57 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

...not really.

The cave sequence remains perfectly fine

Rey is looking for answers about her heritage. She sees a long line if herself. Palpatine has been involved in cloning from the beginning. He cloned an army, he cloned Smoke, et cetera.

Rey saw what she asked for. Kylo's revelation s remain accurate... from a certain point of view.

That doesn't make sense. "Palp cloned Snoke" is not an answer to the question "Who is this person, Rey?"

Also, the retcon job to explain Rey being Palp's granddaughter also means that Palp is an idiot. This supposed mastermind puppet master couldn't find a little girl who stayed in the same place on the same planet for a decade and a half, who very explicitly never left because she was holding out hope her parents would return and save her from her loneliness. He sent one agent, and when that agent didn't return, he just went, "Welp, that didn't work, I guess I'll just give up"? (This is RoS also inadvertently making TFA make less sense. Wowie-- a plot decision that makes all three movies actively worse!)

@FTS Gecko Also, you didn't engage with my contention about the Kylo revelation. It isn't solely that it makes Kylo wrong; that we could live with because of points of view. It's that it makes his seduction attempt, the strongest one Rey was ever going to get, pointless. "No one else values you but me" can't be true if Palpie wants Rey, too. That, in turn, means Kylo has much less to offer Rey in RoS-- that movie successfully shooting itself in the foot.

5 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I get my delusions from the reactions to Empire Strikes Back way back in the day.

You don't have to keep being hostile. Fight's over. You guys won. If you can't recognize a victory or somebody who's clearly defeated, I don't know what to tell you.

You'll probably just laugh at it.

4 hours ago, kris40k said:

@KCDodger May want to update the thread title that this contains spoilers, and is no longer just discussing TLJ

Pretty amazing right?

Just because something is worse doesn't make something better.

Lowering the bar is just another fallacy

Fine, I'll say it. What the sequels did right is show me that the Originals had it right all along and never even said it.

The sequel trilogy did more to damage progress on the issues it tried to push then it did to help them.

In OT/PT, 'good' factions had equal treatment. Male, female, alien, whatever, just be good and your in the club. The princess will save the farm boy and the smuggler. The elected queen will be respected for her position, strong in leadership, and also bail your tuckus out of danger. And her co-senatator when she moves to the Senate will equally represent her worlds diversity. Even if your a slave Droid, good work can lead to your promotion and is rewarded. You are not, as you were created.

Bad guys, like the evil Empire , are the ones who are misogynistic xenophobia twits. Those traits are for the scum underworld that sexually enslaves. For the separatist corporate overlords who don't think women can escape their arena.

And for six movies that was the case. And then... Sequels happened.

Now it's a fight. Now Holdo had an all female staff and stonewalls her male counterparts. Now the resistance is entirely human leadership and the alien is just a guest at the table. Now Rey doesn't want anyone to hold her hand even when there's an obvious danger cuz screw team work. Now it's not just impressive, it's surprising when she can fend off four attackers. Now Leia doesn't use her words to lead her people she just shoots them when they act up because they're just Cannon fodder fly boys.

And then in the chaos of it all, we the audience followed suit. We started declaring ourselves this, and them that. And we lost that old style anyone can be anything vibe.

We didn't build off the first six, we watched it get destroyed and called it art. The progress we had made was destroyed not by a bang, but by thunderous applause.

There I said it. The sequels took us backwards. They weren't progressive, they were needlessly antagonistic and devisive.

If I were so lucky to have a daughter, I'd teach her to be That Princess, and That Elected Queen. But to never be That Admiral.

My name is Dante, and I'm checking out for awhile. May the force of others be with you this holiday. Always.

@ForceSensitive I agree with your overall thesis about the movies, but I think you have misread some of it. For starters, it took a while for the OT to get as inclusive as you mention; the rebels we see at Yavin are exclusively white male humans with the exception of Chewie and Leia. Women in operations doesn't happen until Empire; Leia is the only woman who sees combat on the ground or in space. Aliens aren't in the ranks at all until RotJ; Chewie, you may remember, famously got frozen out of the medal ceremony after Yavin. Yes, it was good and valuable for the trilogies to eventually get there, but let's not overstate things.

As for the sequels: aliens make up a significant part of the command staff and the pilot ranks, as do women. They suffer disproportionate losses in TLJ because there were many of them on the bridge, the seat of power , when the bridge was hit. There's professional respect between Holdo and the (male) captain who goes down with his ship. Rey doesn't want to hold hands with Finn while they're running because it's hard to run while holding hands with someone. (Try it.) Leia does lead with words, on several occasions. She stuns Poe because he was staging a mutiny. By military law, that carries the death penalty, but she stuns him. Why? Because she and Holdo are explicitly grooming him for leadership. Look to the end of the movie: when he starts to lead the survivors of the Resistance and they look to Leia, uncertainly, she says, "What are you looking at me for? Follow him!" He had to learn, had to fail, before he could be fit for leadership, and Leia and Holdo were willing to invest the effort to make that happen.

The movies didn't change. The environment did. The audience did. We became hypersensitized to these things-- to our detriment.

4 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

...

My name is Dante, and I'm checking out for awhile. May the force of others be with you this holiday. Always.

Yeah it is tough seeing all the franchise depart from their golden age into well beyond their prime.

Heck your name reminds me of a similar property.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only retcon

But yeah, Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, there are so many properties that got ruined because in order to make profit, there has to be something new. But people want their nostalgia back so they just go to previously established franchises instead of making new ones, many of those already had a satisfying conclusion and to add more would just throw away the old franchise.

As for new properties, well the demand simply outpaces the supply, so when the demand outpaces what can be produced things like Game of Thrones happen. Now that is nothing new with TV but back when episodes were only in time slots reruns and flashback filler episodes were used to fill in the slot, but with everything on demand that is just not possible.

This is why when I see more hype, more marketing , a massive advertising budget *******, I often look the other way because simply the part of the market is not to make a good product but to convince others that it is a good product. The product that sells itself simply fails.

On 12/23/2019 at 11:14 PM, Captain Lucas said:

Which never should have needed to be made, considering how TLJ could have been MUCH better with the potential given in TFA before. History will NOT be kind to how Disney has treated the stories and fanbases to the most one of, if not, the most prolific franchise of all time.

IMHO, all of the 3 ST movies are fine. Not great, but fine.

TFA lands the nostalgia and does what it needs to do: establish the characters and setting.

TLJ is great character development, but "subverting expectations" is just a euphemism for "went completely off script."

ROS does a good job of trying to tie everything together, but by now there are so many loose ends is just looks like an overflowing basket of ideas put together in such a way that it seems like Disney realized "oh ****, is it 2019 already?"

So in the end, what sucks is the Trilogy. Clearly no one bothered to create a cohesive storyline linking the trilogy, and (intentional or not) the ST now looks like a pissing match between 2 directors.

I also agree with @McFoy that TLJ now feels like an extra piece that doesn't really fit. We have JJs 2 part finale and RJs tale of Skywalker. But this doesn't really work either, because none of these movies acts as a stand alone--all of them start and end with the expectation of something more. Previously only ESB and AOTC end on a note that requires another movie. You can still watch ANH and forget anything else ever existed, and even TPM can be watched as the 1-movie Liberation of Naboo.

The vitriolic attacks on both directors and all the films is easily what I dislike the most about Star Wars. I appreciated TLJ for trying to break SW out of its 7-film recurring themes/motifs/devices, and I loved the character moments in it that TROS doesn't really have time for - and I don't view TLJ as a character assassination in any way (and certainly not one created for TLJ - the premise of TFA sets the character arcs.) Some of the film landed for me and some of it didn't, but that's most movies.

I did appreciate TLJ's relatively tight narrative as well.

On 12/24/2019 at 7:28 PM, KCDodger said:

You don't have to keep being hostile. Fight's over. You guys won. If you can't recognize a victory or somebody who's clearly defeated, I don't know what to tell you.

Won? Victory? What on Earth are you talking about?

You think this shambles was a win for anyone?

You think this was some sort of competition?

There are no winners from this. No one wanted to see bad Star Wars movies. No one wanted to see the OT cast return to the screen in this manner. No one wanted to see a new generation of characters wasted in this manner.

If you think someone has come out of this feeling like a winner, then you really haven't been paying attention.

3 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Won? Victory? What on Earth are you talking about?

You think this shambles was a win for anyone?

You think this was some sort of competition?

There are no winners from this. No one wanted to see bad Star Wars movies. No one wanted to see the OT cast return to the screen in this manner. No one wanted to see a new generation of characters wasted in this manner.

If you think someone has come out of this feeling like a winner, then you really haven't been paying attention.

The others are right. Your only goal is to make it worse for absolutely everyone.

Stop replying to me.

On 12/24/2019 at 6:23 PM, Marinealver said:

Yeah it is tough seeing all the franchise depart from their golden age into well beyond their prime.

Heck your name reminds me of a similar property.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only retcon

But yeah, Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, there are so many properties that got ruined because in order to make profit, there has to be something new. But people want their nostalgia back so they just go to previously established franchises instead of making new ones, many of those already had a satisfying conclusion and to add more would just throw away the old franchise.

As for new properties, well the demand simply outpaces the supply, so when the demand outpaces what can be produced things like Game of Thrones happen. Now that is nothing new with TV but back when episodes were only in time slots reruns and flashback filler episodes were used to fill in the slot, but with everything on demand that is just not possible.

This is why when I see more hype, more marketing , a massive advertising budget *******, I often look the other way because simply the part of the market is not to make a good product but to convince others that it is a good product. The product that sells itself simply fails.

None of these are ruined though...

Okay, back from holiday break hope you all had a good one.

I would like to counterpoint my friend @ChahDresh on a factual issue, and ideally the opportunity to defend that I am not misreading but in fact as a moral point between us am accounting for each time in which the movies were made.

Politely, your just incorrect about the lack of additional aliens on the battle line, or at least being seen as a warrior. As we all know and love Yoda is introduced in that movie. No he doesn't fight in the GCW per se, but he's said to be a wise powerful Master by Obi-Wan Kenobi. And even then you understand that there is a likelihood he also fought in the Clone Wars. Though at the time that's not a focal point of the narrative, granted it didn't have to be for the movie as a whole.

Add to this a little known fact that while we don't have women on the ground, we ALMOST had them in the air. Footage survives of three women filmed for Return of the Jedi as pilots. And the footage of one is actually used though the voice gets redubbed male sadly. Here's the video for everyone's convenience I'm sure there's a few who may not have seen it yet.

Now on the medal thing, I always thought that was a fan created issue honestly. Like when I watched that movie for the first time oh so many years ago now, I read something completely different. I figured they were just giving medals to the captains of ships. After all, artoo-detoo didn't get a medal either? Or whatever a purple heart equivalent would have been? That was never a big issue for me is all. I felt like it was something that could just be misread. Like, he's still walking down the precession with Han, clearly he's being honored. I made to understand it gets fixed here and that's great and all but I just never was as upset by it.

And this is my point. Lucas normalized us to this as he walks us through the movies. It starts with one princess and a Wookie. Then it's a radio operator, Lando as a business exec/mayor later to be general, Yoda as a powerful teacher, and more on through the saga. And for the 70/80s, that's huuuge as I'm sure we agree. I'm sure Lucas wanted to have more but for what he could do, he found that envelopes edge, and pushed. Every time, just a little further. Then we get to the prequels and it's the third character we see on screen: female pilot-Captain of the Republic Navy. Then a Queen who's quite frankly done with your blockade $#@&. And then the diversity of a Jedi council and on and on and on we go.

And at the risk of repeating my point, it's that he normalizes us to this the whole way. He never stops to point it out, or to make a big deal about it. The characters just go through their world like it's just everyday life, because it is. The movies don't have to point it out. We never have to split the rank of all the gals on this side, all the guys on the other, and put conflict between them like this trilogy has done.

(Subjective) I would also like to point out the two major plot holes that undo your theory of Holdo respecting the other Captain. First the captain never had to die, as Holdo proves later by standing in the hangar on an empty ship, no one had to be on the bridge, so dude could have totally hopped over to the Raddus. And then if we assume the guy for some magic reason does have to stay at good helm, and is willing to go down with his ship, mad respect and all... Then why doesn't he do the hyper-ram? There's just too much nonsense here to be able to justify any decision as it comes, because each contradict another decision just moments earlier.

(Subjective)And the mutiny thing, respectfully I think your selectively reading too much into it on that one. That whole time they paint Holdo as a person without a plan, who's not communicating with her staff, not sharing critical information. Leading up to that no-confidence removal from command attempt, that in truth seemed perfectly justified. In the theater I thought she was a spy, and that she was the reason the FO could track them, and not some tracking tech. She makes no reasonable decision for the two characters interaction. Poes not being groomed, they rip on his choker leash like a dog, and put him on ice for storage because they can't lose their best weapon, er, pilot. Leia doesn't come in like 'alright dude listen, I see we should have told you earlier, but please put the gun down let's talk'. It's just boom. Get him out of here. Later on Crait, Leia's not like 'my you've grown, everyone follow you now.' it's more like 'well for once I don't have a different idea, guess we'll go with yours'. And frankly, I want my princess back between the two 😅

I like your conclusion and I think it's spot on apt the times changed. And in a few ways the ST keeps up, like throwing a multi hundred million dollar budget at the costume department. It's great that we got all those aliens and actors and actresses. But for my opinion, in a lot of ways, it really doesn't get the humanity right. It's hit or miss at best. Thanks for your time. Sorry it's long winded... Again. *Cracks two beers, hands you one*

14 hours ago, KCDodger said:

The others are right. Your only goal is to make it worse for absolutely everyone.

Wow. Let me respond to that comment in a way you might understand:

@ForceSensitive I mean, we could discuss how Yoda explicitly downplays or distances himself from battle ("wars not make one great") but it's a minor point. And what you focused on in your post was primarily Rebellion/Resistance leadership... but again, it's minor.

I think that's really neat that we almost got that additional voicework, but does something that almost happened but isn't in the movie count? Canonically (and for all but the most ardent fans), no, that didn't happen, so the point stands.

Of course R2-D2 didn't get a medal because, in Star Wars, droids aren't treated as people. No matter what aspects of personhood they might exhibit, they are (by law and custom) the lowest form of cyber-organic life. That's what makes for such a squeamish comparison between him and Chewbacca. I mean, sure, not everyone who participated in the Battle of Yavin gets a medal-- Wedge and the Y-Wing pilot don't-- but they don't get brought up on stage. (They also didn't participate in the Princess rescue, which Chewie did.)

You are incorrect about no one having to pilot the cruiser-- in fact, Holdo says as much explicitly ("If this is going to work, someone is going to have to pilot the cruiser"). Now, in the case of the support ship that went down, there was perhaps little utility in the captain staying aboard until the end besides naval tradition of captains going down with their ships, but that doesn't undo the point.

As far as why he doesn't do the Holdo maneuver... I've thought about it quite a bit, and if you'd like to know my take on it, I can go there, it just might be another long post. Suffice to say that the RoS line "That was a one-in-a-million shot" isn't too far from the truth.

The possibility of there being a spy aboard (whether Holdo or someone else) is a valid one, and the reason Holdo doesn't share the whole plan from the start. They don't know how the First Order is tracking them, so the possibility of it being a spy is very real and must be honored. That's why Holdo doesn't go around telling everyone what the plan is, because the probability of a secret being spilled is proportional to the cube of the people in on it. It's basic Operational Security (OpSec). It has the additional factor of being an attempt to teach Poe patience and faith, two things he exhibits a lack of earlier in the movie. He fails at those in the moment, sending Rose and Finn on their horribly long-odds mission... and, from it, he learns, in a way he didn't learn from his mistake with the Dreadnought attack.

Leia blasts him instead of trying to talk him down because there is no time. At that juncture, every minute counts. The timeframe to split away from the cruiser while still being hard to spot by the pursuit is narrow. Expediency drove Leia's decision.

Don't worry, I dig a good ol' long-winded, civil back-and-forth a lot more than rage and memes. *accepts proffered beer*

39 minutes ago, ChahDresh said:

...The possibility of there being a spy aboard (whether Holdo or someone else) is a valid one, and the reason Holdo doesn't share the whole plan from the start. They don't know how the First Order is tracking them, so the possibility of it being a spy is very real and must be honored. That's why Holdo doesn't go around telling everyone what the plan is, because the probability of a secret being spilled is proportional to the cube of the people in on it. It's basic Operational Security (OpSec)...

Some of the marketing prior to The Last Jedi's release focused on the "evil, First Order BB unit" - BB-9E. Who was conspicuous by his absence from the film up until Finn, Rose and BB-8's return from Canto Bight and infiltration of the Supremacy.

However, earlier in the film - right after the destruction of the Raddus' bridge - we see a similar BB unit - 2BB-2 - loitering around in the background during the emergency command meeting.

Immediate instincts (given the marketing push) were - "well, THERE'S the spy..." - just another case of subverted expectations I guess.

@ForceSensitive @ChahDresh

If you allow me to add my two cents regarding the Captain staying in the ship and the spy part. All is subjective , of course.

I'm a big fan of episode 8, it's actually my favorite along episode 5, and I must say that every time I watch it I always think that realistically the Captain could easily have left the ship, but he stayed there solely for dramatic purpose. It's okay, it's a movie after all, a lot of things in movies when you stop to think about it are more about dramatic impact than being realistic. It's there so we can feel the desperation of the Resistance fleet being tailed and the pressure of time going against them, that it's only a matter of time before the First Order also get the Raddus. In my opinion, it's such a really minor nitpick that I don't mind (it's definetly not a major plot hole) there are worst things happening in pretty much every Star Wars movie, episode 8 included, that doesn't really makes sense but we roll with it because it's just a movie and it's Star Wars. As for why he didn't ram them in Hyperspace, it could be that he just didn't think about doing it or that by the time it would took the ship to turn around to hypersapce ram, the First Order would have already destroy the ship anyway. Remember that Holdo only achieve to do it because Hux thinks it's only a diversion so order his fleet to continue shooting at the transports. If the First Order would have switched and shoot the Raddus instead of the transports, Holdo would not have been able to hyperspace ram. Logic reason why he didn't hyperram, First Order would have blown it before he could turn around; behind the scene reason, the Holdo sacrifice was such a beautiful cinematographic scene that seeing a little freighter do it prior to it would haver diminish the dramatic impact of it and would have killed the surprise for such a trivial reason as a nitpick.

Regarding the spy part. When I first watched Episode 8 in theaters, a FO spy being in the Resistance was my first guess of why the First Order was tracking them through lightspeed. Little fact, because I followed the journey to The Last Jedi, when I saw a black BB9 unit during the meeting on the Raddus, I thought it was the spy because there is a BB9 unit coming with the Lego Tie Silencer and on the Raddus was the first time we saw one in the movie, so I made a connection, and an astromech droid made a lot of sense as a spy to track through hyperspace. So yeah, when Holdo decided to not tell Poe any part of her plan, it made sense to me, there might be a spy aboard and while Holdo might not think it's Poe, she might think that he could tell it unvoluntarily to the real spy. Better safe than sorry, and Poe was a loyal Resistance member so the risk of a mutiny probably never crossed her mind. But, since Poe is our hero in the movie, it's only natural that we, the omniscient spectator, antagonise her. We see her as an obstacle for our hero. And seeing how much a lot of people hate Holdo, I think it was mission accomplished for Rian

@FTS Gecko Yes, this is known as a red herring-- a plausible explanation, but not the one. It's a common device for upping tension and uncertainty. It goes a long way towards explaining Holdo's actions. She's not being needlessly antagonistic; she's being responsibly cautious. She has to take into account the possibility that there's a spy aboard, and keep her plans close to the vest. It cuts against the grain of Poe's character, because he's a man of action, but that's why it's all the more important that he learns it. (For the record, I thought the First Order was tracking Leia's hypercomm beacon for Rey.) @Red Castle 's point about narrative perspective is insightful, too.

For that matter, Red Castle, your discussion of the Holdo Maneuver hits a lot of the pertinent points. There are a few more to be made in addition. Coming about is the most dangerous maneuver you can execute in a fleet battle because it makes your position stationary (or close to it) for a significant time, making you easy to hit. Seeing as the frigate was being splattered with chasing fire from the First Order armada already, it would have been horribly vulnerable as the FO armada closed the range while the Frigate executed its come-about.

Second, to inflict real damage, the target needs to be near the apex of your hyper-acceleration-- but before you make the "jump" from realspace to hyperspace. That's a pretty small target; presumably, only a highly skilled captain can pinpoint that spot. Third, we know (from other movies) that the distance it takes a ship to jump to hyperspace is proportional to its mass. The frigate would have had to get much closer to the FO fleet than the Raddus did, a prospect it was unlikely to survive. Ramming damage is also proportional to mass, meaning even a successful Holdo maneuver by a smaller vessel would not have inflicted the catastrophe Holdo's, er, maneuver did.

Finally, of course, it's not something people train to do much because it requires you to have a large capital ship you never need to use again. That's not a common occurrence! The Empire, you might say, is ruthless enough to do it, but it needs those Star Destroyers to maintain order once the battles are won; there is a difference between being willing to lose a ship and throwing it away. The Resistance (and, for that matter, the Rebellion), being so much more resource-strapped, have even less occasion to try and use the Holdo maneuver, as nothing in their arsenal is "expendable". When you have only a handful of capital ships total, throwing them away is unsustainable. And, as we discussed above, doing so with smaller ships is much less viable, because there's less available mass and the range requirements are much tighter.

The circumstances of the Holdo maneuver justify Finn's RoS characterization of it as a "one-in-a-million". Yet it is nevertheless consistent with Star Wars as we know it, dramatically effective, and spectacular to look upon. I dig it.

To be clear, there have been plenty of times that I've been told to shut up and color and not given planning details until absolutely required by commanders/lead planners for operational security. The fact that Poe is even allowed to fly again, much less hold a leadership role, was my biggest surprise in the film after the callous disregard for authority. Poe didn't "deserve" or "need" to know the plan - there was absolutely no reason for anyone to trust him with that information.

16 hours ago, dsul413 said:

None of these are ruined though...

Star Trek Discovery, The Hobbit movies, and Primarius Marines.

Seems ruined enough for me. At least to the point where I am not interested in the continuation of those stories.

1 hour ago, dsul413 said:

To be clear, there have been plenty of times that I've been told to shut up and color and not given planning details until absolutely required by commanders/lead planners for operational security. The fact that Poe is even allowed to fly again, much less hold a leadership role, was my biggest surprise in the film after the callous disregard for authority. Poe didn't "deserve" or "need" to know the plan - there was absolutely no reason for anyone to trust him with that information.

True, but even then you should give your troops a bone, even if its a bare one. I've never said in my 5 year career as an Army officer, "because I'm in charge." or "do as you are told", etc. One of the most essential things you have to do as a leader is get buy-in from your troops. It helps morale, it helps organization efficiency, trust, all of those things. Its just poor leadership to give in order or lack of an order and tell them follow it or else. The biggest problem is the script painted these characters into a corner so unnecessarily. Poe needed a legitimate reason to mutiny otherwise he just comes off as a complete *** hole, which you can't have one of your big 3 protagonists be a totally unlikeable character. Holdo by just holding back any information comes off as a crappy leader and in turn creates doubt she has any idea of what she is doing. She has been in charge all of 5 minutes and shows no indication to her subordinates she is competent.

42 minutes ago, Jo Jo said:

True, but even then you should give your troops a bone, even if its a bare one. I've never said in my 5 year career as an Army officer, "because I'm in charge." or "do as you are told", etc. One of the most essential things you have to do as a leader is get buy-in from your troops. It helps morale, it helps organization efficiency, trust, all of those things. Its just poor leadership to give in order or lack of an order and tell them follow it or else. The biggest problem is the script painted these characters into a corner so unnecessarily. Poe needed a legitimate reason to mutiny otherwise he just comes off as a complete *** hole, which you can't have one of your big 3 protagonists be a totally unlikeable character. Holdo by just holding back any information comes off as a crappy leader and in turn creates doubt she has any idea of what she is doing. She has been in charge all of 5 minutes and shows no indication to her subordinates she is competent.

I agree in principle, completely, but we also have imperfect characters because perfect characters are boring, right? Holdo judges Poe because he's a "trigger-happy flyboy" who is "impulsive, dangerous, and the last thing we need right now." I would condemn this leadership style typically as well (and still don't agree with how Holdo handles it), but in Poe's case its actually warranted because he had just proven he couldn't be trusted to listen to leadership. I hated Poe throughout TLJ - he demands Holdo trust him with a sensitive plan immediately after ignoring a superior's orders and losing a significant amount of people/resources for a seemingly short-term gain.

Holdo attempts to generate buy-in with her speech. " Four hundred of us on three ships. We're the very last of the Resistance. But we're not alone. In every corner of the galaxy, the downtrodden and oppressed know our symbol and they put their hope in it. We are the spark that will light the fire that will restore the Republic. That spark, this Resistance, must survive. That is our mission. Now to your stations, and may the Force be with us." It's not the plan, sure, but she's trying to rally the troops to her anyway.

I don't recall ever using the type of language you refer to with my subordinates either, but I'm sure we've both heard it at some point in our careers. That Holdo didn't attempt to generate buy-in from the command staff or have trusted agents that are in on the plan is surprising (or unseen), but based on his actions my shock is that Poe is even in the room. While I should generate buy-in as a leader, full stop, I don't expect to have a straight up mutiny either if my subordinates don't agree with my plan.

Edit: I've definitely launched for missions without the details. ****, I've flown entire missions without knowing what I was accomplishing except for the specific thing my crew was being asked to do, and never found out the actual impact of the sortie. I wanted it, sure, but I still had enough a sense of duty to follow orders.

4 hours ago, Jo Jo said:

True, but even then you should give your troops a bone, even if its a bare one. I've never said in my 5 year career as an Army officer, "because I'm in charge." or "do as you are told", etc. One of the most essential things you have to do as a leader is get buy-in from your troops. It helps morale, it helps organization efficiency, trust, all of those things. Its just poor leadership to give in order or lack of an order and tell them follow it or else. The biggest problem is the script painted these characters into a corner so unnecessarily. Poe needed a legitimate reason to mutiny otherwise he just comes off as a complete *** hole, which you can't have one of your big 3 protagonists be a totally unlikeable character. Holdo by just holding back any information comes off as a crappy leader and in turn creates doubt she has any idea of what she is doing. She has been in charge all of 5 minutes and shows no indication to her subordinates she is competent.

Did you forget the whole "there might be a mole or transmitter" that makes OpSec the overriding concern? (A true to life thing in circumstances with far less at stake than TLJ. Also, that gets proven right when the slicer DOES give away the plan.) Did you forget that Poe had just demonstrated he did not deserve trust? Again, this isn't from Holdo alone, it's from Leia, who slaps, dresses down, and demotes Poe before Holdo enters the picture. You prepared to come at Leia?

Also, Holdo comes with a reputation; Poe cites a battle in which she earned acclaim. That and the whole chain of command thing should be enough. That they aren't is an indictment of Poe, a reflection of where he is at that point of the story. He grows later on. It's a tragedy that he had to make such big mistakes to get there, but he does manage it, and Leia affirms it.

all this BS reminds me of Brazilian national soccer.

oh, Scolari sucks, fire him! wait Dunga is worse, fire him and bring back Scolari! Wait Scolari is worse than we remember bring back Dunga! Dunga's terrible, fire him!

it's literally gone back and forth as many times now.

like Brazilian soccer, we seem unable to accept that the real problem is that the fans are too demanding for anything to make them happy.