The Holdo Maneuver

The Last Jedi

You could hear a pin drop. Well, at least after a fair few gasps had left the air of the cinema on The Last Jedi launch night – and in fact every other screening of TLJ throughout it’s run.

The Resistance fleet’s attempt to sneak off of their Mon Calamari cruiser and onto a hideout on the surface of Crait had been thwarted. The defenceless transports were being picked off one by one. Vice Admiral Holdo, who alone had stayed aboard the Raddus in order to pilot the ship and keep the First Order guessing has a spark of inspiration and rolls the dice with a plan to keep the Resistance alive.

Hyperspace ramming had never been done before. We didn’t know what was going to happen and neither did Holdo. But this was her only shot at disabling the First Order fleet and it worked a treat as she fired the Raddus into oblivion and tore apart 20 star destroyers, including Snoke’s ship The Supremacy, in a moment of silent destruction.

It’s a piece of cinematic beauty. John Williams’ score drops out, as we see shots of blue lightning tearing through the ships. Nothing but visuals until the bang of a lightspeed jump cut abruptly short.

The army of TLJ haters online will argue that hyperspace ramming breaks Star Wars. Baloney.

Our world is full of firsts. People have new ideas every single day and some of them are unprecedented risks. There was no precedent for Amilyn Holdo to follow. She had an idea and no choice but to try and execute it with fingers firmly crossed.

And for the first time in a Star Wars movie, this was an empty cruiser – Holdo was the only person on board. Previous cruiser captains could not have even contemplated such a suicidal roll of the dice with a ship full of comrades. Even if Raddas or Ackbar had considered the concept of hyperspace ramming in the past, they couldn’t possibly have judged it a viable strategy.

This was a unique situation. Holdo, a unique hero and at the centre of a classic movie moment.