Another thing to consider RE: the whole “it should have been Ackbar instead of Holdo” argument: sure, the good admiral is a fan favorite, but how receptive would general audiences have been to that subplot if it was a shouting rubber fish man instead of Laura Dern? Ackbar is fun, but I seriously doubt you could get a compelling enough performance out of him to anchor that sort of storyline. It would almost certainly have read as goofy to anyone going into the theater without this weird reverence for Ackbar that we super fans seem to all have.