We didn't get to see a lot of Admiral Holdo in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but she is probably the most popular of the many new characters in the film. Casting Laura Dern is a big part of the reason, but also because Holdo was someone who, like General Leia, commanded respect from those around her. She would go on to make a huge sacrifice to pull the Resistance away from certain doom. Was her decision motivated by more than just a desire to defeat the First Order, but by something beyond normal understanding?
According to Dern, Holdo was actually a Force-sensitive, despite her abilities not being shown on screen. Clearly, she wasn't soaring through the vacuum of space like an Ice Age Mary Poppins the way Leia was, but Dern says you could see it in the way Holdo spoke to people and the wisdom she showed.
“In their minds, and in their understanding of the origin story, we know that she was a true rebel in the Resistance, and in our culture we might have called her a hippie,” Dern says. “But she was longing for peace, and a revolutionary in that way, and wanted to be trained by and led by Leia, who taught her everything she knew. She wanted to come up in the ranks to support Leia’s mission, but also had this otherworldly side that does involve the Force.”
Dern adds to Entertainment Weekly that Holdo's ultimate sacrifice was also motivated by her connection to The Force, possibly as a parallel to a similar sacrifice made by Luke Skywalker?
“There’s something about her that longs to protect it, and holds that with great care,” Dern says. “There’s a sort of a light on and a wisdom that she speaks about in the film, and speaks to Oscar Isaac’s character briefly about it...Yeah, her primary goal was to protect the light, to protect the Force, and to keep the revolutionaries alive. And I think the film speaks so beautifully to that with this last image of the next generation of the Resistance, you know?”
Not sure I totally buy into her theory, but it makes as much sense as anything I suppose. Here's hoping we can maybe see Holdo again in flashback or something.
