‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’: Is [SPOILER] Really Dead?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi shifted the franchise forever, while causing quite a few casualties in the process. But could one of the film’s newest additions have survived their apparent death?

Spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi below!

In the film, audiences were introduced to Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern), a Resistance leader who stepped in in the wake of General Leia Organa’s (Carrie Fisher) injury. After a sort of cat-and-mouse game between Holdo and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), it was revealed that Holdo was ultimately on the side of the good guys.

She proved this by piloting the newly-abandoned Resistance ship, as the rest of the group escaped in jump ships. Holdo then faced Supreme Leader Snoke’s (Andy Serkis) ship head-on, destroying the fleet as her Resistance ship jumped to lightspeed.

But as is commonplace with franchises of this nature, we can’t help but wonder — Could Holdo have survived?

In a way, that certainly could be a possibility. Holdo always seemed to be one step ahead of the rest of the Resistance, and her calmness towards commanding the ship could hint that she had a plan already in place. Sure, the Resistance ship was on its last reserves of fuel, but the ship could’ve jumped to lightspeed successfully, with Holdo instructing another vessel to meet her in another corner of the galaxy. And Holdo would certainly be an asset for the Resistance at some point in Episode IX, now that they will not have Leia to guide them.

But on the other hand, Holdo cheating death might not sit well with a lot of fans in the long run. While she was only given a bit of screentime throughout The Last Jedi, fans have ultimately fallen in love with her character through the whiplash of her confrontation with Poe. That arc – and the reveal of her true motivations – make her death pretty impactful, especially since the ships colliding is presented entirely in silence.

“It’s really incredible, right? I mean, we thought it was going to be big, but you could just feel the crowd,” The Last Jedi editor Bob Ducsay explained earlier this week. “It’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing, and it’s funny about that sequence because it’s sort of complicated editorially, because you’re cutting between Kylo and Rey, and Finn and Rose, and Holdo, and Hux. So it’s a lot of balls in the air, and things got moved around a lot in there to make it accelerate the way that it does.”

As of now, it’s too early to tell exactly what’s in the cards for Holdo. Even if her apparent The Last Jedi death sticks (which it probably will), there are still plenty of avenues for fans to see more of her. After all, Holdo was initially introduced in the Leia: Princess of Alderaan novel, which provided fans with her backstory and canon bisexuality.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in theaters now.