Episode VIII : The Last Jedi - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 125

No one is perfect, and therefore it’s not necessarily reasonable to expect a character to make all around perfect decisions (as FilmCritHulk points out, there’d be no conflict if so). There’s obviously supposed to be an air of suspicion around Holdo at first, which is why we question her decisions and don’t see her perspective and decision-making (only Poe’s). In the end, we learn her heart and mind were in the right place, and her plan would’ve worked just fine if not for Poe.

As for why she didn’t lock up Poe, I don’t think it’s illogical at all to think “I don’t want this guy in on decisions or on the bridge, but I don’t think going as far as literally jailing him is necessary, especially when his biggest crime was disobeying one order and yelling at me.” Not sure why it’s a binary “either tell him the plan or lock him up,” that’s doesn’t sound like the only acceptable logic to me at all. Holdo didn’t trust Poe with the plan. That doesn’t seem crazy to me. Her biggest mistake was actually underestimating how little she should trust him. Again, not perfect, but there’d be no conflict if she was.

As for the logic of her plan, I don’t think we need to have that endless debate either. I don’t know if if it’s Cinemasins or just years of nerd porn EU books misleading a certain generation of fans to think this is a hard sci-fi franchise, but for some reason people love to nitpick the “logic” of these things to death as if the main determiner of a film’s quality is the “realism” of its wiki plot summary. I’ll just say what I always say: cinema (and fantasy and Star Wars in particular) is about the possible. It’s just as easy to come up with a reason to explain away these perceived “plot holes” as it is to claim they’re “impossible” to explain and therefore movie-breaking. I don’t think it’s worth it to worry or waste time with the latter.

Cinemasins is a blight on the internet.

The movie gives an incredibly basic and surface level attention to the subject. They can track us through lightspeed, and we only have so much fuel to outrun them. That’s it. No more technical than lightspeed doesn’t work, so now we have to find a planet that’s close enough by to get repairs. I don’t see any invitation to draw up complicated math equations.

DominicCobb said:

They can track us through lightspeed, and we only have so much fuel to outrun them

this is a math equation.

and don’t try to compare this specific aspect to TESB, where leia and han lose the empire relatively soon in the movie and just have to find a safe place to hide for the rest of the film. not run, hide. so no math was needed. TLJ, however…

but the ‘premise’ in TLJ is still the same as the one in TESB - it’s a slightly different version of this part of TESB’s plot.

The extent of the equation is simply “time is running out.” Nothing more complex than that.

NeverarGreat said:

DominicCobb said:

The extent of the equation is simply “time is running out.” Nothing more complex than that.

If they wanted to do a simple ‘time is running out’ plot, they could have had the First Order take a planet hostage and say it would be razed in X hours/days unless the Resistance surrendered.

Badabingbadaboom done.

Agree to disagree, as they say.

Once again it boils down to “I didn’t get what I wanted.”

TV’s Frink said:

Once again it boils down to “I didn’t get what I wanted.”

Actually it doesn’t. Neverar clearly feels that certain plot developments in TLJ are lacking, and has provided several examples of how it could have easily been changed, such that it makes more sense, and I agree with him. This doesn’t imply that he or I wanted the story to strictly play out that way, just that it doesn’t work for us as it is now, and that alternative story lines are not difficult to come up with that don’t have these issues.

TV’s Frink said:

Shopping Maul said:

Oh please. Did we criticise Ewoks because of ‘toxic masculinity’? Did we balk at the plotholes created by the prequels because of latent sexism? Did we hate Midichlorians because it threatened the patriarchy? Did we cringe at Padme/Anakin’s romance dialogue because we’re trapped in some selfish power-fantasy? No, these were simply film critiques. Nothing more, nothing less. And despite a few racist/sexist imbeciles on the internet (which are everywhere - it’s not a ‘Star Wars thing’) TLJ is getting exactly the same treatment as every other SW movie. This ‘toxic fandom’ crap is getting old. We should be able, as fans, to discuss potential plotholes and canon discrepancies without being told by some sanctimonious article that we don’t understand the nuances of this brilliant film because we’re secretly struggling with our own deeply held sexism/racism.

Must have hit a little close to the mark to get you all riled up like that.

Jokes aside (I’m assuming you were going for humour rather than hostility) this actually illustrates the problem with this kind of argumentation. The author sets up a strawman which goes something like “the detractors are actually reacting to their own inner flaws rather than the ones they’re supposedly highlighting in the film, and any defensive reaction to this claim on their part is proof of its validity”.

Allways good to hear from someone who knows what he’s talking about. A military veteran gives a real world account of leadership, and why Holdo did not display good leadership while in command:

https://chrishernandezauthor.com/2017/12/31/admiral-holdo-wasnt-a-feminist-she-was-just-a-bad-leader/

“A subverted expectation is not clever or praise worthy, if the expectation existed solely to be subverted.”

Here’s a good analysis on Reddit, where the author at least attempts to be objective. Its title is a bit pretentious, as I don’t believe there exists such a thing as an objective analysis, but despite this the author makes a good effort to objectively analyze which subversions of expectations work in TLJ, and which do not:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/7yw5mi/spoiler_the_last_jedi_an_objective_analysis_of/

"Summary Analysis Upon examining each of the major storylines, it is clear the goal of the filmmakers wished to use subverted expectations to bring dramatic change to the Star Wars universe. It is also clear the contrived circumstances behind the majority of them — and the tone deafness towards many characters — undermined their intentions and alienated fans.

The new Star Wars movies (TFA & TLJ) are a battle of contradictions — rehashed plots flipped on their head through contrived circumstances meant to enable sweeping removal of the old guard; new, diverse characters balanced against cardboard cutout rehashes (how redundant that the First Order must be lead by another snooty, petulant man with a British accent. Of all the roles crying for a shakeup, it is the leader of the villain military); and high-level plots with powerful messages undermined by cliches, improbable circumstance, and inconsistent applications of the Force:

Luke’s heroic sacrifice and embracing of his status as a legend is made hollow by the contrived nature of the threat he is counteracting, and the contrived circumstances of his sacrifice.

The unexplained origins of Snoke and the First Order diminish the storytelling and world building of the new movies, and dismiss the consequences of the original and prequel trilogies.

The Poe vs Holdo plot, in conjunction with Finn and Rose, led to the decimation of the Resistance due to bad leadership and contrived circumstances."

“Star Wars never needed to be rebooted — it already happened at the end of ROTJ. The Empire was defeated, Vader and Palpatine dead, Luke emerging as the last living Jedi, Han and Leia a couple. A clean slate was presented, and instead of embracing the countless possibilities, the filmmakers recreated the initial conditions presented in ANH, only to blow them away. This “reset” to enable a “passing of the torch” was unnecessary, for the narrative had already done this.”

I have no problem with people disliking the film, but a lot of these negative critical analyses simply rely on taking the worst possible read of the source material and disregarding the true intentions of the creators. Thats not how you analyse film.

Dislike it all you want but a film is not “bad” or “poorly written” simply because you choose to interpret it a certain way. For every negative analysis of a plot point or character moment, there’s a totally rational read that works in the context of the narrative, the character arcs and the thematic elements of the story.

I just want to bring up one example of bad interpretation: Finn’s sacrifice.

Many of the critics read it as Finn is making a grand heroic sacrifice, a great way to end his character arc, to save the rebels and become a true hero of the republic, its his moment of glory, before having this taken away from him for no other reason that Rose selfishly just wanting a kiss, dooming the rebels in the process.

And thats one read of the scene which does sound like bad writing. But that is NOT what the scene is ACUTALLY trying to say.

Finn is acting out of hate, he hates the first order, what they did to him, what they’ve done to those he cares about (Rose, Rey), he has all the reason in the world to. And this is not a grand heroic action. The way the scene is shot, lit, scripted, scored, all shows this to be a futile suicide mission, the music is not heroic, his ship is literally melting as he flies towards this thing which cant possibly be taken down by what is basically a microlight. Poe knows it, Rose knows it, Finn should know it but hes blinded by hate.

So it seems pretty reasonable that Rose, who already lost a sister to the first order, would want to stop Finn from doing something stupid in the name of hate when she knows it wont help. And then she basically spouts off what is arguably the main message of the film “Don’t fight what you hate, save what you love”. Goofy as it sounds its pretty much the through line for the whole dang movie. Finn learns it, Rose learns it, Luke learns it, Poe learns it, Rey learns it sort of. You don’t have to like the film because of it, but you got to understand this is GOOD writing.

Yes films are always up for interpretation. But when you analyse a scene contrary to how the scene is actually play out, its a very disingenuous way to criticise. Sure there is a question on how effectively the true intentions of a scene are shown and some of that is up for debate, but I don’t think that this particular scene was ambiguous at all.

Id admit that RJ puts a little too much faith in the audiences ability to interpret his movie. I myself found this scene a little conflicting. RJ puts a lot of its stock in thematic elements and character arcs that are a lot less transparent than those in the OT. You don’t expect to have to consider themes and interpretations in what are supposed to be children’s movies.

And before you comment, yes I understand that THIS is NOT the reason you hated this film or you entirely understand what RJ is trying to say in the TLJ you just didn’t like what it was or you hated how he was saying it or just thought it was totally wrong for a star wars film to include themes like love and hate. Or you hate the idea that I’m insulting your ability to analyse film or that my method of film criticism is some how the only right way. I understand you might think that good themes and consistent messaging don’t make a well written film and i would disagree because thats what ALL well written films have to some extent, every good script has some larger meaning to justify its existence past simply telling a story, and if you disagree that the film had good themes and consistent messaging well thats up for debate but you’re going against some strong evidence. I know you might have found this scene to be just fine and found other scenes to be much much worse in which case I ask you to simply, as I have, consider what the best possible interpretation of that scene is and how that could positively integrate with the larger story.

oojason said:

DrDre said:

Allways good to hear from someone who knows what he’s talking about. A military veteran gives a real world account of leadership, and why Holdo did not display good leadership while in command:

https://chrishernandezauthor.com/2017/12/31/admiral-holdo-wasnt-a-feminist-she-was-just-a-bad-leader/

I haven’t read the link - though think Holdo demonstrated good leadership in sacrificing herself to save the remaining Rebels in those unarmed ships being easily picked off by the First Order.

I don’t really need to read the views of a military veteran to understand or appreciate this - nor do I care for a military veteran’s reasons as to why she wasn’t a feminist (going on the url link) - or indeed why some think being a feminist matters in this context - but am sure it will come in handy for those that do. Nice one.

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, seems an apt statement here.

I believe we should read something first before commenting on it, but anyways in response to your belief that she displayed good leadership, and the fact that you seem to believe uninformed opinion trumps actual combat and leadership experience relating to a combat situation, here goes:

"Many times throughout history, a small military force has been left with no other option but to attempt the near-impossible and hope for the best. The Resistance fleet was certainly in that situation. Had Holdo explained, “The situation sucks, I can only think of one option, and that might not work. Anyone have any better ideas?”, I would have no complaints about her leadership. But instead she refused to share information, dismissed her subordinate leader’s reasonable concerns, and made herself look like she was “vapor locked,” fixated on a plan that had no chance of success.

But let’s forget about what the situation looked like to the Joes inside the ships. However bad it seemed to them, Holdo’s secret plan was great – unless something went wrong. Which means it sucked, because any plan that requires the enemy to act exactly as you desire or predict is too inflexible to survive the inevitable surprises of combat. Good leaders expect surprises, make contingency plans, and understand that “the enemy gets a vote.” They don’t just hope nothing goes wrong.

And of course, something serious did go wrong: the transports weren’t invisible after all. And since they were unarmed and unarmored, they could do nothing but explode dramatically as they were picked off like sitting ducks. Holdo’s solution to this apparently completely unforeseen development was to kamikaze her cruiser into the pursuing Star Destroyer. That was heroic, but it shouldn’t have been an “oh crap” reaction to a problem she reasonably should have foreseen.

…

No, Holdo wasn’t anywhere near that bad. And any leader who sacrificed herself for her troops as she did deserves respect. But she was still, during the Resistance fleet’s run to Crait, a bad leader."

Chewielewis said:

I have no problem with people disliking the film, but a lot of these negative critical analyses simply rely on taking the worst possible read of the source material and disregarding the true intentions of the creators. Thats not how you analyse film.

Dislike it all you want but a film is not “bad” or “poorly written” simply because you choose to interpret it a certain way. For every negative analysis of a plot point or character moment, there’s a totally rational read that works in the context of the narrative, the character arcs and the thematic elements of the story.

I just want to bring up one example of bad interpretation: Finn’s sacrifice.

Many of the critics read it as Finn is making a grand heroic sacrifice, a great way to end his character arc, to save the rebels and become a true hero of the republic, its his moment of glory, before having this taken away from him for no other reason that Rose selfishly just wanting a kiss, dooming the rebels in the process.

And thats one read of the scene which does sound like bad writing. But that is NOT what the scene is ACUTALLY trying to say.

Finn is acting out of hate, he hates the first order, what they did to him, what they’ve done to those he cares about (Rose, Rey), he has all the reason in the world to. And this is not a grand heroic action. The way the scene is shot, lit, scripted, scored, all shows this to be a futile suicide mission, the music is not heroic, his ship is literally melting as he flies towards this thing which cant possibly be taken down by what is basically a microlight. Poe knows it, Rose knows it, Finn should know it but hes blinded by hate.

So it seems pretty reasonable that Rose, who already lost a sister to the first order, would want to stop Finn from doing something stupid in the name of hate when she knows it wont help. And then she basically spouts off what is arguably the main message of the film “Don’t fight what you hate, save what you love”. Goofy as it sounds its pretty much the through line for the whole dang movie. Finn learns it, Rose learns it, Luke learns it, Poe learns it, Rey learns it sort of. You don’t have to like the film because of it, but you got to understand this is GOOD writing.

Yes films are always up for interpretation. But when you analyse a scene contrary to how the scene is actually play out, its a very disingenuous way to criticise. Sure there is a question on how effectively the true intentions of a scene are shown and some of that is up for debate, but I don’t think that this particular scene was ambiguous at all.

Id admit that RJ puts a little too much faith in the audiences ability to interpret his movie. I myself found this scene a little conflicting. RJ puts a lot of its stock in thematic elements and character arcs that are a lot less transparent than those in the OT. You don’t expect to have to consider themes and interpretations in what are supposed to be children’s movies.

And before you comment, yes I understand that THIS is NOT the reason you hated this film or you entirely understand what RJ is trying to say in the TLJ you just didn’t like what it was or you hated how he was saying it or just thought it was totally wrong for a star wars film to include themes like love and hate. Or you hate the idea that I’m insulting your ability to analyse film or that my method of film criticism is some how the only right way. I understand you might think that good themes and consistent messaging don’t make a well written film and i would disagree because thats what ALL well written films have to some extent, every good script has some larger meaning to justify its existence past simply telling a story, and if you disagree that the film had good themes and consistent messaging well thats up for debate but you’re going against some strong evidence. I know you might have found this scene to be just fine and found other scenes to be much much worse in which case I ask you to simply, as I have, consider what the best possible interpretation of that scene is and how that could positively integrate with the larger story.

We have to go by what we see, and RJ does his damnest to show us the rebels are in a desperate situation setting up Luke’s sacrifice. So, even if Finn acted out of hate, which I disagree with, as he seemed very determined to me, that his sacrifice would buy the rebels some time by destroying the laser that was about to crack open the rebel base, the message that “we win by saving what we love, not by fighting what we hate” seems quite hollow when we witness the FO destroying the last door standing between them and victory in the background. Rose didn’t know Luke would show up to save the day, as such even if Finn’s plan was doomed, they didn’t have any alternative then to try and destroy that weapon. Saving Finn effectively doomed everyone. So, if the message RJ was sending is muddled by the way the sequence was executed, in my opinion.

i am not sure how else to describe this, so i am sorry for using such terrible terms, but i feel like there are both "smarter’ and “stupidier” people on both sides of the TLJ spectrum - putting it in black and white - people that HATE it and people that LOVE it.

with stupidier, i mean people that are going to act like little kids and basically “yell” at you for your opinion and name call you etc. with “smarter” i usually mean mature adults with fair and well structured arguments.

and while i feel that the stupidier, dumber part of the people that hated TLJ have still been very vocal recently, with “remake TLJ!” projects and everything, it seems to me that the calmer and smarter part of the fandom that didn’t like it hasn’t been as vocal recently. around a week ago discussions here “begun again”, but before that we were on a hiatus for some good 4-5 months. and during that time period, comments criticizing the film were pretty rare, not only here at OT.com, but also out there on the internet.

and during these 4-5 months, it appears to me that those that LOVED TLJ kept talking about how much they loved it. and while that’s great and i’m happy people are spreading happiness and positivity, it seems that several of those comments were written simply to tease us that didn’t like it. for example, every other day i see a tweet from one of those smart people on twitter saying that they LOVED TLJ. but they don’t say it just for saying it - at least that’s not what it appears to be - like i said, they seem to be saying it to piss those that didn’t like it off.

their tweets aren’t things like “I loved The Last Jedi!”, they tend to be stuff like “The Last Jedi is one of the best Star Wars movies ever.” and stuff like that. they seem to be stating that as fact. and more often than not, some people respectfully disagree on the comments for one of those tweets, only to be attacked or told never anymore to return to the fanbase, that we’re better off without them.

it gets pretty annoying, and i think that this type of attitude from people that loved TLJ only inspire those stupidier fans to spread hate. because it IS absolutely annoying and irritating to read that you’re wrong all the time simply for not liking a movie, and then be associated with sexists and white supremacists simply because you share the people on those groups’ opinions on one bloody movie.

i’m far from a SJW, but i consider myself almost an alt-leftist. and i’ve been treated before as an alt-right guy simply because i hate Rey’s character, for example. they claim i hate women. how stupid is that?

this is just to show that TLJ lovers are also very, very toxic. and that they apparently love to tease us, and that that sort of stuff sparks hate that makes things like what happened to Kelly Marie Tran happen.

Prejudice exists on both sides. A critic of the Admiral Holdo character uses feminist in the title of an article, therefore it deserves to be dismissed off-hand, even if the author has first hand experience of real suffering, and sacrifice in the name of something greater than himself. In the author’s words:

“I don’t need Vice Admiral Holdo to show me that women can be real leaders. I already have Leigh Ann Hester, who fought through an insurgent ambush in Iraq. I have Captain Jennifer Moreno, an army nurse killed during a patrol in Afghanistan. I have Ann Carrizales, a police officer who was shot in the face but still helped chase down her attackers. I have my mother, who managed to finish her degree while working full time and raising five children. I have the stories, videos and photos of the brave Kurdish and Yezidi women fighting ISIS.”

Mavimao said:

DrDre said:

Prejudice exists on both sides. A critic of the Admiral Holdo character uses feminist in the title of an article, therefore it must be toxic, misogynist, and it thus deserves to be dismissed off-hand, even if the author has first hand experience of real suffering, and sacrifice in the name of something greater than himself. In the author’s words:

“I don’t need Vice Admiral Holdo to show me that women can be real leaders. I already have Leigh Ann Hester, who fought through an insurgent ambush in Iraq. I have Captain Jennifer Moreno, an army nurse killed during a patrol in Afghanistan. I have Ann Carrizales, a police officer who was shot in the face but still helped chase down her attackers. I have my mother, who managed to finish her degree while working full time and raising five children. I have the stories, videos and photos of the brave Kurdish and Yezidi women fighting ISIS.”

It’s not just in the title, Dre. To quote his article:

“As it turns out, Star Wars: The Last Jedi wasn’t just a science fiction movie. In reality, it was a lesson about sexism that we men badly needed. Or something.”

And then, “So please, Hollywood. I’ve been watching Star Wars for forty years. Don’t ruin it, don’t put your own personal crusades into it. Don’t spoon feed me your ideology. Just make a good movie.”

He makes some good points here and there but it’s unfortunate that people have to get caught up in this whole “agenda” they think they’re being attacked with.

Yes, the author feels TLJ has something to say about sexism. I don’t think that’s a very controversial opinion to have.

“Dern told Vanity Fair: “[Rian is] saying something that’s been a true challenge in feminism. Are we going to lead and be who we are as women in our femininity? Or are we going to dress up in a boy’s clothes to do the boy’s job? I think we’re waking up to what we want feminism to look like.””

There’s no denying it is one of the major themes running through TLJ, and I think it is fair to analyze in what ways it is successful. At the same time this author adds something to the discussion, because he has a rather unique and valuable perspective on the Holdo/Poe situation.