Four episodes into the first season of Andor and it seems good, like people say! But I'm still suspicious that it seems better than it is because of how bad I expect Star Wars stuff to be at this point
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Star Wars has problems because there are too many expectations because of all the now “non-cannon” material. There is often too much expectation for everything to jive a hundred books and comics.
I just refuse to have expectations, because anything that’s good is a miracle.
It only gets better. I can't tell you how much I appreciate watching this program and how finely tuned it is. Each character on this show is the best character you've ever seen in TV before.
I haven't been a fan of Star Wars (except Rogue One) for years, but I've always loved the world itself, and Andor's love of the world shines in every episode. The dialogue is also great, especially that of Luthen (like goosebump-inducing).
So when I finished Andor I went right in and watched Rogue One again, like a lot of people I imagine. And since that movie ends with basically the first scene of Star Wars, I went and watched Star Wars again after that...
...and found that Andor recontextualizes Luke as a talented teenager in the right place at the right time rather than the Wizard of Destiny that all the subsequent stories make him out to be.
None of the Skywalker saga had to exist in 1977, Andor shows it was a choice, and there are other choices.
Keep going. It’s a brilliant series. A lot of intelligent writing. Rogue One was the only film I really enjoyed, I know even that was tampered with but Andor has raised it up for me.
tbh, i think if you watched it not knowing what a Star Wars was, you'd be constantly butting into "what is this cartoony thing that just happened after 40 minutes of barely anything happening"
this isn't a fixable problem, it's just "this is what it means to be Star Wars," but it's definitely there
but i gotta admit many of my all-time favs like The Americans, Underground, and Deutschland 83/86/89 also stumble into cartoony and meandering shit at times, i think this just goes with the territory of being a rather ambitious show that blends political reality with cinematic hyper-reality
The point I'm at now is setting up a Daring Heist and that's a decent premise for basically anything so I think it would work without being Star Wars. There's a lot of nice character acting happening as well, I like that the Empire had a shitty subcontractor handling security. Smart details
The first three episodes had to do a lot of heavy lifting to set up characters and setting. Starting from episode 4 and on it's very good not just "good for Star Wars". So many people bounced off in the first 3 episodes and it's a real shame.
you are gonna enjoy the ride; frankly one of the things I appreciate most about Andor is that a lot of the time the in-setting reveals made me say "yeah that tracks, they would do that dumb/evil shit"
I don't recall if you've seen it yet, but the antique shop set is basically one room to get all the glup shitto energy out without actually having the glups as part of the narrative. The dorks get to see their favorite wizard hat in some background shots, the plot itself ignores it.
To be fair: I felt the same way during the first few episodes of Andor as well. The 'heist' sequence and everything that follows truly elevates the show into something all-time great.
Part of what makes Andor so excellent is how much it stands on it's own two feet. Unlike the main-line story that became a Skywalker family soap opera, it is not hung up on tying loose ends from the original trilogy (Thanks for telling me Chewbacca and Yoda are old friends, prequels!)
Tony Gilroy even stated recently in an interview that he thinks a lot of directors fail with Star Wars because they try to warp their vision to fit Star Wars where he started with his vision and wasn't overly reverent to the world.
This is how Star Wars should be done. Andor doesn't need the setting to work, but it takes advantage of a lot of emotional shortcuts that Star Wars offers. And it keeps getting better as you go.
I had the same attitude going in, and was irritated watching most of the show because it seemed so slow but at the end of season 1 I just sat there in silence for a long time thinking “well damn”
The slowness really lets you sit with all the emotional impact, prevents it from being watered down
I think what that show does really well is show how incompetent the Empire is, but also, how absolutely terrifying they can be in spite of that. The episode where the heist actually happens I was edge of my seat through the entire thing.
I really like the fact that they're adding a lot of depth to how the empire works as well. Farming out security to a gang of wannabe tactical/military guys who instantly fuck up their first field op, the inter-office sniping on Coruscant - lots of non-magical ways to be shitlords
Oh yeah. And it only increases from there. It’s like they took Krennic from Rogue One and made a series about his bureaucratic world, where his boss takes credit for Krennic’s successes but any setback means he has to go get choked and yelled at by Darth Vader.
The low expectations definitely help with the buy-in. It was good* (*for Star Wars) for a while for me, but once you understand the full scope of what they’re doing with it you instead start thinking “how the fuck did they pull this off”
It's not a perfect framing but you can generally think of Andor as taking place in 3-episode arcs. So you're done with the recruitment arc, and you're partway into the Aldhani arc. As others have said they ramp up from there.
S2 is even more overt about the arcs being split into sets of threes.
Andor is some of my favorite television of all time, and I still think it is helped by my low expectations for quality when it comes to anything in the Star Wars universe.
You got past the slow start that is literally the only thing even kind of bad i could say about it. it’s all awesome from about where you’re at moving on
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I just refuse to have expectations, because anything that’s good is a miracle.
None of the Skywalker saga had to exist in 1977, Andor shows it was a choice, and there are other choices.
this isn't a fixable problem, it's just "this is what it means to be Star Wars," but it's definitely there
The slowness really lets you sit with all the emotional impact, prevents it from being watered down
it feels like the best of it happens when the bean counters aren't looking cuz expectations are low (ie KOTOR/Andor)
S2 is even more overt about the arcs being split into sets of threes.