Star Wars: Andor (September 21st, 2022)

[Raymond F.]

Somewhere caught between boring and having potential to be interesting.

It’s not as boring as obi wan is and I think that’s because the tone is a bit grittier and realistic and that seems a bit fresher for Star Wars it just seems like nothing really much is happening, yet.

Which is fine I guess.

I think maybe in some ways the format for the mandalorian is better for a tV series being a proceedural. So you can have a stand alone plot or something of nice variety to wrap up nicely but still working towards an overarching plot. Even BOBF flashbacks helped this a bit.

Here it seemed like it took an hour and a half to get soemthing said that would take about 15-20 mins in a feature film.

So we will see. I’ll look forward to watching it next week. Not soemthing I can say about the lord of the rings series for example which I think is have a better time pulling my eyes out of my head than getting through the first two episodes.

 

[chrisstbh]

 

[ZE_501]

Vikings left me cold if I'm honest. A decent show but I didn't actually like anyone in it.

Well they were all a bunch of murderers, psychopaths, religious fanatics, slavers and thieves ...

 

[Mondragon]

Hated Saw the first time I watched RO, then with the animated shows and RO rewatches I began to appreciate his decline and now I love Whittakers gonzo performance.

Hope we do get to see his decline into absolute paranoia.

 

[jye4ever]

 

[a-dev]

Well they were all a bunch of murderers, psychopaths, religious fanatics, slavers and thieves ...

Y'know, I think that was it.

 

[ZE_501]

Y'know, I think that was it.

No glossing over it.

 

[Python]

Three episodes in and I'm pleasantly surprised. I had very little interest in this one tbh as I found Andor himself to be almost entirely lacking charisma in Rogue one. And he still very much does in this show as expected. However... All of the cast are well thought out and convincing. The show is definitely a slow burner, with only episode 3 really having any kind of action. But that is not a bad thing. The writers of this are not sticking with the same formula as Book of Boba and Obi Wan did, and that's a very good thing. I actually think this might be the best produced Star Wars show to date. It definitely has lots of potential.... I'm excited to see where it goes next.

 

[ScoutingForToys]

I've only had time to watch the first episode. It was... OK.
Nicely shot and put together. Great looking show. BoBF and Kenobi look even cheaper and even more badly made now.
Don't really care about any of the characters yet but not going to judge it too harshly, it's only the first episode (and I see they've gone for super short runtimes yet again).
The kids flashbacks were boring.
I laughed when it ended so abruptly. Can you imagine if they hadn't released the first 3 at once?
Don't really have much to say about the first episode really. Not much there to pull apart and discuss.
I'll try to watch the 2nd episode later.

 

[ZE_501]

As a couple of others have said, the flashback to the kids has been the weakest part of the show for me. Not enough to tank it but it's the one thing I could do without. From a design point of view it was nice to see a close-up of the vintage sci-fi designed control panels with the iPhone-style glass covering them, suggestive of something more high tech hidden in the 1977 design.

 

[Sassafras]

As a couple of others have said, the flashback to the kids has been the weakest part of the show for me. Not enough to tank it but it's the one thing I could do without. From a design point of view it was nice to see a close-up of the vintage sci-fi designed control panels with the iPhone-style glass covering them, suggestive of something more high tech hidden in the 1977 design.

I liked it because it's different and had the Mad Max Thunderdome vibe.

Also I like slow burns if the script is good, and IMO this is. If I have a complaint, to me the episodes feel weirdly short or something. To the point if I had the willpower, to hold off from watching the next one. But I won't.

 

[Prime Clone]

(A continuation of this homage...)

 

[Mondragon]

(A continuation of this homage...)

Now do one with the Rogue One crew all dead in the poster.
With Leia and R2 up front.

 

[YoNoSe]

I like this show better than Mopey Wan & The Boba Friends.

 

[batfan08]

Honestly, I binged all three episodes and absolutely loved it. I love Mando, I love the OT, and I love Rogue One, but I was having a discussion with a friend of mine the other day about how the ST, Book of Boba, and, even, Mando, to a degree, almost have an element of fan fic to them. Like “we need to answer what happened in the Sarlaac pit” or “here’s how we wrap up the Skywalker story” or, even, “you wanted to see where Luke was after Jedi? Training THIS HOLIDAY SEASON’S HOTTEST TOY, GROGU, OF COURSE!”

This felt like Rogue One felt: an original story set in the Star Wars universe that highlights the broad, diverse spectrum of content a Galaxy far, far away SHOULD produce. It’s interesting so many people got Blade Runner from the Opening because I got A Clockwork Orange and some early Kubrick from it and I loved every second. I don’t know. There’s something about seeing our hero execute a guy in cold blood that really drives home those tonal variations. There’s an element of Star Wars that kind of desensitizes you to what’s actually transpiring and that’s the grandiose nature of this epic story of good and evil.

You don’t think about the lone Stormtrooper or the alien waddling through the background of a scene because, in context, they don’t matter. They’re irrelevant not only because the story isn’t about them, but because the stakes of the story make them so. Who cares about a welder on some planet when that planet’s about to be blown up just to make a point? In the grand scheme of things, when 10 billion lives are a Macguffin, 1 isn’t a flea on a monkey’s ass…and yet, this show exists and it does a great job of illustrating what a rebellion would actually entail in the scope of that universe.

That opening exchange had me thinking of Luke vs. Andor. Not in the sense of an actual fight, but, more so, as two beings occupying the same space. Had Farmboy Luke been walking down an alley way and come across Andor shooting an unarmed, pleading guy execution style, he’d have been horrified, probably started puking behind some dumpster, and ran home crying thinking he’d just seen a monster. Yet, that monster was just one of the dominoes that fell in order to lead directly to Luke destroying the Death Star.

I don’t know that it’s necessarily “Star Wars” to reframe and refocus the mythos on things that weren’t originally the focus, but it’s nice to see that, amidst the epic battles between warring cults of religious zealots, there’s just…people. It’s part of what I liked about The Last Jedi and I love that Andor sort of revisited those themes from the Casino; the notion that, while the Empire’s primary goal was ultimately to prop up the Sith over the Jedi, there were a lot of rich people using the Empire to their own ends just as the Empire was using them.

The whole private security team and the cover-up of Andor’s run-in I found wonderful because it shows that, at the end of the day, even the Empire’s “allies” think they’re friggin’ nuts. Wanting to pad their crime stats so they could stick to business as usual instead of having some Imperial zealot see it as an opportunity to spread their forces further and take control of the situation

I think that’s what I like about it so much. We get to see outside the adherents. Some people don’t want to restore balance to the force; some people probably don’t even believe in it. They just don’t like being broke and hungry while the Empire reaps all the benefits for themselves. I’m very excited to see where they go from here.

 

[abake]

Well, so far Andor is a minor miracle.
A well-written, well-acted, serious series in the SW universe. Who would've thought?
I'm loving it.
Andor is the most interesting character in the SW universe since Disney took over by far. I like his moral ambiguity and his struggle to reconcile the questionable things he's done (see what I did there? BR) in order to achieve his goals. And I totally agree with batfan08 (well, everything but the praise for Last Jedi ) about how refreshing it is to look beyond the BIG heroes and villains, and focus on how the common folk live under those extraordinary circumstances. Brings to mind the comic "Marvels", where you see the actions of superheroes from the perspective of common people.

 

[Mondragon]

 

[a-dev]

Knew that older actress looked familiar - I was just scrolling through the TV - she was in True Blood season 4.

 

[Prime Clone]

This felt like Rogue One felt: an original story set in the Star Wars universe that highlights the broad, diverse spectrum of content a Galaxy far, far away SHOULD produce.

It's a shame Mando wasn't more like that, rather than going the lazy (though obviously lucrative) route of a Grogu vehicle and TCW crossover.

how refreshing it is to look beyond the BIG heroes and villains, and focus on how the common folk live under those extraordinary circumstances.

Just so long as he remains a bit player. SW runs the risk of creating too many important top-tier heroes.

 

[YoNoSe]

I hope there's a time travel episode in Book 2 Of Boba Fett where Mando & Grover save Andor.