Warring Across the Stars...With their...Wars....and Stuff

[Ran]

The show is so cinematic, the pacing doesn't bother me at all -- there's so much stuff to look at, some choice framing of scenes, the writing...

It also reminds me of the "furniture" approach to genre GRRM has. You could easily transpose this to WWII, just shifting around the "furniture". But I think this is why, exactly, it works so well. It's not being driven by being Star Wars!!!!, it's taking the setting as a living, breathing, real thing and telling real human stories within that framework.

 

[Relic]

Its almost as if good writing and attention to detail is key in telling a great story. Crazy shit, think Hollywood will catch on? 

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Relic said:

Its almost as if good writing and attention to detail is key in telling a great story. Crazy shit, think Hollywood will catch on? 

Let's not suck their dicks quite yet. A big part of the show's appeal is doing a good buildup with the hope it has a good payoff. It is getting a lot of so far unearned credit. I hope it does do a good job of a conclusion but they haven't done that, yet.

And if (for example) we spend several episodes with crappy Corp guy moping with his mom and it leads nowhere that ain't gonna be good writing. 

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

And if (for example) we spend several episodes with crappy Corp guy moping with his mom and it leads nowhere that ain't gonna be good writing. 

If it makes for an interesting scene which entertains and adds depth to characters then there is value in that on its own. I really liked that scene.
 

It’s pretty clear he will play some part in the plot from this point on anyway

[Kalbear]

I agree that this is clearly their intent with a lot of this - that guy, the mon mothma plot, some of the rebellion bits, the lieutenant who is turning against the empire. And if this was done in a vacuum I suspect it'd be fine. 

But it isn't. This is Disney and star wars and a very corporate marketing system that is not about artistic vision or even coherence at times. It should lead to a good conclusion, but so should rise of Skywalker and book of Boba fett. 

[Heartofice]

Possibly but you could tell within 5 mins of both that they were absolute clusterfucks

[Relic]

31 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

Let's not suck their dicks quite yet. A big part of the show's appeal is doing a good buildup with the hope it has a good payoff. It is getting a lot of so far unearned credit. I hope it does do a good job of a conclusion but they haven't done that, yet.

And if (for example) we spend several episodes with crappy Corp guy moping with his mom and it leads nowhere that ain't gonna be good writing. 

true true

[Rhom]

3 hours ago, HokieStone said:

I watch it with subtitles turned on, which annoys my kids.  <shrug>

 

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I watch everything with subtitles.

I keep considering it… but something always keeps me from doing it? Not wanting to admit that I’m aging? Vanity?   

[SpaceChampion]

On 9/28/2022 at 5:21 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The sleepy kid… seem like he might be force sensitive? He immediately latched on to and accepted Andor.

Is being force sensitive like being ta'veren?

[Myrddin]

Are you suggesting Rand has an unusually high midichlorian count?!?

[Kalbear]

Andor also works well as a show for our specific times. I suspect a lot of people want to see more stories about authoritarian governments and the way that people can fight them, and putting it with the pastiche of Star Wars where there is absolutely zero question which side is 'good' helps that too. 

That was always part of the success of Star Wars too - playing off of the historical memory of WW2 and iconography was an obvious thing they were doing - but there are few who have that living memory in place, and WW2 is not the driving factor in culture now that it was in the 60s and 70s. 

[Myrddin]

Actually, the show is answering the open question many of us have had for years: How did everyone forget about the Jedi and the Force in 18 years to the point it was a myth?

I still think the illustration using the old nav system versus the new is a spot on explanation for how populations can completely change within a single generation. Give people an easier way to do something so they rely on it. Soon, they'll forget how to do it themselves. Social media versus reliable news sources. GPS versus map reading. Disposable electronics versus repairable machines. Pretty soon, people can't navigate without a GPS, don't know how to source news, and don't know how to repair anything so rely on The Man every time something breaks.

Who knew that the 2020's would serve as a "better" model for what George laid out 40+ years ago. 

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Myrddin said:

, don't know how to source news,

Ah c'mon.  You just gotta do your own research.

[Argonath Diver]

I mostly gave up on the Mickey Mouse Star Wars series and don't regret it. Got so burnt on Tattoine for fucks sake. Generally have only browsed these threads to keep up with current events as it were. Avoided this recently because I had high hopes for Andor.

Holy crap I couldn't ask for a more appealing show for my tastes. Avoiding specific discussion here until the finale, but I'm glad it sounds like others agree it's the show the SW universe deserves. I sure hope they stick the landing because so far I think it's my favorite series of 2022 (I don't watch nearly as much as most here).

 

 

[Myrddin]

14 hours ago, Rhom said:

Ah c'mon.  You just gotta do your own research.

Rhom, you promised to keep me informed!

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, Myrddin said:

Rhom, you promised to keep me informed!

My bad.  I got a guy that comes in my office and tells me whats really going on.  I'll be sure to message you with the important stuff.

[karaddin]

After OBW my enthusiasm for SW was at a really low ebb so hadn't even been paying attention to reactions to this, but was bored and looking for something to watch last night so decided to give it a try and I'm pleasantly surprised by a show that feels like its got a story to tell and is going about doing so quite well (rather than just "ok" which OBW didn't even manage most of the time).

I do think part of it is the longer reason run though, the 6 ep format feels like it was a response to people complaining about the Netflix shows feeling a few episodes too long but it just created different problems. Andor is using its time to spin out the threads in a more structured manner rather than having to throw everyone in from the jump. We start off with just Cassian, he kills the gonks and pulls in the boot leather simp corpo who is the second story thread. Cassian gets Bix to reach out to Stellan at which point he enters the picture - we don't only see his story when its connected to Cassian, but we don't see it until we see how it connects to him. Cassian then connects to this proto-Rebel cell with the traitor Imperial Lt and Stellan connects us on to Mon Mothma, and the cluster fuck of the attempted arrest connects to the ISB officers and we start to see their stories as well. The threads only light up after intersecting with the story that's already in progress. It's better structured for helping the audience understand where the different pieces fit together than if its just all thrown at us in the first episode.

Speaking of the ISB - that first scene on Coruscant (especially the short shot of the blonde ISB officer arriving at headquarters) is I think literally the first time in Star Wars that an urban environment looks like an actual progression of a prosperous human city from our actual modern world might look like. A place people would actually choose to live without having no other options lol.

On 8/2/2022 at 12:35 AM, Myrddin said:

The young woman at the 2:00 reminds me of a young Carrie Fisher. My Google/IMDB skills have failed me. Any idea who the character is? 

Having seen her in the show now I was getting exactly the same vibe from her. If its entirely accidental its almost uncanny as I don't think I'd say she "looks" like her per se, but something is evoking Carrie.

On 9/23/2022 at 3:29 AM, Rhom said:

At some point he needs a reason to believe his sister has become a prostitute off planet.   

I wasn't sure if he's meant to be convinced she was his sister, or he'd want to reach out to anyone from his home planet and sibling is the easiest way for it to be accepted as worth helping. For dramatic/narrative reasons if she comes back up it will be his sister, but he won't necessarily be sure of that. 

On 10/7/2022 at 3:40 AM, Relic said:

think Hollywood will catch on? 

No.

[Werthead]

Outstanding episode, and I think they stuck the landing on the climax of this arc. It also now looks like they are handling the pacing issues by splitting the season into four 3-episode arcs, which is a great idea, and probably could have been handled better by releasing them in 3-episode batches.

On 10/1/2022 at 1:10 AM, Lord Varys said:

An interpretation that flies into the face of how things stand in TESB and ROTJ. Ackbar isn't some ally of the Rebellion, he is part of them, and the Mon Cal cruisers are there at the end of TESB already.

This is incorrect. The Rebel fleet at the end of ESB consists of the Nebulon-B frigates (like the medical frigate), Corellian corvettes, fighters, transports and some weird-shaped scratchbuilt models that don't appear again. There are no Mon Calamari ships in view.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

That was tight.  The pacing was spot on.  I was a little surprised by the twist.  I’m curious about how they pull Andor back in.

[Heartofice]

That was fucking great, a really tense and well paced episode that justified the slower build up of the previous episodes. I agree that doing them in 3 ep batches would make more sense.

What a good show this is!