I'm the opposite. This is why Holdo does work. Poe already demonstrated a lack of maturity with Leia and disobeying her orders. Holdo is an opportunity for Poe to start out a little bit differently with the new leader. Instead, he demonstrated continued maverick behavior and a lack of trust in authority. I think it creates an interesting dynamic to explore, were neither one really openly trusts the other.
I do think it would play better if Hodo came off as a better leader. But she is instantly dismissive and she is keeping a secret plan for reasons that don't make sense. I think Poe is second in command. The whole command structure is kind of unclear. Also this is happening in the middle of crisis. Once Poe is stopped she then tells her plan so why not just do it upfront with the entire crew at the start. Never liked these story where characters keep secrets just for the sake of drama when things could be solved early on by just being open. It was something that constantly showed up in a show like Lost" where everyone is lying to everyone else and you never understood, why. Jason
Holdo isn't "keeping a secret plan"; she's just not telling Poe anything about what's happening because he doesn't need to have that information. A general doesn't tell their soldiers anything more than what they need to know, especially if one of those soldiers has already demonstrated that he/she has a discipline problem, which Poe had.
Again, she didn't need to. Subordinates are supposed to follow orders without question, even if they don't understand the thought process behind said orders. Pretty much everyone in the Resistance except for Poe and a very small handful of others whom he'd been able to sway to his line of thinking understood and accepted that fact.
I think maybe in a crisis you do got to let people in. They already don't trust you and your not benefiting by keeping it private. At least toss in a line about how you think their might be a spy aboard or they have tapped into your communications. When the Rebels attacked the Death Star the leaders always informed the people of all the facts and even took suggestions. Everyone basically volunteered to go down to the Ewok planet. The Restiance and Rebels have never felt like this traditional military with a chain of command so I am not sure why they are doing that all of sudden. Jason
She wasn't telling people because she thought there was a spy in their midst; she wasn't telling people because they didn't need to know details about what was happening. The paper-thin criticism of Holdo because she "didn't just explain things" is paper-thin for a reason: it's a strawman's argument designed to cast aspersions on her because people didn't like the character.
I mean, would you tell your secret plan to the hotshot flyboy who just got a dozen people killed and was demoted by Leia herself? And Leia seemed to already know the plan was to go to Crait, and she didn't tell Poe either.
Poe isn't just some hotshot flyboy. I mean he is kind of a hotshot and lacks discipline but tha'st kind of part of the job description and also what makes him a good soldier. The guy is usually a leader in combat situations and frankly someone who is important. Even after Leia chews him out for blowing up the dreadnaught she in like 5 seconds wants him back out in a ship blowing things up. That's why you usually ignore breaks in protocol. His value outweights the headaches. Holdo though is dismissive and insulting right from the start despite the fact that she is basically new to the command and he has been their longer. You don't need to let everyone in on the secret but if your not even letting your team leaders and most important people in on it then what are you doing. How is she suppose to get any feedback if everyone around her is kepth in the dark about what is going on. Even Picard on TNG wouldn't hold out on RIker during a crisis while trying to execute what amounts to a mission. If he did it would be also because they serve together for years and have trust. You don't get trust with that kind of leadership. Maybe you can get away with it in non life and death situation but when the enemy is on your trail and your not exactly traditional military and your holding onto protocols just for the sake of protocols your likely will end up getting something like what happened with a mutiny. The other issue though is why is this suppose to be fun to watch in the context of "Star Wars." Your basically getting into Anna Gunn territory on "Breaking Bad" Poe is the type of character that fans gravitate to just like on Breaking Bad everyone is going to sort of side with Walt. Not even because the other character might not have legit points but people do want certain things out of Star Wars and they want to like the Han Solo,Poe type of character because it's a action adventure franchise and they are designed to be action hero types. People like character who are free spirits and sort of fun to be around. At least if he was going up against Lando or Leia those characters are fun to watch. I feel the difference between a character feeling forced or preachy as opposed to wise or with some truth often comes from less about what they are doing and more about their overall personality and how likeable the character is. Maybe if they had established Holdo in the previous movie doing something heroic or let us see a more personal side it would play better. Here they just bring in her in. Make her hostile and then expects people to just like the character for no reason. Putting a little to much faith in the fact that people usually like Laura Dern in movies to sort of carry off the character. Jason
Who is second in command? He is at least a leader of the pilots. He is got to at least be up their in the command structure. Granted most of the command structure I think got blown out into space making command level soldiers even more important. They don't have the resources or man power to just push qualified people to the side. Jason
Leia could give Poe the benefit of the doubt. Holdo was under no obligation to do so, especially after he violates orders and gets an entire squadron wiped out.
No obligation but still bad leadership. Trying to make a example out of someone in the middle of crisis is a bad time to start playing it safe. Maybe you figure this all out once you have made it somewhere safe and while pilots were lost they did knock out the Dreadnaught which would have made their continued escape even harder. Jason
No, it is not bad leadership on Holdo's part. The kind of "leadership" you describe would have resulted in the Resistance getting wiped out by the First Order months, if not years, earlier and is straight up military incompetence.
Do you think that actual military leaders tell low ranking officers every single detail? Especially ones who just got demoted for disobeying orders.
That sort of disrespect of personnel has led to real life military disasters. I have family and friends who served in many of America's wars (including a couple of surviving veterans of WWII) and some witnessed (or were subjected to) that "nothing but" crap, which not only poisoned morale in wartime, but was and remains a textbook example of a failure to understand the leadership principle, even in dangerous situations.
I think the issue is just where is Poe at in the command structure. I don't think he is just another pilot. But he is also not in upper leadership either. To use a Trek example I think he must at the very least be at a Tom Paris level because the other pilots do follow his lead. That means he would be at least briefed on things vital to the missions your undertaking I would think . Him being demoted does change things a little but even Leia was having him out fighting like 5 seconds after demotion. That means I think Holdo could go either way once she assumes command after Leia is out of the picture. She could have easily ignored the demotion until the crisis is over because I think Poe increases your chances of survival more than he hurts it. That's why it's IMO a bad judgment call. Whatever issues she might have with Poe on a personal level which I think was part of the issue because she compared him to hotshot pilots she has been use to dealing with means she is let her emotions effect her judgment. The fact that others joined in on the mutiny makes it look even worst because if it's just Poe being the problem you wouldn't have others joining in. She is their like 5 minutes and she already had people ready to rise up against her. That doesn't look good. Your know who she makes me think of. Remember on Battlestar Galatica when The Pegasaus was around and they promoted the chief engineer as captain played by "Home Alone" dad. He was a by the book guy who hated Apollo. He was very rigged and hostile but also in the end brave because he did sacrifice his life trying to get the engines working to save the day. Jason
I would say it depends on the context, but if the context is that you're commanding a pretty desperate unit with very few resources (which Holdo is), and your ultimate plan is based on having all of your people coordinate to carry out that plan effectively, then you have an obligation to give them whatever information is most useful. You don't have the luxury of withholding potentially vital information because you have a personal grudge against one officer, or several, or because there might be a partially valid context for that. If you know those officers have screwed up but that they can also perform better with the right tools, the right leadership, then you should provide that. If not, then you as commander share the responsibility for any mistakes or confusion that results because that information was not available. I like Holdo fine as a basic character, but I think she's one of several examples where the TLJ script has serious writing flaws that could have been ironed out. It's the same silly writing that has the Imperials lazily chasing the fleet until the ships slowly run out of fuel, when they could have easily captured the ships with half the time and superior numbers. If the goal is to sneak everyone away with cloaked ships so the First Order won't be wise to their escape, and there is no fighter escort because the resources are not available, wouldn't it be logical to use the fighter pilots to help fly the shuttles? And wouldn't it be wise to give them some details more than 10 minutes in advance, while the enemy fleet is shooting lasers up your tailpipe? Shouldn't everyone with useful skills be made to feel useful, rather than useless (which might encourage them to make the wrong choices or act rashly, because they don't see the whole picture)? It's kind of like if Luke had been available to fly Red Squadron against the Death Star II in ROTJ, and was grounded solely because Mon Mothma didn't approve of his reckless actions in ESB. He ignored orders to regroup with the fleet after Hoth because he wanted to find Yoda, and then left his training halfway through because he wanted to save Leia's group. And in the process, he was nearly killed by Vader. While I think some criticism of Luke based on those actions could certainly work in the appropriate context, it would seem rather silly to say the ROTJ fleet needs every pilot they can get and the one who took out the first Death Star is clearly "too reckless" as a result of a few mistakes to be worthy of consideration. To make the context solely about advancing the drama without it fitting logically into the broader picture.
I remain rather convinced that Holdo had no reason to trust Poe, and reason to be cautious with sensitive information. Given Poe's disregard of a direct order, his fraternization with a former First Order Stormtrooper, and general reckless disregard for chain of command I can I say I would be cautious too.
And there's nothing wrong with basic caution, or the characters having useful flaws. There's no doubt in my mind that Poe screwed up his mission by not following Leia's instructions, and sadly lost a lot of good pilots, but he's been shown in other aspects to be a reasonably capable pilot. He asked Holdo politely and up front what the plan was and how he could help, and basically got the middle finger. That, in turn, influenced how he reacted to Rose and Finn taking off, when he might have behaved differently if Holdo had been more open with him. I got the impression that he and Holdo didn't really know each other well aside from maybe names, so I can see where she felt he had a bad reputation or was no longer reliable. That being said, as mentioned, the real trick is how to use those qualities, and I don't feel like the script did that effectively. YMMV naturally. I generally like a lot of other aspects of TLJ, but it does have issues. Same with TFA.