WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in theaters now.


Star Wars: The Last Jedi did something extraordinary with Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo: It set to film the sort of undramatic, unpretentious leadership that gets the job done in the real world and would be necessary for the survival of a group like the Resistance. And fans are villainizing her for it.

See, Holdo is set up as the antagonist for Poe Dameron's arc. We like Poe; Oscar Isaac's flyboy hero is a charismatic hothead in the Han Solo vein, who bucks orders and takes risks that can sometimes pay off big. But other times, they don't.

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In The Last Jedi's opening scenes, Poe leads a bombing raid against a First Order dreadnought, and turns off his comm system when General Leia Organa orders him to withdraw. The raid is ultimately successful in destroying the enemy ship, but at the cost of all of the Resistance's bombers and a significant number of fighters. Nevertheless, it's easy to take Poe's side when Leia chastises and demotes him for his recklessness -- the bet paid off, after all.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Poe

Later, though, things don't go so well. With Leia comatose following a First Order strike, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo takes over command and has no time for Poe's antics. Poe repeatedly demands to know her plan, and when Holdo, with calm and cutting politeness, puts him in his place, Poe hatches a plan with Finn and Rose Tico to sabotage the First Order's tracking system.

It's an exciting plan! We're rooting for Poe, Finn and Rose to accomplish what their stuffy superiors cannot. Indeed, Finn and Rose's adventures on Canto Bight are some of the most genuinely fun bits of the movie. When the plan fails, however, the consequences are catastrophic. Captured by the First Order and betrayed by hacker-thief DJ in an incredible performance by Benicio del Toro, Finn and Rose can only watch helplessly as the Resistance's transport ships are picked off one by one.

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Meanwhile, Poe's failed mutiny further hampered the Resistance's escape efforts: If Holdo had been on the bridge, doing her job, instead of being held at blaster-point, the evacuation may have continued more smoothly, further contingencies could have been put in place.

A lot of online reaction to this has been, "Why didn't Holdo share the plan with Poe?" Well, why should she? Transparency and communication are great, but are not always appropriate, especially in the formation stages of a plan. Especially with so much at stake. Vice Admiral Holdo told the plan to the people she felt needed to know, and Poe Dameron was not among that group, for reasons she literally spelled out in their first conversation: "You are the last thing we need right now." It's not that a good leader simply barks orders from on high, but she knows who to consult, knows how and when to roll out information. That's Holdo. "If you only trust in hope when you can see it, you'll never make it through the night." One imagines that Holdo attained her position through shrewd strategy and planning; she knows how to maximize hope, however small, by revealing her plan at the right time.

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In short, Holdo doesn't owe Poe an explanation.

On the other hand, what if Poe and company ran their plan by "administration?" (Look, I know why they wouldn't want to; I have a job, too.) It seems very likely that, as C-3PO moans, Vice Admiral Holdo would have no part of it. But what if? It's an innovative plan -- "so crazy it just might work!" as other movies might have said -- and bringing it to Holdo could have had one of several effects. First and foremost, she would have been aware of it, which may have influenced how she proceeded in other schemes. But also she might have supported it, provided Finn and Rose with the resources needed to succeed. Imagine if, instead of parking their ship on the beach and storming the casino looking like dirt farmers, they'd been advanced a few credits to mingle with the elite. Or Holdo might have shot the plan down. She might have said, "We're not doing that, and here's why." And then Poe may have been welcomed in to her inner circle, or at least had a clearer picture of why he shouldn't carry out his plan, other than his own imaginings of a mother figure telling him it's "too risky."

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Viewers have been trained by action movies -- including the most recent Star Wars film, Rogue One -- that the impetuous daredevil is always right, that he knows better than the cautious generals and stuffy bureaucrats. The opening scenes of The Last Jedi affirmed our beliefs. But that's what's fascinating about this movie, it defies our expectations to show our hero making an incalculably costly mistake. Poe learns this lesson, as Leia speaks with him about being a leader rather than "trying to be a hero." It's a shame that many in the audience didn't appreciate the message.

When you're a risk-taker like Poe Dameron, you're always going to be the GOAT or the goat. Holdo, by contrast, has to uphold the more boring aspects of keeping her fleet alive -- analyzing, planning, weighing costs and benefits of each course of action. She made the calls she felt stood the best chance of success, based on the best information she had; Poe was not the heroic rebel in this storyline, but the unwitting wrench jamming up the machine. His failure is much more concrete than Luke's, which got so much more attention: Poe's error in judgment nearly extinguished the Resistance.

The Resistance needs leaders like Holdo and heroes like Poe Dameron. But they need to work together. The weight of this collaboration should not be on Holdo to babysit each pilot under her command to make sure they're behaving as they should, but rather on of folks like Poe and Finn to trust in command, to direct them where they'll do the most good. Question orders, absolutely; offer suggestions, new plans, definitely. But in the end, if the leaders are canny and just, as Poe trusts Leia is, as Leia trusts Holdo to be, trust in the people who have thought this through.

Poe didn't see the big picture, and it nearly ended the Resistance. In the end, Admiral Holdo proved herself the real hero, sacrificing herself to allow the last few transport ships to reach the surface of Crait. Her style of calm, collected leadership in the face of overwhelming odds deserves not demonization but admiration. Perhaps one day, taking inspiration from his adversary, Poe Dameron can grow into the kind of leader Holdo represents.


Written and directed by Rian Johnson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi stars Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Daisy Ridley as Rey, John Boyega as Finn, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, Andy Serkis as Supreme Leader Snoke, Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata, Benicio Del Toro as ‘DJ’, Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, and the late Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa. The film is in theaters worldwide.