Oh god... Holdo.
Honestly the most fun I've had with her is listening to all the names people who don't like that character give her.
She is portrayed in the movie as being either the bad guy, or incompetent.
I believe this is intentionally done by the director to "subvert" the expectations when he makes her the hero out of nowhere.
The problem is that all of the characters are idiots. Or at least all of them act like idiots.
Leia orders Poe to leave the dreadnought, Poe argues that they'll never have a better chance to take out the ship. Leia orders him again and he turns off his radio.
Okay, he's pushing his luck.
But why doesn't Leia just call the other ships and call them off? She's in charge, if she puts out the order the people will listen to her right?
Due to bad directing the bombers seem to slow to ever escape anything, and they tend to explode at the slightest provocation which looks neat but leaves the viewer wondering why anybody would ever use these ships.
The apparently the director loves WW2 movies with bombing runs, hence why these high tech ships have to fly over the ship and then fire the bombs down instead of just... shooting them forward at long distance?
So Poe is shown to be somebody who disregards orders when he thinks he's right, which is a terrible trait in a soldier, and is supposed to be a negative thing we're supposed to dislike.
But due to the following events we quickly see that if he hadn't taken out the Dreadnought it would have killed them all during the chase.
So... his actions are actually justified and without his actions everybody would be dead long before the Holdo plan could have been used.
This is a problem because Poe is justified in his actions, so watching him being slapped down later by Leia, and talked down to by Holdo comes across as unjustified.
Weirder the way Leia talks after she demotes him makes it sound like she's just cranky and isn't planning on it sticking.
Or maybe it was just men.
Then after Leia dies, then flies, then kills the entire cast by opening the door to outer space as they rush to save her... No seriously, check it again after Mary Poppins moment, she opens a door to outer space as Poe runs up. They should all be dead! ;~)
So Leia is out of commission. And since Akbar was killed so unceremoniously we introduce a woman in an ugly opera dress who is apparently the most important person besides Leia and Akbar.
It's hard to take her serious because while everybody else is disheveled or at least dressed to work, she's... ready for the opera, with hair and makeup done.
I suspect it's supposed to be a sign of female empowerment, to show she can be a strong military leader without having to change to seem more masculine.
I... am largely guessing that's the intent, because it just made her look completely out of touch in my opinion. Just saying: Leia wore pants when she was expecting a fight. And choked out the first guy who took her pants away.
So now I've had one person point out that Poe wanting to know the plan is not something he should expect to learn. He's a soldier, he's supposed to take orders and accept it.
Honestly I understand why he'd be hesitant, this woman who's not dressed for a fight, who appears to have spent her time doing her hair and makeup shows up for a front line fight... and he's never really met her.
The best pilot in their forces has never met this admiral... And their forces aren't that large.
She ridicules him, insults him, and tells him to sod off.
Okay, as a military officer I could accept her stating in a commanding tone that he doesn't need to know the plan, and dismissing him. But she doesn't act professionally, she acts like it's personal.
Eventually Poe pretty much begs her to just tell them that there IS a plan, and she still refuses to do so much as say "Yes, there is a plan, we need everybody to stand ready there won't be much time to pull this off when it happens."
Instead she says nothing... in front of a large number of the crew. This has to be horrible for morale.
But like I said, everybody is stupid.
-Hucks and Kylo decide not to send squadrons of fighters to destroy the ships because... uh...
-Hucks and Kylo decide not to send Star Destroyers ahead to destroy the ships because... uh...
-Nobody uses the escape pod/ship thing to jump to hyperspace, even though Finn and Rose do it without issues.
-Finn and Rose decide to park their ship on the beach instead of... parking it in the proper location? Or parking it far enough away to avoid causing issues? Nope, park it right on the beach in front of the casino where it's sure to be an issue.
-After failing to find the right hacker they just take the first guy who says he can do it... instead of calling Maz again.
-Rey... thinks Kylo can be saved because she... saw him shirtless? I mean, come on, he attacked, kidnapped, attempted to torture her, stabbed her only friend, nearly killed her and she like him because... uh...
Yeah, everybody's carrying the idiot ball.
Now the problem is that since Poe comes across as being in the right, and Holdo is framed as likely being incompetent or evil, so when they director attempts to subvert our expectations by making her the hero... there's no build up for it, no justification for it, and worse when Poe learns the plan and says "that could work" I was left thinking that she could have prevented this situation and chose not to.
And then... oh my, and then after Poe mutinies and the trained soldiers fail to keep their eyes on the prisoners, Holdo pulls her pistol out of... her butt? Hammerspace? Maybe she has an arsenal hidden in the neck folds of that dress, I don't know.
And the Leia wakes up, and rather than talk to Poe, who appears to be happy to see her, she shoot him. Okay, fine, it's an emergency and they're despirate...
But then Leia and Holdo chat and Holdo says "I like him".
My wife started hurling F bombs at the screen at that point in the movie with some choice insults I've NEVER heard her say before.
And I agree with her. Holdo is obnoxious and insulting, and suddenly "Ho ho ho, I think he's such a charming fellow". It comes across as a rather tone deaf attempt to humanize Holdo and make her likable but fails to land.
Then to give this... Okay, I had insults here but lets keep this classy, to make Holdo into the hero after all of our Male characters have managed to screw up everything, she "bravely" throws away her life and takes out most of the enemy forces by hyperspace jumping at the enemies.
Other people have pointed out how this action breaks space combat in all the Star Wars movies, so I'll skip it.
And this action... still fails to do anything. The First Order still hunts down the heroes like it's nothing.
And I just realized that they shouldn't have gotten away at the end. Doesn't the First Order ships still have hyperspace trackers? Can't they just follow the Falcon and kill the last fourteen members of the Resistance?
Sorry Jab, I know you like her but... that dress his horrible.
Wait... is that a fricken metal halo in her hair?
Agh...