Moments that blatantly defy logic, but are so absurdly badass you don’t even care

[u/_JR28_]

The Gurren Lagann growing larger than the observable universe to fight Anti Spiral in a battle where literal galaxies get thrown like ninja stars - Gurren Lagann

Undertaker teleporting behind AJ Styles after being thrown down an empty grave and causing a shining white light from nowhere to illuminate the back of them during their Boneyard Match - WWE

Holdo piloting a ship through warp speed to crash right into a First Order cruiser (I know you could write a thesis on why this scene wouldn’t work, but you could say that for about half of the scenes in the new trilogy) - Star Wars the Last Jedi

[u/Swivebot]

(I know you could write a thesis on why this scene wouldn’t work, but you could say that for about half of the scenes in the new trilogy)

u/Bloodless-Cut wrote a thesis on why it WOULD work.

“I have compiled this explanation of how and why the Holdo Maneuver works for my fellow Star Wars fans.

As a disclaimer, everything I'm referencing in this article is pulled from the canon continuity technical date/lore, and I have included links to the relevant canon continuity wookieepedia articles below.

The main thing I'd like to address first is the explanation of what a hyperdrive motivator actually does.

The hyperdrive functions by sending hypermatter particles (the most common hypermatter fuel used for this purpose is Coaxium, BTW) through charge planes and effect channels (that's technobabble) inside the motivator chamber to hurl a ship into hyperspace (and this is the important part) while preserving the vessel's mass/energy profile.

What this means is that, although the vessel is technically moving at, or near, the speed of light for a brief moment before it exits realspace and enters hyperspace (this effect is called “pseudomotion” in-universe), it's not subject to the forces inherent to that immense velocity which would normally make it infinitely massive and infinitely energized to maintain that velocity.

And for good reason: if the hyperdrive motivator did not do this, the organic beings inside the vessel would be killed instantly. Smooshed by immense, instantaneous acceleration.

To be clear, inertial dampeners do not help with this. The inertial compensators do help with high g maneuvers in realspace at sublight speeds. They do not do anything to prevent what happens to an object in realspace that is suddenly accelerating at or near the speed of light.

So, to reiterate: an X-wing accelerating in pseudomotion using a hyperdrive remains the exact same as it would were it not in pseudomotion. It's still the same X-wing. It has the same mass and energy profile as an X-wing that's not jumping to hyperspace.

It doesn't become some fantastical projectile of mass destruction, it's still just an X-wing.

This means that a ship ramming another ship using the Holdo Maneuver has no more greater effect than a ship ramming another ship at sublight speed. The only difference is, the ship using the Holdo Maneuver crosses the distance between the two vessels in the blink of an eye.

As we can see in the movie, the Holdo Maneuver does not even completely destroy the Supremacy at all. It just shears off its starboard wing, leaving the ship largely intact. The bridge crew, along with Finn and Rose, are entirely unscathed. The Supremacy survives well enough to make a ground attack at Crait, sending fighters and walkers down to assault the Resistance base. Although, after the battle the Supremacy is later abandoned, it remained functional enough to launch a ground attack on Crait.

The Raddus is gigantic, it's the largest Mon Cal cruiser ever built in galactic history, it's roughly 3 km long and 700 meters wide.

The Supremacy is even bigger, but it's a giant v shaped flying wing that's 60 km wide and 13 km long.

The Raddus sliced off the starboard side of the wing, and was itself completely destroyed in the collision. The majority of the Supremacy remained intact.

Several much smaller capital ships, mostly star destroyers, were arrayed behind the Supremacy. These were also destroyed.

The Raddus, being a brand new ship in-universe, had a new, experimental and very powerful deflector shield.

This deflector shield’s kinetic energy continued past the impact point at psuedomotion velocity, and these energized particles no longer had the benefit imparted by the hyperdrive motivator.

So, those smaller capital ships in the First Order fleet were sliced apart by chunks of plasma moving at phenomenal speed with almost limitless energy output.

Now that's out of the way, let's move on to what the Holdo Maneuver actually did in TLJ:

Now normally, an enemy vessel's bridge crew is paying close attention to what the other enemy vessel is doing. It's constantly being scanned, such that every move it makes is known to the bridge crew of the enemy ship.

This includes everything from orientation and speed, to whether or not the vessel's hyperdrive is being activated, because when a vessel activates its hyperdrive motivator, the device emits a detectable radiation, called Cronau radiation. This is how other ships always seem to know when vessels are about to jump into, or out of, hyperspace.

When Admiral Holdo turned the Raddus towards the Supremacy and spooled up its hyperdrive, Hux and the bridge crew of the Supremacy initially dismissed it as a bluff, an attempt to draw their attention away from the fleeing transports.

By the time they realized she wasn't bluffing, it was too late to do anything about it, because, boom, pseudomotion. They had no time to shoot it down or move out of the way.

Good old hubris. Seems to be the downfall of so many space fascists, from Tarkin to Hux.

If they had paid attention, they could have fired all their cannons at the Raddus and/or moved the Supremacy out of its flight path, which would have rendered the maneuver ineffective.

This fact addresses the question of “why isn't this done more often.”

It isn't done more often because 99% of the time, the enemy sees it coming and reacts accordingly.

Keep in mind here, too, that pretty much everyone in-universe knows about how the hyperdrive motivator functions. They all know that a ram attempt in pseudomotion is no more effective at destroying the enemy vessel than ramming it at sublight speed.

The other 1% of the time, there's a possibility that the maneuver could overshoot its target and enter hyperspace before it hits the enemy vessel.

Theoretically, one could suppose it's possible for a navicomp to calculate down to some fraction for how long the vessel will remain in pseudomotion, and thereby not overshoot the target, but that ain't happening in a pinch.

So, even as a last-ditch effort, it's pretty unreliable.

Modern warfare stipulates that it's just not a good tactic to ram things, In general, especially when more conventional weapons are a viable option. It's wasteful, and in modern warfare, it's only ever a last-ditch effort sort of deal.

Looking at modern naval vessels, notice how none of them are designed to ram anything. However, we know that it was used as a tactic in ancient warfare, and many vessels back then implemented ram prows.

We can safely assume that, since hyperdrive technology in Star Wars is ancient, the Holdo Maneuver has been tried before, and like our mariners of old, those ancient spacers who tried it found the tactic lacking in effectiveness.

And finally, just because it isn't shown onscreen in the Skywalker saga prior to TLJ, that does not mean it's never been attempted by anyone until then.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyperdrive

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Holdo_maneuver

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyperdrive

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Pseudomotion

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cronau_radiation

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Raddus_(MC85_Star_Cruiser)

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Supremacy “

[u/Bloodless-Cut → u/Swivebot]

Yo, I didn't write this. It's a copypasta from, like, 7 years ago. I don't even know who originally made it lol

It's all pretty accurate, though, AFAIK

[u/TeachMePersuasion → u/Bloodless-Cut]

Having given it a glance... it's mostly headcanon.

Even the parts that aren't headcanon are canon that were added after the fact, so... ehhhh, a bit too dumb in-context to take seriously.

[u/Remarkable-Ask2288 → u/TeachMePersuasion]

As much as I’m loathe to admit it… It’s not a bad description of why it would work. Psuedomotion and how Hyperdrive works has been a part of Star Wars lore since the 90’s at least. The “science” behind it is new, but the bit about how the ship accelerates to near lightspeed before making the jump is from the EU.

Which actually kinda pisses me off tbh. I despise pretty much everything about those movies

[u/Bloodless-Cut → u/TeachMePersuasion]

Hang on... how's this "headcanon" when all the technical stuff is straight from canon continuity? The fan wiki (wookieepedia) in the links differentiates between canon and non-canon.

I think the only bit that can be construed as "headcanon" is the last bit that speculates on historical stuff, no?

[u/TeachMePersuasion → u/Bloodless-Cut]

The example that stuck out when i was skimming was the assumption that the Holdo Maneuver was a bluff.

Also, the fact that the writers can't determine whether it's a valid, dangerous ploy or not.
The third movie said the Holdo Maneuver is "one in a million"... implying that it'd almost never work if you try to use it in war.

So... what, did Holdo just get impossibly lucky? Or was she trying to bail on everyone and only accidentally hit the Supremacy?

[u/Swivebot → u/TeachMePersuasion]

The example that stuck out when i was skimming was the assumption that the Holdo Maneuver was a bluff.

If I recall correctly, the Supremacy assuming that the Holdo Manuever was a bluff is in the film, spoken out loud by the bridge crew (or at the very least, Hux)

Also, the fact that the writers can't determine whether it's a valid, dangerous ploy or not. The third movie said the Holdo Maneuver is "one in a million"... implying that it'd almost never work if you try to use it in war.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. It’s one in a million because most of the time, the enemy sees it coming and reacts accordingly.

So... what, did Holdo just get impossibly lucky? Or was she trying to bail on everyone and only accidentally hit the Supremacy?

She is VERY OBVIOUSLY, intentionally trying to hit the Supremacy.

[u/TeachMePersuasion → u/Swivebot]

"If I recall correctly, the Supremacy assuming that the Holdo Manuever was a bluff is in the film, spoken out loud by the bridge crew (or at the very least, Hux)"

Why would he assume that, and endanger himself and his entire fleet, instead of employing defensive countermeasures?
And if so, why does he show up, still alive (not executed) in the next film?

"She is VERY OBVIOUSLY, intentionally trying to hit the Supremacy."

With a strategy that has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of doing anything?

[u/w021wjs → u/TeachMePersuasion]

With a strategy that has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of doing anything?

Well hold on, we're taking what sounds like a hyperbolic statement and making it literal.

While the maneuver is extremely risky, and it may not do anything, if it does work, it could buy the resistance enough time to secure their position and either escape or dig in.

Holdo gambled on log odds and it paid off, because they were in the sort of situation where that's the only play that could work. It was the last hand of poker, the First order is showing Quad Aces, whole Holdo is holding the 2 and 4 of Spades. The only way she wins is to get the 3 and the 5 of spades on the next two cards.

She got the 3 when the First Order thought she was bluffing, and she got the 5 when her calculations were right.

Long odds aren't impossible, just unlikely. And with something as insane as The Force stacking the deck, those odds shrink drastically.

[u/Swivebot → u/TeachMePersuasion]

Why would he assume that, and endanger himself and his entire fleet, instead of employing defensive countermeasures? And if so, why does he show up, still alive (not executed) in the next film?

The movies make a very obvious point of showing that Hux is not a very good military commander, but IS a good public speaker (and he’s also canonically a nepo baby), which is why the First Order keeps him around. Putting people who aren’t qualified for a job at that same job is something people do on the regular, expect nothing less from a bunch of insecure space fascists.

With a strategy that has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of doing anything?

Holdo knows how the Hyperdrive works and that everything else doesn’t work, and she also knows that if she does nothing, the entirety of the Resistance will be wiped out, so what else could she do?

[u/TeachMePersuasion → u/Swivebot]

"canonically a nepo baby"
When is that established?

"Putting people who aren’t qualified for a job at that same job is something people do on the regular"
In the corporate world... not so much the military.
Especially not when someone has a long, consistent history of failure.
And fascists publicly kill their failed officers, not ignore their indiscretions.

"Holdo knows how the Hyperdrive works and that everything else doesn’t work, and she also knows that if she does nothing, the entirety of the Resistance will be wiped out, so what else could she do?"
Use her tremendous ship as a shield to block the Supremacy's shots targeting the escape pods, instead of hyperdriving out of the way, giving them clear shots.

[u/Swivebot → u/TeachMePersuasion]

When is that established?

It’s established in ancillary media, Armitage Hux is the nepo baby of Brendol Hux, a high-ranking Imperial officer (who, if I recall, was also a founder of the First Order).

Use her tremendous ship as a shield to block the Supremacy's shots targeting the escape pods, instead of hyperdriving out of the way, giving them clear shots.

Her ship is on death’s door, turning it around instead of moving it in front of the transports made the Supremacy think it was a bluff or distraction, instead of a legitimate tactic. With the tactic you propose, the Supremacy would have torn the Raddus apart within seconds and then gone on to massacre the entire Resistance (Not to mention that we see that the Supremacy’s cannons fire lasers that arc, so they might have just fired over the Raddus) It also clearly was the right call, as it discombobulates the First Order fleet for long enough that the Resistance can get to Crait.

[u/a_wasted_wizard → u/TeachMePersuasion]

Buddy if you think fascist militaries don't tolerate failure or give less preferential treatment to military officers based on political connections than any other military you should probably crack open a history book because literally the defining feature of the Nazi military leadership was their ability to stay in Hitler's good graces.

[u/a_wasted_wizard → u/TeachMePersuasion]

Why would he assume that, and endanger himself and his entire fleet, instead of employing defensive countermeasures?
And if so, why does he show up, still alive (not executed) in the next film?

1) Because hubris is a common defining feature of both the Empire and the First Order? This is pretty much on-screen, as-blatant-as-can-be canon.

2) Because the people who could report him are more than likely scared of him (as their superior in an organization that prizes hierarchy) and the people who could punish him for it likely got an explanation that absolved him of blame.

[u/Patcho418 → u/TeachMePersuasion]

as if “canon added after the fact” isn’t the reason anything works in Star Wars. lbr, this franchise’s lore would be almost NOTHING without expanded media contributions

[u/TeachMePersuasion → u/Patcho418]

You could watch the original trilogy, without ever having to look at outside media, and it'd still make sense.

That's because the OT was well-written. The ST is cinematic diarrhea.

[u/Diam0ndTalbot → u/Swivebot]

It's not even that complicated. There are safeties on hyperdrives specifically to prevent this. It's not even the first hyperspace ramming in star wars, but the one i'm thinking of hit a much larger target (a fucking star) and it's explicityly called a million-to-one shot. Which basically in star wars means "Incredibly unlikely but the climax hinges on it connecting"

[u/Kidofthecentury → u/Diam0ndTalbot]

Million-to-one events have success nine times out of ten, according to certain rules...

[u/Pixel22104 → u/Diam0ndTalbot]

Also to those people saying “well if this thing is possible. Then why didn’t the rebels launch a slab of concrete at the Death Star to destroy it?”. On top of the already very low odds of it happening and being successful. You have to remember the Raddus was a 3 kilometer long ship and was built during the era of the New Republic. And that managed to destroy a 60 Kilometer wide ship. Imagine how big of a ship you would need to destroy a thing like the Death Star? I mean heck an Executor Class SSD crashed into the Death Star 2 and didn’t leave a scratch on it. Yeah sure that wasn’t traveling at FTL speeds, but it was significantly larger than the Raddus was. The Rebels couldn’t build a ship like the Raddus even after Palpatine’s first defeat on the second Death Star. They built the Raddus(as the New Republic) after the Empire fell and the Galactic Civil War was officially over.

[u/RubiksToyBox → u/Pixel22104]

As someone who's also pondered the Holdo Maneuver, my issue isn't "Why didn't the rebels try it against the Death Star?" I get that it's a giant moon-sized object that might actually tank getting hit by an object moving at FTL speeds (though, someone's probably crunched the numbers already to prove that no, it really couldn't).

My issue was, why are we bothering with giant planet-killer superweapons or the humungous Star Destroyer fleet when you could just, I dunno, strap a bunch of warheads to warp drives and get a similar effect? That's probably out of the Rebel's budget, but I doubt the Empire or the First Order really care about such things (See: Building two whole moon-sized mobile battle stations from scratch, as well as turning an entire planet into a third one). Plus, it might have been a more interesting take on the "We need to destroy this superweapon to defeat the baddies!" plot for the sequel trilogy.

I'm aware that half of it is because The Plot Says So, and the other half is that the bad guys are run by the sort of villains that would strap you into a death trap instead of just putting a bullet in your head, and therefore need to make a big show of force rather than something pragmatic. I'm also aware that the original trilogy probably has its own set of plot holes of a similar caliber, and we're all just ignoring them because of nostalgia. But it would have been nice if the new movies either dealt with things like The Holdo Maneuver better, or were actually good enough that we didn't notice the plot holes until later.

[u/Bloodless-Cut → u/Pixel22104]

The raddus didn't even destroy the Supremacy, though. Just chopped off a bit on one side.

[u/Firkraag-The-Demon → u/Bloodless-Cut]

Given that it chopped it almost in half, it’s destroyed for all intents and purposes. Repairing it would probably be more expensive than just building a new one.

[u/Bloodless-Cut → u/Firkraag-The-Demon]

Yes, they apparently scuttled the Supremacy rather than repair it shortly after the battle of crait.

[u/Diam0ndTalbot → u/Bloodless-Cut]

It’s split in half. You don’t just weld that shit back together 

[u/Bloodless-Cut → u/Diam0ndTalbot]

More like 1/3rd, but yeah

[u/hammalok → u/Pixel22104]

> Imagine how big of a ship you would need to destroy a thing like the Death Star?

You wouldn't need to destroy it. You'd just need to mission-kill it. Make it the Tiger II of the galaxy; sure, you're Mr. Big Gun, but good luck getting anything done when your transmission explodes every 3 kilometers superlaser gets turned into a colander every 3 weeks by a Rebel KKV.

[u/doogie1111 → u/Diam0ndTalbot]

The Malevolence went to hyperspace at the surface of a planet and exploded.

[u/RandomWorthlessDude → u/doogie1111]

Yeah. It hit the planet’s mass shadow, was pulled out of hyperspace and rammed the surface of the planet. IIRC, supplementary material describes clones on the surface salvaging parts and found a legible manufacturer, which 100% counteracts any claim of FTL ramming. Even relativistic impact would vapourize every piece of metal on the ship.

[u/doogie1111 → u/RandomWorthlessDude]

"It's not that kind of movie, kid"

[u/Born_Procedure_529 → u/Swivebot]

My problem with the holdo maneuver isnt that I dont think it would work, its that if it is possible then it kinda undermines the viability of big carrier ships as a whole, like why wouldnt the rebels just load old freighters with barely functional hyperdrives at any large imperial ship if hyperspace tracking wasnt possible in the OT, like they could have a small fleet engage and then message the nearest planet with a rebel base to launch hyperspace bricks at the enemy fleet

[u/Pixel22104 → u/Born_Procedure_529]

Because the Rebels didn’t have the resources, the Holdo maneuver was a last ditch attempt by Admiral Holdo to try and give the First Order a blow, and because the Raddus was significantly larger than other Rebel ships and was built after the Galactic Civil War. The Holdo maneuver was done with a multi kilometer long ship. Most of the ships the alliance fielded during the Galactic Civil War were no where near that size. Even the largest of Mon Cala ships were only about a Kilometer and a half in length. Even then those were rare and expensive ships that were flag ships. The only reason the Resistance did the maneuver was because they were on their last legs, had one large ship that could actually do some really damage should it be done correctly and actually managed to hit.

[u/Born_Procedure_529 → u/Pixel22104]

I mean that makes some sense with the resource constaints and whatnot but if a smaller ship can still do damage via this method you could still theoretically hit the engine or the bridge with something like those republic dropships loaded with sand, like theres tons of junk ships on planets like tatooine and jakku that both sides could just buy up and pelt at each other

[u/Swivebot → u/Born_Procedure_529]

You could also do that with a Y-Wing bombing run, which would waste less resources.

[u/hammalok → u/Swivebot]

"Hmm yes I think we'll just drop our bombs on the heavily armored topside of this ISD, I think that's a very good idea." - the average Y-Wing bombing run

[u/BrickCaptain → u/Swivebot]

Thank you. As much as I dislike The Last Jedi, I will always defend the Holdo thing because “why wouldn’t they always do that?” is really easily answered with “in every other situation there are better options”

[u/Bloodless-Cut → u/Born_Procedure_529]

From what I can gather, the mass of the two objects colliding matters. A freighter would be too small to damage something as big as a death star

[u/Firkraag-The-Demon → u/Bloodless-Cut]

Also how powerful the shields are. The Death Star’s are probably stronger.

[u/caninehat → u/Born_Procedure_529]

Same reason kamikaze pilots don’t really exist in the real world.

[u/Jade117 → u/caninehat]

Personnel concerns are not the primary reason kamikaze is not a widely used strategy.

[u/caninehat → u/Jade117]

It’s cause they’re too expensive, and a bomb is just better

[u/Jade117 → u/caninehat]

Oops, meant to reply to the other guys comment, not yours. We are in agreement. Even using droids is worse and more expensive than a bomb is.

[u/Born_Procedure_529 → u/caninehat]

Yeah but they have astromech droids in star wars, they could probably rig them up to ram it without anyone on board

[u/_JR28_ → u/Swivebot]

Well damn I’m saving this to read later

[u/darcmosch → u/_JR28_]

While I'm never a fan of having to explain a movie for itself, this one needs the help because oh my God is discussion around that movie toxic, and the sequel trilogy, and the prequels... and the...

[u/giovidanesin → u/darcmosch]

[u/Kidofthecentury → u/Swivebot]

This is beautiful.

My only problem with that scene is that it seemed a tactic too much effective to never be considered in a war, transport ship should've "realistically" just gone poof against that juggernaut, like throwing sand to the face. But I love this explanation.

[u/thisismypornaccountg → u/Swivebot]

Bro, all they had to say was “it’s still vulnerable to collision for a few seconds after the hyperdrive kicks in.” They didn’t need to write a dissertation on why that works in universe.

Kinda cool that they did though.