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All Things Star Wars Thread

Riggo#44

By Riggo#44
in The Tailgate

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Going Commando

Going Commando

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On 11/10/2022 at 8:14 AM, Momma There Goes That Man said:

Andor is pretty stunning and easily among the best Star Wars content ever imo. It is not some check off box for fan service and characters and toys kids had in the 70-80s, and it doesn’t fall into tropes or diminish the existing narrative like Obi Wan did either. 

 

I just watched the first two episodes.  I went in without reading anything about the series, totally unaware of any hype or expectations for it.  Only saw Rogue One once years ago, remembered that I really liked it, but didn't remember it particularly well.  Wasn't even really aware that this series was a prequel to that movie going in.  Saw Obi Wan and Mandalorian and, while I enjoyed them in the sort of low bar way I typically enjoy Star Wars content, I was expecting more Star Wars from Andor.  That is to say, a breezy sixth grade reading level, cliche-riddled story with threadbare characters in pretty and shallow worlds  leaping and bounding over plot holes and getting into familiar Western/Samurai adventure stories. 

 

Holy ****.  I am blown away by the first hour and a half of this show.  I was not expecting rich, interesting, realistic characters and a lived-in world with the kind of attention to detail and patient story telling you usually only get from prestige shows and movies.  Diego Luna is awesome and this is so well written.  It's fantastic in the little moments, like how Stellan Skaarsgard has to take the bus into the city from where he has to park his spacecraft, and the show uses this throwaway moment of mundane transit to introduce an annoying and chatty little curmudgeon who complains about the inflation of fees for visiting this world.  It makes it real.  Another one is the moment where the feral child version of Andor first goes into that derelict Imperial spacecraft and he looks at that familiar polished black material they make their stuff out of, and you realize that he is seeing his reflection for the first time.  It's this awesome tiny detail of character and world building where we see a depiction of primitive naturalism colliding and interacting with a highly advanced civilization, and it gets like four seconds of silent examination and then we move along.  Tony Gilroy can freaking write, and boy can he make extraordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances feel real.

 

I didn't realize just how welcome and enjoyable Star Wars content where I can keep my brain on and still totally suspend my disbelief would be.  I'm loving this.

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Momma There Goes That Man

Momma There Goes That Man

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17 hours ago, Going Commando said:

just watched the first two episodes.  I went in without reading anything about the series, totally unaware of any hype or expectations for it.  Only saw Rogue One once years ago, remembered that I really liked it, but didn't remember it particularly well.  Wasn't even really aware that this series was a prequel to that movie going in.  Saw Obi Wan and Mandalorian and, while I enjoyed them in the sort of low bar way I typically enjoy Star Wars content, I was expecting more Star Wars from Andor.  That is to say, a breezy sixth grade reading level, cliche-riddled story with threadbare characters in pretty and shallow worlds  leaping and bounding over plot holes and getting into familiar Western/Samurai adventure stories. 


good feedback, but let me say, the first few episodes are the weakest imo. Still great but really speaks to the quality of the later episodes when the season hits its stride and starts flexing some of the big ideas it has. It’s quite upsetting that this is the type of story telling we could have gotten the last 40 years from Star Wars but never did . Even if not every time, at least more frequently over that time. Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the rest of the season 

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Going Commando

Going Commando

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3 hours ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:


good feedback, but let me say, the first few episodes are the weakest imo. Still great but really speaks to the quality of the later episodes when the season hits its stride and starts flexing some of the big ideas it has. It’s quite upsetting that this is the type of story telling we could have gotten the last 40 years from Star Wars but never did . Even if not every time, at least more frequently over that time. Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the rest of the season 

 

I'm no Art Historian, but I doubt the road from camp to prestige is quick or easy.  You need a path of progression where artists working in the medium/genre steadily elevate it in concept and execution.  I think a show like Andor probably needed high-concept, character-driven forebears like Battlestar and the Expanse to stretch the boundaries of the kinds of stories Sci-Fi television is capable of telling in order to come about.  And it also takes a genre-hopping great screenwriter like Gilroy to be inspired to work in the universe.

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Going Commando

Going Commando

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On 12/6/2022 at 12:27 PM, Momma There Goes That Man said:

Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the rest of the season 

 

I just finished binging the season.  I was completely gripped by it in the way that I was when I watched the first season of The Expanse.  It's by far the best thing that's ever been made in the Star Wars universe, to the point where Gilroy has elevated the potential of the entire IP into high brow fantasy.  It's kind of thrilling to think about the stories they might tell now with this one as a benchmark.

 

I'm trying to put the show in the broader context of Star Wars media, and Star Wars is obviously an enormous franchise.  This show was so good that it is capable of redefining the whole IP to me, in a good way.  George Lucas Star Wars has always suffered from some incoherence because he has never really been able to decide who he wants as his audience.  He wants to tell stories about trade deals gone wrong, the collapse of Democracy, with complicated palace intrigues and Eastern/New Aged religious themes... and he wants to do it in a way that can sell toys and have Alien clowns and teddy bears fighting guerilla wars and fancy space race cars and fan service questing knights/bounty hunters in space armor and breezy plot pacing with minimal emotional investment.  He couldn't decide if Star Wars was media for adults or for kids, and thus it was media for kids.  And as a kid, I was a huge fan of the Original Trilogy--watched the movies dozens of times, read tons of the in-universe novels, bought the toys, played the video games, etc.  You reach a point where you tend to grow out of intense Star Wars fandom like that.  This series feels like it could call me back home.  Especially with Star Trek being so moribund and pumping out nothing but uninspired, uber-dork cringe the past ten years.

 

My thoughts on the series itself are that it was magnificent.  The scripts were lofty and perfect and the performances were incredible.  Especially the ones from Luna and Skaarsgard and O'Reilly and the actor who played the Hitler Youth detective.  I would not really have cared about Mothma's B-Plot line if not for O'Reilly's magnetic portrayal of her--Marmoreal patrician beauty with an intense well of fear and emotion roiling just below the surf of the ice.  Skaarsgard's performance was really stunning.  I guess I never truly appreciated how good of an actor he was before, but Luthen is a great character and not an easy role to play and a lesser actor in that part would have ruined the series.  He's charming, inspiring, scary, megalomaniacal, intensely resourceful and competent yet hopeless, and delivers a critical monologue in the climax of a tense rising action episode that had to be just right or it would have been insufferable.  This is the dude who has been in Mama Mia and also played a scary Saxon warlord in Arthur and been the affable sidekick in Thor.  He has no type and I'm now seeing him as one of the best character actors of his generation.

 

And I can't say enough about how good Luna is.  Such an unlikely but totally captivating leading man.  I loved his performance in Narcos Mexico and I love this one even more.  His understated intensity and easy charisma is perfect as the hero for a quiet and subtle show.  Star Wars always has good leads and he's the best one.

 

I thought the series is a class on great screenwriting.  We got resolution on almost every moment of plot threading, meaningful callbacks frequently done as important emotional beats, grand voice overs and monologues, complex relationship dynamics,fleshed out characters all over the series.  If I had any critiques, it's that they didn't really do much with the framing story line of him trying to find his sister and solve the mystery of what happened on his home planet--but they did use it as a really effective callback in Luna's final scene with his mother.  These threads will need to be developed going forward, or else they shouldn't have been used to frame this story.  I also thought Adria Arjona's character was a little underdeveloped, especially for someone who is a potential love interest/bedrock family relationship.  Same for the big guy who was his friend on Ferrix and who seemed to be a kind of brother to Luna.  And I think the series was kind of light on levity and wit, things which can win audience sympathy and kind of salt your tension and emotionalism and make them more effective.  But wit done poorly is the ****ing worst, and the epic tone and scope of the series works fine without it.

 

Other than that, this series was incredible.  A revolution epic worthy of such a grand IP.  I'm going to wait a few weeks and then probably watch it again to catch more detail.

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No Nonsense

No Nonsense

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Just got done binge watching Andor. It’s the best Star Wars since the OT. There really isn’t a bad character in this show. Luther Rael has become one of my favorite characters in the entire Star Wars franchise and I’m intrigued on whether he’s a (you know). And that last episode post credits scene. Well done. 

Edited by No Nonsense
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Larry

Larry

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Getting around to watching Andor. And I'm liking it. 
 

There's irritations. I'm becoming increasingly annoyed by stories that start in the middle, and then spend five episodes dribbling out flashbacks to 10 years ago. 
 

There's actions that don't make sense to me. Although I'm not sure I can come up with better ones, either. 

I'll spoiler, just in case. 

Spoiler


After the robbery, when the one guy wanted the two of them to make off with the loot, I'm not sure why Andor killed him. 
 

I mean, yeah, part of it is me being unsure of why he didn't agree to grab the money. 
 

But, if Andor does choose to be a good rebel, why kill him?  I don't get it. 


 

But. Maybe the scene actually captures the turmoil of someone in a situation where there don't appear to be any good choices. 
 

And I'm really liking the overall tone. No force-using gods saving the day while preaching sanctity and abstinence. Just ordinary people grinding away in a ****ty world that's getting worse. Rebels having to do things they hate, but they're necessary. Bureaucracy. 

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Larry

Larry

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After Star Wars, Lucas allowed authors to write books in his universe.  And Brian Daly wrote three books about what I thought of as "Han Solo: Space Bum".  From before Han met Luke.  And ever since I've thought they would make a great series.  People in ordinary lives.  Showing what the life was like, for 99.99%.  I think Andor is doing a good job of that.  

 

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MisterPinstripe

MisterPinstripe

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Also, something is going on/being hinted at but I have no clue what it could be yet. 

Spoiler

When the pirate ships first gets behind Mando he says strangely specifically you killed 4 of my brothers. They killed 5 pirates in town. At the end of that star fight Mando had destroyed 5 of the 6 ships just like in town. The pirate king also very specifically says you shot down 4 of my ships. 

 

 

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