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Star Wars: Andor

JohnC

By JohnC,
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Benny

Benny

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Finally caught up with last week's.

 

It was a delightfully moreish episode. Dialogue heavy and big on bureaucracy and the slow creeping vice like grip of boiled frog oppression.

 

Spoiler

I thought the little seaside getaway Andor went on was a really cool idea, because of course he wants to live it up a bit. And the increasingly absurd authoritarian actions in a holiday resort were actually surprisingly funny. Like you'd get in something like Brazil in tone (the film, obviously).

 

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Benny

Benny

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On 20/10/2022 at 08:34, PK said:

I didn't particularly like Rogue One either, but this is really good. It's tugging at vague memories of the imaginary background I used to invent while playing TIE Fighter. Really enjoying how they're bothering to give us a bit of a backstory for characters who only appear in it for a few minutes, it makes the world feel real and complex and even a little overwhelming in its scale compared to ours - like it reminds you every one of the CGI cars flying past in droves in the background contains people with their own infinitely complicated stories and stresses, they're not just virtual set dressing.

 

I absolutely love the set and costume design as well though! I hope they bring out some sort of art book accompaniment to the series.

 

 

This is why I'm loving this too: I adored Tie Fighter and part of that is because a lot of the world building they did in that game involved all the tedious bureaucracy you would expect that was behind doing endless inspections of cargo containers, and policing hyperlanes for smugglers etc etc. And just the political intrigue that was obviously going on when you had commanding officers defecting and stuff like that.

 

Basically this is the show for those kinds of Star Wars nerds. For the first time.

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Benny

Benny

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On 20/10/2022 at 23:09, Darren said:

I’m calling it now. This is the best Star Wars. Ever. Yes, better than Star Wars.

 

I hate making such sweeping statements like this much myself, but given the above, I would be tempted to concur.

 

That Mon Mothma scene alone could clinch it.

 

Spoiler

The gradual sounding each other out and the gradual dropping of walls and erecting of new ones as their conversation evolved. You just don't get that in Star Wars.

 

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Benny

Benny

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Another quick thought about something I really liked in the last scenes:

 

Spoiler

I like how the droid is used in the penultimate scene to mirror the soulless automaton nature of the rentacop, by *literally* being literal about an order.

 

It's like it builds and builds on the guard's thoughtlessness until, at the end, you're just left with a robot at your throat. As that's how oppression becomes normalised.

 

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K

K

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Very glad to see Cleveleys pop up at last, and very interesting to see how they took the raw material of the seafront and created this amazing JG Ballard world out of it. The prom looked incredible, the way it seemed to stretch out forever.

 

The only negative thing I have to say about that episode was that newsreaders on TV feel slightly wrong in the Star Wars universe. They should have had a little stop-motion hologram newsreader or a news droid or something. The next scene, where Stellan Skarsgard was listening to imperial transmissions on a bakelite handset, felt much more on-brand.

 

Also, Mon Mothma. I don’t think I’ve fancied someone on a TV show to quite this extent since Katherine Parkinson was on Taskmaster. I want her to pick me up in her flying limo and drive me round Coruscant while listening to ‘There is a Light that Never Goes Out’. 

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monkeydog

monkeydog

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9 hours ago, FishyFish said:

It’s a mark of this show’s excellence that they’ve turned Mon Mothma - a character I previously viewed as some sort of stuck-up space Penelope Keith - into a badass.

 

You need to reassess Margo as well. She'd go full Mon Mothma under the Emperor's regime.

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milko

milko

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Herzog as a psychotic Empire commander out in the sticks would be fun.

 

Took my kid to see Totoro in the Barbican last night so we had a quick wander around to point at bits of Andor... I'm not sure he really grasped it to be honest, needs some cosplayers wandering about to really make it work.

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Flanders

Flanders

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I absolutely love how Darth Vader might as well not exist in this world but Palpatine most certainly does. 
 

Disney really should do some kind of massive retcon of Palpatine because the scheming demagogue who runs the Imperial machine day to day is more or less a completely separate character to the evil space wizard. And not in a clever way, it’s literally two different characters and the politician one would be much more interesting to see on screen. 

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SpagMasterSwift

SpagMasterSwift

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They mention both Palpatine and The Emperor in this, but I can’t remember how or when that deception is revealed, if it ever is?

Spoiler

I thought it was in one of the prequels but then was that only to the Jedi? As you say, Vader and the Jedi may as well not exist in this world, tho I expect they’ll need to at some point due to Rogue One. Very occasionally talked about, but never shown would be much more effective as they have done so far. I have faith.

 

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PaB

PaB

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On 24/10/2022 at 00:24, Jamie John said:

I've avoided this thread for fear of spoilers. Is this worth watching? I enjoyed The Mandolorian but heard that The Book of Boba Fett was shite. How does this compare?


-andor

 

-mandalorians 

 

-Treading barefoot on lego

 

-Obi wan

 

-Treading barefoot on Lego on your way to the bath room, you go to the toilet and flush. Suddenly there is an almighty bang and a pipe bursts. What sounds like a waterfall emanates from below you. You run down stairs to the front room. The floor looks fine , as does the sofa. But your precious LG OLED is covered; pissy water in every vent and excrement splattered onto the screen. You wish you had taken out that contents insurance after all. 
 

- book of boba fett

 

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Pob

Pob

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3 hours ago, SpagMasterSwift said:

They mention both Palpatine and The Emperor in this, but I can’t remember how or when that deception is revealed, if it ever is?

  Hide contents

I thought it was in one of the prequels but then was that only to the Jedi? As you say, Vader and the Jedi may as well not exist in this world, tho I expect they’ll need to at some point due to Rogue One. Very occasionally talked about, but never shown would be much more effective as they have done so far. I have faith.

 

 

I guess Darth Vader just isn't relevant to this show. He's a Jedi hunter, not a politician, so why would he be in it, or even referenced? This story is about the Imperial machine that has engulfed the galaxy.

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Pob

Pob

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Anyway, I just watched the new episode and it was as extraordinary as ever. It feels like each plot thread is progressing along nicely each episode now

Spoiler

The prison was brutal! So well realised - everything about it, from the initial approach in the shuttles to the details of how labour is extracted. Pretty terrifying for Star Wars, really, especially when that guy commits suicide :(. It also reminded of those terrible production line jobs I've occasionally had to do for a few days here and there back before I finished uni. Perhaps Imperial levels of gamification would've made the days go quicker. I love how everything is properly thought through in this show. There's a procedural element to it that I really like. Details that make everything seem real.

 

Forest Whittaker really killed it in his scene - a great portrayal of an extremist, presumably designed to bring to mind Osama Bin Laden. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion of purity of purpose vs unity with others even if you're not 100% aligned. It feels very relevant. If that's it for Saw Gerrera for this series, I'd be happy. A very good use of a known character.

 

Also, I think I did my first proper lol for the entire series - when Tay (Mothma's banking friend) said "charity starts at home" to Perrin, and Perrin's reaction. I wonder if there's anything going on with Mon's daughter? She keeps having short scenes where she seems pretty disturbed and gets fobbed off.

 

Oh, and the ISB stuff was as brilliant as ever. I predicted that Syril would get pulled out of his desk job to help Meera's investigation, but I also assumed his initiative would be recognised and he'd be taken along for the ride back to Ferrix. But Meera was having none of it - he's nothing to her, she doesn't need any help. The boardroom scenes with the ISB top brass are some of the best in the show. Always a pleasure, and they give some lovely background to the workings of the Empire. This week it was about surveillance and planetary security.

 

This is some of the best big-budget science fiction we've had for years, up there with Blade Runner 2049 for me.

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fly53r135

fly53r135

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19 minutes ago, Pob said:

 

I guess Darth Vader just isn't relevant to this show. He's a Jedi hunter, not a politician, so why would he be in it, or even referenced? This story is about the Imperial machine that has engulfed the galaxy.

 

Which all nicely stacks up with a New Hope when Admiral Motti backchats Vader his "sad devotion to that ancient religion..." hasn't found the rebels hideout.

 

Best bit about Andor is that the characters seem be living in a real world and are all following there own path.

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Pob

Pob

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5 minutes ago, fly53r135 said:

Which all nicely stacks up with a New Hope when Admiral Motti backchats Vader his "sad devotion to that ancient religion..." hasn't found the rebels hideout.

 

 

On that note, the ISB big cheese introduced last week is Yularen, who is a non-speaking character in ANH (on the left below):

image.thumb.png.29ba2baf7f627776322748fc7b30dbc7.png

 

When they did the costumes for that scene that probably just thought it'd be cool to have an Imperial officer dressed in white, but it's since been used as the uniform of the ISB. That character has been in Clone Wars and Rebels quite a lot since. Another good use of an existing character - someone who just logically makes sense to appear in Andor, but with no special attention drawn to him. He's not even named.

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Pob

Pob

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One thing I really liked about the latest ep was how the different communities were contrasted.

Spoiler

You've got the stratified Imperial bureaucracy where people step on each other and reject the help of others (see Dedra putting Syril in his place) at one end, and the working class community on Ferrix working together and helping each other, illustrated by Andor's friends banding together, the pot-banging etc. It was tragic that Bix's attempt to get word to Andor to tell him about his mother brought the Imperials down on her. In the middle are the prisoners, some of whom try support each other in a system that is designed around pitting them against each other, while others become complicit.

 

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Pob

Pob

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16 minutes ago, Girth Certificate said:

The reveal of what those space asterisks are used for is going to be a thing.

I would hope some nerd has pinpointed what they’re producing. The wingnuts on TIE Fighters or something. 

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