The General Star Wars Thread

I edited my post to be clearer because I was talking about the bombers and their crew.

Even if I agree that Holdo failed to be a good leader in these dire circumstances, it deserves to be broken down. Holdo is responsible for the following things as far as I am concerned.

1.) Retreating from the First Order.

2.) Maintaining morale.

3.) Using her resources wisely.

4.) Ensuring the safety of those in her command.

5.) Accounting for problems that arise in this crisis.

I'm gonna break down how successful she is at each.

1.) Believe it or not she actually did this objective rather well. She got the Resistance from point A, space, to point B, Crait. She kept her forces heading towards the general target of retreat and got them there.

2.) To this extent she utterly failed. Hell to make it worse, she inspired negative morale and let that fester. Poe Damerom mutinied with some rebels because she failed to inspire belief that there was an actual plan in progress. She let everybody's heads boil with negativity and then she only intervened at the last second. Morale needed to be maintained well before this even occurred. Hell, you can still argue that morale stays pretty down. As far as the resistance is concerned, they are fleeing to a planet and hoping they aren't seen. That's not the best.

3.) To this extent she was average. She managed to get the most out of those stealth shuttlecraft and got all personnel offboard except for ships that ran out of fuel and died from bombardment. She could have done more to try to divert the First Order, in fact she could have even authorized Poe to let Finn/Rose subplot happen (with Poe himself going as well) as a backup. Because yeah, in case plan A doesn't work it's nice to have a backup.

4.) This is particularly bad as well because had this mutiny turned violent onboard the Raddus she would have seen a lot of people killed as a result of her actions. She risked a lot of peoples lives for no reason and this is pretty grave. She's actually lucky Poe didn't just kill her when the mutiny started. Mutineers, especially from rebel cells, aren't exactly known for code of conduct.

5.) Probably the worst of all. She didn't account for anything possibly going wrong. Whether it's her own crew challenging her command, not obeying blindly, deserting her or if the First Order just actually caught onto the plan well beforehand with a blockade of Crait or the like. She would have been up pooper creek without a paddle and she didn't seem to have any awareness. Hell, an actual spy could have ruined things for her. So could a bunch of First Order ships dropping out of hyperspace. Hell, what if the damn engines overloaded? It doesn't seem like she had anything under control. A leader is always a couple steps ahead. A good one that is.

All of this is to say that while Holdo does fail to do her job, ultimately, she is obviously trying. A lot was stacked against her so we have to give credit to the fact that there was probably more going on than what was on screen. But all we can judge is what was happened. This whole sub plot just needed to be baked more.

Edited by Patar136 on Apr 28th 2024 at 7:32:20 AM

It's genuinely a really weird film and set of choices to have it all happen over the course of like a day? Two days? I remember being told they only had 18 hours of fuel left, but not which point in the plot that was.

Why would you put a clock on it, like that?

Such a weird set of writing choices. And then you get to the whole dividing up all of the characters we know and like for most of the film. And that's without the decision to have the thing Poe gets in trouble for blowing up be something that, if present, would have absolutely screwed them, either when the dreadnought ("fleet killer") blew up their fleet as part of the pursuit, or blew up their base, which we straight up see it do at the start of the film.

Like, if Poe is supposed to be wrong, then two things need to happen:

1) His decision needs to not be vindicated by what happens next.

2) The costs of his decision (the loss of the bombers) has to matter at some point. But since all of their non-shuttle small craft are lost and everyone who can't fit on the Falcon dies...this never happens!

Like, yes, in reality you can make a bad call and have everything work out, but if you're going for This Is Reality in Star Wars, I think you've made a mistake and you definitely need to call out that 'based on what you knew at the time, it was a mistake, the fact that it worked out was luck, not judgment.'

Edited by ECD on Apr 28th 2024 at 7:53:13 AM

Honestly, if Poe Dameron is supposed to be treated as wrong for his actions of getting people killed by disobeying orders he doesn't get a slap on the wrist. Holdo should have thrown him in the brig immediately or she should have had him executed for subverting (see what I did here) the chain of command. Admittedly dark for a Disney film but if this wasn't the intention, they should have fixed this. There is a war on, after all. You follow these principles in a story like this.

His entire arc seems to be respecting those under his command. If things get bad, you retreat. Except there is a fine line you need to thread where sometimes you have to make sacrifices to win. So you have to know when to hold your cards, and when to fold them. Holdo played her cards relatively badly but she still won the game. Poe at the beginning played well and still lost.

Poe as written deserves to be court martailled. And if Holdo survived she would have a lot of explaining to do as well.

Edited by Patar136 on Apr 28th 2024 at 8:15:51 AM

It's even weirder than that, because even when he 'learns his lesson' and orders the retreat, rather than pressing home the attack...it doesn't matter? The skimmers don't get re-used or anything and it doesn't save anyone [Finn gets saved separately, after refusing the order]. It is genuinely baffling to me how that got written. If this is supposed to be the right decision, that needs to be recognized by the narrative. Use the skimmers to cover the Falcon's retreat, or something!

ETA: It's so weird I do wonder if it's the result of executive meddling to keep Poe from being too unlikable? But that's totally speculation.

Edited by ECD on Apr 28th 2024 at 9:52:51 AM

Yeah, I don't know exactly why Holdo and Poe were written to dislike one another. But given that Leia died in real life, I kind of wish they just rewrote everything and wrote Leia out of the narrative so that Holdo and Poe can build a sort of "commander and trusted officer" relationship from the ground up. You know, like Mustang and Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist. I think something like that easily could have worked. Holdo has to inherit Leia's shoes and Poe has to experience real loss and guilt with Leia gone.

Damn it all, that sounds like it could have been great. But we just don't live in that world.

I think they wanted to do two things:

1) Subvert the 'new commander is evil/incompetent'

And

2) Have a story about Poe learning a lesson about not being a macho dickhead and learning to trust a major leader of the organization he has chosen to give his life to.

And I actually really like the idea of story (2) [for (1) I think it was better done with Captain Jellico, god, 30 years ago...and the film undermines its point in an attempt to preserve the twist/Poe's likeability]. But to do it, they'd need to dial up Poe's wrongness in a way that would be visible to the audience. And, to be clear, he is both wrong and a dickhead here. Yes, Holdo massively mismanages the situation, but he is, as previously argued, the second highest ranking officer of a massive military and morale disaster, which at every single step he makes worse rather than better.

I hate to continually reference TNG, but I cannot help but compare it unfavorable to, again, a 30 year old reference:

TNG Starfleet isn't really the same situation. They are in a formal organisation with a formal hierarchy and expectations thereof.

The Resistance is that, an ad-hoc group built on volunteers, personal loyalty and a joint cause. They can't be held in the same discipline and structure as an actual military.

eta: Essentially it's truing to subvert Protagonist-Centred Morality and The Dissenter Is Always Right but they did too a good job of setting the scene up like how you think it should go and doesn't succeed in pulling the carpet out from under you that people still go with the above tropes.

Edited by dcutter2 on Apr 29th 2024 at 5:55:21 PM

Yeah, the whole reason for the friction between Holdo and Poe was because at the start of the movie Poe had lost a lot of pilots with a fairly reckless attack that barely worked and refused Leia's orders to withdraw.

The themes that TLJ was trying to pick apart are not really things that have been endemic with Star Wars anyway. It's actually more of a commentary on the vigilante superhero genre. The Jedi do evoke some superhero aspects but both Prequel and Original trilogy are pretty accurate on military strategy and protocol. They wouldn't pull anything like "Send our invincible main character alone to challenge a dreadnought" but always played into team tactics, main characters acting as part of a squad. The Battle of Geonosis was explicitly a cautionary tale against that kind of attitude. Even Lando being promoted to General right away was handwaved as Critical Staffing Shortage and respecting the resources and leadership qualities he brought to the Alliance, there was still a command system above him.

Yeah, Poe's plotline is trying to deconstruct the hot shot pilot who disobeys orders and succeeds because of that.

But that's not something done in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker isn't that kind of character, the only time he did anything against orders was to turn off his targeting computer during the raid on the Death Star, but that's not exactly being a rogue pilot.

Except if that's the case, you can't have the narrative prove the dissenter right...which it does. The destroyed bombers would have been destroyed later in the attack on the Raddus, or the destruction of the Raddus. There's no point when anyone says 'if only we had our bombers, we could do X and escape/win.' And the destroyed dreadnaught is expressly described as a 'fleet killer' and we see it blow up a resistance base. Blowing it up is the only reason the rest of the movie happens!

And I think you're overstating the Resistance's nature. A major plot point is that they do in fact have ranks and Poe has, in fact been demoted!

For which he is demoted, but see my comment directly above about how they've screwed this up narratively.

As you note in the OT at least...did anyone actually ever disobey orders from the Alliance command structure to go attack something? It happened quite a bit in the Clone Wars, when the Jedi Council was playing Obstructive Bureaucrat command groups, but I don't even remember instances in the PT?

Edited by ECD on Apr 29th 2024 at 10:07:36 AM

Luke disobeyed Yoda to go save Han and Leia, but that's not military command and he only got a lost hand out of it.

Anakin went to save Obi-Wan in ATOC against the council's wishes.

Technically, his orders were to stay near Padme, and the latter decided to go to Geonosis and save Obi-Wan, so he accomplished the letter of his orders, if not the spirit.

Is that first response directed at me?

Because, you're essentially agreeing with what I said. The film obviously tries to depict that Poe was in the wrong and Holdo in the right and that it's a twist/subversion that Poe's disaffection and mutiny is wrong. But does too good of job of getting you to sympathise with Poe at first for this reversal to work, as you say it doesn't do a good enough job of establishing that Poe was wrong as no immediate need for the bombers appears.

As to the ranks, yes the Resistance have them but the whole thing with Poe vs Holdo is that mostly they follow the person not the rank. Which is why Poe a familiar face can lead a mutiny against a Vice Admiral who's a stranger.

Edited by dcutter2 on Apr 29th 2024 at 6:09:44 PM

Ah, in that case I misunderstood what your response was saying when you said they "did a good job of setting the scene up like how you think it should go" because, to be clear, I think they did a terrible job of setting up the scene how I think it should go, for the story they're trying to tell.

I see what you're saying now, and it makes perfect sense! Sorry about that.

ETA: It's especially weird, because it's such an easy fix—instead of a bunch of bombers, it's a bunch of fighters, clearing point defense for a torpedo strike by the Raddus (and, not a 'fleet killer' but, I dunno, 'planetary raider' that specializes in strategic bombardment of planets until they surrender. They succeed, but lose all the fighters except Poe, which is what allows for Kylo's fighter attack on the Raddus to succeed.

Edited by ECD on Apr 29th 2024 at 10:34:27 AM

Poe wasn't demoted for his piloting, he was demoted for overriding Leia's retreat order. That's where so much of the narrative went sideways: A) Leia is the ranking officer overseeing the engagement, her commands will override his always and if she accepted his argument the failure is on her and not him B) the battle opens with him performing as a lone wolf superhero and that's not a good place to start if you're trying to criticize irresponsible command decisions C) in the absence of a strategy session we can only assume everything up to that point was part of the plan (Poe takes out point defense, bombers follow behind), while Leia is in her right to call things off abandoning a plan midway can also result in meaningless deaths because it takes time to relay new orders.

The whole movie just never settles on what kind of genre they are emulating, which is why the Poe and Holdo conflict never makes sense.

To defend Holdo, however, a superior officer doesn't need to explain every facet of a given plan to their subordinates. If she tells him to prep evacuation shuttles, he should do so. If she tells him to man the point defense turrets in case the First Order tries sending swarms of TIE Fighters to overwhelm the Raddus he should do so. If she tells him to leave the ship and get help, he could be expected to do that too.

Problem lies down to the fact that she needed to give him something to do, and not just hold tight and do nothing. That is just not using resources. She doesn't have to tell him everything or tell him anything about the actual plan, but she does need to give him something to do. And this is an aspect that just utterly failed to be utilized. You mean to tell me that the audience would have been bored by more action sequences during this part. Hell, maybe don't have the hanger be completely destroyed and task Poe with getting people off the dying transports and back to Raddus as they run out of fuel. Maybe have First Order marines try to send boarding parties that he has to repel. You know, video game action sequences to keep up the suspense.

And if you don't want to do any of that, take notes from Das Boot where a lot of the underlying tension and dread is being overwhelmed by your adversary gradually as morale deteriorates with slow dread as the claustrophobia of being in a ship in space sets in. Have people start to become genuinely terrified of annihilation with people on the verge of nervous breakdown, including Holdo.

These are the most basic rules for adding suspense to a story. But no, Rian wanted his Yo Mamma jokes in your opening battle sequence. You communicated your intent pretty early on.

Edited by Patar136 on Apr 29th 2024 at 11:40:44 AM

Under certain circumstances, a military officer can relieve his commander of duty, though this is relatively rare.

If the commander is shown to be mentally or medically unwell, if he commits war crimes, if he disobeys direct orders from the political leadership, if he orders his men to do something illegal, if he is suspected of treason, or if the unit is in danger, and he doesn't do anything to solve the situation,.

The last case, can be applied to Holdo, The Resistance is threatened with complete annihilation, and Holdo doesn't seem to have any plan to do anything about it, and every attempt to ask her is met with hostility.

So Poe is justified in judging her unfit to command.

............................

Even if we discard legality, you can't just expect people to walk to certain death, like lambs without doing anything; they are freedom fighters, not slaves. Holdo as commander, has the responsibility of giving them both a goal and a hope in success.

Instead, she is demanding total obedience, relying on her rank alone, without doing anything to earn it in the eyes of her troupes.

Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.

Edited by jawal on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:11:34 PM

The themes that TLJ was trying to pick apart are not really things that have been endemic with Star Wars anyway.

The only thing I'd say is guilty of that is Kotor 2, compared to that, The Last Jedi is pretty damn fair.

At least KOTOR 2 makes these elements an actual part of the story and builds a lot of elements of gameplay, story and structure around these themes to intentionally deconstruct and reconstruct elements of the Star Wars franchise. Last Jedi deconstructs a lot but doesn't really say anything that smart in return. And for the record, isn't as smart imo.

The story really wants to deconstruct the "hot shot rebel who refuses to listen to leadership" except it's not really willing to make either Holdo that evil or Poe that evil. Nor are either entirely wrong or entirely right for that matter. You wanna make Poe more of an asshole, have him actually say stuff like "Who cares if they died, they were gonna die anyway." Or wanna make Holdo more evil, have her say "Stupid, peasant, don't question my rank." The intent just didn't seem to be all that clear in retrospect. If we are supposed to root for Holdo, Poe shouldn't seem right at times. And if Poe is supposed to be wrong, why does Holdo make such obvious mistakes?

Is Holdo supposed to be some sort of "sticking it to the patriarchy" by telling the man to listen to her? She's in command, and presumably looks upper class, compared to Poe's rather unimpressive origins. So I don't know how much of that is actually said, especially when it also kind of looks like "stay in your place, you don't get to make decisions." I wouldn't be surprised if there are actual articles about Holdo that try to play off those ideas. She seems like she could have been this really interesting character who just wasn't utilized well.

Ran into this interesting retrospective by Donnie Yen about his biggest roles, during which he talks (among other things) about Rogue One.

The most interesting note is that it seems Chirrut Imwe's sly sense of humor was all Donnie's idea. Originally the character was a bit more of a serious and staid martial arts master type, which Donnie felt was too stereotypical, so he suggested they jazz the character up by giving him a sillier side.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 29th 2024 at 7:48:01 AM

I actually like that the Last Jedi wrote Poe in the wrong.

He's been demoted and it's something that Holdo and Leia take seriously.

And Poe...doesn't.

He keeps acting like he's Leia's second in command and it bites everyone in the ass.

Except...he is still Holdo's second in command once she assumes command of the Raddus. That's why he's in charge of the base defenses at the end of the movie. They demote him, but leave him in his position.

I'd have really liked it [actually, don't know this to be true, but given the clear intent of the plot, it would have been better executed] if they'd written him as being in the wrong, rather than just having it stated as such. But the movie is too invested in having us be surprised that Poe is supposed to be in the wrong that it mostly doesn't actually set that up properly.

That is really interesting, because Chirrut's sense of humor is a big part of the reason I like that film.

So, I think the intent is clear. Poe screws up by letting his machismo and arrogance run away with him (and we'll put to one side the question of taste in having that be the storyline we're giving to our (singular?) Latino actor) and is unwilling to accept Holdo's leadership, with undertones of sexism as a potential motivator. He screws up. Holdo makes the big sacrifice play. Poe realizes he was wrong. And when given the opportunity to make a different choice, he chooses to follow orders this time.

There's nothing wrong with the bare bones of the plot. The problem, in my view, is that the film wants this to be a twist [and maybe the executives very much don't want one of their new power trio to be a sexist dickhead] and for the audience to be as surprised as Poe is that he's wrong. So it does a bunch of stuff to try to make it seem like Poe is right, to preserve the twist that he (and the audience) were wrong. And in so doing, it leaves the whole thing an unbalanced mess, because the audience, though presumably invested in Poe and disconnected from Holdo as a totally new character, isn't actually in Poe's shoes. They should be able to see it coming and the desire to prevent that, messes up the whole storyline.

ETA: I do wonder how much of this is genre convention too? Because if you view this as a mystery story (who is right, Poe or Holdo? What is Holdo up to?) then a lot of the stuff becomes more clearly intentional misdirects which are usually acceptable in mysteries as the author (and characters) are trying to confuse the issue so the detective (and audience) can't figure it out. But...that's not what TLJ appears to be and Holdo and Poe ought to be 100% on the same side, regardless of how much the like/dislike each other.

Edited by ECD on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:56:44 AM

It's all truly strange and bizarre. Like if Holdo doesn't think he has any rank, and if she thinks he will only cause trouble, either distract him with some task to do or send him to the brig. Detain his ass.

Do. Something. Please. Nobody is stopping you. If he's a pain in the ass, kick his ass.

Edited by Patar136 on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:53:50 AM