumors passed along the "grapevine." Soldiers want information! If factual information is not expeditiously supplied by the chain of command, then the "rumor campaigns" take over. The obvious disadvantage of replying directly to rumors is that the rumors may be reinforced and given credability.
(5) By example and instruction, emphasizing democratic principles to eliminate hatred,prejudice, and animosity.
(6) Developing confidence in individuals toward their leaders.
d. Keeping your men informed assumes a major role on the battlefield. A soldier who is uninformed or misinformed cannot be expected to produce at his maximum ability in combat. Men must know what is expected of them and what means they
have at their disposal to assist them in accomplishing the mission. Troops who are aware beforehand of the enemy's capabilities exert a positive influence toward successful accomplishment of the mission.

Did Holdo keep her crews informed? No, because Poe wasn't informed. It's very probable that he panicked, which leads me to:

Panic
a. Panic develops when a soldier is overcome with fear. It may be evidenced by sudden flight or by freezing in place. Panic may develop in a group faced with sudden catastrophe or from a few individuals fleeing from destruction in a critical situation. The critical situations responsible for the mass emotion of fear may be real, as in the case of bombing raids, or imaginary, such as those created by terror, enemy propaganda, and malicious gossip.
The seeds of panic are always present in troops as long as they believe that physical danger is near.
b. The emotion of fear reaches panic proportions only when individuals believe themselves incapable of overcoming a critical situation. When emotional tension is produced by a critical situation, individuals become excitable and highly susceptible to
suggestion. Nothing is more likely to collapse a line of infantry in combat than the sight of a few of its number in full and unexplained flight to the rear. Sudden and unexplained motion in the wrong direction is an open invitation to disaster. As panic
spreads, a man will join a disorganized fleeing crowd without stopping to ask why they are running. When discipline breaks, only a small minority of the most hardy individuals will retain self-control. The others cannot stand fast if the circumstances appear to justify flight. The obvious fear among the panicked troops is evidence that there is something to be afraid of and to escape
from.
c. Any suggested or observed movement may be
interpreted as a means of escape and cause of sudden flight. This flight is not generally focused upon a known goal other than escape, but is rapidly canalized in a certain direction. Someone has to be the first to break and run. Studies of local panics during Korea revealed that a lack of information and the sight of running men were the real crux of the fear. It was found that those who had started to run, and who in doing so had started a panic, rationalized an excuse for their action.
d. The emotion of fear is reinforced by escape action to such a degree that reason is greatly reduced. A soldier in panic runs without much rational thought. His fear is increased by the fears of his fleeing companions, and his field of attention is narrowed. He is forgetful of honor and discipline.
e. Troops in combat are continually in the presence of a situation threatening death or bodily harm. During such times of stress, they are subject to all of the anxieties and fears conducive to panic. Experienced troops who are well trained, organized, disciplined, and led seldom give way to panic because they are confident of their ability to master any situation regardless of its critical nature. This power to resist fear and panic fluctuates according to psychological and physiological conditions of the troops, the degree of tactical success, and the physical conditions of the battlefield. You must constantly measure and strengthen the confidence of your command. You must realize that even experienced and well-trained troops have panicked in situations which appeared beyond their control as a result of rumor or unfavorable circumstances. You must sense the development of situations interpreted by the troops as critical and take action to eliminate conditions conducive to panic.
f. You should recognize and compensate or minimize the following conditions that lead to uncertainty and panic:
(1) Physical conditions-scarcity of arms and ammunition, insufficient supporting weapons, fog, darkness, woods, baptism of fire,
and introduction of new enemy weapons.
(2) Physiological conditions-hunger, thirst, fatigue, and exhaustion. (3) Psychological conditions-danger (real or imaginary), anxiety, insecurity, ignorance of the military situation, tension, and expectant waiting.
(4) Morale conditions-homesickness, lack of mail, boredom, rumor, defeatist attitude, loss of confidence in leaders, and lack of
belief in the cause.
(5) Tactical conditions-destruction ot organization, heavy losses, reverses, conflicting orders, and poor communications.
Panic is rarely caused by the strength of enemy action. There is danger of panic in a withdrawal. For this reason, carefully
control withdrawals at all times. During a rearward movement, keep troops fully informed, within the limits of security, as to why it is being done and how and where the new line of resistance will be established.
(6) Leadership conditions-absence of leaders, loss of good leaders, and lack of confidence in the ability of leaders.
g. The ultimate defense against panic lies in good leadership, not only when panic starts but also in the months of training during which the troops are becoming seasoned.
h. You must take immediate and decisive action at the first sign of panic. Unity of action is often restored by the prompt action of the leader or a few volunteers who stand squarely in the path of flight, command the men to turn back, and do not hesitate to manhandle those men who come within reach or to threaten the others with weapons. Likewise, to the soldier who is in terror and verging on panic, no influence can be more steadying than to see some other soldier near him, and especially the leader, retaining his self-control and doing his duty.

If Holdo was paying attention, Poe was showing classic signs of panic, and she was being dismissive towards him about it. They were in a retreat, and Holdo was not giving information or keeping her troops informed on why it was being done or where they were going to set up their new site of resistance. Or that there was a new site of resistance at all.[/quote]

I very much doubt that the intent of military regs. is that a commander must brief all their officers on plans that rely on secrecy to succeed. Hell, the fact that Poe's mouth is directly responsible for leaking the plan is pretty damning evidence that Holdo's initial decision not to tell him was correct.

One could also note that real-world regs. don't apply to a fictional military, but that's another matter.

Read what I posted on leadership. Holdo did inherit this from Leia, but she didn't maintain it and did nothing to improve it aside from one two minute speech that clearly was not doing the trick for her subordinates.

Holdo inherited the situation from Leia, yet she gets nearly all the blame.

Also, she was in command for all of eighteen hours or so, correct? During which she was trying to organize the evacuation of multiple ships while under constant attack, aboard a damaged command ship that had lost a bunch of its senior officers.

Maybe, just maybe, she had more urgent shit to do than soothing Poe's insecurities?

See above on the regs and Holdo not telling Poe to go talk to her subordinate, his leader.

Addressed above.

[The Romulan Republic]

So are you going to respond to this post or not?

I am, but I have a lot of things to respond to and its a fairly lengthy post. I simply haven't found time for it yet.

Are you going to concede that you have repeatedly misrepresented canon to bolster your arguments, and are demanding that I answer your post to deflect from admitting that?

The reason I ask is that it's in the response:

I have no diagram of how the Resistance leadership goes, but he is clearly of an advanced enough rank to be in charge of a squadron(as he is by the end of the movie), with pilots that are under his command. He is her subordinate, and as an officer, should be able to challenge her leadership if he feels that she is making poor choices, on behalf of everyone involved, or going higher up in the chain of command. IF there is someone between him and Holdo, she should have told him to report to that person and follow the chain, she doesn't. So either Poe is skipping the chain of command, or he's next to her in the chain, and can and should talk to her if he has reservations.

That's my answer. I don't know if there's someone between Poe and Holdo. It seems likely with the leadership decapitation the First Order did by blowing up the Raddus bridge. If there is, Holdo sure as heck didn't tell that person to square Poe away. If there isn't, she's telling someone she should be briefing on the situation to go away, which is a mistake in a command situation in case she gets killed, as her replacement won't be able to continue the plan.

That's why I asked if you read the post, the answer is there.

Look, Rommie, may I call you Rommie? I like you, I agree with you on most things, and I always try and be civil with you in conversation. And accusing me of lying is not doing you any favors in that regard.

Well, you have, at least, repeatedly made assertions about canon that are unsupported by evidence as though they were facts. I suppose I could conclude that you are simply being sloppy and jumping to conclusions, but if so its happening a lot.

I'm honestly a bit surprised, because you're usually better than this. I can live with you having a different opinion on TLJ, but let's try to at least stick to facts on demonstrable canon events. Or, if we're going to speculate, label our speculation clearly as such.

[Jub]

He misrepresents his rank to her, which you ignore.

You keep harping on this point and that fact that he got off on a bad foor with Holdo as if they matter. A leader can't take a bad first impression or their own bad mood and let it compromise their judgement of a situation. Regardless of how much of an ass Poe was he was an asset and should have been used as such.

Um... the rest of the fighters were blown up in hanger during Kylo's attack, with at least some of the pilots? Remember?

Yeah, because a squadron leader and his corps of trained officers could never be used for any task besides flying fighters... As an example, they could be put to work wargaming out the effectiveness of an enemy fighter attack in the ship's simulator room. That keeps them busy using their skills and is something a good leader would have done.

So you admit that you made a false assertion (ie lied) to bolster your argument.

Not knowing something doesn't make it true or untrue. The fact is that we don't know the chain of command and where Poe fits within it. However, what we do know is that we never see another ranking officer deal with Poe and we never see Holdo tell Poe to take his concerns to this other ranking officer. Thus, by occams razor we only have two possible explainations.

1) Poe was next in command and Holdo is a bad leader for not using his talents to ease her burden of command.

2) There was somebody else above Poe and Holda failed to use the chain of command to deal with an insubordinate junior officer, which makes her a bad leader.

I'm going to go with option a) (Poe is skipping the chain of command) as more likely, given everything else we see.

Then who is his superior and why doesn't Holdo tell him to bother that mystery officer instead?

Or the Resistance has a more informal rank structure, which is possible.

In which case Poe was acting correctly bring his concerns to the person in a position to do something about them. Which again makes Holdo's method of dealing with him a poor one.

You do realize the difference between someone blowing a hole in the bridge window, and the ship's main reactor going boom?

You do realize that not all ship to ship kills will explode the reactor, right? Also, even if the reactor does go boom, the inverse square law and strength of Star Wars hull materials might mean large intact sections of the ship are ejected in good enough condition for bodies to be recovered. In fact, this is likely given the debris we see in the battle of Coruscant in the PT.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZq53GloUhw[youtube]

Look at 1:02 to 1:10 in for evidence that a dead ship is not a vaporized one.

**On an unrelated note man has the CGI in the PT series ever aged like milk. The model work of the OT is somewhat timeless especially with a few modern corrections here and there but the PT will just look worse and worse as the years go by.**

Which demonstrates that they can see through Resistance stealth how?

You don't have to know for sure if they can or can't to question if the plan is worth attempting. You can easily scuttle even a desperate plan because of hos disastrous it would be if the enemy does spot you doing it.

If the First Order fleet had split in pursuit... each individual ship would still have been hopelessly outgunned.

So no worse an outcome than what actually happened in that case.

Again, it is generally considered poor tactics to split your forces in the face of a numerically superior (and more mobile) opponent.

That's true only if you intend to turn and engage said force or meet up with another force before turning and engaging. In the case where you're hopelessly outgunned, it makes better tactical sense to split up and hope the enemy makes a mistake in pursuing one of the groups. This is basic shit that anybody who's ever run any sort of tactical combat simulation (even is a video game or tabletop RPG) ought to know.

And I believe my question was more "did they know that just the Raadus was being tracked, or all of the ships?"

The answer is that it doesn't actually matter, it's still a better idea to split the fleet and hope that they might only be tracking a single ship and/or only have a single ship capable of tracking other ships through hyperspace. Keeping the fleet together when you have no intention or capability of fighting just means more corpses in the same place.

As noted previously, no plan would have worked if Hux were competent, because the odds were that stacked against them.

Actually, the plan where every ship in the fleet scattered would have been a prudent one and nothing Hux could have done would have disrupted such a plan. Given the nature of the rebel fleet, each ship should have stored a set of unique jump calculations away from Crait to ensure that somebody escaped to get the word out and rally more forces to the cause.

You conveniently leave out where the regs. require that the officer relieving their superior must be next in line of succession (is this why you lied and asserted that Poe was next in line?), must be unable to refer the matter to a superior (see above), must have thoroughly considered the matter and investigated to the extent practicable, and must file a report to justify their actions after the fact.

You're missing the fact that the next in line for command part would also fail to supply if the officer above him in the chain was unavailable. Given that we never see anybody aside from Holdo that we know to outrank him, he's still within regulations to act as he did.

Agreed that Holdo did not utilize Poe fully, with the caveat that Poe's primary duty (fighter commander) was one he could not fill due to the destruction of the fighter compliment, and that failing to make proper use of a single officer in an extraordinary crisis is a fairly minor failing. This merely proves Holdo is imperfect, not generally incompetent.

Agreed that she should have relieved him from duty prior to the mutiny.

So you agree that Holdo showed two poor leadership characteristics.

I very much doubt that the intent of military regs. is that a commander must brief all their officers on plans that rely on secrecy to succeed. Hell, the fact that Poe's mouth is directly responsible for leaking the plan is pretty damning evidence that Holdo's initial decision not to tell him was correct.

In that case, Holdo should have lied to them and made up a fake plan to keep her subordinates busy. That's what real militaries tend to do in similar situations.

One could also note that real-world regs. don't apply to a fictional military, but that's another matter.

The counterpoint to that is that such regulations are common across all real militaries because such regulations make sense given the goals and needs of a military force. If the Resistance lacked such regulation it shows poor leadership at all levels which makes Holdo's failures more understandable; understandable failings do not make her a good leader.

Maybe, just maybe, she had more urgent shit to do than soothing Poe's insecurities?

Then she should delegate better and have somebody else do that. If she failed to do so that's a sign of poor leadership.

[Gandalf]

Why is it a thing that the Resistance don't act like a "proper" military? I didn't think that they were one at all, but more like a group of people pretending to be the famed Rebellion?

[Gandalf]

Too bad he didn't see Gaeta's coup coming, the causes of which include that leadership.

Yep. Due to making allies with the Cylons who were on the losing side of the Cylon civil war. I'm sure Resistance members would have problems as well if General Hux, who ordered the destruction of Hosnian through Starkiller base wanted to defect. Probably not to the point of putting Leia up against a firing line, but there would probably be problems.

And a good leader might have worked that out ahead of time. Unless he was too distracted by dealing with the embarrassment of the story of Earth being a lie. Adama was a pretty questionable leader outside of ordering things to shoot other things.

[FaxModem1]

Note, my internet went down after I typed a long post, and Jub has since summed up the gist of my responses.

Watch the scene again:

*snip Poe asking for the plan scene*

Unless she relieves him of duty, which she didn't(maybe that's another strike against her?), he is still serving and she's telling him to not do anything. Waste of resources and limiting her options by not utilizing a war hero. She had her chance(the briefing speech to 'have hope' to the fleet). It's not Poe's fault that her briefing is, "I have nothing, just have hope, okay?"

While I don't think she'd have been justified in relieving Poe of duty at that point, she absolutely was and should have had him put in the brig after his subsequent tantrum on the bridge. I have repeatedly acknowledged in the past that she was in error not to do so.

[/quote]

Thing is, he wasn't having a 'tantrum' until after her leadership killed two ships and their captains. Her leadership also made her crew show signs of panic, to the point of going along with a mutiny. Her leadership dismissed legitimate concerns shown by the crew that she refused to address until blasters were pointed at her and people were running for escape pods.

Poe isn't immediately confrontational. He IS inquisitive. Holdo's in charge, and as leader, she should roll with a subordinate asking for answers, even if it's a "One moment, I'm busy with ten different things right now, I'll get to you in a minute." Instead, she is insulting and confrontational. His words are asking for a direction to go, asking for leadership. She's the one starting a fight. That shows a fault in her as a leader.

He misrepresents his rank to her, which you ignore.

So, let's assume he was lying. I bet he just plain forgot, as within the past week he's been in multiple battles, captured, tortured, watched friends die, and watched his mentor just go into a coma. But let's assume he is just plain lying. Holdo is either A. Starting a pointless argument for no reason while they are on a ticking clock, which is wasting time she could use to explain the plan, or B. still withholding the plan while she takes the time to berate a subordinate and being unproductive because she holds a grudge against flyboys, thereby being unprofessional when someone is asking for the plan.

That is a wasted opportunity, as first impressions are important, and she just squandered hers, as she seems like the type of leader who will throw away a perfectly good subordinate to settle some sort of grudge that the subordinate wasn't even aware of. Especially as there are pilots he's still in charge of that he could be delegating to and accomplishing needed tasks with.

Um... the rest of the fighters were blown up in hanger during Kylo's attack, with at least some of the pilots? Remember?

Granted, she didn't make a great first impression, but it seems pretty nitpicky to condemn her overall abilities based on this single point, especially when Poe also starts off giving her a very negative impression.

She's the boss, the buck stops with her, and she's wasting the Hero of Starkiller base by getting into an argument with him when he is asking for help. It also shows that her priorities are that having an argument with someone pretty high up the chain of command is more important to her than having a fruitful discussion on options to pursue to fix things. That's not leadership, that's holding a grudge and acting on it.

I have no diagram of how the Resistance leadership goes, but he is clearly of an advanced enough rank to be in charge of a squadron(as he is by the end of the movie), with pilots that are under his command.

So you admit that you made a false assertion (ie lied) to bolster your argument.

No, my logic is below, you just falsely insinuated that I was lying.

He is her subordinate, and as an officer, should be able to challenge her leadership if he feels that she is making poor choices, on behalf of everyone involved, or going higher up in the chain of command. IF there is someone between him and Holdo, she should have told him to report to that person and follow the chain, she doesn't. So either Poe is skipping the chain of command, or he's next to her in the chain, and can and should talk to her if he has reservations.

I'm going to go with option a) (Poe is skipping the chain of command) as more likely, given everything else we see.

Or the Resistance has a more informal rank structure, which is possible.[/quote]

As Jub noted, if it's A, Holdo should have had the officer in-between them handle him. If it's B, Poe has the right to challenge Holdo for leadership due to her perceived performance and lack of briefing on what to do.

You do realize that you're talking about the same movie in which Leia is blown out of the ship and flies right back in, after the bridge is blown up?

Here's the two scenes in question:

*snip Leia Poppins*

So yeah, that kind of thing DOES happen. Only usually without someone with force powers flying back in.

You do realize the difference between someone blowing a hole in the bridge window, and the ship's main reactor going boom?

You do realize that not every Star Wars battle ends like the Death Star?



Sometimes the enemy gets the chance to survey the wreckage, on the off chance that they can gather intelligence about the enemy. And as Rey's salvaging career on Jakku showed, ships can survive battles, even if they are destroyed by the enemy.

They tracked them through Hyperspace, their sensor capability is already proven to be superior.

Which demonstrates that they can see through Resistance stealth how?

By proving that First Order technology is capable of things previously thought, in Finn and Leia's words, 'impossible'. We even see that the First Order IS capable of detecting their cloaked transports and using them as target practice. Using that as a plan is foolhardy, especially when more viable options, such as splitting up the fleet to acquire supplies or reinforcements, are more practical plans.

When technology changes, so should your plans when dealing with it. To an extent, Leia realizes this, and stops them from wasting a jump before puzzling out what to do next and wasting fuel. She was soon blasted into a coma and couldn't adapt the plan, but credit where credit is due.This is why, in World War 1, Napoleonic warfare and that school of thought had to die a quick death due to the machine gun. Failure to learn from that leads to death of your troops. Avoiding that when the game changes is key to survival on the battlefield.

They did, because the flotilla was immediately tracked after jumping to lightspeed. They KNEW they were being tracked. Splitting the fleet up would have shown which ship was being tracked, and maybe split the number of pursuers, potentially evening the odds.

If the First Order fleet had split in pursuit... each individual ship would still have been hopelessly outgunned.

Again, it is generally considered poor tactics to split your forces in the face of a numerically superior (and more mobile) opponent.

And I believe my question was more "did they know that just the Raadus was being tracked, or all of the ships?"

They needed to determine which ship was being tracked, or if it was all of them. If it was the Raddus, the Raddus could continue on, and the rest could get some gas. Same if it was only one of the other two ships. It also makes more options for the Resistance fleet, as they could find allies, or come across other barriers or terrain that could improve their odds, or force the First Order into making a crucial mistake.

For example, if it was the Ninka being tracked, and the Ninka jumps to Tattooine, while the Raddus jumps to Naboo, the Raddus is free to refuel and resupply, and regroup with the Ninka after getting enough forces, weapons, or fighters to help their odds.

A plan that relied on First Order stupidity, and everything going right. It didn't, because of lack of Commsec(Poe talking on an open channel like an idiot).

As noted previously, no plan would have worked if Hux were competent, because the odds were that stacked against them.

You are correct that the failure of the plan was Poe's fault, not Holdo's. This proves she's a bad leader how, exactly?

Because Holdo's and Leia's plan required the First Order to act like idiots. No plan should ever play off with the same odds of winning the lottery three times in a row as plan A.

Sigh, okay. Let me quote something for you:

Here are the Navy regs: Navy Regs

Here is the section on relieving your CO:

*snip Navy regs for relief*

Here's the precedent for someone like Poe to relieve Holdo. Leia is in a coma. And he believes that relieving Holdo is a reasonable, prudent decision as an experienced decision.

You conveniently leave out where the regs. require that the officer relieving their superior must be next in line of succession (is this why you lied and asserted that Poe was next in line?)[/quote]

Either Poe is next in line, and is therefore next in line of succession, or Holdo is so bad at her job that she didn't direct him to the officer that was actually next in line. Pick your poison.

must be unable to refer the matter to a superior (see above)

Well, let's just ask Ackbar what he thinks. Wait, no. He's dead. How about Leia? In a coma, no dice. So, who should he talk to?

must have thoroughly considered the matter and investigated to the extent practicable

He does ask Holdo three times what's going on, and she refuses to answer three times. He didn't notice the transports until the very end, but she didn't explain what her plan is. That's going to be nebulous on investigated.

and must file a report to justify their actions after the fact.

True, we don't see him file the paperwork. Though, the question is to whom he would file it with, as anyone who would read it was dead or in a coma.

This is the Army Field Manual on Leadership. Read it. See what applies to those of the Resistance, and those who don't. A few key quotes:

*snip leadership manual quote*

Note the bolded. Holdo did not straighten out or relieve Poe, or utilize him to the best of her abilities. In fact, there's an entire section about what happens if your subordinates are losing combat effectiveness due to their emotions taking control:

Agreed that Holdo did not utilize Poe fully, with the caveat that Poe's primary duty (fighter commander) was one he could not fill due to the destruction of the fighter compliment, and that failing to make proper use of a single officer in an extraordinary crisis is a fairly minor failing. This merely proves Holdo is imperfect, not generally incompetent.

Agreed that she should have relieved him from duty prior to the mutiny. However, she also had ample time to explain things to her subordinate, and keep him calm, as well as take the criticism directed at her and learn from it. And it wasn't a SINGLE officer. Holdo had multiple crew members/officers involved in a mutiny against her, and people scrambling for the escape pods. That is not a minor failing.

*snip combat effectiveness*

Note that Holdo gave a speech to have hope. That was her total ineffective policy when it came to morale. Let's look at this some more, shall we?

Here's the bit about rumors:

*snip quote about rumors*

Did Holdo keep her crews informed? No, because Poe wasn't informed. It's very probable that he panicked, which leads me to:

*snip quote about panic*

If Holdo was paying attention, Poe was showing classic signs of panic, and she was being dismissive towards him about it. They were in a retreat, and Holdo was not giving information or keeping her troops informed on why it was being done or where they were going to set up their new site of resistance. Or that there was a new site of resistance at all.

I very much doubt that the intent of military regs. is that a commander must brief all their officers on plans that rely on secrecy to succeed. Hell, the fact that Poe's mouth is directly responsible for leaking the plan is pretty damning evidence that Holdo's initial decision not to tell him was correct.

One could also note that real-world regs. don't apply to a fictional military, but that's another matter.

Holdo had a mutiny on her hands, as well as people scrambling for escape pods. As noted, she had to brief her people on a reason as to why they were retreating. Failure to do so is on her, because people on her ship were succumbing to panic and rumors, and this led to mutiny. That is not just Poe, that is multiple people.

Read what I posted on leadership. Holdo did inherit this from Leia, but she didn't maintain it and did nothing to improve it aside from one two minute speech that clearly was not doing the trick for her subordinates.

Holdo inherited the situation from Leia, yet she gets nearly all the blame.

Also, she was in command for all of eighteen hours or so, correct? During which she was trying to organize the evacuation of multiple ships while under constant attack, aboard a damaged command ship that had lost a bunch of its senior officers.

Maybe, just maybe, she had more urgent shit to do than soothing Poe's insecurities?

As noted above, her urgent shit taking priority over telling people what was going on led to members of her crew mutinying against her or trying to desert, because she didn't deem it necessary to tell everyone what was going on. That's the hallmarks of a bad leader, no matter how you cut it.

[RogueIce]

Why is it a thing that the Resistance don't act like a "proper" military? I didn't think that they were one at all, but more like a group of people pretending to be the famed Rebellion?

The question isn't whether or not the Resistance is a real military, it is whether Holdo is a good leader. Pointing out things that Real Military LeadersTM are expected to do is because, well, they're trained to be leaders so it's as good a cite as any when trying to debate whether somebody was being a good leader.

But the whole "keep your subordinates informed, have them feel like they're a part of the solution/plan" is pretty much Leadership 101, whether in a military or civilian context. Dismissing and insulting those you're supposed to be leading is the exact opposite of that.

[FaxModem1]

Why is it a thing that the Resistance don't act like a "proper" military? I didn't think that they were one at all, but more like a group of people pretending to be the famed Rebellion?

Because in other works, the Rebellion/Resistance seemed to succeed despite their organizational flaws. TLJ is the work that shows it all crashing down due to their setup and seeming lack of professionalism, so much so that armchair generals like myself are seeing glaring flaws that could have been easily fixed if the situation was in better hands.

Too bad he didn't see Gaeta's coup coming, the causes of which include that leadership.

Yep. Due to making allies with the Cylons who were on the losing side of the Cylon civil war. I'm sure Resistance members would have problems as well if General Hux, who ordered the destruction of Hosnian through Starkiller base wanted to defect. Probably not to the point of putting Leia up against a firing line, but there would probably be problems.

And a good leader might have worked that out ahead of time. Unless he was too distracted by dealing with the embarrassment of the story of Earth being a lie. Adama was a pretty questionable leader outside of ordering things to shoot other things.

It's been about a decade since I watched BSG, so I can't remember. I do remember that Adama kept his crew in check for over six months. They even faced a similar situation to The Last Jedi in '33', and it didn't lead to the crew mutinying and them all horribly dying. And that's the show that's about how horrible humanity is.

[Crazedwraith]

If you took the production of SW and made it create 20 films in a 10 year period it would also have similar problems. So what's your point and does it have anything to do with Holdo?

I was only ever using the MCU as a best case comparable for nuWars. You're the one that latched onto it and tried to start a debate around it.

What I was actually mostly querying was the idea that the original Star Wars some kind of super-slick well planned affair with no plot hole or loose ends. GL's reports of planning the whole thing from the get go are greatly exaggerated and it was mostly written by the seat of their pants. (The OT more than the PT probably)

[Jub]

What I was actually mostly querying was the idea that the original Star Wars some kind of super-slick well planned affair with no plot hole or loose ends. GL's reports of planning the whole thing from the get go are greatly exaggerated and it was mostly written by the seat of their pants. (The OT more than the PT probably)

It didn't have to be planned all at once to have a unified vision given that the guy making the movies was the guy who came up with the first one. Even the little hiccups that came from things not being planned were addressed in the following films such as the (in)famous 'certain point of view' line. The worst we really got was RotJ with the Ewoks but even that managed to fit the plucky underdog beats the evil empire theme the trilogy had going for it.

The vague but inviting world building, the fact that the practical effects hold up, and that Ford forced Lucas to write dialogue that actual humans could say go a long way and created three all-time classics with staying power. I don't think that either of the PT or the Disney movies have the same charm and even if they did and I'm certain that none of them are timeless simply due to how badly CGI ages.

To compare to another series of movies the OT is Back to the Future, a true classic that doesn't need its sequels to be a complete work. The PT and ST are BttF 2 and 3, good movies (though I'm not a huge fan of 3) but if you started the series with the second movie I don't think the franchise as a whole would be nearly as popular. That said if we started the second movie at least we wouldn't have the plot hole of Marty suddenly having a massive inferiority complex...

[ray245]

I wonder if the overall depiction of Holdo is a case of Rian Johnson not understanding how to be subversive as a writer.

He set up Holdo with a lot of flaws, but she's supposed to be redeemed in the eyes of the audience by the end of the arc. But her final actions has nothing to do with good leadership. Yes, she is willing to sacrifice her life for people under her, but you don't need to be a leader to do that. It really doesn't reveal "she's a good leader all along!"

TLDR: Holdo was given far too many flaws as a leader for this to merely be a POV issue.

[Civil War Man]

It is highly unlikely that a recently demoted fighter squadron commander would be higher in line that the COs of the escorts to assume overall fleet command. In fact, we know at least one of them was, because Holdo was commander of the one of the escorts before she assumed command of the Raadus. So I would guess that the other escort's commander, at least, is likely between her and Poe.

The commanders of the escort ships probably outrank Poe, but chain of command is not a straight line and is often more about responsibility than discrete rank. Setting aside the fact that all of the fighters were destroyed early on, based on what we saw in the movie, Poe likely had one of two possible commands.

1. Commander of all fighter squadrons in the fleet. If this was his command, his direct report would be the fleet commander or XO. Ship commanders could technically outrank him, but for sake of logistics they should not be able to give him direct orders so he doesn't receive multiple conflicting orders. Ship commanders could request help and give him information, and he could make decisions on how to deploy fighters based on that, but only the officers in charge of the entire fleet could order him to deploy in a certain way.

2. Commander of the fighter squadrons stationed on the Raddus. The Raddus appears to be the only one of the ships that has fighters, so this seems academic on the surface, but if this were his position then his direct report would be the CO or XO of the Raddus, so they would be between him and the fleet commanders.

Now, if he had the first position, after the bridge got blown out Poe would be reporting to Holdo. If he had the second position he would be reporting to the CO of the Raddus, who appears to have also been Holdo (likely due to a shortage of available officers since most of them had just been killed). It doesn't prove that he's her XO, but also doesn't really disprove it because he's reporting to her in both cases.

Poe does end up as Leia's de facto second in the command at the end, but that doesn't really inform us of his position one way or the other, either, because by that point you could fit the entire Resistance inside a small freighter and not have it feel cramped.

As a side note, depending on where the shuttles fit in the Resistance's hypothetical org chart, Holdo may have been the one bypassing the chain of command by keeping Poe in the dark. Still, even if the shuttles were not part of Poe's command, delegating their preparation to him seems like a logical assignment for a small craft commander with nothing else to do. However, that wasn't done because Poe, being a POV character, had to be kept in the dark in order for the audience to be kept in the dark. And that is where a lot of the "Holdo is a bad leader" stuff comes from, because the only real justification we're given for Holdo not informing Poe of the plan, either directly or through a proxy, is an out-of-universe, 4th wall-breaking one.

[RogueIce]

I wonder if the overall depiction of Holdo is a case of Rian Johnson not understanding how to be subversive as a writer.

He set up Holdo with a lot of flaws, but she's supposed to be redeemed in the eyes of the audience by the end of the arc. But her final actions has nothing to do with good leadership. Yes, she is willing to sacrifice her life for people under her, but you don't need to be a leader to do that. It really doesn't reveal "she's a good leader all along!"

TLDR: Holdo was given far too many flaws as a leader for this to merely be a POV issue.

Depends on the expectations he was trying to subvert. I think Holdo was more along the lines of the Obstructive Bureaucrat, "respect my authority!" type, while Poe was supposed to be the Cowboy Cop who Does What's Right, not what the rules say. In a normal action/cop movie, Poe would have been proven right by going around the hidebound superior and doing what needed to be done, except of course in this case his way was wrong and Holdo's way was (allegedly) right. That's the subversion.

It just so happens that it makes Holdo a shitty leader in the process.