Burbin, I guess I’m coming at this from a perspective of “What plan makes logical sense?” rather than “What do each of the characters say?”
So, like, we’re agreed that the Nav signal is required for the fleet to leave Exegol, right? In that case, the plan should be to destroy the nav signal, right? Because if their entire plan hinges on disabling the signal temporarily…my god, that’s just utterly stupid, isn’t it? Like, I genuinely can’t wrap my head around that plan. That actually goes beyond stupid; it’s utterly incomprehensible.
And dude, that’s not a dig at you; it’s a dig at the movie. I want to be clear about that.
I’ve gone the past year and a half assuming that the battle was won by destroying the nav tower. Because it has to be. Maybe that’s on me; maybe I gave the film too much credit, letting it have even one sequence that’s somewhat intelligible - Finn’s working on destroying the beacon; Poe’s providing cover and trying to knock out the ships in the meantime. Two-pronged attack. That makes sense. Maybe I filled in the gaps in my head, because it’s the only way I could reconcile with the sequence; but that proves that the battle still works from that perspective. And as I’ve pointed out before, the nav tower doesn’t even have to be disabled for them to destroy the ships! Destroying it just keeps them on Exegol.
The thing is everything else points to the stall being temporary, and I don’t see how that’s “nonsensical” but making it permanent makes perfect sense, seems to me like it’s the opposite. Changing this would contradict everything else. The main plan, as clearly laid out in the briefing, is to hit the Fleet while they’re vulnerable on Exegol since shields don’t work on it’s atmosphere, and without shields hitting the cannons causes a chain reaction that brings down the ships. Deactivating their nav signal is only step one on the plan, as a means to stall the fleet from leaving the planet, step two is Lando riling up the people and step three is taking down the Final Order. You seem to be under the impression that the plan was to leave the fleet stranded on Exegol, while taking out a few ships on the way, but it’s explicitly stated the main goal is to take the ships down.
Exactly, the plan is to “hit the fleet while they’re vulnerable on Exegol.” So why would the plan entail only keeping them on Exegol temporarily, when they could keep them on Exegol permanently? I’m talking from a logical, plan-making perspective. Which one makes more sense?
Changing this also turns Poe’s POV of the battle into nonsense, as every line he speaks clearly indicates he believes the ships won’t be stuck forever:
“We’ll have to hit them ourselves! Except… they’re stuck here and we’re horribly outnumbered, so we could just leave and regroup with Lando!”
“This is our last chance, we’ve got to hit those cannons now! Or… maybe later! They are stuck here guys don’t worry!”
“Poe, the command ship!”
“Oh, cool, it blew up, the fleet was already stuck here anyway, but hey, they’re toast, come on!”
Yes, exactly. My suggestion, way back however-many-pages ago, was to trim some of those Poe lines down to be in line with the “trap the fleet on Exegol” plan. I acknowledged those lines and how they could be tweaked, so I don’t get how that’s a factor in this discussion? It’s circular logic - you want to keep the lines because the lines justify the plan that the lines explained.
Again, I don’t care about “What do the characters say in the original film?” But rather “What actually makes sense for them to do - and let’s make them do that.” Fan editing.
Look, Finn seems shocked that the Nav Tower is coming back online. Once it’s actually destroyed, Poe says “Their fleet is stuck here! They’re toast! Come on!” And then he sort of gestures over his shoulder, and he never takes out another SDDSSD. In fact, NO ONE TAkES OUT ANOTHER SDDSSD. They just leave, because what’s the First/Final Order going to do? Follow them? They’ve been trapped. The visuals of the film show that, as soon as the Nav Tower is destroyed, the Rebels start to leave without taking out more ships.
Seriously, I’m trying to understand this cockamamie plan to “temporarily disable the Nav beacon, and then blow up a seemingly infinite number of ships in the few minutes during which they’re stalled”…and it’s like trying to conceptualize infinity. My brain can’t do it. I’m not being hyperbolic. Swear to god, I can’t comprehend it. And if your only aversion to the change is a few lines that Poe says, when my whole pitch was to remove those lines in the first place…why not?
I’m saying change the lines, clean up the plan.
Let’s allow Exegol to make even the slightest amount of sense. Please.