Current Events > What exactly do people dislike about the Holdo Maneuver? *Star Wars spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's not that out of left field for sci-fi. Is it that people don't like that it happened period, or people feel like it was unnecessary / a waste?
---

They're apparently upset that they don't just constantly use hyperdrive weapons.

---

"Why weren't people doing that the whole time"

"Droids could pilot a ship and do this"

"It disregards canon"


---

I just dislike that in Rise of Skywalker, they make it seem like she was stupid for doing it and it was a "One in a million" shot for it to work. Changed her from being a brave soldier willing to die to damage the opposing fleet into a stupid commander who recklessly tried a stunt.

---

MorbidFaithless posted...

"Why weren't people doing that the whole time"

Because it is preferable to devise a tactic that does not require self-sacrifice in the process.

"Droids could pilot a ship and do this"

Yes, but the grassroots movement to ensure droids' rights would argue against such protocol.

"It disregards canon"

In what way?

I realize you are quoting common arguments, just wanted to respond.

Serious Cat posted...

They're apparently upset that they don't just constantly use hyperdrive weapons.

MorbidFaithless posted...

"Why weren't people doing that the whole time"

Because it's fiction, and every fight would be boring if it was two groups slinging FTL projectiles at each other

MorbidFaithless posted...

"Droids could pilot a ship and do this"

True. Star Wars is also a drama though and there would be no emotional impact at all if a droid did it.

MorbidFaithless posted...

"It disregards canon"

I feel like I've heard this one before, but no one ever actually elaborates on what canon that is.

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I just dislike that in Rise of Skywalker, they make it seem like she was stupid for doing it and it was a "One in a million" shot for it to work. Changed her from being a brave soldier willing to die to damage the opposing fleet into a stupid commander who recklessly tried a stunt.

Did they? I must have glossed over that with all the other problems I had with RoS. I actually really enjoyed TFA and TLJ. RoS though was... not good.
---

I liked a lot of Last Jedi. Being on the casino planet not so much.

---

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I liked a lot of Last Jedi. Being on the casino planet not so much.

Had a bomb music track though.

Remember the battle of the second Death Star?
Where the Rebels were forced to close combat because the Death Star was active?
An unmanned X-Wing going in warp speed at where the energy gathered for a shot would disable the whole weapon and greatly help them.
At any battle, using a lowcost X-Wing to go warp directly into an enemy command bridge of a big vessel would be a tactical advance.

---

Foppe posted...

Remember the battle of the second Death Star?
Where the Rebels were forced to close combat because the Death Star was active?
An unmanned X-Wing going in warp speed at where the energy gathered for a shot would disable the whole weapon and greatly help them.
At any battle, using a lowcost X-Wing to go warp directly into an enemy command bridge of a big vessel would be a tactical advance.

I refer you to my previous response:
Corrupt_Power posted...

it's fiction, and every fight would be boring if it was two groups slinging FTL projectiles at each other

---

Josiah_Is_Back posted...

Yes, but the grassroots movement to ensure droids' rights would argue against such protocol.

I think the Empire/Order cares not for droids

---

Foppe posted...

Remember the battle of the second Death Star?
Where the Rebels were forced to close combat because the Death Star was active?
An unmanned X-Wing going in warp speed at where the energy gathered for a shot would disable the whole weapon and greatly help them.
At any battle, using a lowcost X-Wing to go warp directly into an enemy command bridge of a big vessel would be a tactical advance.

Star Wars does not have "warp speed" they go through hyperspace. Upon entering hyperspace, collision with anything that isn't in hyperspace is impossible.

---

Corrupt_Power posted...

Because it's fiction, and every fight would be boring if it was two groups slinging FTL projectiles at each other

The people who make these arguments, want the Star Wars universe to be consistent. Going "it would be boring" doesn't exactly help the Star Wars universe seem consistent.

Not sure who's worst, the Sequel haters, or defenders.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Star Wars does not have "warp speed" they go through hyperspace. Upon entering hyperspace, collision with anything that isn't in hyperspace is impossible.

Warp, hyperspace, same thing.
And it clearly works or else the Holdo Maneuver wouldnt have ended with Snokes B2 and fleet being ruined.

---

It kinda kills the entire plot of A New Hope if all they had to do was light speed one of the big rebel ships into the death star to blow it up.

Who needs the death star plans then?

I don't really get why the Holdo Maneuver gets under people's skin. Tiny ships implausibly take out huge ships in, like, a majority of Star Wars films. The Death Star vulnerability in Ep 4 required a pretty healthy suspension of disbelief until Rogue One gave a whole movie's worth of justification for it. If the Holdo Maneuver bothers you, just tell yourself it only worked because of the Hyperspace Tracker.

---

RustyFerret posted...

It kinda kills the entire plot of A New Hope if all they had to do was light speed one of the big rebel ships into the death star to blow it up.

Who needs the death star plans then?

The capital ship would have had to have gotten close enough to make that happen without being destroyed by the Death Star. From how I understand it, the way they were trying to make it look is that you basically had to be RIGHT before you hit Hyperspace (which would have you go right past them in hyperspace)

---

Foppe posted...

Warp, hyperspace, same thing.
And it clearly works or else the Holdo Maneuver wouldnt have ended with Snokes B2 and fleet being ruined.

No. In star trek they are physically crossing the distance between two points. With star Wars it's more like they're taking a secret tunnel through space.

---

RustyFerret posted...

It kinda kills the entire plot of A New Hope if all they had to do was light speed one of the big rebel ships into the death star to blow it up.

Who needs the death star plans then?

A vessel that small would not have made it far into the impact. I think the reason it worked so well is because the Star Destroyer is so massively huge.

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

The capital ship would have had to have gotten close enough to make that happen without being destroyed by the Death Star. From how I understand it, the way they were trying to make it look is that you basically had to be RIGHT before you hit Hyperspace (which would have you go right past them in hyperspace)

The Death Star moves pretty slow.
If you know where it is, then you should be able to calculate the distance you need from it to be able to hit the sweet spot. If you know that, then you should be able to drop your ship from hyperspace at that distance, and then go into suicide hyperspace before the Death Star got enough time to react.

---

Tyranthraxus posted...

No. In star trek they are physically crossing the distance between two points. With star Wars it's more like they're taking a secret tunnel through space.

You move great distances in short periods of time.

---

Foppe posted...

The Death Star moves pretty slow.
If you know where it is, then you should be able to calculate the distance you need from it to be able to hit the sweet spot. If you know that, then you should be able to drop your ship from hyperspace at that distance, and then go into suicide hyperspace before the Death Star got enough time to react.

Being that precise is tough. Han makes that very clear in ANH, "It ain't like dusting crops boy"

---

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

The capital ship would have had to have gotten close enough to make that happen without being destroyed by the Death Star. From how I understand it, the way they were trying to make it look is that you basically had to be RIGHT before you hit Hyperspace (which would have you go right past them in hyperspace)

But it opens that up as a potential option which they never address in the movie.

Corrupt_Power posted...

What exactly do people dislike about the Holdo Maneuver?

Because it should have been the Ackbar Maneuver.

---

The fact that it opens up an unwarranted can of worms on the entire saga?

Duh?
---

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

Being that precise is tough. Han makes that very clear in ANH, "It ain't like dusting crops boy"

Which is why you let the AI do the math.

---

Corrupt_Power posted...

would be boring if it was two groups slinging FTL projectiles at each other

this is kinda the reason for why people dislike it, except you replace "boring" with "stupid" and make the context this scene

---

Not only is it especially costly, we have no idea how things work. For all we know, you need enough mass to break through the deflector shield in the first place. And it might be something that can't be reliably executed due to random factors. And then there's the huge cost of those enormous battle ships.

And JJ already started messing with hyperspace rules, which people were comparably mildly miffed about. Not only did he have Han get out of hyperspace inside the shields, he also had that Starkiller weapon fire through star systems as if it were no big deal.

---

Why not just program non sentient a.i. into a bunch of ships and have them constantly do this

Hell they don't even have to be ships at that point. Just a bunch of big space balls with the means to do it

---

This explains everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcGoc4oAR5A

Zack_Attackv1 posted...

The fact that it opens up an unwarranted can of worms on the entire saga?

Duh?

"This cool cinematic one-off thing that the rules of the universe don't in any way prohibit and has never been ruled out in canon in any way makes some scenes of the 40 year old predecessor seem weird, we better not do it"

Fiction changes. Get over it.
---

Smackems posted...

Why not just program non sentient a.i. into a bunch of ships and have them constantly do this

Hell they don't even have to be ships at that point. Just a bunch of big space balls with the means to do it

When Star Wars was made, we had a very different idea of what AI is and as a result the AI is not really something that we can expect works like it would in real life. It's also very unexplored because if they were to dive into it then all the movies would become super dumb

---

Corrupt_Power posted...

"This cool cinematic one-off thing that the rules of the universe don't in any way prohibit and has never been ruled out in canon in any way makes some scenes of the 40 year old predecessor seem weird, we better not do it"

Fiction changes. Get over it.

Like I said earlier the people making the complaints want the Star Wars universe to be consistent. Saying "fiction changes, get over it" doesn't in anyway help.

I dont care about the move itself, so much as the character writing.

>Holdo is introduced to us as Queen Bitch. This is deliberate so to make the audience hate her so it can do a thing later.

>Later its revealed Holdo was right all along, now feel bad for her as she nobly sacrifices herself.

Tangentally, this is further soured by later in the movie where sacrificing yourself to defend your friends is apparently wrong if youre not 100% pure of heart about it.

But anyway, Holdo demonstrates supreme incompetence that isnt compensated or redeemed by the limp-wristed twist later, so her sacrifice just comes off as eyeroll worthy and unsatisfying. I felt more emotion for Random Torture Victim Gonk Droid. >_>

...the actual, physical maneuver looks really cool. But its just a kamikaze attack so it strikes me as odd that it deserves a special name.

---

Its a bit of terrible writing in a movie with a godawful script. Its an asspull solution to a boring problem.

---

Corrupt_Power posted...

It's not that out of left field for sci-fi. Is it that people don't like that it happened period, or people feel like it was unnecessary / a waste?

Basically because Disney bad!.

---

It doesn't even go counter to lore it goes counter to the movie itself. Take for example this statement...

Josiah_Is_Back posted...

Because it is preferable to devise a tactic that does not require self-sacrifice in the process.

Tis true. However we saw captains just waiting in ships to be blown up for some reasons. In place of waiting they could have used those ships to the blow up the bad guys .

---

cjsdowg posted...

Tis true. However we saw captains just waiting in ships to be blown up for some reasons. In place of waiting they could have used those ships to the blow up the bad guys .

Holdo sacrificed only herself after everyone was evacuated.
In your example, captains would be doing that at the peril of their evacuees.

---

Kastrada posted...

Holdo sacrificed only herself after everyone was evacuated.
In your example, captains would be doing that at the peril of their evacuees.

We see others captains staying after people left just to be blown up later for some reason.

---

cjsdowg posted...

We see others captains staying after people left just to be blown up later for some reason.

Because there are still evacuees.
The Holdo Maneuver only worked because the captain had confirmation that literally everyone was off ship.
I don't recall any scene in the movies that have a ship captain having knowledge they are the sole life on their fully operational ship aimed at a non-attacking enemy ship.

The scene had much more pressing issues like Holdo/Poe's characterization and more importantly how if they were going to do the scene it should have been Ackbar to do it.


---

Foppe posted...

You move great distances in short periods of time.

You move around everything in Star Wars.

---

"we can't try the holdo maneuver again. it's a one in a million shot." - pilot in a star wars movie

---

It's incredibly stupid that genuine moron Holdo was the first person in all of the galaxy to think of it, when every 7 year old boy has irl has dreamed about smashing shit at light speed.
---

Tyranthraxus posted...

Star Wars does not have "warp speed" they go through hyperspace. Upon entering hyperspace, collision with anything that isn't in hyperspace is impossible.

I don't think this is true.

They have to calculate their coordinates and jump at specific points/angles so as to not come too close to a star or run into an asteroid field (iirc in ANH the Falcon's sensors go off when they get to Alderaan because of the unexpected asteroid field).

So I'm fairly certain you can crash into things in hyperspace. Also you can be ripped out of hyperspace via gravity well projectors.

I'd say the chief argument against using the tactic is that in the case of ship to ship combat, you'd have to get past the deflector shields. Remember, the result was a straight line tear through a insanely massive Star Destroyer with a fairly comparatively sized Rebel capital ship. It didn't even completely destroy Snoke's destroyer though I don't remember if they ever show exactly what happened to it or if it was just left to audience imagination.

The scene just leaves too many questions and not enough answers regarding the viability of the act and why nobody else has done it.

---

"Why doesn't everyone kamikaze into targets if it's so effective?" is a really weird criticism that comes up. You'd think the answer would be obvious.

---

Corrupt_Power posted...

Because it's fiction, and every fight would be boring if it was two groups slinging FTL projectiles at each other

But now that it's been introduced there is no real reason this shouldn't be the case in the universe. It's lazy and hilariously bad world building, which fans of sci-fi and fantasy care a lot about.

This kind of thing is fine in comic book movies and something like a transformers movie, where the world's building doesn't matter and consistent rules or logic are regularly tossed out the window. And if you view SW that way, that's fine, but nerds that have made SW part of their identity don't.

---

hockeybub89 posted...

"Why doesn't everyone kamikaze into targets if it's so effective?" is a really weird criticism that comes up. You'd think the answer would be obvious.

It's not even that. Why aren't projectiles regularly fitted with hyper drives? It doesn't even need to be a ship, just a big ass projectile that can have it's hyper drive activated remotely.

And hyper drives can't be that expensive if the equivalent of every shipping truck is fitted with one in the private market.

---

Jabodie posted...

It's not even that. Why aren't projectiles regularly fitted with hyper drives? It doesn't even need to be a ship, just a big ass projectile that can have it's hyper drive activated remotely.

And hyper drives can't be that expensive if the equivalent of every shipping truck is fitted with one in the private market.

This whole question relies on a bunch of assumptions you've made though

---

Jabodie posted...

Why aren't projectiles regularly fitted with hyper drives? It doesn't even need to be a ship, just a big ass projectile that can have it's hyper drive activated remotely.

Why are you assuming it doesn't need to be a ship?

---