Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

I mean she let the dissent among the crew get so bad that Poe actively mutinied by refusing to explain her intentions properly and generally acting in the most suspicious manner possible,...

Generally acting in the most suspicious manner possible? What about specifically acting in the most suspicious manner possible.

Did she do anything specific that was 'suspicious'?

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

...and we're supposed to root for her when Poe reacts like a reasonable human being would under the circumstance?

So would you say that everybody in the fleet that didn't commit mutiny was behaving unreasonably?

Were Poe and his handful of fellow mutineers the only reasonable ones in the entire fleet?

And no, I don't think we were meant to root for her. I think we were meant to jump to our own conclusions. The filmmakers just gave us the rope. What we did with it was up to us.

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

And then she proceeds to sit on her ass and do nothing while half the fleeing rebels get blown up.

And why were they getting blown up? Oh, right. Because five minutes after Holdo finally explained her intentions properly the reasonable guy tipped off the First Order.

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

And when she finally does decide to do something, she kills herself.

She can't do anything right, can she?

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Why is calling Leia's buns silly acceptable to everyone but the purple hair jokes set people off?

A) I can't really remember too many people teasing Leia's hair (thank you, I'll be here all week). I'm not saying it's never happened, of course. I can't remember every minute of every Robot Chicken or Family Guy spoof. I'm just saying I don't remember it ever being a thing.

B) I don't think jokes are what sets people off. Rather, I think it's when people say that it's hard to take Holdo seriously as a military leader because of the color of her hair.

That's ridiculous on its face and it's even more ridiculous when you consider that we had no trouble at all taking Princess Hair Buns and Big Orange Fishy Head Guy seriously as military leaders. Hell, we had no problem taking a muppet seriously as a military leader.

An actual muppet.

Think about that.

[stvn1974]

If George Lucas had directed the Last Jedi then Holdo's hair would have been pink for the theatrical release, green for the DVD, orange for the BD and blue for the UHD. Think about that for a second, be thankful and move on to something else.

[imsounoriginal]

This was probably already answered but I only noticed it last night -- when did Threepio's red arm have time to become gold?

[stvn1974]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

This was probably already answered but I only noticed it last night -- when did Threepio's red arm have time to become gold?

In the last scene of TFA it shows him waving with the rest of the resistance to Rey and Chewy as they fly off to find Luke and it is back to gold.

[imsounoriginal]

Never knew why he had the red arm til I Google'd it now, it's an interesting story but now having him revert to the gold one makes it kinda pointless. Oh well.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by octagon

Hell, we had no problem taking a muppet seriously as a military leader.

Ackbar is the subject of a lot of memes. But he's just a lovable side character not the subject of a mutiny plot where there is cause to evaluate his abilities.

[hasslein]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

This was probably already answered but I only noticed it last night -- when did Threepio's red arm have time to become gold?

JJ Abrams says in the commentary Anthony Daniels was very unhappy about the red arm so he gave the gold one back at the end.

[JimSmith]

Originally Posted by hardback247

is the purple hair really and more silly-looking than leia's bun hair?

Yep!!

[JimSmith]

Originally Posted by stvn1974

If George Lucas had directed the Last Jedi then Holdo's hair would have been pink for the theatrical release, green for the DVD, orange for the BD and blue for the UHD. Think about that for a second, be thankful and move on to something else.

Right back at ya slick!

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Ackbar is the subject of a lot of memes. But he's just a lovable side character not the subject of a mutiny plot where there is cause to evaluate his abilities.

I was referring to Yoda there.

[veritas]

I still feel like holdo acted a lot like pong krell. Her actions though out the movie would have made more sense if she was an imperial agent feeding the First Order their location etc and the tracking device was just a guess that turned out wrong (I mean they did get the idea from a low ranking idiot (going off her final scenes with fin) mechanic.

I mean just judge her by her actions

-she maintained a slow speed chase which the empire accepted (because we could say they had a women on the inside)

-she failed to explain any of her plans horribly demoralizing the resistance

-she literally sacked all but one of their major ships by having them run out of gas (causing zero damage to the first order)

-she placed them in small undefended escape pods which the empire could obviously track if they wanted to. (they had the fire power why wouldn't they)

IMO for the last jedi's story to make any sense you need either holdo to be an informant for the first order or you need everyone to be incompetent. The way the story was written until Leia wakes up and Holdo suicides she just looks like a plot twist villian waiting to be revealed because she makes stupid choices in like every scene shes in (and the first order responds in kind with its own stupid choices if holdos not working for them).

Anyway that's just my take on holdo the actions she takes don't make any sense and the first orders actions in response don't make any sense either everybody's incompetent or one side had inside information. It was like they randomly decided they wanted to make holdo a good guy at the last sec the whole story line was set up for her to be a betrayer it doesn't make any sense without it. Her character isn't even likable because she was written as a Benedict Arnold type.

[Takeshi666]

Originally Posted by veritas

-she failed to explain any of her plans horribly demoralizing the resistance

It's not just that, but the resistance was already demoralized. Actually providing them with some kind of a plan instead of just "we'll run until we run out of gas" would've helped tremondously.

Instead she fails to inspire loyalty in her crew.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

Instead she fails to inspire loyalty in her crew.

You guys keep saying that but it's not really true, is it?

The rest of the fleet stays loyal. There are no other mutinies and no ship captains break with Holdo. Quite the opposite, actually. We saw at least one ship's captain go down with his ship and he didn't piss and moan about failures of leadership. He stayed loyal to the very end, no?

And with the exception of Poe and four or five other mutineers the crew of Holdo's ship remained loyal as well. In fact, they fought to retake their ship, didn't they?

So we can definitely say she failed to inspire loyalty in Poe but it doesn't really go much farther than that, does it?

And how much of that is on her?

Is any of it on Poe?

[SethRex]

Poe, I believe, has faith in his leadership. He just wants to know there's a plan, and that's where Holdo fails him. He wants to know there IS a plan, and Holdo holding that back puts doubt in his mind.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by SethRex

Poe, I believe, has faith in his leadership. He just wants to know there's a plan, and that's where Holdo fails him.

But is any of that on him?

He wanted to know what was going on. He didn't get what he wanted.

Is he at all responsible for how he reacted to that?

Or is that all on Holdo?

Originally Posted by SethRex

He wants to know there IS a plan, and Holdo holding that back puts doubt in his mind.

Perhaps but I submit that just looking at her appeared put doubt in his mind.

When he says whatever it was to the effect of 'That's Holdo, Battle of Whatever Holdo? Not what I expected' he doesn't just sound surprised, he sounds skeptical.

And no, I'm not suggesting he's some raging misogynist but I can't help but wonder exactly what he was expecting and whether he might have been more willing to trust an Admiral that was more in line with his expectations.

And not for nothing, it seems like just looking at her was enough to plant seeds of doubt in many of our minds too.

In fact, I think that was the point of Poe saying that. I've said several times that I like that the filmmakers gave us rope but let us decide what we were going to do with it. I think this was part of that.

I think Poe voicing his skepticism based on appearances was a something of a permission slip for us to indulge ours.

And it was very well done too. Poe's reaction could very easily be seen in a completely innocuous light. An off-hand comment and nothing more. If we were being nudged it was with a very deft touch.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

It's not just that, but the resistance was already demoralized. Actually providing them with some kind of a plan instead of just "we'll run until we run out of gas" would've helped tremondously.

Instead she fails to inspire loyalty in her crew.

LMAO.
The screenplay fails to inspire loyalty in its movie.
You're seeing too much into this. The screenplay is mediocre at best and they just threw things in the story with no sense whatsoever.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

I wonder the same about the people who liked this piece of shit.

You have bad taste, but I must say that you're pretty right on this topic. At least...

[Gneissoid]

I'm one of those that really enjoyed TLJ, but the Poe/Holdo story line still doesn't sit well with me. I can see where Johnson was going with it - building up a situation one way, only for it to turn out differently with a lesson learned in the end. However, Holdo's arc probably could have used some stability. Not every plot point had to incorporate an upheaval of expectation.

When Poe first approaches Holdo, she calls him a reckless flyboy, the last thing they need, and tells him to shut up and go away. Poe's next actions are in line with his character and the story the audience expects. It is later revealed that Poe was in the wrong, and Holdo should have been trusted from the beginning. But for me that doesn't come across in subsequent watches - unlike other reveals which are hinted at. Holdo still feels unnecessarily dismissive and Poe feels justified.

I've read a lot on the possible reasons why Holdo did what she did. Some of them work in hindsight, but the movie holds out on a good explanation on purpose. In the end, she did what she did because Johnson wrote it that way. Holdo was an unknown to the audience and he knew we had to trust what was put in front of us. For most of the movie, Holdo mostly sounded like she didn't have a plan.

If I were writing their interactions, I would have made it more straight forward. All it would take is for Holdo to not completely blow off Poe. She wouldn't even have to tell him the plan - just say there is a plan, and a reason why she can't tell him (you need some time to cool down/there's a chance there's a spy/the situation is too volatile/etc). The rest of the movie would play out the same, but it would be more obvious that Poe was being brash and Holdo knew what she was doing.

I understand what Johnson wanted, but it rubs me the wrong way every time. Subverting expectations can be awesome, but for me this was just a smidge too manipulative to read naturally. For a one time character, Holdo's lack of a stable thread made her weak and forgettable, despite the impressive bow-out.

[Martoto]

I Sheesh. The "nasty woman" rhetoric regarding Holdo probably stems from audiences being used to the accepted convention of having John Wayne as the platoon commander, able to be insubordinate to the his superiors because he's john Wayne and they're only Edmond O'Brien or Karl Malden or somebody. So they recognise who the real hero/star of the movie is and pander to his ego by taking him into their confidence. It's cute, but it's bullshit. Holdo owed Poe nothing that she didn't give him or any of his comrades.

Poe decided very early on to go around Holdo anyway.