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

[Werthead]

The new episode of The Bad Batch was outstanding, possibly the best episode they've done.

Spoiler

Focusing on the clones who stayed loyal to the Empire and how they ended up with buyer's remorse, even PTSD after first killing their Jedi and then betraying the Republic, leading to possibly mass desertion and rebellion, is a solid story idea. The fate of Commander Cody is an - albeit minor - missing piece of the Star Wars jigsaw and it looks like we're getting answers to that now.

For all of Dave Filoni's predictable tics, he continues to be outstanding at "taking ideas from Lucas that sound a bit bullshit and making them work."

Incidentally, both The Bad Batch and Andor have now made very deliberate moves away from the traditional Star Wars orchestral soundtrack to something more sinister and synth-driven. Wasn't sure about it at first but it seems to be working really well.

On 1/12/2023 at 2:18 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

And he’s among the most sinister bad guy actors ever.

Or just kept Guy Henry, the guy under CG layers as Tarkin in Rogue One, who is a bit Cushing-esque in his voice and mannerisms anyway (he was excellent as Cassius in Rome).

[Corvinus85]

42 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Incidentally, both The Bad Batch and Andor have now made very deliberate moves away from the traditional Star Wars orchestral soundtrack to something more sinister and synth-driven. Wasn't sure about it at first but it seems to be working really well.

Even Tales of the Jedi had a really solid soundtrack.

[Corvinus85]

This is the way!!!

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

This is the way!!!

Looks good.  Wonder if the tone will change at all after the Laurels heaped upon “Andor”?

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Looks good.  Wonder if the tone will change at all after the Laurels heaped upon “Andor”?

I'm pretty sure filming for it had been completed by the time Andor was released, with fall and winter months being mostly post-production. So I don't expect that because of Andor, but it's possible the storyline demanded a slight tonal shift. After all, Clone Wars and Rebels had such shifts when the storyline demanded it. I'm also not sure how much longer this show will go on with Pedro Pascal becoming a busy dude. Perhaps one more season and then either cameos for him or they kill him off.

Edited January 17 by Corvinus85

[DaveSumm]

 

[Werthead]

Now that's what I call podracing!

Very solid episode, and amusing to revisit that idea (it's not quite podracing, but same wheelhouse).

[Calibandar]

IMDB is listing Ahsoka for a March release date and The Acolyte for August.

Makes me wonder where that came from, usually their episode guide dates are pretty accurate.

While both shows are expected this year, seems unlikely that they would release Ahsoka at the same time as Mandalorian S3.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

https://youtu.be/Sl_AFI3fr4I

[Darryk]

10 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

https://youtu.be/Sl_AFI3fr4I

This has become one of the best channels on YouTube.

[Corvinus85]

The latest episode of The Bad Batch fits the definition of filler episode much better than the previous which as least had some character focus. No idea if the stuff from this episode will come back.

[Maltaran]

35 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

The latest episode of The Bad Batch fits the definition of filler episode much better than the previous which as least had some character focus. No idea if the stuff from this episode will come back.

There was some more flirting from the treasure hunter lady towards Tech, that’s clearly going somewhere.

[Werthead]

That was an okay episode but kind of forgettable. The giant Zoid was very random.

[Corvinus85]

On 1/27/2023 at 6:43 PM, Werthead said:

That was an okay episode but kind of forgettable. The giant Zoid was very random.

So the talk online is that the giant death machine was of Zeffo design. It's been too long since I played Jedi Fallen Order the one time, so I didn't make the connection. And yeah, still not sure if it has any relevance to this show at all.

[Werthead]

13 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

So the talk online is that the giant death machine was of Zeffo design. It's been too long since I played Jedi Fallen Order the one time, so I didn't make the connection. And yeah, still not sure if it has any relevance to this show at all.

Hmm. Might be a tie-in to the sequel out in a few weeks?

[Maia]

Some obligatory praise for Andor - it is very much a SW show that I wanted to happen and that I had used to hope that eventual Obi-Wan movie/show would be like. Even better with mostly new characters, of course. There are 2 things that I wish had been handled somewhat differently - political intrigue around Mon Mothma and aliens.

I really liked her emotional journey, but she spent the whole season grappling with hiding an ultimately insignificant (after Aldhani) expenditure. I'd have liked to see her doing something more interesting and significant, because the  senate  shouldn't be quite irrelevant yet, as per New Hope.

I also really wonder where Dedra could go from there. She is such a good villain, but she really should be dismissed or worse for the Ferrix fiasco. But Cyril already occupies the niche of a disgraced Javert, so will she  manage to wriggle out of it? Blame it all on the local commander, somehow?

And it is sad to hear  from Gilroy how aliens are incompatible with serious themes or portrayal of emotion. Babylon 5 was 30 or so years ago! And it was filmed on a shoe-string budget, but didn't have any problems successfully tackling these issues. As well as that of a rise of  fascist dictatorships, even. Ahem.

I also keep being mostly disappointed by The Bad Batch. It is not terrible, but just there, very episodic, little character growth.  Speaking of the latest episode - it makes zero sense that a Jedi kid who was raised in a temple since infancy wouldn't have any walkarounds for making themselves understood. I mean, the Ithorians have these neat voice synthesizers - why not Wookies? Particularly those who never even lived among their people.

And since I am about it - my 2 cents on some of the previous PT/OT/ST discussion. I have only watched the OT completely as an adult shortly before Phantom Menace came out, though I had undoubtedly seen bits and pieces on TV before that. So, I didn't grow up with any of it and don't have any nostalgia. I also know some current kids who love TCW/Rebels, but hate the PT. So it isn't just about what somebody got to see as a child.

 

On 12/2/2022 at 2:20 PM, Darryk said:

The Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn did a great job of world-building and developing the SW universe in the wake of ROTJ.

 

Having read it sometime in the 2000-ies, it isn't bad, but certain aspects didn't age well, not in the sense of being pernicious, but because they are so silly. Thrawn constantly carrying around those anti-force lizards, the Force being so overwhelmingly powerful that only another Force user could be a challenge for Luke, everything to do with the clones, etc. The sadly ironic thing and one of it's virtues is how much more inclusive the trilogy is compared to the PT...

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:21 AM, Raja said:

Lmao, Rian Johnson was doing everything other than be lazy and repeat tropes from previous films, TLJ was the last good star wars movie and I wish Johnson had written the last one too. 

 

TLJ set up Reylo and side-lined Finn, for which I will never forgive it. Also, by making Rey not a Skywalker it ensured that Kylo _had_ to be redeemed in the end and nothing new or interesting could be done with him. I do understand the attraction of Rey being a nobody, but there was never a chance of the _only_ next gen Skywalker being allowed to remain a villain. I liked the film in isolation well enough, but it was immediately clear to me that it was setting the finale up to be actively worse than it could have been. Oh, and why, oh why did he stick our first live-action female admiral in Star Wars in an evening dress that made it so much harder to take her seriously?! The Canto Bight visit, while potentially worthwhile thematically, at the same time made the long chase plot quite absurd. Etc, etc.

 

On 12/4/2022 at 4:41 AM, karaddin said:

 The big one for me is that I'm convinced TLJ was setting up Kylo as the irredeemable big bad and needed a 3rd movie that followed through on that.

 

Yes, absolutely. And I don't want to hear how Kylo is far too pathetic to be suitably frightening - many of the most terrifying iRL historical figures were likewise. There was a potential for a an entirely fresh and interesting villain there. But if that was Johnson's intention it should have been clear to him that it was a choice between this and Rey being a nobody. He couldn't have both. And in the end we got the worst of both worlds.

 

On 12/5/2022 at 2:20 AM, RumHam said:

He had to die for the whole thing to work. If he's around kicking ass then who needs Rey?
 

 

This "there can only be one" mindset of OT and ST is very limiting and boring, IMHO. The Force isn't _that_ overpowering. Luke couldn't have taken on the Imperial war machine by himself and neither could he have defeated the First Order on his lonesome.

 

On 12/5/2022 at 6:36 AM, Rubicante said:

I think Disney learned the wrong lessons from the Prequel Trilogy.  The main issues with the PT is the directing and dialogue, which Lucas should have had somebody else do.  The world building, characters, and overall story is solid, which is what Lucas is strong at.

 

Couldn't disagree more. The good bits of the overall story were all things that had been already established in OT. Nearly all the changes introduced in PT only made what should have been a slum-dunk of a  story  into a shizophrenic hodge-podge. Characters? Don't make me laugh. The PT absolutely butchered Annakin's and Obi-Wans's characters, their friendship, the tragedy of Annakin's fall, etc. The less said about the non-entity that was Padme the better. Oh, and PM is just stuffed full of nonsensical "remember this?".

Worldbuilding - yes, for the most part.

The wrong lesson was that supposedly political plots don't belong in Star Wars, after Lucas tried to include, but comprehensively botched them in PT. And ST really, really needed some to be good or even make sense.

 

On 12/5/2022 at 6:36 AM, Rubicante said:

But at least now they are learning.  Mando is fun, Obi-Wan (aside from Episode 4) feels like the Prequels but with better acting and good dialogue, and Andor is a masterpiece.

 

Agree. Though Obi-Wan could have been significantly better within the same framework. I didn't hate it, but such a missed opportunity! Boba Fett didn't need to exist, though.

 

On 12/5/2022 at 9:18 PM, Myrddin said:

His own struggle with temptation (remember his lesson in the cave) and seeing what it did to his father is absolutely a logical reason for him to remove himself from the public stage as "the" Jedi master. No students = no future Vader, even though he inadvertently created one in Ben.

This doesn't make sense to me, though. There should be thousands of Force-sensitives around the galaxy and some of them would eventually learn to consciously  use their power and could easily become a danger without guidance. That is not taking into account Sith artifacts, ghosts, etc. that may be floating around corrupting them or Dark Force users who are not Sith ditto. What makes even less sense is that Luke knew that Snoke was doing exactly that. Knights of Ren should have all been Force-users!

Honestly, from what we have seen in OT, very little training is required to make somebody innately powerful dangerous. And mostly it is just the realisation that the  Force can be actively used, which a smarter and less whiny person than young Luke could have arrived at independently. It _should_ have been safer to instruct Force-sensitives so that they wouldn't fall to the Dark side through sheer ignorance.

But the silly paradigms of "there can only be one" active lightsider and darksider with respective mentors and that the protagonist needs to fly by the seat of their pants as much as possible are in the way, of course.

[Werthead]

The latest Bad Batch seems to be another mild tie-in with the Jedi video games, this time featuring those enragingly annoying Kashyyyk spiders from the first game. Hope this isn't a hint they'll be in the sequel.

[Corvinus85]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The latest Bad Batch seems to be another mild tie-in with the Jedi video games, this time featuring those enragingly annoying Kashyyyk spiders from the first game. Hope this isn't a hint they'll be in the sequel.

Not the same spiders. These were Kinraths which were in KOTOR. So that's another thing that Filoni has now brought into canon, though based on the article I linked, he had wanted them included in Clone Wars before its cancellation. 

[Werthead]

14 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Not the same spiders. These were Kinraths which were in KOTOR. So that's another thing that Filoni has now brought into canon, though based on the article I linked, he had wanted them included in Clone Wars before its cancellation. 

Oh yeah, apparently they are Wyyyschokks in Fallen Order. Fallen Order has more spider-based enemies than anything else in the game, so it's easy to get them confused with one another and every other spider thing in the Star Wars universe.

[Rubicante]

On 2/5/2023 at 12:46 PM, Maia said:

Couldn't disagree more. The good bits of the overall story were all things that had been already established in OT. Nearly all the changes introduced in PT only made what should have been a slum-dunk of a  story  into a shizophrenic hodge-podge. Characters? Don't make me laugh. The PT absolutely butchered Annakin's and Obi-Wans's characters, their friendship, the tragedy of Annakin's fall, etc. The less said about the non-entity that was Padme the better. Oh, and PM is just stuffed full of nonsensical "remember this?".

Worldbuilding - yes, for the most part.

The wrong lesson was that supposedly political plots don't belong in Star Wars, after Lucas tried to include, but comprehensively botched them in PT. And ST really, really needed some to be good or even make sense.

To each their own.  As professed, I have a soft spot for the PT, even though AOTC is a really bad movie.

I thought the political aspect of the PT made sense to me.  Palpatine/Sidious creates a "crisis" on Naboo with the Trade Federation so that he can gain sympathy in being voted in as Supreme Chancellor.  Palpatine/Sidious orchestrates the Clone Wars, so that he "reluctantly" has to accept emergency powers to ensure that the Republic will be safe.  And the longer the Clone Wars last, the more he can justify having increased political power, because it allows him to act quickly for the benefit of the Republic.  Isn't this a very real thing in our world, even today?  Leaders use war as excuse to grant themselves more power?

With that being said, the PT has some serious pacing issues, which leads to Anakin's turn in ROTS being too drastic.  I understand the whole idea.  Because he did not begin his Jedi training until after TPM, he had already formed an emotional attachment to his mother, and basically was forced to give this up to train as a Jedi.  When his mom dies, he blames himself, and vows not to let it happen to Padme.  He tries to get help from Yoda, who tells him to celebrate when a person dies, which is the last thing Anakin wants to hear.  The only "solution" presented to him is what Palpatine suggests in the opera house scene.  He mainly turns because the Dark Side of the Force is the only option he thinks he has available to him.  The problem is, once you start down the path of the Dark Side, regardless of your reason, you're pretty much screwed. 

I don't mind him leading the assault on the Jedi Temple, but I think it is too much of a stretch that he kills the younglings.  Either he could have spared a few (ie. Reva or Baby Yoda), or the clones could have just killed them.  I would have much preferred seeing him engage in a short duel with the Jedi Master Cin Drallig, who was the Jedi Battlemaster.