Eight Years Later, Here Are 8 Things That Still Make No Sense About Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Few Star Wars films have been as divisive as The Last Jedi. Lucasfilm clearly loved working with Rian Johnson on The Last Jedi, even discussing giving him a trilogy of his own. It never happened, largely because The Last Jedi proved deeply divisive, and the studio desperately tried to course-correct for The Rise of Skywalker two years later. Johnson’s film remains controversial to this day, with some loving and defending it, while others are convinced this was the movie that broke the sequels.

Not all criticisms are fair, and some are simply dissatisfied with the actual narrative choices made by Johnson in his script. For the most part, we’re going to ignore those; Luke Skywalker’s entire arc may be hotly debated, for example, but it’s consistent within the film itself. The science of the Holdo Maneuver made sense if you squinted at Star Wars’ pseudoscience, and has been fully explained in canon since. But these eight problems still make no sense, or even make less than ever before…

8) How Does Hyperspace Tracking Work?

We’re setting most criticisms of the plot aside, but this one is impossible to dismiss; hyperspace tracking just doesn’t make sense. Until The Last Jedi, it had generally been assumed that enemy ships could work out likely destinations for a hyperspace jump simply by extrapolating the course; after all, an Imperial Star Destroyer chases the Tantive IV from hyperspace in A New Hope‘s opening scene (it’s since been explained that the Tantive IV’s hyperdrive had been sabotaged to leave a “trail”).

Things get even worse when you consider the fact the Resistance don’t know hyperspace tracking is possible… yet they’re swiftly able to figure out only the Supremacy has the technology to do it. They even conveniently have the full schematics for the Supremacy, meaning they know exactly what to do to neutralize the tracking tech. It’s all rather odd, and makes this core subplot quite dissatisfying.

7) Why the Resistance Fleet Didn’t Scatter

Only one ship has hyperspace tracking, the Supremacy, and that makes the Resistance tactics absolutely bizarre. The best tactic would have been to ferry people between ships, leaving the First Order unsure who was on each vessel, and then simply scatter. The Supremacy could only have tracked the one vessel, which would have been sacrificed so everyone else could live. It wouldn’t have been bloodless, because the Resistance would have no way of knowing which ship would be pursued, but it would have been effective.

Instead, the Resistance fleet stayed together, gradually all gathering on their last remaining ship – their flagship, no less. In strategic terms, it makes absolutely no sense, and raises major questions about the tactical skills of the Resistance leaders.

6) Why Didn’t the First Order Pin the Resistance Down?

Compounding this, the First Order then use this technology in a way that makes no sense at all. Consider; in-system hyperspace microjumps are quite possible, and the Supremacy carries a fleet of standard Star Destroyers that Supreme Leader Snoke could have sent ahead. When it became clear the Resistance was running out of fuel, all he needed to do was have a couple of ISDs jump ahead of the Resistance fleet. The Resistance would have been boxed in and destroyed in minutes.

We can only assume Supreme Leader Snoke was actually enjoying this; that he quite liked the idea of a long, drawn-out pursuit in which one ship after another ran out of fuel and got blasted to stardust. But patience is not of the dark side, and the Resistance would not have survived had Snoke just decided to end things a bit more quickly. Even more strikingly, Leia and Holdo’s entire desperate gamble for survival depended on Snoke not running out of patience.

5) “We Can’t Cover You At That Range”

Kylo Ren’s attack run is a key moment, because he comes terrifyingly close to trying to kill his mother – yet flinches at the last instant. What’s odd, though, is that he pulls back when told he doesn’t have any cover at that range. He’s a Force-sensitive pilot, son of Han Solo, and the Resistance doesn’t seem to have any defenses in place. He had absolutely nothing to fear.

In truth, Kylo Ren had probably just been given a convenient excuse to back off from the kill shot he didn’t want to take. The problem, though, lies in the fact there’s no reason to call him back in the first place; it’s bad strategy, especially when you remember that the First Order military leaders didn’t really care about Kylo Ren at all.

4) Why Didn’t Holdo & Leia Keep Poe in the Loop?

A lot of the Resistance drama is artificial in nature, driven by Vice-Admiral Holdo‘s decision not to keep Poe in the loop. To be fair, there’s no reason she should; Poe is commander of a single X-Wing squadron, and he should be used to following orders. But when it became clear he wasn’t going to do so, Holdo could have prevented an entire mutiny subplot by simply taking him aside and telling him her plan. It wouldn’t have been as dramatic, but it would have made much more sense.

In truth, this feeds into a larger issue: morale. We can all debate the merits of Holdo’s plan, but the fact remains that she allowed morale to sink dangerously low. She doesn’t seem to have communicated with anybody at all, not even to give vague hints that she had a plan in the first place, making the mutiny all but inevitable.

3) How the Resistance Expected to Escape Crait

The plan’s weaknesses are easy to spot when you ask a simple question: How did the Resistance expect to escape Crait? It all gambles on the idea the First Order is not scanning for escape pods and the like, but that’s a pretty big assumption to make – especially when the escape pods are actually visible to the naked eye anyway. Besides which, Crait was literally the first planet the Resistance fleet was going to pass nearby, so the First Order would be fools not to drop off a Star Destroyer or two to monitor it even if they hadn’t noticed the escape pods.

In truth, the Resistance simply got themselves out of one bad situation and into another. The whole plan left every Resistance member pinned down in a single bunker, and they wouldn’t have survived if not for variables they didn’t know where in play. It’s true this was probably a “Hail Mary,” but it’s a bad plan.

2) Why the Galaxy Didn’t Come to Help the Resistance

The Last Jedi is still subject to intense debate. Was Luke Skywalker out of character, does dying from an “overdose of the Force” (as Mark Hamill insists on calling it) make sense? Some viewers consider these questions to undermine the themes of the entire Skywalker saga, explaining the fury underlying these discussions eight years later. But the one biggest problem is the fact the galaxy didn’t come to help the Resistance in the hour of need. Star Wars has always been about hope, but this one scene strips the story of all that.

This (not Rey Palpatine) is the biggest reset conducted by The Rise of Skywalker, which simply shrugs and explains nobody heard Leia’s message in Episode VIII (a different explanation was offered by Rae Carson’s excellent novel Resistance Reborn). It was a necessary reset, too, because the galaxy’s silence was the death of hope. If the people are not willing to resist, then the Resistance has died, even if its leaders survive Crait. It would have been better to just say Leia’s signal was being jammed.

1) How Were the Golden Dice Tangible?

Luke Skywalker projects himself into the fray for The Last Jedi‘s grand finale, and his fateful duel with Kylo Ren is stunning. The scene is very smart, because subtle visual clues reveal that Luke is actually intangible; his feet don’t kick up any dust on Crait, and he’s careful not to let Kylo Ren’s blade come anywhere near where his own lightsaber appears to be. All of which raises a huge problem with Han Solo’s golden dice, because Luke is shown carrying them – and even gives them to Leia.

As in, physically gives them; hands them over to her.

Later, the golden dice dissolve, confirming they were never physically present at all; they were simply part of Luke’s illusion. But that, naturally, makes it impossible for Luke to hand them over to Leia in the first place. It’s a little inconsistency, but it undermines the spectacular Force power that Luke demonstrates.

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