Star Wars: Andor

[scottcr]

Just to add - this is SO good.  Feels *real* - and the characters aren't black and white.  It's a war and there's people thinking they're doing the right thing on both sides.  

 

Space Dale Cooper going back home was a great little scene.

 

 

[Pob]

I mentioned it before in this thread, but I'm enjoying the prospect of seeing people living in the time of the Empire who are doing well or just wilfully oblivious to the oppression. Not evil, just not personally affected so happy to look the other way. Mon Mothma's husband filled that role in this episode, bleating about her doom and gloom, and wanting her to lighten up. What's she doing with such a pillock anyway?

[Thor]

29 minutes ago, Pob said:

I mentioned it before in this thread, but I'm enjoying the prospect of seeing people living in the time of the Empire who are doing well or just wilfully oblivious to the oppression. Not evil, just not personally affected so happy to look the other way. Mon Mothma's husband filled that role in this episode, bleating about her doom and gloom, and wanting her to lighten up. What's she doing with such a pillock anyway?

I took him to be her PA/butler, not husband. 

[Stoppy2000]

25 minutes ago, Thor said:

I took him to be her PA/butler, not husband. 

It's definitely her husband? Doesn't it even say that she's getting him that gift? 

[Thor]

Just now, Stoppy2000 said:

It's definitely her husband? Doesn't it even say that she's getting him that gift? 

Oooh, if she said that in the shop I may have missed that. 

[Stoppy2000]

3 minutes ago, Thor said:

Oooh, if she said that in the shop I may have missed that. 

I'm 99% sure that is what she says. It did come off as an odd relationship though. Maybe she was like him at some point though?

[Vulgar Monkey]

A good sign that this was a rare occasion where I get caught out by the credits rolling unexpectedly and am like 'AHHHH'.

Really keen to see where this goes.

[Gigawatt]

On 28/09/2022 at 14:08, Thor said:

The actress playing ... 

  Reveal hidden contents

... Mon Mothma is excellent. She really sells the tension and feeling of being spied on by anyone and everyone. 

Was a good episode. 

You might know this already, and it’s probably not a spoiler but I’ll box it just in case. 
 

Spoiler

Genevieve O’Reilly played a young Mon Mothma in a deleted scene from one of the prequels (I think it was AOTC but might have been ROTS), and she then got the part in Rogue One because of that. I assume that was Gareth Edwards idea. 

Anyway I agree, she’s really good in this. I’m loving this series so far, it’s miles better than any other Star Wars TV. 
 

 

[Jammy]

4 hours ago, Thor said:

Oooh, if she said that in the shop I may have missed that. 

 

Yeah, definitely husband. That relationship is familiar from various shows/war movies, where

Spoiler

someone with the inside track on the regime starts to doubt it, but the partner is totally wrapped up in the glamour of being in the in-crowd. Donovan’s mother and step-father in the original V miniseries springs to mind

. Wouldn’t be surprised if 

Spoiler

Mothma’s husband dobs her in at some point and she has to go on the run.

 

[Hanzo the Razor]

8 hours ago, scottcr said:

Nice to see the very stark comparison between the Empire and the UK during the clearances… 

 

Now that was good. Looked like it was actually filmed in the Highlands too.

[Girth Certificate]

The imperial base is the hydroelectric dam at Ben Cruachan. Cool AF

 

This show is great, Skarsgård is killing it. Someone yesterday was all like 'ahh I hate him he's always so dour' and I'm all like 'you fanny'.

 

[Vemsie]

On 29/09/2022 at 10:40, Bazjam said:

This for me is by far the best Star Wars TV series so far. I had started to lose hope and was just watching them all out of duty more than anything. I love how for once, they have expanded the universe (no desert planet yet thank fuck).

 

It does feel Star Wars to me. Just a dank street level Star Wars we haven't seen yet.

Same. I love the tone of this and it helps tremendously that they shot on real locations where possible. There's already so many good character moments and dialogue in it and having Skarsgård in it automatically classes up the joint in a big way. Really love seeing the dynamics of the ISB as well, old Qyburn in particular is shaping up to be a compelling character.

Easily the best Star Wars TV so far and I hope The Acolyte (which is the most interesting sounding one for me) will be this good.

[X_2_0]

I wasn’t that excited by the idea of an Andor series, but so far this has been amazing! 
 

I particularly liked the 

 

Spoiler

space park and ride  in episode 3 

And the use of brutalist architecture, which seems perfect for the Empire

[SpagMasterSwift]

Using a glued together model rather than the traditional hologram to show the plan of attack felt very apt for this show.

[Flanders]

I wasn’t overly gripped with the first episode but definitely agree that the first two are there to set the scene because episode 3 was exceptional. 
 

Spoiler

What I loved about the whole security incursion is that it manages to make you empathise with every side of the conflict at hand, even the ostensible baddies - you feel almost as tense for them as things spiral out of control as you do for Cassian and Skarsgaard.

 

Partly because you know that if it did properly kick off then it would be a bloodbath for the civilians on the planet down the line.

 

I also love that you don’t even see the Empire in those first three episodes. 

 

[yakumo]

18 hours ago, Girth Certificate said:

 

 

This show is great, Skarsgård is killing it. Someone yesterday was all like 'ahh I hate him he's always so dour' and I'm all like 'you fanny'.

 

Skarsgård is easily the best thing about it, watching him acting across anyone else just shows the gulf in skill. 

[Benny]

2 hours ago, SpagMasterSwift said:

Using a glued together model rather than the traditional hologram to show the plan of attack felt very apt for this show.

 

That felt so massively not Star Wars but as a result I kind of loved it. It was so weird in this context it was endearing.

 

Spoiler

Same with the security guy coming home to his mum, and her neighbour rubbernecking from across the council estate. Just weird and dull and odd and not Star Wars-like all through it, but relatable and "normal" if it was literally any other show. I'm enjoying it just for how strange it all feels even if it's probably going to piss off fans no end 

 

[superfunk]

The use of real-world locations is excellent.

Spoiler

The scene in Space Dale Cooper’s mum’s apartment block is the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. I used to work near there and recognised it straight away. 

 

Also the interior of

Spoiler

Mon Mothma’s apartment was a breathtaking piece of production and set design. Just stunning!

 

 

[Popo]

On 21/09/2022 at 21:43, JoeK said:

To be honest, I actually don't think it's good Star Wars but I do think it's good TV! I certainly like the general mood that's going on in this early on, although the flashbacks to Andor's past reminded me of the terrible, terrible children in Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome.

 

I'm yet to work out just why I should be rooting for Andor though. He came across as a bit of a fuck-up in Rogue One, and my thoughts have not changed.

 

So, in essence it's good enough for me to be invested in seeing where it's going to go, yet I feel it's so far removed from what I personally like in Star Wars that I kind of wish they'd been brave enough to release this as a tale in some new universe without any baggage whatsoever.

 

 

This is exactly what I thought after watching the first episode. It didn’t feel like it needed to be tied to Star Wars at all, because tonally and thematically, it isn’t. 
 

What it is is great though. 
 

The shift to imperial Coruscant, neé Nazi Berlin, and the Scottish highlands, have marked a real shift again from the Troubles-era Northern Ireland of the first episodes. The locations are just fantastic, aren’t they? 
 

I’m not yet convinced that the characters are developing towards anything, but the cast are brilliant and extremely watchable. 
 

I like that the Empire here are fully moulded after the Nazis, in particular the scenes at the ISB, where Hannah Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ concept is given full voice. The way the corpo deputy inspector, given some authority, takes it and uses it to put a chokehold on the people of space Northern Ireland was all too believable. 

[Jammy]

13 minutes ago, Popo said:

This is exactly what I thought after watching the first episode. It didn’t feel like it needed to be tied to Star Wars at all, because tonally and thematically, it isn’t. 
 

What it is is great though. 
 

The shift to imperial Coruscant, neé Nazi Berlin, and the Scottish highlands, have marked a real shift again from the Troubles-era Northern Ireland of the first episodes. The locations are just fantastic, aren’t they? 
 

I’m not yet convinced that the characters are developing towards anything, but the cast are brilliant and extremely watchable. 

Andor definitely starts Rogue One as the shady side of the Rebellion that they don’t talk about; that need for people who are prepared to do what’s necessary. I guess his redemption moment is halfway through, where he makes the decision not to follow through on his orders to assassinate Galen Erso.

[Harsin]

What is the budget of this compared to Obi-Wan and Boba Fett as they look like the drizzly shits in comparison.

[probotector]

I don’t think it’s a budget thing, more art direction and direction.

 

 

[K]

This looks gorgeous, especially the brutalist deep-dives into the guts of Coruscant. That bit where Space Gorman went to visit his mum was spectacular - as if the Barbican had metastasised and taken over a whole planet. 
 

I recognised one location early on - the shot of the Imperial lady when they first cut to Coruscant, where she’s walking along a plaza under an elevated walkway. It was filmed in Canary Wharf, just outside the entrance to the Crossrail station. It made me wonder why they even bothered to use a real location, as the walkway and a strip of ground about ten feet across is the only real bit - everything else in shot (which is quite a lot) is special effects. It looked great, but I am curious as to why they didn’t just film her on a green screen and do the whole thing in FX - I struggle to believe that tiny area between the old FCA building and a restaurant was critical to the shot’s success. 

[Darren]

For reasons too dull to mention I’ve only got round to watching this tonight and we did all four in one sitting. Easily the best SW TV show so far, although I do still love Mando.

 

One of the things they’ve absolutely nailed is the “used universe” look from the original trilogy, and in particular the first third of the first film before they fly off to the shiny-floored Death Star. A particular delight is that this Coruscant is made of rain-stained concrete rather than the smooth and polished surfaces of the prequels. The real-world reason for that one is probably a combination of better art direction, the use of real locations rather than green screens, and 20 years’ more advanced CGI, but it works canonically that the Republic’s capital would be clean and opulent while the same place under the Empire would have become dreary and oppressive.

 

Similarly the slow pace of the first couple of episodes mirrors that first third of Star Wars. It’s just real* people in real* places, far away from “the bright centre of the universe.”

 

It uses the iconography and visual language of the rest of the Star Wars films sparingly but extremely well. We don’t need to see a stormtrooper or a Twi’lek on every corner. It doesn’t need to rely on always looking like Star Wars (the franchise) because it feels like Star Wars (the 1977 movie).

 

*not real

[K]

Yeah, I don't quite get the "it doesn't feel like Star Wars' criticisms either. To me, it really brings to mind the kind of bleak utilitarianism of the first half hour of Star Wars, where craggy people in well-worn clothes and seventies British character actor faces buy dirty equipment from a scrapyard in a desert. The planet Andor starts out on could easily exist in the same universe as Mos Eisley - it's got the same vibe of desperate people quietly going about their business. And the focus on administration and authoritarianism in the Coruscant bits fits nicely with George Lucas' dislike for bureaucrats and jobsworths.

 

The more recent Star Wars films seem to use Return of the Jedi as their model, with lots of humour and derring-do, but this seems to complement the tone of the original film quite nicely, with its mix of impersonal, monolithic Imperial megastructures, and grubby people in the slums trying to make ends meet. It takes it further than the original film did, but it's hardly inconsistent.

[Kevvy Metal]

21 minutes ago, K said:

Yeah, I don't quite get the "it doesn't feel like Star Wars' criticisms either. To me, it really brings to mind the kind of bleak utilitarianism of the first half hour of Star Wars, where craggy people in well-worn clothes and seventies British character actor faces buy dirty equipment from a scrapyard in a desert. The planet Andor starts out on could easily exist in the same universe as Mos Eisley - it's got the same vibe of desperate people quietly going about their business. And the focus on administration and authoritarianism in the Coruscant bits fits nicely with George Lucas' dislike for bureaucrats and jobsworths.

 

The more recent Star Wars films seem to use Return of the Jedi as their model, with lots of humour and derring-do, but this seems to complement the tone of the original film quite nicely, with its mix of impersonal, monolithic Imperial megastructures, and grubby people in the slums trying to make ends meet. It takes it further than the original film did, but it's hardly inconsistent.

 

Fantastic post! Absoutely. A great observation of the tone of this and I absolutely see that tone in ANH. 

[Pob]

1 hour ago, K said:

Yeah, I don't quite get the "it doesn't feel like Star Wars' criticisms either. To me, it really brings to mind the kind of bleak utilitarianism of the first half hour of Star Wars, where craggy people in well-worn clothes and seventies British character actor faces buy dirty equipment from a scrapyard in a desert. The planet Andor starts out on could easily exist in the same universe as Mos Eisley - it's got the same vibe of desperate people quietly going about their business. And the focus on administration and authoritarianism in the Coruscant bits fits nicely with George Lucas' dislike for bureaucrats and jobsworths.

 

The more recent Star Wars films seem to use Return of the Jedi as their model, with lots of humour and derring-do, but this seems to complement the tone of the original film quite nicely, with its mix of impersonal, monolithic Imperial megastructures, and grubby people in the slums trying to make ends meet. It takes it further than the original film did, but it's hardly inconsistent.

 

One of my favourite scenes in A New Hope is the one where Tarkin drones on about regional governors, so this series is catnip to me. It says something that we've got a heist and a dinner party being set up for the next episode and I'm looking forward to the dinner party a lot more. I'm hoping it'll be like the scene in the Dune novel that unfortunately didn't make it into the recent film.

[Pob]

13 hours ago, K said:

That bit where Space Gorman went to visit his mum was spectacular - as if the Barbican had metastasised and taken over a whole planet. 

 

 

Also, the music in this bit is lovely. It reminds me of the haunting soundtracks to Moon and Cypher. Love that stuff.

[Harsin]

The spaceport on Coruscant was McLaren’s headquarters.

[Pob]

They're doing a great job of masking the joins to the extent that I have no idea what is a real location, what is CG and what is a set. I assumed that terminal was a real location but wouldn't have been surprised to find out it was 95% CG. I assume Mon Mothma's house was a set? It looked amazing. I suppose, in answer to @K's question about why shoot on location and then paint out 95% of it, perhaps the final shot ends up just 'feeling' like she's walking through a busy outdoor concourse, because she was. It's sometimes hard to shake the effect that everyone is in a little space surrounding by CG when they're in the Volume. That said, the StageCraft stuff is brilliant for fights on top of fast-moving vehicles - both The Mandalorian and Boba Fett had stellar scenes on an Imperial convoy and train respectively.