The Holdo Maneuver

A lightsaber in peril

The Last Jedi. No matter how you personally feel about the latest entry in the Star Wars "Skywalker" series, it does contain a few scenes that are challenging. One of the most challenging is something that has come to be known as "The Holdo Maneuver". I've read and watched countless opinion pieces since the release of the film and no one that I've seen or read has seemingly connected several dots that, I believe, are obviously connected. If you haven't read this piece over on The Ringer I suggest you do so.

When I walked out of seeing Jedi the very first time I was excited by the challenges the film presented, with the bold new directions it took, and with the way it handled both classic and new characters. Like everyone, I was sad that Carrie was gone from us. And watching her scenes in the film were gut-wrenching. They still are today. But strangely, I didn't find myself confused by anything I saw. In fact, the now infamous Holdo Maneuver made perfect sense to me. I was baffled when that started to become a 'thing' on the Internets.

I'm not going to spend 3,000 words making you wait. So let's get this over with.

There are three things happening at the exact same time in the film. Finn and Rose are getting their heads chopped off inside the ship. Rey and Ben Solo are force pulling that poor lightsaber apart in the ship's "throne" room. And Holdo is spinning the ship around to ramming speed. While it is impossible for a filmmaker to actually have three things happen at the same exact time in a movie, I believe it was the intention that all three of these things happen together. No one in any previous Star Wars film has ripped a lightsaber into two pieces before. No one in any previous Star Wars film has attempted to warp one ship into another ship. But hey, here we have two of those things happening at the exact same moment.

I can't believe no one else has connected these two unique things together before. It seems rather obvious to me that they are intended to be connected. When I walked out of the theater I felt secure in knowing that the so-called Holdo Maneuver would not have worked without the lightsaber being torn in half at the exact same time. To me, this was rather obvious. And I've seen, nor read, nor heard, anything since that first day to change my mind. In fact, I just watched it again before writing this... and duh.

This, in my opinion, solves all the weirdo problems that people seem so hung up on. Sure, ramming one big ship into another has been done before. We've seen it in other Star Wars movies. And I contend that was what Holdo had in mind. She had a big ship and they had a big ship, ramming them into each other would cripple the First Order's ship and allow the Rebels to escape. She got super duper lucky - thanks to the effects of the Force.  And the reverberations of the lightsaber being ripped apart at the same time. That is what allowed the Holdo Maneuver to work.

So yeah, feel free to use that again if you can manage to get someone aboard the enemy ship with a lightsaber and another force-user and then make those things all happen at the same time.

Good luck with that. MTFBWY.

Glad I could help.