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Such a good example. In the second most recent Star Wars movie they had a dyed-hair girlboss talking down to a fighter pilot saying the last thing they need are any more “trigger happy fly boys” … in their ongoing ship vs ship combat. The writers repudiating the spacefighter dogfighting aspect of Star Wars. Something that hypes boys much more than a disapproving HR manager talking down to a combat pilot for being too high-T.
It's especially remarkable because she was telling them all to trust the plan.
But she had no plan. We are informed in episode 9 that the 'Holdo Maneuver' of FTL ramming was 1 in a million, it can't be reliably repeated. So she was really just trying to flee, only to get spectacularly lucky.
Except that wasn't the plan. The plan was escaping on cloaked ships while the First Order chased the larger ones. But because Poe sanctioned Rose and Finn's mission who brought back a slicer who betrayed that plan to the First Order, plan A was shot. Hyperspace ramming was the hail mary.
If the plan was 'escape to not-Hoth and hole up in a fortress against much stronger space and ground opponents' then it may as well not exist. I don't recall any reference to cloaked ships either.
Then you missed quite a bit. The plan was most of the resistance evacuate on cloaked ships to Crait, where they can hide in a secret base, while a skeleton crew on the main ships leads the First Order on a wild goose chase. If the cloaked transports were undetected that was a reasonably solid escape plan. Because the First Order would have no reason to search Crait because they would have destroyed all the main ships and thus believed the Resistance destroyed.
I'm not saying its a great movie but the plan was slightly more well thought out than a one in a million shot.
Well that still wouldn't work since they would've caught up to the big ship since it was imminently about to run out of fuel, attacked it, discovered the crew were mostly absent, then traced it back to Crait.
However you're clearly right, I'm surprised the cloaking/stealth angle wasn't in the extensive plot description on the wiki where I checked first, before AI confirmed you: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_VIII_The_Last_Jedi
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Princess Leia acted the same way in ANH, but it was presented as a bad thing.
A lot of stuff in these movies are like this, reused badly or inexplicably. Even down to Holdo's Leia-style costuming frankly. Leia dressed that way in ANH because she was still undercover in the Senate, still a princess. Why does Holdo dress like that during open warfare?
I have never found a source for this, but I am absolutely convinced that Admiral Holdo was just a way to recycle Princess Leia’s plot and lines after Carrie Fisher died mid-filming.
Principal photography on The Last Jedi was done in July 2016. Fisher was done all her scenes and finished an entire book tour in the remainder of the year, before dying from an out-of-the-blue heart attack around Christmas. She did not die "mid-filming".
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I think a lot of modern writers directors and producers are simply unaware of why a given decision was made, so they end up copying the look and mannerisms without understanding why it worked or why it doesn’t work in their context.
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Holdo also had the sin of being a terrible leader in general. Going from assuming command to a mutiny in a matter of days, when the mutineers are experienced and committed believers in the cause, says far more about the commander than the mutineers.
Plus, it was frankly poorly thought out on a thematic level. 'Defer to people in positions of authority and do as you are told even if they appear incompetent' is not only contrary to the themes of much of Star Wars, but anathema to a lot of the cultural convictions of the more individualist/egalitarian West. In turn, it created tonal confusion for the major themes of the movies, while also flagrantly demonstrating the lack of concern for the verisimilitude of the broader IP.
Well, women, anyway.
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