Star Wars: a story for every fan? (Andor Spoilers)

[Martell Spy]

5 hours ago, Spockydog said:

"He wears robes end of story."

So, he's also a clone of Kenobi.

[Lord Varys]

If they really wanted to go with a twist there is the chance that Luthen is actually an Imperial agent provocateur working for the higher echelons of the Empire (i.e. Vader or Palpatine) charged with creating a proper Rebellion the Empire could then use as an excuse to implement more draconian measures and/or destroy their legal facade (Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, etc.).

Not sure how likely that is, but it would definitely not be impossible as per the events portrayed so far. And it would make for a better story than the idea that the Rebellion is going to get going by making the Empire brutalize its people more and/or actually implementing more draconian security measures that might make open resistance much harder.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

So, he's also a clone of Kenobi.

Under the old system, would that make him Obi Wan Kenoobi?  Keenobi?  Kenobii?

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Under the old system, would that make him Obi Wan Kenoobi?  Keenobi?  Kenobii?

Pretty sure it'd be Oobi-Wan, but I could also see an argument for Obii-Wan

[Kalbear]

On 11/26/2022 at 8:27 PM, Lord Varys said:

I might be using hyperbole here, but Mon Mothma is presented as little more than a terrorist financier who doesn't even direct the operations of her terrorist underlings. Vel and Cinta are cogs in Luthen's machine and do as their told. Which is pretty nasty in Vel's case consinder she is Mon's cousin and could actually check with her whether she is okay with Luthen-style terrorism and murder.

Maarva I'd view as a Rebel sympathizer, not so much a leader. But the problem with her is that her speech simply has little substance to offer.

Mon Mothma so far is not the face, no. She's the money and she's the soft power. I don't see it being a problem that she hasn't come out yet in support of the new republic, and what we have seen of her public support has been in direct defiance and criticism of the Empire. 

Heck, is there actual canon that has Mon Mothma doing much more than presenting a good face and being the main public persona for the Rebellion? My recollection has her doing very little in Rebels and almost nothing in RotJ, so it's not like this is non-canonical. The rebellion needs a clean face for its success. It needs the MLK. But it also needs Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers, and the Weathermen. 

On 11/26/2022 at 8:27 PM, Lord Varys said:

Yes, yes, but now we know that Mon Mothma's own organization is effectively run by a bloodhound. There is no idealism there that I can see. Rogue One twisting Saw Gerrera into some brutal lunatic was also, well, a questionable decision considering where that character started out - as a freedom fighter defending his own world of Onderon against the Separatist and successfully driving them off his planet.

It is not inconceivable that Saw would end like that, but his character would have made more sense as a more idealistic and positive leader of the early Rebellion. His lesson from the Clone Wars, after all, was that rebellion can work. It also feels quite odd that this guy would care for the folks on Jedha. 

Sorry that they didn't take the kids show sanitized version of Saw and turn him into something idealistic; as has been said repeatedly there are plenty of things that Disney already does that showcase a sanitized, black and white version of the story that you appear to so desperately crave. In any case, it's absolutely canon that even in Clone Wars he was too extremist and Mothma cut ties with him, so I don't see how even your argument above makes sense. He did start on Onderon, but one of the lines from Clone Wars is being completely non-apologetic about how he fights.

On 11/26/2022 at 8:27 PM, Lord Varys said:

That is definitely not a general rule. You can obviously tell Cassian's story as the story of an average guy falling in with a ruthless rebel leader ... but they could just as well have made him more idealistic, and stretch the development of the man we meet in Rogue One over a longer period of time. Luthen could have been easily enough less of thug.

It could have, and then it'd be a different story, and there's room for that too. But that's not the story that Rogue One wanted to tell, it's not the story Gilroy wanted to tell, it's not the story Disney wanted to tell. You could also have made Luthen a Jedi, or made Luthen a woman, or made Luthen into a cyborg hamster. So what?

Again, you do this thing where you both get the details of the show you watched wrong and criticize that, AND you then say all the ways that the show could have done something different than the canon you have in your head.

On 11/26/2022 at 8:27 PM, Lord Varys said:

Sorry, but you cannot just imagine causality where there is none. Aldhani caused the Empire to implement more draconian measures, but the Ferrix situation is solely due to Syril's investigation of the deaths of the guardsmen. Subsequently, the Empire only messes with the people of Ferrix because of Cassian's former presence there.

The Ferrix situation escalated dramatically after Aldhani. Again, we see this in the show. There's a whole subplot with Dedra personally overtaking Ferrix's lead because the main person there isn't useful enough, and she says she's doing this specifically because of Aldhani. The Empire messes with Ferrix because of Axis, which they now suspect has to do with Aldhani - and their only real lead is Andor. 

If Aldhani doesn't happen the imperial presence on Aldhani grows but Bix doesn't get taken, the kid's dad doesn't get tortured...like, that all happened! On the show! This isn't hard to follow!

On 11/26/2022 at 8:27 PM, Lord Varys said:

Luthen's plans have nothing to do with Maarva's Rebel sympathies, nor her standing within her community, nor the riots that break out during her funeral procession.

Luthen's plans have everything to do with fomenting the kind of resistance Maarva represents. He does not know who will rise up, he does not know where it'll happen, but he knows the more the Empire pushes the more they'll be pushed back. This is Nemik's thesis too. Again, this is the whole point of the show, one of the main ideas: that people will largely be complacent with authoritarianism while it does not particularly impact them or those they care about. If you want a general upswell of support you have to have authoritarianism bite the populace. And once you do, you'll get the local leaders to rise up, you'll get the workers to rise up, you'll get local support and feedback, you'll get the radicalized terrorists when you kill their aunt and uncle. 

But until then you only get the real extremists and incel groups. 

So yeah, Luthen didn't know Ferrix would happen. He didn't know Narkina-5 would happen either. But he hopes that countless things like that are going to happen. He hopes things like that, and Lothal, and Mon Calamari, and countless others will happen. 

And again when you say this is unrealistic - this is how many revolutions and rebellions have actually happened. The US revolution, the civil rights movements, the Syrian civil war, the protests in China right now, the Russian revolution. This is not a weird pattern.

[Kalbear]

On 11/27/2022 at 9:26 AM, Lord Varys said:

There is no indication that Ferrix suffered more because of Aldhani - it did because of Cassian's murder and the Empire establishing a more direct rule of the planet. The more draconian measures apparently involved the length of sentences for offenses and the question whether anyone is ever released from those prisons. 

Again, you seem to be absolutely ignoring what happened in the show. The crackdown of locals happened after Aldhani, as a direct result of Aldhani, under the specific coordination of Dedra looking for Andor because of Aldhani. 

On 11/27/2022 at 9:26 AM, Lord Varys said:

I also understood that Maarva had always rebel leanings - Aldhani just gave her the push to try to do something.

So...exactly like Luthen wanted? 

On 11/27/2022 at 9:26 AM, Lord Varys said:

The point there is that if your organization is strictly hierarchical and involving paranoia and betrayal from the start the chances are not that good that they will suddenly discover democracy.

The organization is not strictly hierarchical. Like we see this in the show too! We see Luthen working with Saw but making deals with him, and otherwise they're independent. Kreegyr works independently of Luthen too. The only 'hierarchy' we see is one small cell - Luthen telling Val and Cinta what to do, and Val largely doing it. Bix talking with Luthen some times but most of the time not. Val does talk with Mon but she doesn't give her orders and they work almost perfectly independently to each other. 

Is Luthen going to discover democracy? Probably not! But that doesn't mean Bail Organa or Mon Mothma won't. 

On 11/27/2022 at 9:26 AM, Lord Varys said:

The thesis that you need a completely evil and totalitarian society to convince people to rise up is just utter horseshit. Nobody building for a rebellion ever wanted to strengthen the repressive powers of the regime they wanted to overthrow.

They might create more chaos, hope to exploit things that really work up the people - like famines, etc. ... but only complete monsters would deliberate help a tyrant to get more powerful so that people might want to overthrow him. That's just nonsense.

Again read your history books. The goal isn't to strengthen the power, it's to strengthen the response. India, the civil rights movement, Russia, the US revolution, partisan work in France and Poland in WW2, Vietnam, Afghanistan...it goes on and on. This is not a particularly novel playbook. Luthen wants the Empire to use the power they have. He's not giving them more power - they already have the power. THey're just not using it. 

On 11/27/2022 at 9:26 AM, Lord Varys said:

That's not what I meant by Stalinist there - it is about the underhanded methods which reek of Stalinists fighting Trotzkyists outside the Soviet Union, etc.

Perhaps you should use terms that mean those things, then? 

And again, this is just Luthen. This is not Andor or Mon Mothma or even Val. It certainly isn't Maarva. You're looking at James Bond and wondering how the UK could possibly operate if everyone is a sexist playboy who gambles and smokes all the time. 

[Myrddin]

34 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Under the old system, would that make him Obi Wan Kenoobi?  Keenobi?  Kenobii?

Obi Juan Kenobi

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Pretty sure it'd be Oobi-Wan, but I could also see an argument for Obii-Wan

Why not Obi-Waan?   

I remembered that it was always the vowels in the first name after I had hit Post.  Good ole Luuke Skywalker.   

[Jaxom 1974]

So...tinfoil hat idea...Andor will have to sacrifice Luther for the greater good in that it is Luthen who is preventing an overall alliance of the rebellious cells. That they have all gathered on Yavin-4 by Rogue One, yet haven't truly coalesced (a bit of a plot point for Rogue One to be sure). It'll be the sacrifice of Luthen that will be the cost Mon Motha and Andor have to pay to get them all in one place...

[RumHam]

I wonder if we'll also see them on Dantooine before Yavin. 

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

So...tinfoil hat idea...Andor will have to sacrifice Luther for the greater good in that it is Luthen who is preventing an overall alliance of the rebellious cells. That they have all gathered on Yavin-4 by Rogue One, yet haven't truly coalesced (a bit of a plot point for Rogue One to be sure). It'll be the sacrifice of Luthen that will be the cost Mon Motha and Andor have to pay to get them all in one place...

My suspicion originally was that Luthen will be used as a way to save other more important rebel leaders and will willingly give himself up for that cause. 

I'm starting to think that instead what Luthen will be used as is a way to sanitize the rebel leadership and make them the warm fuzzy that Varys so desperately wants. What better way to earn the trust of everyone to have Mon Mothma bring to 'justice' the rogue terrorist Luthen, who is aligned with the rebellion but is too extreme for their taste? That gives Mothma immediate respect and moderates her and ensures Luthen is not at the table. Luthen's speech kind of makes me think that's the way he'll be going.

[Raja]

Watched the finale last night

Overall, I think it's an excellent series and like others it's renewed my love for star wars again. It's the best live action thing I've seen since TLJ ( which I also thought was excellent). Some observations

1. One criticism from the finale is that I think there's a scene missing - the final scene has Andor essentially saying deal me in the rebellion, now presumbly this is because of what's happened to Bix/ Ferrix & his mother - but the finale not having a scene where we see his reaction to all of the events in the finale ( he mentions 'marva was great' to bix, but not much more than that)  means it didn't really land for me - not seeing his reaction means the last scene didn't really have the impact that I think it could have had and it's a misstep for me.

2. Like someone mentioned up thread, I think completely abandoning his sister's plot line was weird, but I'm kinda okay with it because I think everything else was quite good

3. I think Mon Mothma and co remain the weakest part of the show, and another scene of her in the car/ at her apartment was just...not great. Her scenes with Skarsgaard were good, but I didn't find any of the other stuff with her interesting.

4. Similar with Saw, maybe he'll be back in S2 but him & Anton whoever didn't really amount to anything.

However, there most of the show is great, and I think the strongest part is that they made Ferrix seem like a real place with real people and a community that helped anchor the show. Diego luna was excellent, but I think it's really an ensemble showing with Luna & Skarsgaard being the stand outs, along with Denise Gough & Kyle Soller. I thought 12 episodes were probably going to be too many and they wouldn't keep me interested, but the plot all worked and the number of episodes seemed completely fine.

[karaddin]

@Rajafor me I felt like I got what you're talking about in (1) in the quick conversation in the tunnel with Brasso trying to talk him into leaving and Cassian saying something to the effect of it being too late for that. It's only on reading your comment that I realized how much of what I'm reading into that is coming from my interpretation rather than being explicit, so your stance is fair, but for me that was the point where he's become aware he's already past the point of no return and is in rebellion against the empire even if he's not in THE rebellion.

I don't think he went to Luthen looking to enlist, rather he went intending to die to safeguard the others but open to joining the rebellion and it's Luthen that actually gets to make that choice.

On the sister front I think she's simply not alive, it was a rumour that was bs and Maarva was right that he needed to give up on her. If that's actually correct I think it was a mistake to use something that looked like a long hanging plot thread as simply the inciting incident because it's going to lead to a lot of the audience expecting more.

[Jaxom 1974]

I mean, Saw's violent and militant approach to the Rebellion is a plot point of Rogue One, particularly with the Alliance being able to solidify as a fully formed unit. They cannot seem to be under one banner while there are other ideas on how to do things out there, thus Mon's lack of faith in dealing with him to get their hands on the captured pilot.  So it isn't a stretch to think Luthen needs to be sacrificed to get even the splinter groups they did have on Yavin there prior to Rogue One...

[Raja]

@karaddin Yeah, I think a lot of what he does is inferred from what we see in the finale but even then bit where he goes to Luthen and wants to die, I think the acting there is great and Luna is doing a lot of work with his face in that scene, but I feel like I just never saw that moment where he reacted to what happened to his mother, his home & Bix - I didn't see how that affected him, and his transition into wanting to die or join the rebellion just doesn't land - his emotional journey where he gets to that point, that final bit, is just missing.

I actually just rewatched that last scene with Luthen & Andor, and the camera does hold on Andor and there's a beat there when he says 'kill me', so I think that scene was supposed to sorta convey it all.

As an aside, enjoyed Karis' manifesto making an apperance, thought that was cool. On the other hand, the death star post credit thing was quite meh and sorta...predictable?

[karaddin]

The post credit felt like the one but of fan service they were made to throw in there lol. I guess it also functions as connective tissue to one of the fantastic shots from Rogue One of the completed dish being "lowered" into place as a Star Destroyer moves out of its shadow. I did think showing the robot labor doing that final step was nice thematically to demonstrate the prison labor was cruelty for the sake of it - that assembly work they were doing could just as easily be done by the robots as well.

On not getting to see that moment it all clicks into place for Cassian I don't think it can even be argued as well literally skip the scenes some of that happens in, as we jump from him finding out about Maarva to already being on Ferrix. The bit with Bix only happens in the scene I mentioned, but he's clearly aware that the search for him has only intensified and that he's putting them all in danger prior to that.

I wonder if there was a bridging scene of him arriving and it just didn't work properly, skipping it over wound up working the best.

[RumHam]

I went to look something up on wookiepedia and thought this was weird as hell:

Quote

 

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[felice]

6 hours ago, karaddin said:

On the sister front I think she's simply not alive, it was a rumour that was bs and Maarva was right that he needed to give up on her. If that's actually correct I think it was a mistake to use something that looked like a long hanging plot thread as simply the inciting incident because it's going to lead to a lot of the audience expecting more.

I'm assuming we'll get more on that thread next season; at least more detail on what happened on Kenari after Cassian left, if not his sister actually showing up. If there is no followup, I'd agree it's a mistake.

[Rhom]

7 hours ago, RumHam said:

I went to look something up on wookiepedia and thought this was weird as hell:

 

Nerds… nerds never change.

[Heartofice]

4 hours ago, felice said:

I'm assuming we'll get more on that thread next season; at least more detail on what happened on Kenari after Cassian left, if not his sister actually showing up. If there is no followup, I'd agree it's a mistake.

In general I'm not sure it's a good criticism to say 'we should have more of this ...', because we do still have another season to go till we get to tell those stories. As you say, if there is no follow up then its bad, but we have to wait until then to see if it happens. 

As it is, Season one I thought was brilliantly structured and seemed to solve a lot of the problems that shows with 12 eps face. Remember all those long Netflix Marvel shows that didn't know what to do with all that free time? Disney's solution seemed to be to cut the number in half, but what Andor does here is to break the season into 3 ep arcs which have their own 3 part structure (maybe less so towards the end). I think its a great way to tell these type of stories because quite often longer seasons just seem to drag on and you end up with a series of filler episodes, whereas even the Andor 'filler' episodes were really interesting and seemed to lead somewhere.

Anyway, my point is that the show feels tight. It isn't bloated with pointless content, it doesn't feel like you need to cut anything or add anything. It got the pacing just right IMO and I would be very cautious about trying to crowbar any other plot points or stories in there to satisfy some completionist fantasy.