Star Wars: Andor (September 21st, 2022)

[LoveMinusZero]

Precisely. Vader is clearly on the trail of the Rebellion at the start of ANH... so this show could give us more background on how Vader got involved. I love the idea of him taking over the ISB. It's very old-school Vader.

Old school Vader that gets his hands dirty and goes on missions, not the glorified middle management he became after ANH.

 

[a-dev]

I know a lot of people are praising Diego Luna's performance, and he was good no doubt, but Genevieve O'Reilly's performance as Mon Mothma blew him out of the water.

I had a dream about her this morning. I'll say no more.

 

[Johnny Utah]

She was pretty great and brought acting in Star Wars to a new level. Everyone did.

 

[a-dev]

That caliber of acting and dialogue needs to wait outside. We don't serve that in Star Wars.

 

[ScoutingForToys]

She was pretty great and brought acting in Star Wars to a new level. Everyone did.

Yep. Acting across the board was great in this show. So many fantastic characters.
Compare them to the acting in Mando, BoBF and Kenobi.
This show is just head and shoulders above all the others in so many ways.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Can't believe we got 'like a Bantha' in the same year. Anton Chigurh was right, you pick the one correct tool to do the job.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

I had a dream about her this morning. I'll say no more.

What an amazing show and something that might be overlooked is that Gilroy took a long time to really develop the story and work on the characters. It's unfortunate Disney has an agenda to pump out as much as possible as fast as possible. The argument they must be making in the executive board rooms is that there are enough hard core fans who will consume anything, even it's not well made or lacks that competent polish of an Andor.

But another issue is Star Wars really needs to move away from it's "core" characters. It's stifling trying to appease legacy fans and canon, just have people really stretch their legs into the potential overall Star Wars universe in front of them.

 

[Rotfish]

The argument they must be making in the executive board rooms is that there are enough hard core fans who will consume anything, even it's not well made or lacks that competent polish of an Andor.

It's accurate. I know several people who've watched all Marvel and Star Wars shows to the end, despite complaining about every week's episode.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't find watching TV unconditionally enjoyable. The content matters. Every hour you spend watching something mediocre could be spent watching (or listening or doing) something that actually fulfills you.

 

[LoveMinusZero]

It's accurate. I know several people who've watched all Marvel and Star Wars shows to the end, despite complaining about every week's episode.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't find watching TV unconditionally enjoyable. The content matters. Every hour you spend watching something mediocre could be spent watching (or listening or doing) something that actually fulfills you.

I know what you mean, but I have to admit I hate watched both BoBF and OWK, but only after giving each a fair shot in the first episode. You can tell right away with both series that they were only going to get worse. Whereas with Andor, you could tell right away it was different.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

It's accurate. I know several people who've watched all Marvel and Star Wars shows to the end, despite complaining about every week's episode.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't find watching TV unconditionally enjoyable. The content matters. Every hour you spend watching something mediocre could be spent watching (or listening or doing) something that actually fulfills you.

I would suggest 1899 and Dark.

That kind of storytelling is not everyone's cup of tea. But you can see the show runners are competent and they are operating without much interference.

The first season of Desperate Housewives was really well written. Given it had to run a traditional very long TV season, what ended up on screen was pretty phenomenal for it's time and place.

I agree, good content is good content. Effective storytelling is both an art and a science, when you are dealing with someone who understands the craft, everything becomes so much more enjoyable.

Now I want to be fair, Disney is not trying to be a content version of a five star steakhouse, they are now basically a McDonalds. They want to use a reliable formula and turn it into a money printing machine. However they have to come to terms with their older IPs are going to having a much older demographic, which means there is more appeal in prestige level television.

I'd rather watch the Star Wars version of Severance than the Star Wars version of Full House. But I get why the Star Wars version of Full House exists.

My friend, at some point, we might have to face that we are no longer the target audience anymore. We got old and are sporting Dad shoes on the weekends.

 

[jaztermareal]

That is the thing though, it is a false dichotomy. Something being for kids does not mean it has to be low quality. The original Trilogy was aimed at kids but everyone enjoyed it because it was good quality. It has lasting appeal because of that. Remember that a huge bulk of the audience back in late 70's/early 80's watching the films were adults. It wasn't like some modern animated movie where the audience is mainly kids picking their noses and throwing popcorn all over the theater with the only adults being the parents who brought them there, nor was it forgotten 2 years down the line.

Good writing, direction, acting, set design, cinematography etc etc along with consistency, logic, imagination etc should be in every genre, whether it be comedy, thriller, horror, drama or whatever other genre or sub-genre one can think of. When something is done well it will apeal to more than just the target audience.

Star Wars is a sandbox, an entire universe of potential for storytelling. They can make literally any sort of story they like and so long as they can just maintain the level of quality of Andor everyone would be happy. Imagine Andor level cinematography, writing, acting etc etc in an adventure show format. All the action, mystery and fun of the Indiana Jones trilogy and the same level of quality. Not only would kids love it but so would adults. Male/Female, Black/White, Rich/Poor etc etc etc it wouldn't matter, if it is well made everyone can find something they like in it. It would be universal.

The whole "we aren't the target audience" is just excusing low quality. Our kids deserve great quality entertainment that we can also sit and enjoy with them. Theu do not deserve to be dumbed down, treated as the lowest common denominator. Heck, lets bring back some standards, if TikTok is anything to go by we seriously need it.

Sadly though the masses seem to have accepted the constant lowering of the bar to the point they don't even notice how poorly made the trash is until they actually watch something that is well made, like a person who has grown up eating cheap supermarket fruit and veg trying actual good quality fresh home grown fruit and veg for the first time. You can't imagine how you ate store bought strawberries for so long.
I noticed even here that some mentioned that after seeing Andor the other Disney shows suddenly seemed worse, that re-watching them was less pleasant than first time round. That is the result of the conditioning of us through the constant lowering of the bar being broken by the realisation that it can actually be better.

Let's demand high quality entertainment no matter the genre/format or target audience.

 

[Rotfish]

My friend, at some point, we might have to face that we are no longer the target audience anymore.

I'm in my late '20s, so this is an extremely bitter pill. Will need to check out your recommendations though, thanks for those!

 

[LoveMinusZero]

With Star Wars it really isn't clear if or what target audience is at all. Like BoBF for instance is near brainless shlock, and action fodder, that you could argue is for younger people or at least made with the hope of attracting younger people, but the entire thing is based around a nostalgia character and is full of fanwanking, so I genuinely have no idea who BoBF was made for, and I don't think Disney did either.

Star Wars seems to want to ride the line and try to appeal to the widest possible audience, which does cause a dumbing down, and ends up alienating people who otherwise would have been on their side. I do agree with the point made earlier, that a children's or family targeted product does not mean lower quality. Disney themselves should know this as their Feature Animation division, as well as Pixar, were able to make high quality films, with excellent storytelling, for decades. They were also able to crank out the garbage money making stuff on home video after the high quality main feature was a hit (like direct to video trash Mulan 2, Lion 3, Pocahontas 3 etc etc)

Star Wars had it's own version of this stuff back in the day with stuff like the Ewok movies, Droids & Ewoks animated series, and endless comics, video games and novels. Now it seems that spin off, expanded universe drop in quality is the main event stuff with Disney. It shouldn't be that way, and Andor proves that it doesn't have to be.

 

[a-dev]

That is the thing though, it is a false dichotomy. Something being for kids does not mean it has to be low quality. The original Trilogy was aimed at kids but everyone enjoyed it because it was good quality. It has lasting appeal because of that. Remember that a huge bulk of the audience back in late 70's/early 80's watching the films were adults. It wasn't like some modern animated movie where the audience is mainly kids picking their noses and throwing popcorn all over the theater with the only adults being the parents who brought them there, nor was it forgotten 2 years down the line.

Good writing, direction, acting, set design, cinematography etc etc along with consistency, logic, imagination etc should be in every genre, whether it be comedy, thriller, horror, drama or whatever other genre or sub-genre one can think of. When something is done well it will apeal to more than just the target audience.

Star Wars is a sandbox, an entire universe of potential for storytelling. They can make literally any sort of story they like and so long as they can just maintain the level of quality of Andor everyone would be happy. Imagine Andor level cinematography, writing, acting etc etc in an adventure show format. All the action, mystery and fun of the Indiana Jones trilogy and the same level of quality. Not only would kids love it but so would adults. Male/Female, Black/White, Rich/Poor etc etc etc it wouldn't matter, if it is well made everyone can find something they like in it. It would be universal.

I used to make a similar argument regarding the PT - Lucas seemed to specifically target kids with a character like Jar Jar and by choosing to show Anakin at the age of 9 shouting ''Yipee!!''. Even in ROTS he felt the need to insert child-pandering slapstick comedy with R2 and the super-battle droids creating the bizarre mish-mash of tones within that film which would later depict the demise of every Jedi, implied child murder by Anakin, Anakin's multiple dismemberment and being burned alive I always felt that kids could easily have enjoyed the kind of PT that I would have enjoyed. Instead Lucas chose a path with those films that actively turned off existing fans.

With Andor though I think it went completely the opposite way. I can't imagine many kids enjoyed this show, far too high-brow, far too low on action. I think the younger audience was actively excluded here. So I don't think Andor fits the bill for what you may be talking about.

For the right balance I would look more to Rogue One and Mandalorian for a modern Star Wars production trying to appeal to the widest audience possible today.

 

[jaztermareal]

I used to make a similar argument regarding the PT - Lucas seemed to specifically target kids with a character like Jar Jar and by choosing to show Anakin at the age of 9 shouting ''Yipee!!''. Even in ROTS he felt the need to insert child-pandering slapstick comedy with R2 and the super-battle droids creating the bizarre mish-mash of tones within that film which would later depict the demise of every Jedi, implied child murder by Anakin, Anakin's multiple dismemberment and being burned alive I always felt that kids could easily have enjoyed the kind of PT that I would have enjoyed. Instead Lucas chose a path with those films that actively turned off existing fans.

With Andor though I think it went completely the opposite way. I can't imagine many kids enjoyed this show, far too high-brow, far too low on action. I think the younger audience was actively excluded here. So I don't think Andor fits the bill for what you may be talking about.

For the right balance I would look more to Rogue One and Mandalorian for a modern Star Wars production trying to appeal to the widest audience possible today.

Hence why I said Andor quality in adventure format. I didn't say Andor itself was kid friendly

 

[a-dev]

Hence why I said Andor quality in adventure format. I didn't say Andor itself was kid friendly

And it's even in the part I quoted. Apologies jaztermareal. I was trying to get a post out at work between pesky interruptions, failed to read you properly.

 

[jaztermareal]

And it's even in the part I quoted. Apologies jaztermareal. I was trying to get a post out at work between pesky interruptions, failed to read you properly.

We all do it haha

 

[MeatHookGekko]

I'm in my late '20s, so this is an extremely bitter pill.

But you post like you drive a minivan to couples therapy and wear a fanny pack.... Just saying....

 

[Rotfish]

But you post like you drive a minivan to couples therapy and wear a fanny pack.... Just saying....

I've actually been loosening up, just not in my geek pursuits.

I distinctly remember being more easily impressed by movies and TV before Blade Runner 2049 came along. That religious experience made me rethink my pop culture standards. Maybe I discern a little too much, but it's probably for the best; this stuff is expensive.

I did wear a fanny pack on dog walks, but slung it over my shoulder like the cool kids.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

I've actually been loosening up, just not in my geek pursuits.

I distinctly remember being more easily impressed by movies and TV before Blade Runner 2049 came along. That religious experience made me rethink my pop culture standards. Maybe I discern a little too much, but it's probably for the best; this stuff is expensive.

I did wear a fanny pack on dog walks, but slung it over my shoulder like the cool kids.

Cal: Okay, you know what? I'm in Corporate Insurance. I have children, plural. And my wife was cheating on me with David Lindhagen, which I wasn't supposed to tell you about either. But I did, nice to meet you.

Kate: What were you supposed to tell me?

Cal: I do...I don't know! I was supposed to say that you are the perfect combination of sexy and cute. Which is actually something that I used to say to my wife, but now it's become corrupted and I have eighteen layers of clothes on. I'm wearing a shirt and a tie and a sweater and a suede jacket that just seals in all the heat. Seals in all the juices. I'm just...it's all sweat under here. This is just sweat from here down. I'm...this sweater, this is called slim cut, but it feels like a scuba suite and I'm looking at your breasts. What's that about?

Kate: You think I'm the perfect combination of sexy and cute?

Cal: That's what you picked up from what I just said?




Are you wearing a pair of New Balances right now?