A/V Episode VIII - THE LAST JEDI - Official Movie Discussion Thread

Luke dies privately, after his gambit.

Holdo's sacrifice prolongs an inevitable outcome. Finn's would just be the same - they would bring in another cannon. Luke's act changes how people think.

Rose rejects martyrdom and, tying into Luke's resolution, violence as a solution in general.

 

To me the movie undermined this messege by having the rest of the ship either helping Poe in the mutiny or being indifferent. Showing that she had done nothing to show that there was a plan and that the rest of the Resistace should belive in her.

 

Holdo's an awful leadership example and she's only worse in the situation in TLJ: Outgunned at least 1000-1, with Supremacy and about 20 or however many Resurgent Star Destroyers closing in. This renders morale more important, not less. Holdo's solution: I'm the boss, shut the hell up and do what I tell you, which is nothing, while you continue to watch the other ships and all on-board die helplessly.

The film drops a battle reference, but seems to think that's enough for the audience to grant Holdo more credibility than Poe, who they do know. TLJ then ties itself into knots on trying to have it all ways, they're both right but wrong, it's all hazy. It's a mess.

 

Yeah, the film tries to portray Holdo as right and Poe as wrong, but considering the panicking crew, she's not exactly an impressive leader. Deserters in the middle of a battle aren't great either, but its not like anyone was doing anything on the ships at the time, everyone was just standing around and watching their fleet be destroyed piece by piece.

Not to mention the film jumping through a few hoops to make Poe even more wrong so as to make Holdo supposedly right (the code-slicer figuring out on his own the cloaked transport trick).

Who knows if Finn's sacrifice would have bought the Resistance time, though even with Luke's distraction, it relied on the First Order (and Kylo) being really stupid, since other than Luke no one else shows up to help. And even then, Luke is only a distraction and its a one-time thing. Its kind of boring when things are so tilted against the heroes that immense villain stupidity/arrogance is the main reason they haven't died yet (rather than putting up a decent fight, as the Rebel Alliance did).

 

Funnily enough, I read the Holdo mutiny thing the exact opposite way; the ONLY people who backed Poe were the tiny clique of his personal friends and allies, nobody else. As soon as she got the jump on the people holding guns to her, Poe's allies lasted five seconds.

He didn't figure it out on his own though; he heard Poe telling Finn that they were fuelling up transports. The film even explicitly shows him listening in on this. So he was able to tell the First Order "Oh by the way keep an eye out for transports", they did a scan for them, and boom. It absolutely was Poe's fault.

Which is, in fact, another argument for Holdo's position! I can see the case that the film goes too far with it, but it's pretty understandable if Holdo worries that Poe is going to go crazy when he hears about the plan and immediately start running around and interfering, because that's just what he does.

 

She could have said something to the effect we're going to pull a fast one on the First Order. She doesn't necessarily have to be specific.

 

Poe also doesn't share his information and plan with Holdo, which might have helped. His first impulse is insubordination and mutiny and that's...weird. Holdo has no obligation to tell Poe, who has just proven himself a liability, but Poe should share what he has planned with Holdo. He doesn't. Out of spite.

 

True, but it didn't help how she talked to him the first time they spoke, and that was before he came up with the plan. Her tone sounded very condescending. Not that it excuses the insubordination, but you could see how that would tick anyone off.

 

Sure. In a personal situation. Poe let his personal feelings endanger the entire Resistance because he trusted an FO deserter and mechanic over a Resistance general, personal friend of General Organa *and* Rebel Alliance veteran... because she spoke to him like a commanding officer reinforcing that he had just been demoted by the CO that made her CO.

I think Holdo could have been written better, but there's no point at which Poe isnt being a jackass.

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If it was just Poe & Finn, I would not have any real problem with it but Rose have no problem with not telling Holdo nor do any of the other people Poe inform, one who is part of the brig crew.

 

Except it appears that noone but the five or so mutineers were with Poe.

 

You obviously haven't read the novelization.

 

I don’t know who were Poe’s “friends and allies” in TLJ and I have no idea if the group that backed the mutiny was supposed to be his “clique” group of friends or a mix of ordinary people, and either way, it’s a lot of assumptions we’re taking here as the movie didn’t tell us any of that.

I do know that when I first watched the movie, I did think Holdo was not someone to be trusted and I wasn’t all that surprised at the mutiny. Partly because the story was told from Poe’s POV, but partly also because RJ clearly meant it as a subversion. It’s just that, the way things were told, it only left some audience confused with Holdo’s behavior.

I find Holdo to be a poor leader, but if the narrative admitted her as a flawed, fleshed out character with her own arc and journey, instead of a one-note prop for plot points, she could’ve been a more interesting character in a (could’ve been) deserving complex story about people making mistakes and learning from them.

 

Rose was a great character up until the end scene with her. "We win wars by saving what we love, not fighting what we hate!" Uh, what?

 

I don't understand the issue with that line exactly?

I mean, Rose is not my favorite character by any stretch of the imagination but it's just one line of dialogue.

 

It's a line that is a philosophical distinction, that wouldnt always be dramatically different when acted upon. It's Star Wars, so the stakes are pretty high if you fight just because you hate the bad guys, versus fighting *for* the people and principles you love.

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That was one of her lines I didn't mind. Her general rudeness toward Finn, apparently excused by the fact that it was because she liked him, is what bugged me.

 

The problem is that five people in the open don't make a successful mutiny. By doing the mutiny in the open and in front of others do the movie show (intentionally or not) that Holdo lack support, the others may not be actively mutinying but they do nothing to prevent it. It would have been different if Poe and the others that we see actively mutinying had done it secretively so the rest of the ship did not know or had locked themselves into the brig after taking over while the rest of the crew was banging on the door trying to stop them.

 

This is more or less what underpins the entire saga.

 

Yeah, exactly. I like the line because it's almost like the rest of the galaxy has really been influenced by some ripple of what transpired aboard the Death Star II between Luke and Vader. Now that confrontation and the reprecussions of it are trickling down to the normies of the galaxy.

 

Personally, I was fine with Rose. She's basically Star Wars Kaylee, which is fine by me. (And does make me wonder if she has a frilly pink dress somewhere...)

 

The Holdo thing is pretty basic in some ways, and also an interesting examination of POV (in a film that has a direct riff on Rashomon no less), insofar as until the point of "redemption" we experience Holdo through the eyes of Poe and then Connix. Just because our POV characters are not privy to a plan does not mean that the plan does not exist, and the film them demonstrates the danger of people knowing the plan - DJ exploits that ruthlessly. We dislike Holdo because we're experiencing Poe's story rather than an objective, ensemble viewpoint.

I thought the film made it clear that withholding the info from Poe partially has to do with rank, partially to do with the fact that if he learns the nature of the plan he'll lose the plot - he was demoted because he couldn't see the virtue in pulling a punch. He only accepts the plan when he is physically removed from the action.

 

Holdo was absolutely right to keep her plan super-close to the vest. The only proof they had that the FO was I tracking them through hyperspace was Leia’s assertion to this effect. The most rational explanation was that there was a spy in their ranks, and it was in their interest to double down on secrecy.

 

This is a pretty good point I haven't seen be brought up before, but you're absolutely right. Holdo was so right to withhold information from all but the few people she most likely told. Both Poe and Finn ruin her plan because they give vital information to someone completely untrustworthy, and the movie goes out of its way to beat that into our heads.

 

I think Holdo would have trusted Poe but for the fact Poe is completely untrustworthy.

He thinks he's Wedge Antilles but he's actually Saw.