In any case, I thought of something significant. While Leia demotes Poe for wasting their resources in destroying the dreadnought after they jump to hyperspace, in the end, his actions proved to be something that kept them from total destruction because that dreadnought’s weapons could probably have destroyed the fleet through their shields. So Poe saved the day at the beginning of the story and Rose’s sister did not die in vain and at the end of the day, Luke and Rey save the last survivors to fight another day. So the movie is not as dark as it could have been. But even so, Poe learns a valuable lesson about command and when to take risks and that it needs to be more calculated and less reckless.
I’m not sure if it was intentional or not that Poe’s action was ultimately a good decision. It was possibly not thought out that way by RJ. Or, as I mused previously, RJ was focusing on the ethics of decisions, rather than whether the result is good or moral.
Under that theory, it didn’t matter if attacking the Dreadnaught was strategically sound or ultimately a good thing, Poe had to learn to not act for the wrong reasons. I’m not sure how convincing that is - even if my theory is true - because we can believe Poe was operating under a calculated strategy and ended up being right about it. And it enhances the feeling that Leia and Holdo were thinking too short term and treating “hope” with too much reverence.
If Poe was right, he was right by accident. The only reason the Resistance came under attic after they escaped was because of tech believed to be “impossible.” It’s an important lesson either way.
Nonetheless, I think the Resistance should be glad he disobeyed that order.
I do wonder things like why the ships didn’t split up (or why the escape ships weren’t used). Maybe Holdo still didn’t have any idea how the tracking system worked. Or maybe the lead ship could track various ships and relay coordinates to Star Destroyers to go after them.
A question I just heard raised which I hadn’t considered was why Luke didn’t talk about any kind of plan with Leia when he popped in. Did he just hope there was a way out? Or did he know? He delayed the First Order a few minutes, but what was the expectation? I have considered whether it was Luke who lifted the rocks rather than Rey, but that’s probably overthinking it.
I’m glad we didn’t have another scene where a character overexplains something. Less is more in this case.
Interesting idea that Luke might have given Rey an assist with those rocks. I hadn’t considered the possibility after 2 viewings.