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Skink exactly - Poe isn't a low ranking officer even if he was "demoted*". And it seems clear that the crew of the ship don't really have much to do other than lick their wounds and hide on the ship. There's no montage scene showing how hard they are all working; if anything we are shown that the key members are mostly loafing around whilst others are seeking to escape the ship (and being prevented to do so by an officer who took it upon herself to guard the escape pods).

If anything they are too blatant with how they are setting up the crew to mutiny. They should have built a montage or other scene into the early part to be clearly filling the bulk of the crews time. The mutiny will still fit as you just fill in that the crew are all working very hard to achieve "nothing" since they are unaware of the greater plan at work.
Indeed they "sort" of do this as most of the non-central characters do appear to be always working and moving with purpose in the background - but because they are in the background that fact is not really highlighted to the viewer.



*heck considering how many fighter pilots they have at this stage even being a low ranking one is still a pretty high rank. They don't have a fleet as much as a handful.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I can understand not telling every single person about the plan, but Poe was still a high ranking pilot. It made it even more silly when Holdo told Poe she knows how to deal with hot shots like him (can't remember the exact wording) because it's what ultimately lead to them being whittled down to almost nothing.

As for telling the rest of the people on board, I can understand wanting to keep it quiet, but it's also equally stupid to come across like you're not doing anything. With what I assumed was probably hundreds or thousands of people on board, if they all believe they're just floating slowly to their death some of them are going to end up making trouble, whether it's mutiny or defection or taking matters in to their own hands.

What the command needed to do was think up something that at least made it look like they were trying (I dunno, like sending ships off to try and contact potential allies) to keep spirits up then when the secret rebel base pops up go "haha, this was our plan all along".

Think about that for a second though, if there were thousands of people on board, not telling them we're abandoning ship is akin to the scene in titanic where they lock up the third class passengers so the first class passengers can evacuate. It really just shows what a horrible person Holdo is.

anyone who thinks holdo withholding information from the crew is a good idea has obviously never spent any time in the military.

Pretty sure they openly state there's only 200 of them on board don't they? Or is that latter?

 LordofHats wrote:
Pretty sure they openly state there's only 200 of them on board don't they? Or is that latter?

I think its more than 200 considering the number of transports that escape and who appear to be filling the ship in the background ;however yes they are down to critically low numbers of people. After the ice battle the number appears to be down into the tens considering they all fit onto the Falcon. Considering the number of upper ranks they lost; the number of lower and also the lack of any other worlds joining their rebellion it gives the impression that, by the end of the film, the Rebellion is well and truly smashed (as opposed to, say, the end of Empire Strikes Back where the Rebellion actually ends on a fairly positive note - having suffered a lot of defeats they are shown to be actually safe and in a fairly good level of order and regrouping).

sirlynchmob wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I can understand not telling every single person about the plan, but Poe was still a high ranking pilot. It made it even more silly when Holdo told Poe she knows how to deal with hot shots like him (can't remember the exact wording) because it's what ultimately lead to them being whittled down to almost nothing.

As for telling the rest of the people on board, I can understand wanting to keep it quiet, but it's also equally stupid to come across like you're not doing anything. With what I assumed was probably hundreds or thousands of people on board, if they all believe they're just floating slowly to their death some of them are going to end up making trouble, whether it's mutiny or defection or taking matters in to their own hands.

What the command needed to do was think up something that at least made it look like they were trying (I dunno, like sending ships off to try and contact potential allies) to keep spirits up then when the secret rebel base pops up go "haha, this was our plan all along".

Think about that for a second though, if there were thousands of people on board, not telling them we're abandoning ship is akin to the scene in titanic where they lock up the third class passengers so the first class passengers can evacuate. It really just shows what a horrible person Holdo is.

anyone who thinks holdo withholding information from the crew is a good idea has obviously never spent any time in the military.

Yeah but they can't tell people too early because if the FO finds out about it from a spy or whatnot they can just jump some ships there and destroy the plan (of course another issue is why the FO didn't just jump ships in front of them in the first place).

@ Sebster

You really need to take a breath and a long hard look at your posts and realise how condescending they are. You talk about us getting angry - we didn't post this, now did we:

Holy fething gak feth. feth. I said in my first fething post that I thought those patriarchy reasons weren't right. I've corrected people each time they mistakenly assumed that I thought they were. Still people post stuff like that. fething stop it. fething read what I'm actually fething writing.

- change the feth words to what they actually are and thats a explosion of anger and insults. I donlt know why you are so hugely invested n this film or what need you have to justfiy it to yourself and to others but its probably going to give you an ulcer.

This imo only became an issue because of an offhand conversation consisting of about four lines where Holdo admits to liking Poe after he staged a mutiny that could have potentially killed everyone on board after his super risky plan failed. That one line throws the entire series of her interactions with him into question. Either she likes him and thinks he's capable of being a good leader when the time to bat comes up, or she thinks he's reckless and can't be trusted and should be kept far away from anything of importance. That pendulum just doesn't swing both ways, and sure as hell not after a mutiny is staged.

Agreed - also wondered about the reaction if a male commander had said yeah but she's cute so whatever after a female characrter had staged a mutiny and potentially nearly killed everyone.

The plan on the Ship of Fools was a nothing but poorly written plot device to have Finn and Rose haev an adventure - they had multiple ships so could have scattered early on in the oh so long and tedious chase. Every aspect of this points towards rushed and/or lazy writting or lack of ommunication between writting teams.

Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

Aye but the mutiny she should have expected. You can't take the last remaining rebels, likely most of the loyalist and most die-hard of the bunch; and leave them with hints of some superplan without any details or anything to go by whilst running from a doom-ship that's firing on them. Esp when your fleet of 3 is soon a single ship - having the other two blasted away.

Esp if you don't at least let the team leaders and middle ranks at least have some idea that there's a plan you are working toward. If you ignore the middle and lower ranks that way then sure they are going to get more and more desperate; even more so when in one scene you suddenly lose most of your upper ranks.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

But she calls him out on being a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff, what's a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff going to do when there is apparently no plan to get them out of "certain" death?

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

But she calls him out on being a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff, what's a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff going to do when there is apparently no plan to get them out of "certain" death?

Why should she reveal the big picture to a hot-shot who doesn't understand the big picture stuff?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

But she calls him out on being a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff, what's a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff going to do when there is apparently no plan to get them out of "certain" death?

Why should she reveal the big picture to a hot-shot who doesn't understand the big picture stuff?

It's not that she has to reveal the plan, but that she has to reveal ANY plan.

My first thought at the end of the briefing where she is put in charge and where everyone important is getting their orders was "Wait what orders." She dismisses the entire briefing without actually giving them any structure, plan or solution other than "we are working on it". This she keeps up right until after the crew mutiny.
She gives them no order other than that they are not fighting back; not doing anything specific (other than licking wounds after defeat) and that they are running their only last ship to the last dribbles of fuel - where upon the big shp behind them will destroy them without question.

The viewer notices this very early on that there is no structure of guidance to key characters who are in key positions within the rebellion. It sets the mutiny scene up wonderfully; but at the same time provides no actual reason for Holdo to have withheld the information as to the plan or at least to any structure of any plan to survive the situation. Essentially we see the upper handful of the rebellion close ranks on the rest of the rebellion without any reasoning





Also its not that big a picture to reveal - the are running to hidden rebel base that's basically a huge fortress where they'll then have a staging ground to contact other nations/worlds to give them aid like they did in times past. It's a very simple plan. You don't have to "get the big picture" to get that plan
However if the Imperials knew of it (spy) then they would most certainly have jumped ahead of the fleeing transport; or otherwise have found ways to scupper the plan (evne just paying attention to the transports more so when they fled

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

But she calls him out on being a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff, what's a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff going to do when there is apparently no plan to get them out of "certain" death?

Why should she reveal the big picture to a hot-shot who doesn't understand the big picture stuff?

it leads one to conclude she left him out of the loop because she was going to leave him on the ship to die.

Poe's expected to fight for the cause, die for the cause, lead the cause, but trust him with the plan? that's just to far. Holdo logic.

It's called training, apparently Poe is just supposed to read minds to learn what the big picture is on his own, then still not be trusted with the big picture.

In that case one must conclude that Holdo was going to leave everyone on board the ship to die, since she did not confide in any of them.

However obviously this isn't the case, since her plan from the beginning was to get everybody off the ship at the last minute, and she protected their retreat by her own sacrifice.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

I'm not saying she should have known it would happen or planned to prevent it, merely that as a matter of plot the whole "suspense" is dependent on a really bizarre series of decisions from Holdo that seem to be made only so that the plot can occur. It doesn't flow naturally imo from the characters themselves (namely the one who claims to like Poe after the fact, yet completely blew him off and went out of her way to agitate him earlier in the film). The film presents Holdo as both liking Poe, and after a mutiny he engineered at that, and treating him like someone who can't be trusted with even rudimentary information. It's contradictory, but it was apparently necessary for the plot to function while retaining Poe's hero status so that's how the plot went.

It makes the whole thing feel like a contrivance rather than a wholistic development.

The whole thing would have been resolved in my eyes if Holdo had simply never liked Poe, and the consequences of Poe's actions (he literally fethed everything) actually being called out. There was a learning experience here, but literally no one calls Poe out on how badly he fethed that up, and even the person who presumably would have most reason to be upset with him, after already not liking him, suddenly revealing she actually likes him deep down? It causes the entire plot to fall apart into a convenient series of events that depends of inconsistent characterization.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In that case one must conclude that Holdo was going to leave everyone on board the ship to die, since she did not confide in any of them..

Exactly and that's why there was a mutiny.
Don't forget these are the most loyal and last of the rebellion - those who would lay down their lives willingly and remain on the ship if they knew that at least Leia and the other leading members were able to escape to continue the fight against the First Order. You can't just take people with that level of dedication and mindset and leave them nothing to go on for no reason.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

But she calls him out on being a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff, what's a brash hot shot who doesn't comprehend big picture stuff going to do when there is apparently no plan to get them out of "certain" death?

Why should she reveal the big picture to a hot-shot who doesn't understand the big picture stuff?

Mostly because they have a tendency to go off and do something stupid, or come up with their own plan that ends up ruining what you were originally planning to do.

She doesn't have to give him everything, just something to keep the faith.

At which point you can have some plot for him becoming an actual leader.

Throw Finn on the medical ship as he needs to recuperate or something, he still tries to leave to go find Rey, Rose can still stun him. They end up fighting off a boarding action where they develop chemistry and he invests in the resistance.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In that case one must conclude that Holdo was going to leave everyone on board the ship to die, since she did not confide in any of them.

However obviously this isn't the case, since her plan from the beginning was to get everybody off the ship at the last minute, and she protected their retreat by her own sacrifice.

To the people onboard, that did appear to be the case. As a wise man once said "in the absense of facts, rumors fill the void" All good leaders know this and account for it by getting the facts out by holding a mission briefing. I learned it at a leadership course, go figure.

No, she probably didn't see the mutany coming or the side plot, but that really goes back to her horrible plan and execution of it. Let's remember sacrificing herself was not part of the plan, her plan was to run her ship out of gas and hope the first order blew it up. But in all likelyhood that ship would have just been captured comprimising the entire rebellion and ensuring any "friends" still out there loyal to the rebellion we're not long for the world. She had a horrible plan, a illconcieved plan that if she had held a briefing with her senior staff, would have revealed it was doomed to fail.

 sebster wrote:


You're not following. The film can be criticised for not including necessary background information. It can be said, quite reasonably, that the background makes little sense without that information.

But you can't complain that the events are impossible or can't happen, when there is detail showing how what happened could quite plausibly happen within the Star Wars universe.

You said it yourself: without that background it makes no sense. So why discuss? This means that that information is necessary to attempt maintain a suspension of disbelief. I say attempt because most of this additional material is written by people desperate to make this preposterous stuff work.

Again, you're not following. The Empire built ships and military weapons up to a certain scale. The FO built bigger. Calling that a fairly boring approach from the creators of the new trilogy is a legitimate complaint. But saying it is impossible within the setting because the FO is a smaller empire is a nonsense complaint, because making that assessment means knowing whether how much of its total production the Empire chose to put towards military assets, which is something we do not know.

This is not how world-building works. If there is a discrepancy, is generally acknowledged. Say, two officers discussing it ("boy, we are going all in with the resources for this fleet"). They just did not care because nothing in the FO makes sense.
Also, this is not an answer. If people have problem with scale, pointing out at nonsense, discrepancies and whatnot, you cannot just write it down as a nonsense and call it an argument. If you don't have anything to advance the discussion, do not bother to answer.

Starkiller was mobile. This wasn't shown clearly in the movies. But what was shown clearly in the movies is that having fired once, the weapon was loading up to fire a second time. Which makes your complaint that it was a one shot weapon plainly false.

But will eventually run out of the energy used. Also seeing that during the rebel attack with Poe they have to eat a star, is quite clear they run out of resources very fast.
Sorry, it does not hold water.
And again. "This wasn't shown clearly in the movies.". Why you people defend this stuff?

Given we don't have any real world examples of galactic empires, we use the examples we have. If you don't think those examples can be used, then we have no basis for comparison and no means to determine whether the rate of expansion shown was fast enough. So there are two options - we use the historic examples we have, in which case we have seen empires expand at a rate equal to or faster than the FO. Or we don't accept that historic empires can be used to estimate how fast galactic empires might expand, in which case we have no frame of reference and no means of saying whether the FO was too fast.

I have another option: let's stop to use false comparison to defend a poorly written movie and a poorly built setting.

So either way your complaint is nonsense.

"your refusal to accept my nonsense is nonsensical"

That's not how all movies work. Not every film is meant to be a battle of wits between very smart characters. Very often stories will show fatal mistakes as terrible, even foolish, to make a point about the flaws of the good guys. I mean for God's sake, Palpatine being right under the noses of the Jedi Order wasn't a flaw because it made the Jedi mistake so terrible, it was a deliberate bit of writing to say something about the Jedi order.

Are you aware of the scale? Reading the rest of what you wrote I suppose not. You are comparing the arrogance of a single man to the logistic of a galactic republic. You are really fond of comparisons that do not hold water. Also, since this is a republic, is I think less centralised in command so I guess the single guy that realised "uuh, we should probably not put all the eggs in one basket" was not force chocked to shut him up.

No, you misused the word because you don't understand. A leitmotif is part of a deliberate pattern, a writer will deliberately use a melody or a variation on that melody each time a character appears, for instance. But instead you used it to describe regular instances of what you thought was bad writing. That's not what the words means, there are other words tha can be used to describe that pattern, such as say... pattern. Dropping in lietmotif is trying to impress with knowledge you don't have.

This is what I answered above. Of course is not deliberate, but is so frequent it looks like it is. After all, many critics and defenders agree with me. "It's SUPPOSED to suck, is a deliberate artistic choice". Get it now? Do you need signs with the fingers, a drawing?

You posted this immediately after complaining that I was trying to poison the well. What the hell is going on here?

I am not going to answer this. Anyone with half wit that followed your posts is aware of what happened.

Disney is a $50 billion organisation. Investors barely noticed The Lone Ranger and John Carter of Mars suffering horrifc tanks. The idea that investors will be shouting angry questions at the AGM because TLJ dropped from TFA is a bit silly. Investors will likely be very pleased with all three Disney Star Wars movies cracking a billion in box office takes, because that will mean god knows how much in related merchandise sales.

And in fact, the Lone Ranger and John Carter got immediately 4 sequels planned each. I find it amusing that you keep bringing argument against your points.
Hell, Whedon was canned for going 100m under.

There's no judgement. I've said repeatedly that I am not for one second saying anyone's reaction to the movie was wrong. Quite the opposite, it is because I accept the reaction as genuine, I want to figure out the cause.

I have said this so many times. It is increasingly looking like you are deliberately ignoring my actual posts so you can enjoy being offended.

Nope, you are just dishonestly backtracking now.

There's no reason not to tell everyone? In a war. About a stealth operation to sneak away from the enemy pursuers.

No reason at all. Because if there's one thing we know about military life, it is that they always make sure to tell absolutely everyone about every detail of what command is planning.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In that case one must conclude that Holdo was going to leave everyone on board the ship to die, since she did not confide in any of them.

However obviously this isn't the case, since her plan from the beginning was to get everybody off the ship at the last minute, and she protected their retreat by her own sacrifice.

To the people onboard, that did appear to be the case. As a wise man once said "in the absense of facts, rumors fill the void" All good leaders know this and account for it by getting the facts out by holding a mission briefing. I learned it at a leadership course, go figure.

No, she probably didn't see the mutany coming or the side plot, but that really goes back to her horrible plan and execution of it. Let's remember sacrificing herself was not part of the plan, her plan was to run her ship out of gas and hope the first order blew it up. But in all likelyhood that ship would have just been captured comprimising the entire rebellion and ensuring any "friends" still out there loyal to the rebellion we're not long for the world. She had a horrible plan, a illconcieved plan that if she had held a briefing with her senior staff, would have revealed it was doomed to fail.

It also appeared to the audience that Holdo didn't have a plan. I think this was a deliberate piece of writing to increase the tension and doubt in the audience's mind.

If this required Holdo to not be the best admiral in the Star Wars history by not informing Poe about it, then it was a price worth paying. There are good "in universe" reasons why Holdo wouldn't tell Poe.

You can say the plan was ill-conceived by hindsight, but there doesn't seem to have been a better plan available, given the tactical situation of the fleets.

And after all, Holdo's plan actually worked. Many of the transports escaped to the secret base. They were able to contact the outer rim systems for help, and would have been able to hold out against the Empire except for the battering cannon.

The "she can't tell poe the plan because their might be spies" argument breaks once you examine the situation - knowing what the plan was after the fact.

If there is a spy on the ship and they have the ability to communicate with the first order. No plan relying on stealth or misdirection is going to work.

Once the spy informs the first order that the transports are being loaded - they know what to expect - and we know what happens when they expect the plan. The transports get blown up by the doom ship.

All it took to foil this plan was the suggestion that the transports were going to try to get the the planet using stealth.

Lets just call it like it is. Holdo was Disney's attempt to make a strong female leader. The issue is Disney thinks the best way to actually do this is to have this female leader treating men like insects. These aren't actually leadership qualities - they are feminist qualities. It really shows. They think they can cover it up with the self-righteous suicide but that also fails because we know this ship should actually have an auto pilot.

I mean, all of this nit-picking about Holdo's plan completely dissolves away behind the "why didn't the FO just hyperspace ahead of them?" question for me.

That's just a hole that I can't fill, even by reading Wookieepedia.

Stuff should be explained in the narrative and the bad guys should be a credible threat.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In that case one must conclude that Holdo was going to leave everyone on board the ship to die, since she did not confide in any of them.

However obviously this isn't the case, since her plan from the beginning was to get everybody off the ship at the last minute, and she protected their retreat by her own sacrifice.

To the people onboard, that did appear to be the case. As a wise man once said "in the absense of facts, rumors fill the void" All good leaders know this and account for it by getting the facts out by holding a mission briefing. I learned it at a leadership course, go figure.

No, she probably didn't see the mutany coming or the side plot, but that really goes back to her horrible plan and execution of it. Let's remember sacrificing herself was not part of the plan, her plan was to run her ship out of gas and hope the first order blew it up. But in all likelyhood that ship would have just been captured comprimising the entire rebellion and ensuring any "friends" still out there loyal to the rebellion we're not long for the world. She had a horrible plan, a illconcieved plan that if she had held a briefing with her senior staff, would have revealed it was doomed to fail.

It also appeared to the audience that Holdo didn't have a plan. I think this was a deliberate piece of writing to increase the tension and doubt in the audience's mind.

If this required Holdo to not be the best admiral in the Star Wars history by not informing Poe about it, then it was a price worth paying. There are good "in universe" reasons why Holdo wouldn't tell Poe.

You can say the plan was ill-conceived by hindsight, but there doesn't seem to have been a better plan available, given the tactical situation of the fleets.

And after all, Holdo's plan actually worked. Many of the transports escaped to the secret base. They were able to contact the outer rim systems for help, and would have been able to hold out against the Empire except for the battering cannon.

How much tension do you need though? The whole rebelion is on 3 ships being chased by a doom ship. It's a tense situation.

Plus - there is a better plan. Instead of letting the other 2 ships run out of fuel. Hyperdrive suicide them. You could at least bring down the doom ship.

I've been saying for a while- Poe is absolutely the worst person to lock out of the loop on any plan.

1) Commands the Starfighter force, providing him with troops directly loyal to him.

2) Riding a personal high of being the hero of Starkiller Base, and the at worst Pyrrhic victory against the Dreadnaught. he can likely draw upon any potential mutineers not under his command, on the basis of reputation.

3) Very Recently demoted. A lot of people likely still think of him as Commander Dameron, so he draws a bit more support that way.

4) History of disobeying orders if he feels that it's the right thing to do.

So, he has both troops available to help a mutiny plan, and is the sort of person who would stage a mutiny. You do not want him floating around getting bored and desperate.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I mean, all of this nit-picking about Holdo's plan completely dissolves away behind the "why didn't the FO just hyperspace ahead of them?" question for me.

That's just a hole that I can't fill, even by reading Wookieepedia.

Stuff should be explained in the narrative and the bad guys should be a credible threat.

OFC - the entire situation is silly. The whole movie never should have happend and the resistance is too weak to even care about.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In that case one must conclude that Holdo was going to leave everyone on board the ship to die, since she did not confide in any of them.

However obviously this isn't the case, since her plan from the beginning was to get everybody off the ship at the last minute, and she protected their retreat by her own sacrifice.

To the people onboard, that did appear to be the case. As a wise man once said "in the absense of facts, rumors fill the void" All good leaders know this and account for it by getting the facts out by holding a mission briefing. I learned it at a leadership course, go figure.

No, she probably didn't see the mutany coming or the side plot, but that really goes back to her horrible plan and execution of it. Let's remember sacrificing herself was not part of the plan, her plan was to run her ship out of gas and hope the first order blew it up. But in all likelyhood that ship would have just been captured comprimising the entire rebellion and ensuring any "friends" still out there loyal to the rebellion we're not long for the world. She had a horrible plan, a illconcieved plan that if she had held a briefing with her senior staff, would have revealed it was doomed to fail.

It also appeared to the audience that Holdo didn't have a plan. I think this was a deliberate piece of writing to increase the tension and doubt in the audience's mind.

If this required Holdo to not be the best admiral in the Star Wars history by not informing Poe about it, then it was a price worth paying. There are good "in universe" reasons why Holdo wouldn't tell Poe.

You can say the plan was ill-conceived by hindsight, but there doesn't seem to have been a better plan available, given the tactical situation of the fleets.

And after all, Holdo's plan actually worked. Many of the transports escaped to the secret base. They were able to contact the outer rim systems for help, and would have been able to hold out against the Empire except for the battering cannon.

It didn't create tension, it just made Holdo look laughably incompetent, I saw a captain removed from command for less. As someone who's been to a briefing for a swim call. Swim call is when they let us sailors off the ship in the middle of the ocean. the military is all about briefings and letting us know what's going on.

No, there was absolutely no reason to keep Poe out of the loop. if he's that untrusted Poe should leave the rebellion over this. Not that there's a rebellion to leave, because it's dead and over.

You don't need hindsight, if your plan starts with only you knowing it, it's doomed to fail. If you only trust some of your crew then your breeding a hostile work place with no morale, and that directly leads to human errors and mutiny's. A mission briefing that included Poe and the other senior staff would more than likely reveal better plans. Her plan did not work, it ended the rebellion causing the deaths of almost everyone.

On the "just hyperdrive ahead" is easily explained. Hyperdrives likely can't work on short distances, so the First Order can't just leap ahead because the ship will leap so far ahead that the Rebel ship will run out of fuel before it even catches up. Similarly its space, so the Rebel ship could just take a change its angle; the First Order would have had to have built a net of additional ships ahead in order to block the path of the fleeting rebel ship.

Well, Poe was captured and mind tortured by Kylo in TFA. So maybe Holdo didn't want to clue him in on the plan just in case Kylo was able to tap into his mind? This would have meant the majority of people needed to be kept in the dark too.

While I agree this would have been good to show on screen, it is clear the filmmakers chose to keep the audience in the dark to build suspense (an not make Poe look stupid until the right moment)
Remember, one of the main themes of this movie is failure and what it costs and can teach us.

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sirlynchmob wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In that case one must conclude that Holdo was going to leave everyone on board the ship to die, since she did not confide in any of them.

However obviously this isn't the case, since her plan from the beginning was to get everybody off the ship at the last minute, and she protected their retreat by her own sacrifice.

To the people onboard, that did appear to be the case. As a wise man once said "in the absense of facts, rumors fill the void" All good leaders know this and account for it by getting the facts out by holding a mission briefing. I learned it at a leadership course, go figure.

No, she probably didn't see the mutany coming or the side plot, but that really goes back to her horrible plan and execution of it. Let's remember sacrificing herself was not part of the plan, her plan was to run her ship out of gas and hope the first order blew it up. But in all likelyhood that ship would have just been captured comprimising the entire rebellion and ensuring any "friends" still out there loyal to the rebellion we're not long for the world. She had a horrible plan, a illconcieved plan that if she had held a briefing with her senior staff, would have revealed it was doomed to fail.

It also appeared to the audience that Holdo didn't have a plan. I think this was a deliberate piece of writing to increase the tension and doubt in the audience's mind.

If this required Holdo to not be the best admiral in the Star Wars history by not informing Poe about it, then it was a price worth paying. There are good "in universe" reasons why Holdo wouldn't tell Poe.

You can say the plan was ill-conceived by hindsight, but there doesn't seem to have been a better plan available, given the tactical situation of the fleets.

And after all, Holdo's plan actually worked. Many of the transports escaped to the secret base. They were able to contact the outer rim systems for help, and would have been able to hold out against the Empire except for the battering cannon.

It didn't create tension, it just made Holdo look laughably incompetent, I saw a captain removed from command for less. As someone who's been to a briefing for a swim call. Swim call is when they let us sailors off the ship in the middle of the ocean. the military is all about briefings and letting us know what's going on.

No, there was absolutely no reason to keep Poe out of the loop. if he's that untrusted Poe should leave the rebellion over this. Not that there's a rebellion to leave, because it's dead and over.

You don't need hindsight, if your plan starts with only you knowing it, it's doomed to fail. If you only trust some of your crew then your breeding a hostile work place with no morale, and that directly leads to human errors and mutiny's. A mission briefing that included Poe and the other senior staff would more than likely reveal better plans. Her plan did not work, it ended the rebellion causing the deaths of almost everyone.

It created tension in me.

 Overread wrote:
On the "just hyperdrive ahead" is easily explained. Hyperdrives likely can't work on short distances, so the First Order can't just leap ahead because the ship will leap so far ahead that the Rebel ship will run out of fuel before it even catches up. Similarly its space, so the Rebel ship could just take a change its angle; the First Order would have had to have built a net of additional ships ahead in order to block the path of the fleeting rebel ship.

If it's not possible - they should have stated it was not possible.

 sebster wrote:

Seriously, if the film had spent ten seconds to explain that command doesn't actually explain their plans to junior officers I would have thought that incredibly patronising. I really thought command making sure plans are on a need to know basis was something that most people knew about. Especially when the plan is built around stealth and deception.

I mean, there's plenty of holes in the plot. But Holdo keeping the escape plan secret wasn't one. It's actually one of the more sensible bits of bits of plotting you'll see in a Star Wars movie.

Although your comment makes sense, it doesn't really match the Star Wars movies. Whoever is in charge always has a gathering to discuss the "plan". It consists of all the top brass, leaders of groups like Red Squadron, and main characters. So even though this isn't sensible it is a theme that shows up in the movies. However I could let it pass if Holdo handled Poe better. Howe about she place both her hands on his shoulders and she whispers "I need you to trust in me and the force". Instead she was snarky and came off as a very unlikable character.


Evidence of plans:


A New Hope


Empire Strikes Back


Return of the Jedi


The Force Awakens


The Phantom Menace