...Nor is it a problem that the First Order debuts “hyperspace tracking” in this movie—the very innovation that puts Holdo in the hopeless position to do what she does. Before The Last Jedi, ships in hyperspace couldn’t be tracked. In The Last Jedi, they can, thanks to some secret technology that was first teased in Rogue One. But Johnson makes clear that this is new technology, and the suitably impressed (and demoralized) Resistance adjusts its tactics accordingly.
For 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. 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. The Supremacy, its stricken smaller companions, and the Raddus’s remains hang there, suspended in a silent tableau of beautiful blue-and-red death. 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. Johnson lands the punch perfectly.
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.
So perfectly, in fact, that much of the audience is left too punch-drunk to consider the implications. The Holdo maneuver is one of the most breathtaking moments in a film filled with striking camerawork. It’s also kind of a can of worms. 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...
