ST How does the Holdo Maneuver not break Star Wars?

To me it's one of the worst things about the ST. A "one in a million" chance of working and works the only time tried on screen. Diminishes the importance of every space battle seen in films.

 

What worked about it?

The FO fleet is visually "destroyed". And the next minute Kylo. and a dozen ATATs, are on the surface blowing up the base like nothing happened.

The entire thing was inconsequential. Like most of every single part of the narrative of TLJ.

 

That’s a good point. Even if answering a cynical question by being even more cynical lol.
I agree about TLJ, it tried to up the stakes but just deflated everything. Empire Strikes Back had a lot of moments where I was depressed, or frustrated for the good guys, but it never felt like going in circles like TLJ inevitably felt like it was doing.

 

I liked the scene at my midnight screening, it was dramatic, tbh. I was much more invested in the weight of events transpiring around that point in the film, initially.
But it doesn’t make a lot of sense under any kind of scrutiny.
The fact Rey just disappears for a while after sums it up.
It was kind of a quick fix solution to a few of the story arcs, and like stated above it doesn’t actually amount to anything ultimately.

 

I think as far as it breaking Star Wars, there's all sorts of explanations that can explain why it can't be replicated - from the actual ability being linked to the hyperspace tracking phenomena utilized by the Supremacy itself (the tracking itself creating a shadow in hyperspace that allows some sort of physical contact in transtion to hyperspace), to needing massive ships on both ends to make it possible (both ships are the respective largest ships in the fleet from both sides in canon) to needing a ship with the superlative shield capacity of an MC-85 (which held off multiple volleys from the First Order flagship) to make a dent. Any and all of these can be mixed together to handwave or pseudoscience things away pretty effectively. Like noted, it was a very pretty effect and had a big visual impact. I myself would have preferred a last stand to play out differently, including the Raddus actually firing shots, but what are you going to do.

I think losing their flagship and at least a large part of the fleet present would be a massive blow to the First Order - that they were able to scrape together some AT-MTs from a cirippled Star Destroyer to mount an assault doesn't diminish from that. I'm looking at the in universe war at large rather than the general audience watching things on screen but I think the blow to the First Order justifies for the universe what is an excuse to have an impactful visual. Now Rey not killing Kylo on the spot afterwards requires some more fixing but who knows where she was blown away to versus having to flee a dyng ship.

 

The Holdo maneuver messed with the timeline, restoring a slightly altered version of the Abramsverse first seen in VII. Hence Rose is pretty much dropped for IX, ghost Luke is more of a hopeful Jedi, Rey is child of consequential parentage, etc. And the Holdo maneuver no longer exists.

 

The problem is consequence. Nothing ever matters in this trilogy.

The Resistance destroys SKB, and sends the FO running for their lives. But the next minute the FO reign the galaxy are are chasing down the Resistance like they're criminals and killing the last survivors one by one.

The Holdo Maneuver destroys the FO fleet, but minutes later Kylo has 'scrapped together' just enough AT ATs (IE: plenty of them) to destroy the Resistance base that Holdo sacrificed her life so they could hide in without being noticed. So not only didn't she stop the FO for more than a minute, but they found the base just as quickly if she hadn't done what she did.

There are more. Rey rushes off to save Kylo, and in the process discovers her parents are drunkards, but minutes later she's killing Finn's former kidnapped comrades with absolute glee.

Palpatine dies. But nope, he's back. Somehow. Just to die again. And wait, Rey is a Palpatine. But that doesn't matter either. Cuz now she's a Skywalker.

Consequence. The ST has none. And that means there are no stakes. And that means there's no drama. No point to any of it. It's just pew pew pew on screen for 6 hours.

 

It's a shame we don't already have a massive thread about all the ways the ST did hyperspace wrong. Oh, wait...

ST - Hyperspace Use In The ST | Jedi Council Forums (theforce.net)

 

I'm not really arguing the dramatic effects of what happened and whether they do or don't resonate with me. I'm addressing whether the events ruin Star Wars space combat. I would prefer not having to come up with reasons why they don't (like I said, I'd have preferred the Raddus turn around and fight versus the manuever on screen). But since I don't want space combat in Star Wars dictated by hyperspace missiles, I prefer it not to; and it's not hard to come up with reasons not to have that be the case as mentioned in my post. Was it worth it for a pretty scene - up to the viewer, but my interest is in salvaging space comabat.

Similarly with the AT-M6s, in universe, I think having the number shown on screen is paltry compared to what those kilometres long Star Destroyers actually carry. Heck even half of a 60 km wide ship can hold a LOT of stuff. The fact that the ships themselves are pretty much toast still is a major loss to the First Order in universe. Again, feel free to draw issue with narrative impact (the ST are my least favourite Star Wars films) but what's presented on screen doesn't stretch credulity more than most everythng else Star Wars presents. There are certainly issues one can have with the ST (I have plenty of my own) but not everything in them ruins Star Wars.

 

Lack of consequence inevitably ruins everything, including space combat.

And even just ONE AT-AT showing up on Crait ruins whatever strategy Holdo was going after. RJ invented this insane new combat maneuver, pretended it worked, while it didn't, and now we have to wonder why no else in SW tried this before. It's not a one-in-a-million shot despite whatever JJ said to salvage the mistake. A one-in-a-million shot was Luke blowing up the Death Star using the force. That's hard to replicate. Ramming your ship into another ship, no matter what speed you're going is not that hard to accomplish. Certainly not comparable to using the force to fire at a hole no bigger than a wamprat.

And given the visuals, the fleet was destroyed. Getting a dozen AT-ATs to the surface of Crait along with a very special death star cannon - as if NOTHING happened to the rest of their fleet - is incredulous.

RJ wanted his cake and to eat it too. He wanted the fleet destroyed to make Holdo look like some heroic brilliant military strategist doing things no one has done before, all to sacrifice herself to save the Resistance, but then wanted Kylo to fight Luke anyway and for the Resistance to die save for 12 people.

 

Like I said, depends on what type of ship, shields etc. Also, again maybe it is hyperspace anomalous nature of events for why Raddus doesn't just shift through Supermacy as it slips into hyperspace. Or if you go with it being in realspace fully the whole time, see the other explanations already mentioned. The Supremacy is also a pretty big target compared to any other Ship in the Star Wars universe being hit by another massive ship and that may account for the impact (plus again, the shields being what they were shown to be for the Raddus puts it into a class of its own). Also from what was on screen, the Supremacy itself is half intact, and not hard to imagine a pepripheral Star Destroyer off-screen surviving. So seems like lots of places to get walkers and drop ships compared to the literally hundreds (thousands?) that the fleet could have held. Now maybe that means instead of an even more overwhelming force hitting the surface, we got what we see.

 

But why would that be a real blow, when the destruction of starkiller base isn't, as far as TLJ develops?

 

I think Starkiller base being around would have been a total fait accompli as far as control of the galaxy goes. That is, no need to even send ships to cow the rest of the galaxy when you have such as superweapon. Really the war would have been effectively totally over with Starkiller around. So I do think it is a blow in universe. With that gone, at least some resistance can be expected as the fleet goes about taking over systems. Now, as alluded to as far as some of my issues with how the ST goes, I think the next phase could have been the most interesting with the First Order fleet having to actually fight multiple local fleets/remnants of the Republic but this never happened as the galaxy folds under what is left of the First Order fleet. This should have ushered in a period of actual war (I think the Episode 8 to 9 gap should have been a couple years and given birth to this confilct, but alas, was not to be)

Additionally, now they've lost their big gun and now their second biggest gun in their oversized flagship/capital plus however many Star Destroyers besides that. The subsequent conquest of the galaxy would (SHOULD) have been that much harder - ie. the Republic should have been given a fighting chance at this point. I think that the fact it was still just months to topple the rest of the galaxy with what the First Order had left is the fault of how TROS chose to pick up the story. There should have been more of an even terms battle going forward. This could have been the galaxy rising up if they heard the tale of how Luke stood up to the First Order. I guess you can argue it would be an even quicker steamrolling of the rest of the galaxy with the Ep 8 fleet intact, but I think the months referred to in the Ep 9 opening scrawl is already much too quick as far as I care for. Now Holdo may have been thinking she could kill Snoke with her tactic - she wouldn't know he's dead - or just looking to do as much damage as possible (or heck creating a massive sensor screen by splashing against the shields of the Supremacy and spraying interference into sensor readings). A few possibilities.

 

Starkiller Base is destroyed = Doesn't matter the FO chases down the Resistance and blow up their (apparently) only base.
Supremacy is destroyed = Doesn't matter the FO still arrive on Crait and wipe out the Resistance survivors save for 12 people on the Falcon.

What's the point of fighting them if the writers are just going to make them win anyway, even when they 'lose'.

Taking over the galaxy is the easiest thing the FO could do. It happens in a day. Or a few weeks at best. But even before destroying the NR, the FO wantonly travels anywhere it pleases in the galaxy - all while supposedly 'hiding'. They pretend they are the law, despite being terrorists. The Resistance pretends they are rebel criminals despite working for, and being on the side of the NR.

Nothing about this makes any damn sense. It's beyond stupid. It's inconsequential.

 

Now this I will largely agree with. I think Rian Johnson's intent was an inspirational victory but really should have had many more survive. Or, honestly, a much larger Resistance to start with and THEN survive. The strong desire to have a redo of spunky Rebels vs overwhelming Empire (to remind the general audience of the OT to make them overlook issues they had with the PT) meant a much less interesting galactic structure than we should have gotten - I would have preferred an on par secret First Order vs a complacent but still competent New Republic.

Not much is depicted of the First Order pre-TFA but from the lit material, I think Story Group tried to make them a sort of secret power - ie. The New Republic knew about these agitators but not the extent of what they had put together in the Uknown Regions. I think that still could have worked but post TFA we then should have seen a large scale pushback (or even post Hosnian Prime destruction, really) vs the First Order and not Empire vs Rebels Part 2.

Off topic, but I believe in taking things as we got them now, because we have no other choice and I think you can still find interesting story threads but for sure there could have been a more unique and satisfying way to present a new galactic conflict.

 

I've never been one to focus on the science of things that happen in Star Wars, but the ST does 'jump the shark' in several areas. Off the top of my head, the ones that stand out as being really badly thought through are:

1) The magic rey gun of Starkiller Base that can shoot in different directions and that can be seen simultaneously across the galaxy (TFA)
2) Handbrake lightspeed breaking (TFA)
3) The 'Holdo Manoeuvre' (TLJ)
3) Lightspeed skipping (?) (TROS)

 

I never questioned the practicality of Wiley Coyote’s rocket powered roller skates, nor do I concern myself with the science behind the ‘science’ of Star Wars.

The Holdo Manoeuvre didn’t break anything. There was nothing to break. No sharks have been jumped. My disbelief has been happily suspended since 1978, and hopefully it will remain that way right up until they switch me off.

 

I do think there should be more flying in Star Wars... similar to what Princess Leia did in TLJ. There's no reason why Star Wars characters can't survive in the vacuum of space and zoom around like Superman, hurling white dwarf stars at each other. I also think Indiana Jones should have used more fridges to escape. Raiders of the Lost Ark didn't have nearly enough fridges in it.

 

I’d say the conversation between Luke and Yoda on Achch-To is consequential.

 

lol it’s one of the least consequential moments in the saga.

Luke doesn’t leaned from his mistakes. He learns from Yoda literally giving him the answer. And then Luke goes and does the exact opposite of what Yoda tells him to.

RJ is a troll, The movie is a troll. The audience is being trolled lol.

 

There's also that Yoda's moment and Luke's reaction, offers nothing for him to learn. The greatest teacher failure is? Okay. What's does Luke learn from this failure? What is Luke taught? Is it just the nebulous idea of learning from failure? Hasn't Luke already learned from failure before?

 

Good to see RJ hate is still strong. [Sarcasm]

 

Luke Skywalker learnt 'failure' as early as the cave in TESB. This is part of the problem with the ST; it assumes that nothing of consequence happened in the Lucas era films... which is why the ST just repeats the same themes over and over again, but without progressing or evolving anything. That Luke Skywalker, a veteran Jedi Master at this point, who has been trained/guided by Obi-Wan, Yoda, and who had saved Anakin Skywalker from Darth Sidious/Palpatine, would be swayed into a complete about turn by Yoda's force ghost spouting a line of badly written cod philosophy, is laughable (if not lamentable).

 

Okay, I'll be honest: I simply can't fix this. It's like I need to turn my brain out at his moment in VIII and be a bit like Finn in IX, when he said "Come on, that was one in a million."

The only way it works at least a little bit for me is to say that Finn was right and you actually can not do this because you need to, let's say, pull the trigger back at the right moment so the spaceship manages it to make such wide damage to a fleet (instead of just hitting the one obstacle ahead). Like some whatever-bull****-physics. And even though Holdo is not force-sensitive the force was with her in that moment so she was able to do this "one-in-a-million"-timing. But then you could ask: "Then why didn't they just use droids in small affordable spaceships to crash into the Death Star and so on?" So, yes, it kind of ruined the logic of the established SW. Except of you argue that the concept I pointed out works in general. Like you can only hit spaceships at all if you manage this timing-thing. Ahhh....much, much fantasy I need here.....