Well to be fair the FO Star Destroyers were concentrating on scanning for the larger vessels, not the tiny pod that even the Raddus could not pick up properly.
Actually, I think It only appeared that the ships were stopping when they ran out of fuel because we were seeing them from the perspective of the ships that were still burning fuel contiuously. In fact, both fleets must have been constantly accelerating throughout the entire chase. If they were traveling at a constant speed, they wouldn't need to use any fuel. Without any reference point, a chase in which both fleets are traveling at the same constant speed and one in which the fleets are both accelerating at the same rate will look identical. The only time we can tell the difference is when one of the Resistance ships runs out of fuel and stops accelerating. It's continuing at the same speed it was going when the fuel ran out, but from the point of view of the rest of the fleet, which is still accelerating, it appears to fall behind slowly at first, and then faster.
Well, presumably the very act of keeping a ship operating expends fuel regardless if they're moving or not. Much like a car still uses gas when the engine is running regardless if the car is moving or not.
It's all just a very very simplified situation that works well to drive the story but does not hold up to any sort of scrutiny. I'm fine with that!
That would make the falcon maneuver more impressive when it dropped of Rey in the pod at a skewed angle toward the fleet
Maybe not the most appropriate thread for this, but I'm really hoping someone has a good counterargument... When the smaller Reb...ahem...Resistance ships are getting plastered by the FO while they're heading toward the planet, is there any reasonable explanation for why Laura Dern's character waits as long as she does before committing the hyperspace kamikaze? For that matter, why couldn't some of the smaller ships have done so beforehand? It might have been less effective, but something would still be better than nothing. I would think there's also the matter of having an autopilot or what-not available to do this, but I'm trying not to get overly nitpicky...
This may be apocryphal, but I'll give it my best shot based upon my understanding of hyperdrive. One, navcomputers will not allow for jumps near large gravity producing objects, such as planets, due to the danger of, well, what happened. So, Holdo likely would have had to override the safeties on the navcomputer for such a maneuver. Secondly, the FO's breaching of the cloak was certainly unexpected so there was a certain leve of shock that came with it. Holdo reminded me far more of a seasoned political officer who had left line command behind. Finally, the smaller ships mass would likely not have been enough to effect the kind of damage against such a much larger ship. Larger hyperdrives also allow for more powerful jumps so the combined power of the drive and the mass of the ship would be a more effective combination.
They were trying to fool the First Order into thinking they were out of hope and that they would eventually all die when the last ship ran out of fuel. Had the Poe/Finn/Rose mission not tipped off the First Order, I can imagine they would have kept chasing Holdo until her fuel ran out and then they would shoot her down. I don't imagine she would have set aside an escape pod for herself, since that would likely be noticed and she would be captured. Her only random hope their would have been if Rey and Chewie had come back right then and grabbed her, and the Millennium Falcon can outrun the First Order.
What does it matter how demoralized the Resistance is if the plan is to kill all of them in this encounter anyway? Who cares if they felt badly when they died? Their mental state only matters if you were planning to let some of them go to tell the story. Whole thing had the classic vibe of the bad guy putting the good guy in an overly complicated death trap and then walking away, assuming everything would work out fine. Preferably while monologging. They could have easily crushed them, but wanted to draw it out so the movie wasn't 10 minutes long. Seriously, if micro-jumps are dangerous, just have ONE ship jump out of the system, turn around, and jump back in front of the Resistance. The good guys did it, should work for the bad guys too. Leave most of the fleet in chase mode, send one destroyer out to get in front of them, and finish it. No good reason for why that didn't happen. And why anyone thought the ONLY planet in range may be a safe haven when their ships were all destroyed and there was a huge fleet overhead. Pretty sure 10 minutes of scanning would have been part of wrapping up that operation...
Are you saying Holdo's goal was to drop off the bulk of the Resistance but keep her ship going in the hopes of the FO not noticing the drop and continuing to pursue her? If so, I may have missed that part. I also think that it's a little contradictory to suggest that the FO would notice an escape pod but not notice all of the other ships that were dropped off.
Well, if Holdo can do those overrides herself once, it seems reasonable to assume the captains of the other ships could have done the same thing... Granted the large ship probably caused more damage, but given the massive amount of damage it caused...I mean, wouldn't damaging the FO ships even a little bit be better than simply letting your already-essentially-useless ship just get vaporized?
The other transports had cloaks. Maybe, but it's a rather desperate choice anyway. They had hoped the cloaks would give them cover and when it was discovered to be compromised, then the smaller transports were not longer an option for getting away undetected.
Is it just me, or has there not been much discussion/realization online about the Casino trip being the cause of the First Order discovering the cloaked transports?
No, I've seen it discussed, since it basically is a criticism against Finn/Rose subplot as being essentially useless.
exactly. It's not an example if it's not in front of people, and you don't allow anyone to escape to TELL others. People just find out that the Resistance is dead, there's no bonus points for playing cat and mouse for 2 hours first. Dead or Not Dead, kinda it. Unless they let a ship intentionally get away to tell the story, which didn't appear to be the plan either.
It seems more like the FO was willing to spend time to let the Resistance wear itself out and shoot them as they ran out of fuel, rather than spend extra fuel and lives by jumping into combat with their fleeing foe. Chasing the Resistance until they ran out of fuel was a no risk maneuver for the FO and they took it. Anything else would risk personal, ships, and spend fuel for the unnecessary hyperspace jump. Quite simply put, they didn't need to kill them right now, they had time to kill them at their leisure at no known risk. Anything else had an element of risk that the FO didn't require, which was why they pulled back the TIE fighters when the Resistance fleet managed to increase the range between forces. There was no need for them to risk anything. The Resistance couldn't get away as far as the First Order was concerned.
Do you really think an extra 18 hours of footage of the Resistance in the distance is more terrifying to a potential rebel than 2 minutes of those ships getting surrounded by Star Destroyers and blown the fuck up?