Online Series: Star Wars Andor on D+

[RobBrown4PM]

You know we all did

 

[Very Stable Genius]

It makes Rogue One better, but also much worse with how fanservicey the movie is. Andor is on another level.

 

[Jovavic]

Spoiler

I would've shot the last scene the same way with it panning from her back to the baby in the front, but mine would have a "Welcome to Alderaan" sign in the background [spoiler/]

 

[HanSolo]

This show was AWESOME!

Any one else immediate start Rogue One after concluding Andor?

Yes and I watched Rogue One last week too lol.

With the way this week's arc was crafted, it really does make Rogue One feel like Andor Season 2 Episode 13. Between both viewings, last night gave the second one a lot more emotional context and weight. Being that connective tissue between the show and the movie, episodes 10-12 are a real achievement.

And even crazier to think that Rogue One ties in directly to the start of A New Hope. With a Disney+ account you can watch the most important sequence of events from the first leak of the Death Star to its eventual destruction.

 

[HanSolo]

It makes Rogue One better, but also much worse with how fanservicey the movie is. Andor is on another level.

Yep. That's my takeaway too. It enhances the experience a great deal but also shines a brighter light on its flaws. Jyn Erso in particular is such an undercooked and poorly developed character, especially when stacking her up against Andor originals like Luthen, Kleya, Vel, etc. Hell even her own father fits in better with this wider Andor-verse. I did appreciate Chirrut and Baze a tiny bit more as victims of the empire after the Ghorman massacre tbh. Before I just considered them generic members of a rebel crew.

 

[Lt Dan]

Yep. That's my takeaway too. It enhances the experience a great deal but also shines a brighter light on its flaws. Jyn Erso in particular is such an undercooked and poorly developed character, especially when stacking her up against Andor originals like Luthen, Kleya, Vel, etc. Hell even her own father fits in better with this wider Andor-verse. I did appreciate Chirrut and Baze a tiny bit more as victims of the empire after the Ghorman massacre tbh. Before I just considered them generic members of a rebel crew.

that is a macro problem of prequels...lol

I read some similar statements with Better Call Saul because Nacho, Kim, and Lalo were so awesome

 

[Hasbro]

It makes Rogue One better, but also much worse with how fanservicey the movie is. Andor is on another level.

I’m glad they filled us in on why Walrus Man was such a surly drunk.

Spoiler

Deadra also became the secret police that ends up a victim of here own system, such as Yezhov and Fegelin

 

[Jussi]

This show was AWESOME!

Any one else immediate start Rogue One after concluding Andor?

Nope, but I think I'll watch it this weekend.

 

[kingsfan28]

Yep. That's my takeaway too. It enhances the experience a great deal but also shines a brighter light on its flaws. Jyn Erso in particular is such an undercooked and poorly developed character, especially when stacking her up against Andor originals like Luthen, Kleya, Vel, etc. Hell even her own father fits in better with this wider Andor-verse. I did appreciate Chirrut and Baze a tiny bit more as victims of the empire after the Ghorman massacre tbh. Before I just considered them generic members of a rebel crew.

That was part of the edit. If you look at the original trailers, she was hard and tough as nails when she first got to Yavin. Just walking in , you knew she was dangerous. The original cut went from 4 guards walking her in, to the final cut of her strolling across the hanger with a single guard in front not looking like a threat at all. There was much stronger dialog and character development in the original cut too. When the Gilroy's came on board to work on some scenes , he and his brother [who was the editor on Rogue] cut a bunch of good dialog out to soften her up. Most of her hard edge was gone. This is the same brother who wrote most of Andor S2 too.

 

[HanSolo]

That was part of the edit. If you look at the original trailers, she was hard and tough as nails when she first got to Yavin. Just walking in , you knew she was dangerous. The original cut went from 4 guards walking her in, to the final cut of her strolling across the hanger with a single guard in front not looking like a threat at all. There was much stronger dialog and character development in the original cut too. When the Gilroy's came on board to work on some scenes , he and his brother [who was the editor on Rogue] cut a bunch of good dialog out to soften her up. Most of her hard edge was gone. This is the same brother who wrote most of Andor S2 too.

Wasn't even aware that they did that. Not that I find it surprising. But the end product is the end product. I mean even the way she explains her position on the war to Saw just feels like such a cheap "hey audience. I am a reluctant hero who doesn't believe in the cause and I'm totally not going to change my mind in the span of a day" The first two acts are still diminished potential but the last act, the battle on and above Scariff was tremendous.

 

[Lt Dan]

That was part of the edit. If you look at the original trailers, she was hard and tough as nails when she first got to Yavin. Just walking in , you knew she was dangerous. The original cut went from 4 guards walking her in, to the final cut of her strolling across the hanger with a single guard in front not looking like a threat at all. There was much stronger dialog and character development in the original cut too. When the Gilroy's came on board to work on some scenes , he and his brother [who was the editor on Rogue] cut a bunch of good dialog out to soften her up. Most of her hard edge was gone. This is the same brother who wrote most of Andor S2 too.

Wasn't even aware that they did that. Not that I find it surprising. But the end product is the end product. I mean even the way she explains her position on the war to Saw just feels like such a cheap "hey audience. I am a reluctant hero who doesn't believe in the cause and I'm totally not going to change my mind in the span of a day" The first two acts are still diminished potential but the last act, the battle on and above Scariff was tremendous.

oh yeah
I specifically remember a line in the trailer that they cut out the movie it was her saying "This is a rebellion, I rebel"
I wish they would release a cut of the original in theaters. Disney could use the money ..lol

 

[Hivemind]

oh yeah
I specifically remember a line in the trailer that they cut out the movie it was her saying "This is a rebellion, I rebel"
I wish they would release a cut of the original in theaters. Disney could use the money ..lol

There isn't an "original" to release. The script evolved several times over the course of its development, and there were some re-shoots, but it's not like there was some version of the movie that tested poorly that they then cleaned up. It was just an evolving process.

A lot of the stuff in the trailers wasn't even necessarily an "original" vs "re-shoot" situation. Edwards filmed multiple versions of a lot of different scenes so he could pick-and-choose which to use in the final cut.

 

[Bakayoko Ono]

Loved how the Imperial tyranny ended up eating its own (Partagaz, Dedra, and eventually Krennic in Rogue One).

Great show, especially Season 2.

 

[kingsfan28]

There isn't an "original" to release. The script evolved several times over the course of its development, and there were some re-shoots, but it's not like there was some version of the movie that tested poorly that they then cleaned up. It was just an evolving process.

A lot of the stuff in the trailers wasn't even necessarily an "original" vs "re-shoot" situation. Edwards filmed multiple versions of a lot of different scenes so he could pick-and-choose which to use in the final cut.

Yeah, there was some quote saying how he shot enough stuff for two movies. They shot the entire Scarif ground battle with them escaping on the beach trying to get away on a ship, then re-shot it again once the script changed . Pretty normal stuff with movies.

 

[kingsfan28]

Loved how the Imperial tyranny ended up eating its own (Partagaz, Dedra, and eventually Krennic in Rogue One).

Great show, especially Season 2.

Next time I watch Rogue, Krennic will look totally different . He's even more insane than I thought.

 

[Beau Knows]

It's almost the antithesis of the prequels. Lucas had attempted to expand what was essentially a simple fairy tale into more overt political saga about the rise of fascism. But if you were to describe his efforts there as charitably as possible, you'd probably call them "clumsy". It was toothless commentary surrounded with goofy CGI hijinks.

The creators of this show succeeded where he failed. They took a slightly different look at fascism than Lucas did with the prequels, instead delving into the inner working of an already established dictatorship and went into depth to show how it operates and maintains it's power.


I also thought they did an amazing job adding new cultural elements to the Star Wars world. In a huge, diverse galaxy we should be seeing people with different customs and ways of living. So much of the Star Wars stuff that's been done in the last 10 years piggybacks off of the world that was already established, making the galaxy feel like a tiny place. Whether that's showing us the same characters and planets again and again, or even going as far as to rebrand existing elements: the Empire becomes the The First Order, using same Nazi imagery and the Rebellion becomes the Resistance. What's the difference? I couldn't tell you.

In Andor there's so much great world building. Little things like wedding customs, the funeral bricks, even just the workers all hanging up their gloves. It makes the contrast with the Empire's oppressive, clean, uniformity even more stark.


I only have a couple of minor quibbles with this series:

Instead of wrapping itself up, it naturally relies on Rogue One to tell the final chapter. I know a lot of Star Wars fans love that movie, but I found it bland and uninspired. It relied too heavily on nostalgia and failed to establish it's own unique characters (though Andor retroactively "fixes" much of this). So the very end of Cassian's story will probably always be a little underwhelming to me, but they still had satisfyingly endings for many of the new characters they introduced here.

There were one or two of the story arcs that didn't live up to the high bar set by the others. Specifically the one where Andor is stuck on that planet with the two warring rebel factions. If you compare that storyline, to say the prison one from the first season, it feels like it's from a different, lesser show. I think that storyline could have easily been cut, or replaced with something else.