Andor (Disney+)

[NowhereMan]

I still don't get the hate for the new Star Wars stuff. It is obviously not on the level of Andor, but its at least on the level of the originals. Spoiler alert, none of them are great they are just highly entertaining schlock.

Honestly I don't really have hate for the new Star Wars. The first new one I found entertaining and I thought there was real potential. The second one just bored me and annoyed me a to a level I didn't want to see the final instalment. I think it felt way, way too much like they wanted to subvert viewer expectations on where the trilogy was going while also making a movie that didn't really make sense in its own context. The result just being that I wasn't really interested in seeing how that story was resolved. It didn't put me off Star Wars as a whole but did make me think best case the new Trilogy was not for me. And I say this as someone who was hyped for the first instalment and thought it was really fun, if formulaic.


The original trilogy I don't put on the same kind of spectrum because they were coming from a time when this whole concept of world building didn't really exist. Star Wars was space opera, Kurosawa in space and a whole species of spaghetti western placed into an existing world that felt organic. I think that latter part was a large part of the appeal, Lucas and his team had an instinct for putting stuff in that felt like it fit without needing to (or at least having time and editorial permission) to explain it. The prequels lent too much into explaining everything. The OT just had the problem of being from an earlier period of film making when something like Rogue One just wouldn't really exist.

[Threash]

Honestly, the only things I've absolutely hated have been Boba Fett and RoS. As you all know, I quite loved Last of the Jedi, even despite valid reasons why I should not have, because it opened up rather than closed down storytelling possibilities beyond the story we already knew.

Everything else they've done? It's at least fine, including Solo, which mostly errs in trying to explain things that don't need explanations (like his name).

That's fair, loving TLJ that much will really make you hate RoS.

[Sky]

I still don't get the hate for the new Star Wars stuff. It is obviously not on the level of Andor, but its at least on the level of the originals. Spoiler alert, none of them are great they are just highly entertaining schlock.

Ford and Fisher have been the high water mark of Star Wars that's just now beginning to be tested by the R1/Andor folks. The rest of it, yeah, mostly just pulp scifi, though at the time it was so much more 'realistic' and gritty than the 60s/70s scifi we had as kids, it was like reading bland Tolkein and then reading Moorcock's Elric...or the Black Company 

[Threash]

This shit just gets better and better. The entire episode I was on the edge of my seat.

[Abagadro]

What an episode of television.

[Surlyboi]

This shit don’t miss.

Serkis not being able to swim was heartbreaking.

[Samwise]

I was screaming at the TV for him to kill those Imperials and use them as a flotation device.

[Threash]

One way out! ONE WAY OUT!

[HaemishM]

Goddamn, Stellen Skaarsgard can act like a motherfucker. 

[Draegan]

This shit is amazing.

Also everything about the sequels is garbage. TLJ was worse trash than ROS because TLJ made the bandaid that was ROS even possible.

Fuck everything about it.

Andor is art.

[MahrinSkel]

This could redeem Star Wars...if everyone associated with the sequels is fired, they were declared non canon, and the people who made this and R1 were given total control to make a new sequel trilogy.

It definitely improves the original trilogy. The true evil of the Empire, never really laid out, becomes clear: A machine to harvest suffering and turn it into the tools that create more suffering.

--Dave

[HaemishM]

And the only goal of the Empire seems to be control for the sake of control, power as its own end and means.

[Surlyboi]

So… they’re the GOP.

[MahrinSkel]

So… they’re the GOP.

Not quite that on the nose. They're authoritarianism as institutional baseline. Authority as it's own foundation and justification, the Emperor sucking his own dick because fuck you, why not, what are you gonna do? Let chaos and madness into the galaxy, because that's all he's left as an alternative?

This creative team would fill the gap between the Empire's fall at Endor and the sequels with a nuanced view of the chaos and death released when there weren't Sith Lords ready to Force Lightning the fuck out of the anarchy. You don't overthrow an entire Galactic power structure without consequences.

--Dave

[Surlyboi]

They could do justice to Wendig's Aftermath trilogy.

[Draegan]

There are no amount of stories that could redeem the sequel trilogy. They shouldn't ever try.

What would be very fun would be the whole Clone Wars prequel era story but told in this style where Jedi and Sith are way way above the power level and point of view of the storyteller.

I'm a broken record here, but they just need to move far away from this timeline and start fresh. And no more cartoons.

[HaemishM]

This crew could probably do a good explanation of how the First Order came into power. It'd be like the colossal incompetence of the Trump administration as run by a ginger fuck and an emo teen.

[Surlyboi]

That part.

And Wendig’s shit was solid.

[HaemishM]

Goddamn. Talk about bringing the pew pew and the zzzzhhoooo zzzzhhooooo.

[Threash]

So was that a lightsaber hilt Luthen had? we already saw him give Andor a kyber crystal so at this point I have to assume he is a former Jedi.

[Tebonas]

Thats the extendable walking stick he also had in his first meeting with Cassian Andor, but yes even then I thought he was holding it very lightsabery.  

[Threash]

Yeah,  that'd be a pretty good camouflage for a lightsaber.

[Rishathra]

He shares his dreams with ghosts.

[Surlyboi]

The shit they did to Bix is fucking criminal.

[Sky]

S2 just started filming, scheduled to wrap in August 2023 with a very loose unofficial estimate of Fall '25 release. https://collider.com/andor-season-2-filming-schedule/

I have a feeling that's going to seem like forever in Star Wars land. I hope some of the newer D+ showrunners and all the movie people hit these sets and take notes on how to make SW that isn't cartoons (live action or otherwise).

[Abagadro]

2025? I bet it will be out in late summer 2024.

[Trippy]

I posted about this earlier:

There is a second season. Won’t be out till 2024, assuming no delays. Filming starts next month and is scheduled to finish August 2023 and then there will be a year of post-production.

Again, assuming no delays, it should be out in 2024 around the same month as season one -- i.e. late September or early October 2024.

[Threash]

Great ending to the season, the show peaked with the prison escape though. Speaking of there is a post credit scene.

[Abagadro]

So good. I thought this episode was as good as the escape. They way they ramped up the tension with every character in the same space was masterful.

[Surlyboi]

That fucking reveal.

[HaemishM]

The stinger was a great easter egg. I got to agree with Ab though - the ramping up of tension as they brought all the characters into alignment was just masterful. I am going to miss this show so much.

[Threash]

Fiona’s voice was over all of us,” Gough says, recalling the finale’s fire-and-fury funeral monologue from Ferrix’s formidable matriarch. “Except, at the end, she didn’t say, ‘Fight the Empire!’ She said, ‘Fuck the Empire!’ Which we were all really excited about. But we weren’t allowed to keep it, obviously.

I feel shafted. From here.

[HaemishM]

I must admit - Gough really was one of a number of standout performers in this.

[Surlyboi]

I wanted to run her through with a lightsaber at every turn, so yeah.

[lamaros]

I'm not a Star Wars fan generally, but I enjoy the potential the setting has. I would say that this show captures that potential the best since the original series.

It does go pretty slow in parts and maybe could have been a tighter 10 episode season if you re-edited it, but when it goes right it goes really right.

Enjoyed it a lot. I think the final episode was better than the prison escape. Had more heft and narrative weight. Holo speece was nailed on.