If you haven’t seen E.C. Henry’s videos, I suggest that you check them out. He makes really great stuff - I’ve been following him for a while. Some of my favorite stuff from him includes Pacific 201 Show-and-Tell, how much tea Captain Picard drinks, and the size of that planet in the opening credits of Star Trek: Voyager.
In his most recent video, "How ONE LINE Fixes The Last Jedi", E.C. Henry argues that the biggest problem around the plot and story-structure was from Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo’s role in the film, saying that her refusal to share her plan with anybody is seemingly irrational. I’ll take the reasons why this is incorrect in the order that he brings them up:
1. Captain Poe Dameron. Not Commander - Captain. General Leia Organa has demoted him two whole ranks (as I explained in my review of The Last Jedi and in my post "Rebel Alliance Ranks - Explained", the officer rank structure of the Resistance is Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Commander, Colonel, General/Admiral) because he could not handle a leadership role. He went from being a Field Officer to being a Company Officer - in other words, he is no longer a Senior Officer, but now a Junior Officer. Holdo, on the other hand, is in command of the remainder of the entirety of the Resistance, a military organization. It would be improper for her to explain every decision to every person who demands one - what she, and the entire chain-of-command, needs is for everyone to report to their stations and perform to the best of their abilities.
2. Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix. While she did have a significant role in the evacuation of D’Qar, that was because of her position of Operations Controller - she was prioritizing supplies to ensure an orderly retreat. Logistics Officers within operations tend to be of lower grades for various reasons - she is neither a tactician nor a strategist, and she is quite young. Rank advancement does not come quickly there. But she is a bean-counter and a coordinator, and she was quite skilled at that.
What is most likely was that she is the person who best knew who all knew what supplies were where and what was left, as well as knowing what ships had what lift capacity and carrying capacity, and was able to prioritize all of that based off of the instructions from her superiors. See coordinated everything because she had that ability, but she was not in a command position, and once she was back aboard the Raddus, she resumed her responsibilities as a Sensor Operations Officer.
3. Holdo did not tell “nobody” what the plan was - that’s not possible. There are too many screens on the bridge of a MC85 Star Cruiser to do that. On top of that, there are orders that have to be passed down to fuel the transports, be on course to the planet (especially since the planet is not on any map), coordinate how to get everybody onto the transports, and so forth. It seems to me that Commander Larma D'Acy and the rest of the Senior Officers (note: Senior Officers) know what’s going on, because they were critical to making the plan work.
4. Poe is making demands of a senior officer. That’s a briggable offense in a military organization. Poe should know better. Because we don’t have access to either the Resistance’s Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) nor the Republic’s UCMJ, I will quote Article 89 of the United State of America’s UCMJ: “Any person subject to this chapter who behaves with disrespect toward his superior commissioned officer shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.” This has a maximum punishment of a bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 1 year. Or Offences against military law in the United Kingdom as laid out in Armed Forces Act 2006, Section 11 (Misconduct towards a superior officer): “Disrespectful behaviour or communication to a superior officer” - this carries a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment.
5. Poe taking orders from a woman - this is not an asinine argument. He is supposed to be the representation of fragile masculinity. To take a paragraph directly out of my review:
Poe is the representation of two things: fragile masculinity and growing into leadership. Now, I am not saying that Poe in himself is a fragile male - what I am saying is that it is what he is representing. After the Resistance Leadership is killed and Leia is hospitalized, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo takes command ("the chain of command is clear," Commander Larma D'Acy says, assuring us that even this eventuality was planned for), and Poe is surprised. “That’s Admiral Holdo?" He quipped to fellow pilot C'ai Threnalli. "Battle of Chyron Belt Admiral Holdo? Not what I was expecting." The audience is expecting what Poe is expecting - another hotshot war hero who is masculine and daring, much like the heroes of Star Wars past. But instead we see a middle-aged, tall woman with dyed hair who is high-femme - turning what we expect of war heroes on its head. And every interaction Poe has with Holdo is one where he is trying to exert his non-existent authority and she is putting him back in his place, to the point where he leads a mutiny against her. The fragile masculinity that he represents cannot handle being out of the loop, and he demands answers instead of respecting the chain of command (and respecting the chain of command should have been something covered at the New Republic Starfleet Academy) to the point of putting additional lives in danger by staging a mutiny.
And, yes - Poe worships General Organa. But General Organa is also a hero. She’s a big fucking deal. She's a goddess. She’s Doctor Princess General Leia Organa, hero of the Rebellion, Force-user, woman who helped resurrect the Republic, &c, &c. That trumps gender. Though it’s less that Holdo is a woman, it’s that Holdo is femme and Poe was expecting someone like him. Masculine. Daring. And the plan that is brought to him by Rose Tico and Finn - Finn does most of the talking throughout the plan.
PS: Feminine and masculine are not the same as female and male - there is so much gender theory that can go into this, but that will have to be a different post entirely.
E.C. Henry, I hope that you read this - if so, please leave me a comment about your thoughts! I'm a big fan of yours (I actually follow you on my personal channel; I'm not set up yet with the YouTube account that is associated with this website). When your video came out, I wanted to write this response, but I did not have the time until just this morning.
Everybody else: seriously, go check out his stuff. It's good stuff. I mean it.
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