Well Holdo sure as shit misjudged that situation then. “Commander doesn’t brief wreckless Captain because he’s impulsive. Wreckless Captain does something impulsive. Over 95% of crew dies as a result.”
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I think all of this stems from TLJ(and Star Wars in general, really) not giving a shit about military protocol if it got in the way of the film's themes
The Rebels/Resistance in Star Wars have never given a shit about that in general. Or rather, only so far as to have someone who is I guess the leader. Hell, TLJ seems to care about this more then most in that they explicitly seem to have a chain of command and someone to take over from the last leader being dead/incapacitated.
But this time, for some reason, it was a problem.
I mean, fucking Lando is a general in ROTJ because, well, because the filmmakers needed a familiar face leading the Death Star attack.
The Rebel Alliance in the OTS had a chain of command, it just was never a central plot point. It is a problem in TLJ precisely because they made it a central plot point but didn't think it through enough for it to make sense.
But it does make sense. She's in command. There's even a whole scene about why. There's a chain of command, she's at the top of it. So you obey your orders. What about this does not make sense?
And that's exactly the point. The problem is not that Holdo can't tell him to follow orders. Because she can. The clearly demonstrated chain of command says she's in charge and he's a just demoted lower ranking member of the Resistance. The problem is that his place as the male action protagonist means you think he has a right to that information, to know and to be heard.
But he doesn't. Not because of the chain of command and not because of any special particulars of his character, which the first sequence of the movie is spent demonstrating.
The movie is pretty clear about the whole thing. She literally outright tells him he's too impulsive, she points out his actions already cost them their entire bombing fleet and then tells him exactly what everyone keeps telling you: you don't need to know. He's not high enough on the chain of command to be in on it. All of which are perfectly valid reasons. And are established in a dialogue scene, so there's your "premise" being "set up". She actually tells him more then she needs to since "Follow your orders" is more then enough technically. That elaboration mostly in service of characterization and clarity for the audience. Also, you don't see Han or Lando getting told the same because they don't question their orders the way Poe does.
And this is all kinda the point right. Why should Poe be told? He's just a newly demoted Captain (I think it was captain at that point). He has some "right to know" based on his status within as a protagonist I guess? He's not calling the shots. You make the assumption that because he's the brash male hero protagonist, he should be in on it. Despite their being no reason for it.
This was the point of my original post trying to work out where he actually is in the rank structure. As far as I can tell he's Nien Nunb's second in command of the Starfighter Corps. With the Raddus bridge crew dead we are not shown nearly enough intervening levels of command to cut Poe out of the loop. The film also never explains whether Nien or other senior officers were read on, and if so why they did not reassure Poe.
also the setup that Poe 'lost the entire bomber fleet' (all five of it) never made sense, were they gonna turn around and return to the fleet before the dreadnought fired? Why didn't Leia just order them to turn around herself?
and what the fuck were they gonna do if the dreadnought came after them through hyperspace? hope it wastes time targeting the medical frigate first?
The movie is pretty clear about the whole thing. She literally outright tells him he's too impulsive, she points out his actions already cost them their entire bombing fleet and then tells him exactly what everyone keeps telling you: you don't need to know. He's not high enough on the chain of command to be in on it. All of which are perfectly valid reasons. And are established in a dialogue scene, so there's your "premise" being "set up". She actually tells him more then she needs to since "Follow your orders" is more then enough technically. That elaboration mostly in service of characterization and clarity for the audience. Also, you don't see Han or Lando getting told the same because they don't question their orders the way Poe does.
And this is all kinda the point right. Why should Poe be told? He's just a newly demoted Captain (I think it was captain at that point). He has some "right to know" based on his status within as a protagonist I guess? He's not calling the shots. You make the assumption that because he's the brash male hero protagonist, he should be in on it. Despite their being no reason for it.
This was the point of my original post trying to work out where he actually is in the rank structure. As far as I can tell he's Nien Nunb's second in command of the Starfighter Corps. With the Raddus bridge crew dead we are not shown nearly enough intervening levels of command to cut Poe out of the loop. The film also never explains whether Nien or other senior officers were read on, and if so why they did not reassure Poe.
What does that even mean? What in the world are you basing this idea on?
We are literally told, in a dialogue scene, that yes actually, he is low enough, even lower then before in fact, to not be told what's going on. So on what basis, exactly, are you basing your assumption that he should have been on?
also the setup that Poe 'lost the entire bomber fleet' (all five of it) never made sense, were they gonna turn around and return to the fleet before the dreadnought fired? Why didn't Leia just order them to turn around herself?
She literally orders their commander to disengage the attack. He ignores her. She demotes him for it.
...Holdo's plan would have worked had Poe not interfered by sending Rose and Finn off and then blabbing about the plan to them. Everyone would have evacuated to the planet and the First Order would have assumed that they had destroyed all of the Resistance and left.
I agree with Mr. Plinkett on this one. Holdo's plan would have worked if Poe had not interfered yes, but it also relied on the First Order not looking out of their giant windows, neglecting to do any scanning, assuming that the entire Resistance stayed on their ship until the very end, and not taking any logical steps like using evacuation pods.
I think you could make an argument that based off of what we're shown in The Last Jedi that yes the First Order is staffed entirely by idiots who wouldn't be able to find work aboard Dark Helmet's ship. I personally don't find this level of incompetence to be particularly interesting outside of a comedy.
They weren't going to see the small transports visually at that distance. The whole point of DJ telling them was that then they were able to run scans to counter the sensor cloaking the Resistance was running. Holdo's plan relied on the First Order's overconfidence to assume that the destruction of the capital ships meant everyone was dead, and the film did plenty to establish overconfidence being a weakness of theirs.
I think all of this stems from TLJ(and Star Wars in general, really) not giving a shit about military protocol if it got in the way of the film's themes
The Rebels/Resistance in Star Wars have never given a shit about that in general. Or rather, only so far as to have someone who is I guess the leader. Hell, TLJ seems to care about this more then most in that they explicitly seem to have a chain of command and someone to take over from the last leader being dead/incapacitated.
But this time, for some reason, it was a problem.
I mean, fucking Lando is a general in ROTJ because, well, because the filmmakers needed a familiar face leading the Death Star attack.
The Rebel Alliance in the OTS had a chain of command, it just was never a central plot point. It is a problem in TLJ precisely because they made it a central plot point but didn't think it through enough for it to make sense.
But it does make sense. She's in command. There's even a whole scene about why. There's a chain of command, she's at the top of it. So you obey your orders. What about this does not make sense?
And that's exactly the point. The problem is not that Holdo can't tell him to follow orders. Because she can. The clearly demonstrated chain of command says she's in charge and he's a just demoted lower ranking member of the Resistance. The problem is that his place as the male action protagonist means you think he has a right to that information, to know and to be heard.
But he doesn't. Not because of the chain of command and not because of any special particulars of his character, which the first sequence of the movie is spent demonstrating.
She is in command. She's also really bad at commanding. "SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS" is like the classic caricature of a shitty Niedermeyer-tier martinet.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr. Moreover, as I keep saying, if not him then his superior should have been briefed.
But if we roll with your version, that Poe was totally out of line - that doesn't fix anything. It just means that instead of Holdo, Poe is the breathtaking fucking moron who thought for some reason that a captain would succeed the admiral of a different branch, who forgot his own wingman's rank, who never asked ANYONE ELSE for assurances about Holdo. Did he just not know any other fleet officers? Was D'Acy ordered to ignore him? As far as I am concerned, your assumption that Poe is too dumb to do this is even more unbelievable than my assumption that Holdo was being too rigid about opsec and taking out her personal dislike of the SF Corps commander who killed those boys.
I don't fucking care that he learned a valuable lesson about the value of human life at the end, the story only works because one of these two characters is braindead.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
...Holdo's plan would have worked had Poe not interfered by sending Rose and Finn off and then blabbing about the plan to them. Everyone would have evacuated to the planet and the First Order would have assumed that they had destroyed all of the Resistance and left.
I agree with Mr. Plinkett on this one. Holdo's plan would have worked if Poe had not interfered yes, but it also relied on the First Order not looking out of their giant windows, neglecting to do any scanning, assuming that the entire Resistance stayed on their ship until the very end, and not taking any logical steps like using evacuation pods.
I think you could make an argument that based off of what we're shown in The Last Jedi that yes the First Order is staffed entirely by idiots who wouldn't be able to find work aboard Dark Helmet's ship. I personally don't find this level of incompetence to be particularly interesting outside of a comedy.
They weren't going to see the small transports visually at that distance. The whole point of DJ telling them was that then they were able to run scans to counter the sensor cloaking the Resistance was running. Holdo's plan relied on the First Order's overconfidence to assume that the destruction of the capital ships meant everyone was dead, and the film did plenty to establish overconfidence being a weakness of theirs.
Well, maybe not the people on the bridge, but Snoke sure didn't have a problem zooming in on the whole fleet with his Snoke-o-scope that seemed to working with plain old visible light. A whole fleet of warships built for space and they didn't expect anybody to have one standard telescopic lens? And tens of thousands of soldiers eager to wipe out the resistance, and nobody is shirking duty to look out a window with a pair of binoculars or something to watch the ships explode? Luke had the tech to counter that "stealth" technology hanging from his belt back on Tatooine.
I really don’t see how those slow ass bombers would have ever made it back to the Raddus anyhow. At that point, they were committed.
To be fair, this is really no worse than the plot hole at the end of ROTJ where the Imperial fleet just kind of disappears after the Death Star explodes and lets the Rebels fly off. The problem is this one happens in the first act and is a major plot point justifying the drama of act 2.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited September 2018
Eh, the bombers were typical "we built these ships for this fight sequence" fare, it's just a conceit of the setting. Them being slow doesn't make any more or less sense than every space battle being a mix of naval and atmospheric combat, complete with sound effects in space; they're just there to drum up some kind of drama by heading towards the big ship reeaaallly slowly.
I really don’t see how those slow ass bombers would have ever made it back to the Raddus anyhow. At that point, they were committed.
To be fair, this is really no worse than the plot hole at the end of ROTJ where the Imperial fleet just kind of disappears after the Death Star explodes and lets the Rebels fly off. The problem is this one happens in the first act and is a major plot point justifying the drama of act 2.
They died in the Endor Holocaust.
:P
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Eh, the bombers were typical "we built these ships for this fight sequence" fare, it's just a conceit of the setting. Them being slow doesn't make any more or less sense than every space battle being a mix of naval and atmospheric combat, complete with sound effects in space; they're just there to drum up some kind of drama by heading towards the big ship reeaaallly slowly.
I think that was one of RLM’s critiques? Something about Johnson wanting his visuals first, then working the plot around them. They specifically mention the bomber run and juxtaposed it with RJ in behind the scenes stuff talking about how much he wanted the WW2 bomber visual.
But that’s kind of an editing problem. They had the Raddus so far away before the bombers were in frame, both so close and so slow moving.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I think all of this stems from TLJ(and Star Wars in general, really) not giving a shit about military protocol if it got in the way of the film's themes
The Rebels/Resistance in Star Wars have never given a shit about that in general. Or rather, only so far as to have someone who is I guess the leader. Hell, TLJ seems to care about this more then most in that they explicitly seem to have a chain of command and someone to take over from the last leader being dead/incapacitated.
But this time, for some reason, it was a problem.
I mean, fucking Lando is a general in ROTJ because, well, because the filmmakers needed a familiar face leading the Death Star attack.
The Rebel Alliance in the OTS had a chain of command, it just was never a central plot point. It is a problem in TLJ precisely because they made it a central plot point but didn't think it through enough for it to make sense.
But it does make sense. She's in command. There's even a whole scene about why. There's a chain of command, she's at the top of it. So you obey your orders. What about this does not make sense?
And that's exactly the point. The problem is not that Holdo can't tell him to follow orders. Because she can. The clearly demonstrated chain of command says she's in charge and he's a just demoted lower ranking member of the Resistance. The problem is that his place as the male action protagonist means you think he has a right to that information, to know and to be heard.
But he doesn't. Not because of the chain of command and not because of any special particulars of his character, which the first sequence of the movie is spent demonstrating.
She is in command. She's also really bad at commanding. "SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS" is like the classic caricature of a shitty Niedermeyer-tier martinet.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr. Moreover, as I keep saying, if not him then his superior should have been briefed.[./quote]
Again, what are you basing this on? You have no basis to claim anyone "should have been" anything here. And the movie tells you the opposite.
She doesn't tell him shut up and follow orders, it's only when she directly challenges her authority in front of others that she takes him aside, in private, and tells him to stop acting like he's in charge, because he's not.
But if we roll with your version, that Poe was totally out of line - that doesn't fix anything. It just means that instead of Holdo, Poe is the breathtaking fucking moron who thought for some reason that a captain would succeed the admiral of a different branch, who forgot his own wingman's rank, who never asked ANYONE ELSE for assurances about Holdo. Did he just not know any other fleet officers? Was D'Acy ordered to ignore him? As far as I am concerned, your assumption that Poe is too dumb to do this is even more unbelievable than my assumption that Holdo was being too rigid about opsec and taking out her personal dislike of the SF Corps commander who killed those boys.
I don't fucking care that he learned a valuable lesson about the value of human life at the end, the story only works because one of these two characters is braindead.
I honestly don't even know what you are talking about here. Poe is a guy who thinks he should he in on every decision. That his opinion is always needed and relevant. That he knows best. And he's wrong on all counts.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr.
Sorry to be a pedantic nerd (not sorry), but you're mixing up ranks here. Poe is initially a Commander, which is a US naval rank of O-5 (the O stands for officer, as opposed to Enlisted). A Squadron Commander isn't a rank but rather a position, which is usually filled by an O-5. There's an RAF (British Air Force) rank of Squadron Leader which is an O-4, but not necessarily relevant to this discussion. Anyway it's confusing because the rank of Captain, which Poe is demoted to, is an O-3 in the Air Force (and other, unimportant branches) and an O-6 in the Navy. That being said I looked it up on Wookiepedia and it turns out the Resistance has its own rank structure which kinda uses elements of both? The only difference between the Resistance Army and Navy ranks is their Flag Officer level called General and Admiral respectively. So technically Leia isn't in the same chain of command as Poe... or she is and Holdo isn't. Or more likely slightly more than zero thought was given to the entire ranking structure of the Resistance.
I await a Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG sourcebook to clear up this issue.
If we’re gonna defend the writing wrt Holdo and Poe, then they are both incompetent.
Holdo is incompetent for underestimating Poe’s recklessness. She’s incompetent again for not throwing him in the brig after calling her a coward and traitor on the bridge.
Poe is incompetent for sending Finn and Rose on a misguided adventure. He’s incompetent again for telling the plan to Finn over a radio with an unknown third party next to them.
Finn and Rose are just total incompetents for Casino World. Incompetent again for not compartmentalizing DJ away from their discussion of their secret plan, since espionage is obviously obvious.
Plasma is incompetent for not just immediately killing Finn and Rose. She’s incompetent again for not using her blaster rifle after the Raddus crash and opting to duel Finn with pike.
Everyone is incompetent, at least we can agree the writing isn’t bad now.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
If we’re gonna defend the writing wrt Holdo and Poe, then they are both incompetent.
Holdo is incompetent for underestimating Poe’s recklessness. She’s incompetent again for not throwing him in the brig after calling her a coward and traitor on the bridge.
Poe is incompetent for sending Finn and Rose on a misguided adventure. He’s incompetent again for telling the plan to Finn over a radio with an unknown third party next to them.
Finn and Rose are just total incompetents for Casino World. Incompetent again for not compartmentalizing DJ away from their discussion of their secret plan, since espionage is obviously obvious.
Plasma is incompetent for not just immediately killing Finn and Rose. She’s incompetent again for not using her blaster rifle after the Raddus crash and opting to duel Finn with pike.
Everyone is incompetent, at least we can agree the writing isn’t bad now.
I mean, yeah, people make mistakes in the story. Those mistakes are in-line with their established characters and are used to propel the plot and the character and thematic arcs of the story forward, so this is solid writing.
Poe fucks up a whole bunch, and his compatriots too under his orders, and in ways Holdo and Leia don't anticipate, which is what ultimately fucks everything up.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr.
Sorry to be a pedantic nerd (not sorry), but you're mixing up ranks here. Poe is initially a Commander, which is a US naval rank of O-5 (the O stands for officer, as opposed to Enlisted). A Squadron Commander isn't a rank but rather a position, which is usually filled by an O-5. There's an RAF (British Air Force) rank of Squadron Leader which is an O-4, but not necessarily relevant to this discussion. Anyway it's confusing because the rank of Captain, which Poe is demoted to, is an O-3 in the Air Force (and other, unimportant branches) and an O-6 in the Navy. That being said I looked it up on Wookiepedia and it turns out the Resistance has its own rank structure which kinda uses elements of both? The only difference between the Resistance Army and Navy ranks is their Flag Officer level called General and Admiral respectively. So technically Leia isn't in the same chain of command as Poe... or she is and Holdo isn't. Or more likely slightly more than zero thought was given to the entire ranking structure of the Resistance.
I await a Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG sourcebook to clear up this issue.
I'm aware that Squadron Commander isn't a rank. Lintra is a Lieutenant, she's just in command of the squadron. My point was that if an Lt. is ranked high enough to command half the starfighter corps, a Captain is clearly still a senior position in that branch.
Lieutenant Commander Nien Nunb should be the new senior Starfighter guy, but Poe never asks him to use his rank to talk to Holdo, which is why I insist the whole thing is dumb and badly thought out.
There actually is another Captain, but he isn't in the movie and isn't on the ship
The movie is pretty clear about the whole thing. She literally outright tells him he's too impulsive, she points out his actions already cost them their entire bombing fleet and then tells him exactly what everyone keeps telling you: you don't need to know. He's not high enough on the chain of command to be in on it. All of which are perfectly valid reasons. And are established in a dialogue scene, so there's your "premise" being "set up". She actually tells him more then she needs to since "Follow your orders" is more then enough technically. That elaboration mostly in service of characterization and clarity for the audience. Also, you don't see Han or Lando getting told the same because they don't question their orders the way Poe does.
And this is all kinda the point right. Why should Poe be told? He's just a newly demoted Captain (I think it was captain at that point). He has some "right to know" based on his status within as a protagonist I guess? He's not calling the shots. You make the assumption that because he's the brash male hero protagonist, he should be in on it. Despite their being no reason for it.
This was the point of my original post trying to work out where he actually is in the rank structure. As far as I can tell he's Nien Nunb's second in command of the Starfighter Corps. With the Raddus bridge crew dead we are not shown nearly enough intervening levels of command to cut Poe out of the loop. The film also never explains whether Nien or other senior officers were read on, and if so why they did not reassure Poe.
also the setup that Poe 'lost the entire bomber fleet' (all five of it) never made sense, were they gonna turn around and return to the fleet before the dreadnought fired? Why didn't Leia just order them to turn around herself?
and what the fuck were they gonna do if the dreadnought came after them through hyperspace? hope it wastes time targeting the medical frigate first?
They didn’t know that the DK could follow them through hyperspace. They would have presumable bombed it then when it mattered. Or they would have cruised out of range like they did against Snokes ship.
She is in command. She's also really bad at commanding. "SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS" is like the classic caricature of a shitty Niedermeyer-tier martinet.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr. Moreover, as I keep saying, if not him then his superior should have been briefed.[./quote]
Again, what are you basing this on? You have no basis to claim anyone "should have been" anything here. And the movie tells you the opposite.
She doesn't tell him shut up and follow orders, it's only when she directly challenges her authority in front of others that she takes him aside, in private, and tells him to stop acting like he's in charge, because he's not.
Why the hell wouldn't his superior be briefed? This is the core problem that makes the plotline nonsensical. Why didn't Poe ask any other officers for reassurance? I have asked this question like five times and had no reply. We have only two explanations for this:
1. Poe is an idiot, and just didn't think of asking anyone else
2. Holdo did not tell anyone else, so nobody else has anything to give him
NEITHER OF THESE are sufficient to make the chain of events believable. It doesn't matter if Holdo's wrong or Poe's wrong. The sequence of events can only happen if one of them is acting wildly out of character for a veteran military officer.
But if we roll with your version, that Poe was totally out of line - that doesn't fix anything. It just means that instead of Holdo, Poe is the breathtaking fucking moron who thought for some reason that a captain would succeed the admiral of a different branch, who forgot his own wingman's rank, who never asked ANYONE ELSE for assurances about Holdo. Did he just not know any other fleet officers? Was D'Acy ordered to ignore him? As far as I am concerned, your assumption that Poe is too dumb to do this is even more unbelievable than my assumption that Holdo was being too rigid about opsec and taking out her personal dislike of the SF Corps commander who killed those boys.
I don't fucking care that he learned a valuable lesson about the value of human life at the end, the story only works because one of these two characters is braindead.
I honestly don't even know what you are talking about here. Poe is a guy who thinks he should he in on every decision. That his opinion is always needed and relevant. That he knows best. And he's wrong on all counts.
I am gonna 100% with you here my man: I don't like Poe Dameron. I have hated this low-rent Han Solo expy since that stupid memey "hurr durr you talk first i talk first" bit which killed Kylo's entrance. I am on board with Poe learning he is a fucking jackass. I am on board with a story that makes clear to everyone he is a fucking jackass. But in this story, for him to actually be totally in the wrong, we have to accept that he straight up does not understand what an admiral is, and that he has no friends in the officer class. We have to accept that somehow nobody in his circle - which is the entire fighter wing, as I keep saying - is in on the decision.
And even if Poe is just an insubordinate windbag and certifiable tool, Holdo is still a piece of shit because she is standing on military protocol while simultaneously flouting it by refusing to wear her rank.
The movie is pretty clear about the whole thing. She literally outright tells him he's too impulsive, she points out his actions already cost them their entire bombing fleet and then tells him exactly what everyone keeps telling you: you don't need to know. He's not high enough on the chain of command to be in on it. All of which are perfectly valid reasons. And are established in a dialogue scene, so there's your "premise" being "set up". She actually tells him more then she needs to since "Follow your orders" is more then enough technically. That elaboration mostly in service of characterization and clarity for the audience. Also, you don't see Han or Lando getting told the same because they don't question their orders the way Poe does.
And this is all kinda the point right. Why should Poe be told? He's just a newly demoted Captain (I think it was captain at that point). He has some "right to know" based on his status within as a protagonist I guess? He's not calling the shots. You make the assumption that because he's the brash male hero protagonist, he should be in on it. Despite their being no reason for it.
This was the point of my original post trying to work out where he actually is in the rank structure. As far as I can tell he's Nien Nunb's second in command of the Starfighter Corps. With the Raddus bridge crew dead we are not shown nearly enough intervening levels of command to cut Poe out of the loop. The film also never explains whether Nien or other senior officers were read on, and if so why they did not reassure Poe.
also the setup that Poe 'lost the entire bomber fleet' (all five of it) never made sense, were they gonna turn around and return to the fleet before the dreadnought fired? Why didn't Leia just order them to turn around herself?
and what the fuck were they gonna do if the dreadnought came after them through hyperspace? hope it wastes time targeting the medical frigate first?
They didn’t know that the DK could follow them through hyperspace. They would have presumable bombed it then when it mattered. Or they would have cruised out of range like they did against Snokes ship.
They didn't know, but when they found out it would have been too late. So Poe made the right choice crippling that massively powerful asset when he had the chance. It's obvious Leia's geriatric ass was too soft to make tough command decisions.
How the hell would they have "bombed it then" when it was clearly able to charge and fire its weapons at least once before the bombers could deploy and attack? We are fucking well shown it outranges the destroyers and are told it is a fleetkiller. You're just assuming it wouldn't make a difference because that's what it takes, narratively, for Leia and Holdo to still be right.
If we’re gonna defend the writing wrt Holdo and Poe, then they are both incompetent.
Holdo is incompetent for underestimating Poe’s recklessness. She’s incompetent again for not throwing him in the brig after calling her a coward and traitor on the bridge.
Poe is incompetent for sending Finn and Rose on a misguided adventure. He’s incompetent again for telling the plan to Finn over a radio with an unknown third party next to them.
Finn and Rose are just total incompetents for Casino World. Incompetent again for not compartmentalizing DJ away from their discussion of their secret plan, since espionage is obviously obvious.
Plasma is incompetent for not just immediately killing Finn and Rose. She’s incompetent again for not using her blaster rifle after the Raddus crash and opting to duel Finn with pike.
Everyone is incompetent, at least we can agree the writing isn’t bad now.
I mean, yeah, people make mistakes in the story. Those mistakes are in-line with their established characters and are used to propel the plot and the character and thematic arcs of the story forward, so this is solid writing.
Poe fucks up a whole bunch, and his compatriots too under his orders, and in ways Holdo and Leia don't anticipate, which is what ultimately fucks everything up.
If Holdo and Leia can’t anticipate that reckless Poe, that disobeyed orders in the opening and got people killed, would continue to be reckless and disobey orders, that says as much about them as Poe. At a minimum, he should have been locked up after what he did on the bridge before the mutiny. Especially after the mutiny, his ass should’ve been in chains.
As it is, they are horrible judges of character that constant compounding incompetence lead to the deaths of nearly every member of the Resistance.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr.
Sorry to be a pedantic nerd (not sorry), but you're mixing up ranks here. Poe is initially a Commander, which is a US naval rank of O-5 (the O stands for officer, as opposed to Enlisted). A Squadron Commander isn't a rank but rather a position, which is usually filled by an O-5. There's an RAF (British Air Force) rank of Squadron Leader which is an O-4, but not necessarily relevant to this discussion. Anyway it's confusing because the rank of Captain, which Poe is demoted to, is an O-3 in the Air Force (and other, unimportant branches) and an O-6 in the Navy. That being said I looked it up on Wookiepedia and it turns out the Resistance has its own rank structure which kinda uses elements of both? The only difference between the Resistance Army and Navy ranks is their Flag Officer level called General and Admiral respectively. So technically Leia isn't in the same chain of command as Poe... or she is and Holdo isn't. Or more likely slightly more than zero thought was given to the entire ranking structure of the Resistance.
I await a Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG sourcebook to clear up this issue.
I'm aware that Squadron Commander isn't a rank. Lintra is a Lieutenant, she's just in command of the squadron. My point was that if an Lt. is ranked high enough to command half the starfighter corps, a Captain is clearly still a senior position in that branch.
Lieutenant Commander Nien Nunb should be the new senior Starfighter guy, but Poe never asks him to use his rank to talk to Holdo, which is why I insist the whole thing is dumb and badly thought out.
There actually is another Captain, but he isn't in the movie and isn't on the ship
They put an Lt in charge of a squadron?! This movie makes zero sense!
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
I think Plinkett hit on that too and I agree.
Finn says all the ships have tracking ability. So jump one or two Star Destroyers forward, since fuel never seems to be a concern for the First Order, and jump back to cut them off.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr.
Sorry to be a pedantic nerd (not sorry), but you're mixing up ranks here. Poe is initially a Commander, which is a US naval rank of O-5 (the O stands for officer, as opposed to Enlisted). A Squadron Commander isn't a rank but rather a position, which is usually filled by an O-5. There's an RAF (British Air Force) rank of Squadron Leader which is an O-4, but not necessarily relevant to this discussion. Anyway it's confusing because the rank of Captain, which Poe is demoted to, is an O-3 in the Air Force (and other, unimportant branches) and an O-6 in the Navy. That being said I looked it up on Wookiepedia and it turns out the Resistance has its own rank structure which kinda uses elements of both? The only difference between the Resistance Army and Navy ranks is their Flag Officer level called General and Admiral respectively. So technically Leia isn't in the same chain of command as Poe... or she is and Holdo isn't. Or more likely slightly more than zero thought was given to the entire ranking structure of the Resistance.
I await a Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG sourcebook to clear up this issue.
I'm aware that Squadron Commander isn't a rank. Lintra is a Lieutenant, she's just in command of the squadron. My point was that if an Lt. is ranked high enough to command half the starfighter corps, a Captain is clearly still a senior position in that branch.
Lieutenant Commander Nien Nunb should be the new senior Starfighter guy, but Poe never asks him to use his rank to talk to Holdo, which is why I insist the whole thing is dumb and badly thought out.
There actually is another Captain, but he isn't in the movie and isn't on the ship
They put an Lt in charge of a squadron?! This movie makes zero sense!
And I was just joshing you in the first place.
yeah, idk if the wiki is correct about ranks, because the article you linked implies the Captain of the Raddus was only one grade above lieutenant.
The right choice is not the right choice only in hindsight.
Additionally it would have worked out in the end because that is how the force works, by saving what we love and not killing what we hate
woah slow down there trudeau. The story does not magically become internally consistent just because that's what makes the writers' hamfisted moral work at the end.
Poe made the right decision at the time and gave a perfectly valid reason for it, not only in hindsight.
The movie straight-up tells you everything you need to know about Poe and Holdo’s interactions:
Poe hears her name and is impressed because he knows her reputation.
Poe actually sees her and is suddenly way less impressed and almost immediately starts questioning orders.
The right choice is not the right choice only in hindsight.
Additionally it would have worked out in the end because that is how the force works, by saving what we love and not killing what we hate
woah slow down there trudeau. The story does not magically become internally consistent just because that's what makes the writers' hamfisted moral work at the end.
Poe made the right decision at the time and gave a perfectly valid reason for it, not only in hindsight.
No. That is how the force works. In every movie. The Jedi are ineffectual because they have locked themselves out of emotion. Everything turns to shit for the sith because they act out of hate and fear. Luke succeeds because he acts out of positive emotional reasoning.
Finn succeeds in saving Rey on the starkiller base because he wants to save her and not because he wants to destroy the base. Rey fails in turning Kylo because she doesn’t care about him but is rather acting out of rote.
That doesn’t matter with regards to this action though because the dice rolling snake eyes does not make betting on it a good idea. It was always the wrong bet
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
Pffft. Shows what you know. An MC80 with a Engine Techs can effectively be speed 3 on select turns:
There's no way the Victory First Order ships can catch up to them, and so long as they stay at long range or greater, they're only rolling 3 red dice each round to attack a 3 shield arc. With Brace and Redirect x2 there's no way they're out-damaging a Repair order every round. As for Tie Squadrons, they'd be out of range to benefit from the Victory's Squadron orders, and just get shredded by the MC80's anti-squadron fire.
Honestly I'm really impressed at Rian Johnson's understanding of the Armada game.
She is in command. She's also really bad at commanding. "SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS" is like the classic caricature of a shitty Niedermeyer-tier martinet.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr. Moreover, as I keep saying, if not him then his superior should have been briefed.[./quote]
Again, what are you basing this on? You have no basis to claim anyone "should have been" anything here. And the movie tells you the opposite.
She doesn't tell him shut up and follow orders, it's only when she directly challenges her authority in front of others that she takes him aside, in private, and tells him to stop acting like he's in charge, because he's not.
Why the hell wouldn't his superior be briefed? This is the core problem that makes the plotline nonsensical. Why didn't Poe ask any other officers for reassurance? I have asked this question like five times and had no reply. We have only two explanations for this:
1. Poe is an idiot, and just didn't think of asking anyone else
2. Holdo did not tell anyone else, so nobody else has anything to give him
NEITHER OF THESE are sufficient to make the chain of events believable. It doesn't matter if Holdo's wrong or Poe's wrong. The sequence of events can only happen if one of them is acting wildly out of character for a veteran military officer.
Why are you assuming they had to be? We don't know anything about the command structure other then that it goes Leia -> Holdo -> Poe, which is all that is required for the story to work. Everything else is extraneous details that don't matter. The kind of details that have never mattered to a Star Wars story before and don't matter now.
But if we roll with your version, that Poe was totally out of line - that doesn't fix anything. It just means that instead of Holdo, Poe is the breathtaking fucking moron who thought for some reason that a captain would succeed the admiral of a different branch, who forgot his own wingman's rank, who never asked ANYONE ELSE for assurances about Holdo. Did he just not know any other fleet officers? Was D'Acy ordered to ignore him? As far as I am concerned, your assumption that Poe is too dumb to do this is even more unbelievable than my assumption that Holdo was being too rigid about opsec and taking out her personal dislike of the SF Corps commander who killed those boys.
I don't fucking care that he learned a valuable lesson about the value of human life at the end, the story only works because one of these two characters is braindead.
I honestly don't even know what you are talking about here. Poe is a guy who thinks he should he in on every decision. That his opinion is always needed and relevant. That he knows best. And he's wrong on all counts.
I am gonna 100% with you here my man: I don't like Poe Dameron. I have hated this low-rent Han Solo expy since that stupid memey "hurr durr you talk first i talk first" bit which killed Kylo's entrance. I am on board with Poe learning he is a fucking jackass. I am on board with a story that makes clear to everyone he is a fucking jackass. But in this story, for him to actually be totally in the wrong, we have to accept that he straight up does not understand what an admiral is, and that he has no friends in the officer class. We have to accept that somehow nobody in his circle - which is the entire fighter wing, as I keep saying - is in on the decision.
And even if Poe is just an insubordinate windbag and certifiable tool, Holdo is still a piece of shit because she is standing on military protocol while simultaneously flouting it by refusing to wear her rank.
You have to accept that he both thinks he should be in on every decision being made and that he's not actually high enough rank to be in on every decision made. Both of which are things the movie establishes quite firmly.
Also, again, Holdo is dressed just like previous women in command in Star Wars.
The movie straight-up tells you everything you need to know about Poe and Holdo’s interactions:
Poe hears her name and is impressed because he knows her reputation.
Poe actually sees her and is suddenly way less impressed and almost immediately starts questioning orders.
It's almost like the film is very straightforward about what it's trying to do and it's actually really obvious in hindsight but the fact that Poe is the protagonist makes us in the audience assume he has to be right when we first see it.
I’m rewatching the ending and holy shit! I did just see absolutely none of the background characters pay any attention to Holdo’s most epic sacrifice in history? I guess it was just a really interesting side conversation. :biggrin:
I’m still mixed on the whole hyperspace ship as a weapon thing. I loved it as a visual, but I really dislike why nobody ever in the history of the movies ever considered launching an empty ship before and the implication it beings. We’ve seen plenty of times where droids pilot ships. Shame nobody ever considered that maneuver before against, I don’t know, a fucking Death Star?
The funny thing, it could almost work if the writing was just a bit tighter. Remember when DJ hacked the shields so he, Finn, and Rose could get on board? That blipping screen was very nearl where Holdo crashed the ship! So that maneuver should only work if shields are down.
We just kinda needed Holdo to be aware of it. As it is, it’s either blind luck or RJ just decided to rewrite strategy in Star Wars for a cool visual.
Maybe if Holdo had a spy on board the Supremacy, which could explain why she knows so much about the tracker and how only one ship is tracking at a time and how the First Order isn’t scanning for smaller ships and why she is so worried about secrecy and why their shields could be down and allow that to happen and so on and so forth.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
Precise jumps are difficult and maintaining distance when you’re capable of higher acceleration would be pretty easy/exactly how things would work. Like exactly how physics works in the real world in addition to how it works in Star Wars naval physics
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
Precise jumps are difficult and maintaining distance when you’re capable of higher acceleration would be pretty easy/exactly how things would work. Like exactly how physics works in the real world in addition to how it works in Star Wars naval physics
Tell that to Han Solo jumping into a planetary atmosphere in TFA. Or every other Star Destroyer jumping right next to a planet without crashing into it.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
Precise jumps are difficult and maintaining distance when you’re capable of higher acceleration would be pretty easy/exactly how things would work. Like exactly how physics works in the real world in addition to how it works in Star Wars naval physics
Tell that to Han Solo jumping into a planetary atmosphere in TFA. Or every other Star Destroyer jumping right next to a planet without crashing into it.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
Precise jumps are difficult and maintaining distance when you’re capable of higher acceleration would be pretty easy/exactly how things would work. Like exactly how physics works in the real world in addition to how it works in Star Wars naval physics
Then it's a pretty good thing that practically any ship in Star Wars is handily capable of traveling across an entire solar system in at a fairly rapid pace. Aside from the pile of of instances in the films where ships reliably jump pretty much right where they need to go, even a fleet that gets within range of the Resistance fleet plus or minus the distance of a solar system is still going to handily be able to race over to them in a head-on chase.
Vader chokes a guy to death for jumping in too close to Hoth in ESB. Not out of petty anger because the fleet randomly ended up too close, but because the plotted course exposed the fleet to Rebellion sensors and ruined Vader's surprise birthday party for the Rebels.
Tell that to Han Solo jumping into a planetary atmosphere in TFA. Or every other Star Destroyer jumping right next to a planet without crashing into it.
Or every ship coming out of hyperspace a perfect and reliable distance from everyone else in the fleet instead of tightly-packed ships suddenly smashing into each other like so much space junk.
Precise jumps are difficult and maintaining distance when you’re capable of higher acceleration would be pretty easy/exactly how things would work. Like exactly how physics works in the real world in addition to how it works in Star Wars naval physics
The Millenium Falcon jumped into atmosphere in the last movie and precisely above the Supremacy in this movie. They threw out Han's line about dusting crops a looooooong time ago. Even if all it does is force the Raddus to maneuver, throwing one of their dozen star destroyers out ahead of them would be the correct move.
Also, again, Holdo is dressed just like previous women in command in Star Wars.
I already proved to you that she is not with specific examples. Leia wore a uniform as a General in ESB and ROTJ. Mon Mothma was a politician who is never, EVER described as a military officer, and is addressed only as Senator in Rogue One. Star Wars has never had a female admiral onscreen, and they decided for some reason she would dress like a senator and not like an actual star wars admiral. She is fucking STANDING NEXT TO several women dressed like normal officers. Why do you believe Holdo is the normal one here in this context?
She is in command. She's also really bad at commanding. "SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS" is like the classic caricature of a shitty Niedermeyer-tier martinet.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr. Moreover, as I keep saying, if not him then his superior should have been briefed.[./quote]
Again, what are you basing this on? You have no basis to claim anyone "should have been" anything here. And the movie tells you the opposite.
She doesn't tell him shut up and follow orders, it's only when she directly challenges her authority in front of others that she takes him aside, in private, and tells him to stop acting like he's in charge, because he's not.
Why the hell wouldn't his superior be briefed? This is the core problem that makes the plotline nonsensical. Why didn't Poe ask any other officers for reassurance? I have asked this question like five times and had no reply. We have only two explanations for this:
1. Poe is an idiot, and just didn't think of asking anyone else
2. Holdo did not tell anyone else, so nobody else has anything to give him
NEITHER OF THESE are sufficient to make the chain of events believable. It doesn't matter if Holdo's wrong or Poe's wrong. The sequence of events can only happen if one of them is acting wildly out of character for a veteran military officer.
Why are you assuming they had to be? We don't know anything about the command structure other then that it goes Leia -> Holdo -> Poe, which is all that is required for the story to work. Everything else is extraneous details that don't matter. The kind of details that have never mattered to a Star Wars story before and don't matter now.
That is not all that is required. It is absolutely not an extraneous detail to ask why Poe did not talk to anyone else on the damn ship before doing this silly thing. You're clearly correct, though - the story writer thought that only those three mattered. And it made an awful, awful story because somehow Poe becomes alone on a ship of four hundred, with no recourse but to do his silly thing so he could learn his big lesson from the wise admiral.
I went through the trouble of laying out at the start all the info I could find on who would rationally be above Poe to try and establish whether Poe had any valid basis to ask to be read onto this plan. If you want to believe that Holdo's snide remark about how "oooh ur a captain nowww owo" implied objectively that he had no basis, and is not just her talking down to an officer she dislikes, go ahead. Even in that perfect world it was trash-tier leadership.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
The "cruising out of range" bit doesn't make any sense either, even within the confines of Star Wars. For one thing, the fleet holding back the hundreds of TIE ships that would have obliterated the fleet in a single pass (and the First Order, suddenly, cares about losing fighters). For another, the entire First Order is somehow located behind the Resistance fleet, and nobody just jumps out in front of them. For another, how is it that all of the ships involved have the same top speed limited only by, for the very very first time in Star Wars cinema, how much fuel they carry?
The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
Precise jumps are difficult and maintaining distance when you’re capable of higher acceleration would be pretty easy/exactly how things would work. Like exactly how physics works in the real world in addition to how it works in Star Wars naval physics
Tell that to Han Solo jumping into a planetary atmosphere in TFA. Or every other Star Destroyer jumping right next to a planet without crashing into it.
Han Solo's jump in TFA was, as I remembered, thought to be some combination of almost impossible and insane wasn't it?
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Also, again, Holdo is dressed just like previous women in command in Star Wars.
I already proved to you that she is not with specific examples. Leia wore a uniform as a General in ESB and ROTJ. Mon Mothma was a politician who is never, EVER described as a military officer, and is addressed only as Senator in Rogue One. Star Wars has never had a female admiral onscreen, and they decided for some reason she would dress like a senator and not like an actual star wars admiral. She is fucking STANDING NEXT TO several women dressed like normal officers. Why do you believe Holdo is the normal one here in this context?
No, you didn't dude. I literally pointed out Mon Mothma giving a briefing for the first or second most important strike in the rebellion's history in a similarish dress. Leia is wandering around the whole movie in no sort of uniform as well. They are referencing things that happened in previous Star Wars movies.
She is in command. She's also really bad at commanding. "SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS" is like the classic caricature of a shitty Niedermeyer-tier martinet.
Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr. Moreover, as I keep saying, if not him then his superior should have been briefed.[./quote]
Again, what are you basing this on? You have no basis to claim anyone "should have been" anything here. And the movie tells you the opposite.
She doesn't tell him shut up and follow orders, it's only when she directly challenges her authority in front of others that she takes him aside, in private, and tells him to stop acting like he's in charge, because he's not.
Why the hell wouldn't his superior be briefed? This is the core problem that makes the plotline nonsensical. Why didn't Poe ask any other officers for reassurance? I have asked this question like five times and had no reply. We have only two explanations for this:
1. Poe is an idiot, and just didn't think of asking anyone else
2. Holdo did not tell anyone else, so nobody else has anything to give him
NEITHER OF THESE are sufficient to make the chain of events believable. It doesn't matter if Holdo's wrong or Poe's wrong. The sequence of events can only happen if one of them is acting wildly out of character for a veteran military officer.
Why are you assuming they had to be? We don't know anything about the command structure other then that it goes Leia -> Holdo -> Poe, which is all that is required for the story to work. Everything else is extraneous details that don't matter. The kind of details that have never mattered to a Star Wars story before and don't matter now.
That is not all that is required. It is absolutely not an extraneous detail to ask why Poe did not talk to anyone else on the damn ship before doing this silly thing. You're clearly correct, though - the story writer thought that only those three mattered. And it made an awful, awful story because somehow Poe becomes alone on a ship of four hundred, with no recourse but to do his silly thing so he could learn his big lesson from the wise admiral.
I went through the trouble of laying out at the start all the info I could find on who would rationally be above Poe to try and establish whether Poe had any valid basis to ask to be read onto this plan. If you want to believe that Holdo's snide remark about how "oooh ur a captain nowww owo" implied objectively that he had no basis, and is not just her talking down to an officer she dislikes, go ahead. Even in that perfect world it was trash-tier leadership.
No, that is absolutely all that is required. It's a story about Poe and Holdo. Whatever everyone else is doing doesn't matter except in that they are either one of the few that side with Poe or they are ones Poe's people were holding at gunpoint. So clearly none of them felt the need to act or had the gumption to act on their own.
Holdo is in charge. Poe is the kind of person who thinks he should have a say in everything and who thinks he's right. This brings them into conflict. That's your story.
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Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
But it does make sense. She's in command. There's even a whole scene about why. There's a chain of command, she's at the top of it. So you obey your orders. What about this does not make sense?
And that's exactly the point. The problem is not that Holdo can't tell him to follow orders. Because she can. The clearly demonstrated chain of command says she's in charge and he's a just demoted lower ranking member of the Resistance. The problem is that his place as the male action protagonist means you think he has a right to that information, to know and to be heard.
But he doesn't. Not because of the chain of command and not because of any special particulars of his character, which the first sequence of the movie is spent demonstrating.
This was the point of my original post trying to work out where he actually is in the rank structure. As far as I can tell he's Nien Nunb's second in command of the Starfighter Corps. With the Raddus bridge crew dead we are not shown nearly enough intervening levels of command to cut Poe out of the loop. The film also never explains whether Nien or other senior officers were read on, and if so why they did not reassure Poe.
also the setup that Poe 'lost the entire bomber fleet' (all five of it) never made sense, were they gonna turn around and return to the fleet before the dreadnought fired? Why didn't Leia just order them to turn around herself?
and what the fuck were they gonna do if the dreadnought came after them through hyperspace? hope it wastes time targeting the medical frigate first?
What does that even mean? What in the world are you basing this idea on?
We are literally told, in a dialogue scene, that yes actually, he is low enough, even lower then before in fact, to not be told what's going on. So on what basis, exactly, are you basing your assumption that he should have been on?
She literally orders their commander to disengage the attack. He ignores her. She demotes him for it.
They weren't going to see the small transports visually at that distance. The whole point of DJ telling them was that then they were able to run scans to counter the sensor cloaking the Resistance was running. Holdo's plan relied on the First Order's overconfidence to assume that the destruction of the capital ships meant everyone was dead, and the film did plenty to establish overconfidence being a weakness of theirs.
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Poe is still a Captain. He outranks Lintra, the squadron cdr. Moreover, as I keep saying, if not him then his superior should have been briefed.
But if we roll with your version, that Poe was totally out of line - that doesn't fix anything. It just means that instead of Holdo, Poe is the breathtaking fucking moron who thought for some reason that a captain would succeed the admiral of a different branch, who forgot his own wingman's rank, who never asked ANYONE ELSE for assurances about Holdo. Did he just not know any other fleet officers? Was D'Acy ordered to ignore him? As far as I am concerned, your assumption that Poe is too dumb to do this is even more unbelievable than my assumption that Holdo was being too rigid about opsec and taking out her personal dislike of the SF Corps commander who killed those boys.
I don't fucking care that he learned a valuable lesson about the value of human life at the end, the story only works because one of these two characters is braindead.
Well, maybe not the people on the bridge, but Snoke sure didn't have a problem zooming in on the whole fleet with his Snoke-o-scope that seemed to working with plain old visible light. A whole fleet of warships built for space and they didn't expect anybody to have one standard telescopic lens? And tens of thousands of soldiers eager to wipe out the resistance, and nobody is shirking duty to look out a window with a pair of binoculars or something to watch the ships explode? Luke had the tech to counter that "stealth" technology hanging from his belt back on Tatooine.
The stealth plan was... very bad.
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They died in the Endor Holocaust.
:P
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I think that was one of RLM’s critiques? Something about Johnson wanting his visuals first, then working the plot around them. They specifically mention the bomber run and juxtaposed it with RJ in behind the scenes stuff talking about how much he wanted the WW2 bomber visual.
But that’s kind of an editing problem. They had the Raddus so far away before the bombers were in frame, both so close and so slow moving.
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Sorry to be a pedantic nerd (not sorry), but you're mixing up ranks here. Poe is initially a Commander, which is a US naval rank of O-5 (the O stands for officer, as opposed to Enlisted). A Squadron Commander isn't a rank but rather a position, which is usually filled by an O-5. There's an RAF (British Air Force) rank of Squadron Leader which is an O-4, but not necessarily relevant to this discussion. Anyway it's confusing because the rank of Captain, which Poe is demoted to, is an O-3 in the Air Force (and other, unimportant branches) and an O-6 in the Navy. That being said I looked it up on Wookiepedia and it turns out the Resistance has its own rank structure which kinda uses elements of both? The only difference between the Resistance Army and Navy ranks is their Flag Officer level called General and Admiral respectively. So technically Leia isn't in the same chain of command as Poe... or she is and Holdo isn't. Or more likely slightly more than zero thought was given to the entire ranking structure of the Resistance.
I await a Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG sourcebook to clear up this issue.
Holdo is incompetent for underestimating Poe’s recklessness. She’s incompetent again for not throwing him in the brig after calling her a coward and traitor on the bridge.
Poe is incompetent for sending Finn and Rose on a misguided adventure. He’s incompetent again for telling the plan to Finn over a radio with an unknown third party next to them.
Finn and Rose are just total incompetents for Casino World. Incompetent again for not compartmentalizing DJ away from their discussion of their secret plan, since espionage is obviously obvious.
Plasma is incompetent for not just immediately killing Finn and Rose. She’s incompetent again for not using her blaster rifle after the Raddus crash and opting to duel Finn with pike.
Everyone is incompetent, at least we can agree the writing isn’t bad now.
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I mean, yeah, people make mistakes in the story. Those mistakes are in-line with their established characters and are used to propel the plot and the character and thematic arcs of the story forward, so this is solid writing.
Poe fucks up a whole bunch, and his compatriots too under his orders, and in ways Holdo and Leia don't anticipate, which is what ultimately fucks everything up.
I'm aware that Squadron Commander isn't a rank. Lintra is a Lieutenant, she's just in command of the squadron. My point was that if an Lt. is ranked high enough to command half the starfighter corps, a Captain is clearly still a senior position in that branch.
Lieutenant Commander Nien Nunb should be the new senior Starfighter guy, but Poe never asks him to use his rank to talk to Holdo, which is why I insist the whole thing is dumb and badly thought out.
There actually is another Captain, but he isn't in the movie and isn't on the ship
They didn’t know that the DK could follow them through hyperspace. They would have presumable bombed it then when it mattered. Or they would have cruised out of range like they did against Snokes ship.
1. Poe is an idiot, and just didn't think of asking anyone else
2. Holdo did not tell anyone else, so nobody else has anything to give him
NEITHER OF THESE are sufficient to make the chain of events believable. It doesn't matter if Holdo's wrong or Poe's wrong. The sequence of events can only happen if one of them is acting wildly out of character for a veteran military officer. I am gonna 100% with you here my man: I don't like Poe Dameron. I have hated this low-rent Han Solo expy since that stupid memey "hurr durr you talk first i talk first" bit which killed Kylo's entrance. I am on board with Poe learning he is a fucking jackass. I am on board with a story that makes clear to everyone he is a fucking jackass. But in this story, for him to actually be totally in the wrong, we have to accept that he straight up does not understand what an admiral is, and that he has no friends in the officer class. We have to accept that somehow nobody in his circle - which is the entire fighter wing, as I keep saying - is in on the decision.
And even if Poe is just an insubordinate windbag and certifiable tool, Holdo is still a piece of shit because she is standing on military protocol while simultaneously flouting it by refusing to wear her rank.
They didn't know, but when they found out it would have been too late. So Poe made the right choice crippling that massively powerful asset when he had the chance. It's obvious Leia's geriatric ass was too soft to make tough command decisions.
How the hell would they have "bombed it then" when it was clearly able to charge and fire its weapons at least once before the bombers could deploy and attack? We are fucking well shown it outranges the destroyers and are told it is a fleetkiller. You're just assuming it wouldn't make a difference because that's what it takes, narratively, for Leia and Holdo to still be right.
If Holdo and Leia can’t anticipate that reckless Poe, that disobeyed orders in the opening and got people killed, would continue to be reckless and disobey orders, that says as much about them as Poe. At a minimum, he should have been locked up after what he did on the bridge before the mutiny. Especially after the mutiny, his ass should’ve been in chains.
As it is, they are horrible judges of character that constant compounding incompetence lead to the deaths of nearly every member of the Resistance.
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The Emperor was evil, but he wasn't plain stupid. That whole chase was like something cooked up by Dr. Evil because just blowing them up would make too much sense.
They put an Lt in charge of a squadron?! This movie makes zero sense!
I think Plinkett hit on that too and I agree.
Finn says all the ships have tracking ability. So jump one or two Star Destroyers forward, since fuel never seems to be a concern for the First Order, and jump back to cut them off.
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Additionally it would have worked out in the end because that is how the force works, by saving what we love and not killing what we hate
Poe made the right decision at the time and gave a perfectly valid reason for it, not only in hindsight.
Poe hears her name and is impressed because he knows her reputation.
Poe actually sees her and is suddenly way less impressed and almost immediately starts questioning orders.
No. That is how the force works. In every movie. The Jedi are ineffectual because they have locked themselves out of emotion. Everything turns to shit for the sith because they act out of hate and fear. Luke succeeds because he acts out of positive emotional reasoning.
Finn succeeds in saving Rey on the starkiller base because he wants to save her and not because he wants to destroy the base. Rey fails in turning Kylo because she doesn’t care about him but is rather acting out of rote.
That doesn’t matter with regards to this action though because the dice rolling snake eyes does not make betting on it a good idea. It was always the wrong bet
Pffft. Shows what you know. An MC80 with a Engine Techs can effectively be speed 3 on select turns:
There's no way the Victory First Order ships can catch up to them, and so long as they stay at long range or greater, they're only rolling 3 red dice each round to attack a 3 shield arc. With Brace and Redirect x2 there's no way they're out-damaging a Repair order every round. As for Tie Squadrons, they'd be out of range to benefit from the Victory's Squadron orders, and just get shredded by the MC80's anti-squadron fire.
Honestly I'm really impressed at Rian Johnson's understanding of the Armada game.
Why are you assuming they had to be? We don't know anything about the command structure other then that it goes Leia -> Holdo -> Poe, which is all that is required for the story to work. Everything else is extraneous details that don't matter. The kind of details that have never mattered to a Star Wars story before and don't matter now.
You have to accept that he both thinks he should be in on every decision being made and that he's not actually high enough rank to be in on every decision made. Both of which are things the movie establishes quite firmly.
Also, again, Holdo is dressed just like previous women in command in Star Wars.
It's almost like the film is very straightforward about what it's trying to do and it's actually really obvious in hindsight but the fact that Poe is the protagonist makes us in the audience assume he has to be right when we first see it.
I’m still mixed on the whole hyperspace ship as a weapon thing. I loved it as a visual, but I really dislike why nobody ever in the history of the movies ever considered launching an empty ship before and the implication it beings. We’ve seen plenty of times where droids pilot ships. Shame nobody ever considered that maneuver before against, I don’t know, a fucking Death Star?
The funny thing, it could almost work if the writing was just a bit tighter. Remember when DJ hacked the shields so he, Finn, and Rose could get on board? That blipping screen was very nearl where Holdo crashed the ship! So that maneuver should only work if shields are down.
We just kinda needed Holdo to be aware of it. As it is, it’s either blind luck or RJ just decided to rewrite strategy in Star Wars for a cool visual.
Maybe if Holdo had a spy on board the Supremacy, which could explain why she knows so much about the tracker and how only one ship is tracking at a time and how the First Order isn’t scanning for smaller ships and why she is so worried about secrecy and why their shields could be down and allow that to happen and so on and so forth.
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Tell that to Han Solo jumping into a planetary atmosphere in TFA. Or every other Star Destroyer jumping right next to a planet without crashing into it.
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Then it's a pretty good thing that practically any ship in Star Wars is handily capable of traveling across an entire solar system in at a fairly rapid pace. Aside from the pile of of instances in the films where ships reliably jump pretty much right where they need to go, even a fleet that gets within range of the Resistance fleet plus or minus the distance of a solar system is still going to handily be able to race over to them in a head-on chase.
Vader chokes a guy to death for jumping in too close to Hoth in ESB. Not out of petty anger because the fleet randomly ended up too close, but because the plotted course exposed the fleet to Rebellion sensors and ruined Vader's surprise birthday party for the Rebels.
Or every ship coming out of hyperspace a perfect and reliable distance from everyone else in the fleet instead of tightly-packed ships suddenly smashing into each other like so much space junk.
The Millenium Falcon jumped into atmosphere in the last movie and precisely above the Supremacy in this movie. They threw out Han's line about dusting crops a looooooong time ago. Even if all it does is force the Raddus to maneuver, throwing one of their dozen star destroyers out ahead of them would be the correct move. I already proved to you that she is not with specific examples. Leia wore a uniform as a General in ESB and ROTJ. Mon Mothma was a politician who is never, EVER described as a military officer, and is addressed only as Senator in Rogue One. Star Wars has never had a female admiral onscreen, and they decided for some reason she would dress like a senator and not like an actual star wars admiral. She is fucking STANDING NEXT TO several women dressed like normal officers. Why do you believe Holdo is the normal one here in this context?
That is not all that is required. It is absolutely not an extraneous detail to ask why Poe did not talk to anyone else on the damn ship before doing this silly thing. You're clearly correct, though - the story writer thought that only those three mattered. And it made an awful, awful story because somehow Poe becomes alone on a ship of four hundred, with no recourse but to do his silly thing so he could learn his big lesson from the wise admiral.
I went through the trouble of laying out at the start all the info I could find on who would rationally be above Poe to try and establish whether Poe had any valid basis to ask to be read onto this plan. If you want to believe that Holdo's snide remark about how "oooh ur a captain nowww owo" implied objectively that he had no basis, and is not just her talking down to an officer she dislikes, go ahead. Even in that perfect world it was trash-tier leadership.
Han Solo's jump in TFA was, as I remembered, thought to be some combination of almost impossible and insane wasn't it?
No, you didn't dude. I literally pointed out Mon Mothma giving a briefing for the first or second most important strike in the rebellion's history in a similarish dress. Leia is wandering around the whole movie in no sort of uniform as well. They are referencing things that happened in previous Star Wars movies.
No, that is absolutely all that is required. It's a story about Poe and Holdo. Whatever everyone else is doing doesn't matter except in that they are either one of the few that side with Poe or they are ones Poe's people were holding at gunpoint. So clearly none of them felt the need to act or had the gumption to act on their own.
Holdo is in charge. Poe is the kind of person who thinks he should have a say in everything and who thinks he's right. This brings them into conflict. That's your story.