Let me stipulate here that the Holdo scene’s emotional impact outweighs whatever story complications and subsequent retconning it causes. Strap in, because this is going to get nerdy. Holdo’s maneuver is so surprising because we haven’t seen it before-partly because its success threatens to totally destabilize the way Star Wars space combat works. The Holdo maneuver is one of the most breathtaking moments in a film filled with striking camerawork. So perfectly, in fact, that much of the audience is left too punch-drunk to consider the implications. And at last, the score returns with a wallop, along with the actual, audible gasps and choked cries of the viewers doing double-takes at the audacity of what Holdo (and writer-director Rian Johnson) have done. The Supremacy, its stricken smaller companions, and the Raddus’s remains hang there, suspended in a silent tableau of beautiful blue-and-red death. Then we see Snoke’s B-2 bomber–shaped ship, the Supremacy, sliced into two by the passage of the now-vaporized Resistance cruiser, the Raddus. Then we see understanding register on the faces of Commander Dameron and General Hux, and finally feel it reflected on ours: Oh my god, she’s going to jump.įor a fleeting instant, we hear nothing from the sound system or from any nearby spectators who are seeing the film for the first time: no breathing, no popcorn-sifting, no wrapper-wrinkling. The knowledge of what she intends to do creeps up on us just as it dawns on members of the desperate Resistance and triumphant First Order, who first suspect that she’s either trying to save herself or to create a diversion to distract the First Order from its attack on the fleeing Resistance transports. Visually, sonically, and emotionally, Holdo’s maneuver is an indelible moment. It was Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) sacrificing herself to save the Resistance by jumping to hyperspace straight through Snoke’s flagship, thereby destroying Snoke’s flagship and fleet. It wasn’t Luke tricking Kylo Ren on Crait, Kylo killing Snoke, or Kylo and Rey drawing sabers back to back in Snoke’s throne room. Both times that I’ve seen The Last Jedi, the same moment produced the most memorable audience response.
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