Although it’s only been in theaters for less than a week, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is already driving a massive wedge between fans of the franchise. On one end of the spectrum, you have those who are praising the Rian Johnson-directed film for taking risks and shaking up the Star Wars status quo. Then, on the other end, you have those who feel it was convoluted and riddled with conveniences and plot holes.
The Last Jedi is hardly deserving of the hate it’s receiving online, but even though we here at Epicstream were impressed with the film, there’s no denying that there are some pretty glaring jumps in logic. With that in mind, here are Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s 5 biggest plot holes:
Luke Wanted To Be Left Alone… But He Made A Map?
The Force Awaken’s entire narrative was built around the search for Luke Skywalker, with the map housed within BB-8 serving as the film’s primary MacGuffin. However, when we finally hear Luke speak in The Last Jedi, it becomes abundantly clear that the aging Jedi never really wanted to be found, as evidenced by his own words: “How did you find me?” “You think that I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy for no reason at all?” “I came to this island to die.” These hardly sound like the words of a man who wanted any company, let alone a man who would have left behind a map leading to his location.
And if someone else left the map, how did they know where Luke was? Was it just assumed that he went to that one particular island on Ahch-To, even though the planet’s oceanic surface is dotted with countless others that are similar in size and appearance?
Vice Admiral Holdo’s ‘Secret’ Plan
You presumably don’t achieve the rank of Vice Admiral in the Resistance by making terrible decisions. Nevertheless, that seems to be a defining trait of Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, who – for whatever reason – refused to tell Poe Dameron that she has a plan to escape from the First Order. Even when Poe called her out for not having one, she refused to speak up.
And yes, as Poe’s superior, she doesn’t technically owe him anything, but a good leader is someone who inspires people, not someone who fills them with so much doubt that starting a mutiny seems like the only reasonable option. So, unless Holdo is just an all-around terrible leader, you can probably chalk this one up as another plot hole.
Vice Admiral Holdo’s ‘Secret’ Plan – Part II
For all her faults, Vice Admiral Holdo does redeem herself by making the ultimate sacrifice and ramming the Raddus into the Mega-class Star Destroyer Supremacy at hyperspeed. Again, though, questionable logic runs rampant. Holdo’s reason for staying onboard the Raddus while the rest of the fleet escaped was because someone needed to steer the ship, but all they were really doing was traveling straight.
Even if you look past the fact that the ship probably has auto-pilot, though, does it really make sense to leave one of the two remaining authority figures behind? If something happened to Leia on Crait, the Resistance would be left without a leader because as near as we can tell, Holdo was the last in the chain of command. In addition, once the Resistance ships start getting picked off and Holdo realizes the escape plan is in dire shape, she decides that to save everyone, she needs to light speed through the enemy ships to destroy their fleet. WAIT, what? That was an option the whole time? If she planned to stay behind anyway, why did she wait until their ships were being picked off one by one, and then go to light speed through the enemy fleet? If she and the ship were going to perish regardless, shouldn't she have gone light speed right away through the enemy? Also, if you can light speed to cause massive damage to enemy fleets, why haven't they been doing this the whole time? They sacrificed a lot of bombers to take out 1 dreadnaught, and countless more in previous missions. It seems odd that all of a sudden Holdo knew about this extremely effective technique, which was never used before.
Snoke Can Sense Everything… Except His Impending Death
Supreme Leader Snoke has proven himself to be capable of using the Force to attack people through holograms, establishing mental links between two people, and in The Force Awakens, he not only was able to sense an awakening in the Force but he could also sense that the map to Luke was aboard the Millennium Falcon. He’s seemingly near-omniscient AND near-omnipotent, but for some reason, he was unable to sense that Kylo Ren was about to betray him, even though the very lightsaber his apprentice would use to kill him was sitting right by his side.
True, we don’t know the exact extent of Snoke’s power (and since he’s dead, now, we probably never will), but this feels like a major oversight, no matter which way you cut it.
The ‘Illusionary’ Golden Dice
The Last Jedi fundamentally changes what we know about the Force by introducing several new and intriguing layers to the enigmatic Star Wars staple. The most incredible of these additions is Luke’s ability to essentially create an astral projection of himself on Crait while his physical body remains on Ahch-To. However, while the film leaves a few subtle clues that this version of Luke isn’t real before the actual reveal, the apparent physical limitations of this new power are somewhat contradicted by the golden dice from the Millennium Falcon cockpit.
We saw the real Luke take them from the Falcon earlier in the film, but when his astral form appeared in the old Rebel outpost, he handed them to Leia… and she was able to hold them. In fact, even Kylo Ren was able to hold them later on, before they disappeared (that was weird, too). When Luke confronted Kylo, though, he left no footprints on Crait’s surface, and he was never impacted by any of the First Order’s weapons or Kylo’s lightsaber. Luke’s astral form was seemingly intangible, yet for some reason, the dice weren’t. How the Hoth does that work?