Andor (Star Wars)... Why?

Buildup of Rebels feels stupidly rapid if this is supposed to lead up to CG characters from original movie attacking and communicating like they've done this plenty before in Rogue One and Diego Luna doesn't look any younger.

Guy who looks like Kyle MacLachlan's son wears a tie and works in a big office building. The tie doesn't hug a collar like ours. Too Earth-like, like the AK-47. They used, if I remember correctly, the Mauser C96 in Star Wars because it's not that well known by people who aren't into guns. You can't do that with the most famous rifle in the world. Thought the point was to make you feel like you're in a made up world.

Without the magic, there is not much point to Star Wars. Everyone saying "Can we have something without the force/lightsabers?" doesn't get it.

George Lucas in The Phantom Menace commentary track: "I had to struggle very hard on the Star Wars films to make them appear to be realistic, even though they're totally fantasy. And they aren't science fiction, they're fantasy, but you still believe that this could actually happen."

Young Harrison Ford said too that it's not science fiction, but fantasy.

Young Mark Hamill called it a fairytale.

It's obvious. Without the magic (without the knights, princesses, monsters, wizards and that life force), it's hollow. That's the problem with expanding it into so much content. You have to cut out the essence. There's not that much to Star Wars that you can just do that.

Colored people everywhere, including Imperial leadership that was intentionally white men only in the OT (to contrast Rebels who had other colors, women and aliens -- more in Return of the Jedi, though), but still racist because no alien characters at all. Andor is in a prison block with 48 other inmates and not one alien. They only appear in the background. The only non-human character (Character, not background figures.) so far is the droid, who doesn't matter. Like this show doesn't want to be Star Wars, like it would rather be complex political intrigue with grey areas like Game of Thrones or something. I'm going to say that word you hate so much. Ready? Here it comes. I warned you! Pretentious. Imperial leadership white men only in OT also because those austere uniforms in a room together don't suit black people and Asians at all. Like seeing a black man in a Nazi uniform and trying to pretend he was accepted as one of the fascists.

Watching it faster than I normally do shows, but that's hardly impressive because it's highly serialized like almost all television drama now (as opposed to single stories that you enjoy but are fine following with another a few days or week(s) later). It's not that good.

I don't consider it Starwars. Saw alot of people praising it, but it's like, the most boring shit I've ever watched. Absolutely 0 Starwars magic to it, some rando sci-fi show. Don't give a shit about S2.

Not big on any of the live action shows. Mando is alright, good at times, something watch. Obi-One terrible. Boba terrible.

Ahsoka was disappointing. It's nowhere near as bad as the other shows, episode 6 was probably my fav live action episode of any of them. But it isn't the same characters from the cartoon, jumps the shark, and actually entirely betrays the ending of Rebels. Thrawn is now a dipshit. The last two episodes pissed me off and just left a sour taste in my mouth.

But, Ep 3 liked, Ep4 loved, Ep5 liked the whale stuff and Ep6 was great barring some dumb shit like Ezra being 5 feet out the base.

Say the modern stuff the best thing to come out (if we ignore Siege Of Mandalore) was Tales Of The Jedi. Since 2003 Genndy Tartakovsky the animated stuff has been almost overwhelmingly good with few blemishes, namely the terrible Clone Wars movie.

But Disney era wise, ignoring Siege Of Mandalore, Tales Of The Jedi was pretty much perfect.

As someone who grew up on Clone Wars, and really enjoyed Rebels just left kind of pissed off that from now on it will be a live-action inferior version of the animations which are vastly superior.

Overall the future isn't looking good, if Ahsoka gets season 2 give it a whack, def be watching Tales Of The Jedi S2, but outside of that kind of stopped caring.

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Colored people in the Empire I do not care about. Palpatine made them racist to aliens, not other humans. This is established in the lore. species, not internal race. The Clone Wars acting as a means to foment hate which he manipulates to garner more power. Similar to someone like Donald Trump or any other Republican scumbag.

That makes sense. And Thrawn being the only alien in the fleet due to his insane ability makes sense. And the novels make it prominent he's constantly targeted but with his own fleet proves himself and they become insanely loyal because he doesn't act like any other Empire officers.

When the OT was made, The Prequels did not exist. Contextually, it changed. The universe expanded. Wither you like that or not is up to you, but their are far deeper problems with this franchise than "seeing black people in the Empire".

I don’t watch Disney’s Star Wars, nor do I consider it canon.

It isn’t Star Wars, it should have died with Lucas. He is the visionary, he is the father, it’s his baby. You can’t replace the essence and spirit he brought.

It was good, and if approached with an open mind I thought it was a neat spin on the Star Wars franchise.

But I'd agree with folks if they thought it lacked the Star Wars "magic" that makes Star Wars Star Wars.

But was Andor bad? No, it was quite good. Bit of a slow build up, but ultimately a really good show. It had a heist plot, had a jailbreak plot, spent some time establishing back story to the main character and allies....no, it was a great show. I just don;t think it was Star Wars'y enough for people looking for a nostalgia hit.

I'm not sure if the Imperials are outright racist or exclusionary. I recall George Lucas saying he wanted "stuffy British accents" because he thought it made good villains, so naturally that meant a bunch of white British actors, but as for the lore I've always viewed the Empire as more opportunistic.

If you are oppressing a planet that is mostly black people (or yellow aliens, or green, or whatever) then you might want to promote some of those people into your ranks in an attempt to pacify the locals. Which iirc is exactly what they did in Andor. Let's also not forget about the Chiss Ascendency and Admiral Thrawn, arguably one of the most badass and amazing non-Jedi/Sith in SW Lore is a blue-skinned, red-eye alien.

Likewise, the Sith (who are more or less in charge of the Empire) have a long history of taking on aliens as apprentices, servants, and so on and so forth. As @uninspiredcup said , I don't think Palpatine really respects aliens (Darth Maul was treated as a tool, not really a peer or a student), but that doesn't stop them from taking them into their ranks.

I think they definitely "have a type" as far as leadership goes in the Empire, but they're opportunistic and pragmatic enough to not be outright racist/speciesist.

Hell, we see this today; groups preaching fascism and traditional Nazi values are welcoming non-whites into their ranks in order to grow their groups; if they can do it, so can the Empire! 😋

Wait, people thought the show about space wizards was scifi rather than fantasy?

I dunno, I liked it a lot.

I thought it was fine.

i really disliked it.

no recognisable characters, glacial pacing, and a plot about as interesting as watching paint dry. pretty sure it couldve been condensed into a three part mini series, boba fett style, and nothing would've been lost, instead it may have landed better. genuinely bewilders me to read people praise it for its depth in story and characters. snoozefest

yeah, and honestly same thing with Marvel.

Disney just paying to own it

to pump out content for the big bucks...isn't really working out guys

A major flaw in Star Wars is Luke just joins up with crazy Rebels to take on Empire and not one thought of politics given and over course of three films they eliminate Empire without any clue of what awaits after Rebel takeover. I mean, dodged a bullet, for all Luke knew they had fascist who once uninhibited planned to massacre all the space jews.

In The Darth Palagueus novel, (which was checked and approved by Lucas because Disney un-cannonized it) Palagueus specifically wants Palpatine to be his political face of power because people would not accept an alien as a leader. Palpatine would be his face but he would be the power.

The idea behind the novel, and the Prequels is that the Sith rather than battle like old times, hide in plain sight and use politics as a weapon with the rule of two where instead of many they are reduced down to a trickle.

Fitting in with the themes of the movies, Darth Palagueus is obsessed with immortality, most of the book is almost like a classic Hammer Horror movie where he's Victor Frankenstein and this idea carries over to Revenge Of The Sith where Anakin is groomed into thinking in similar manner. This is more the main theme than "le facism"

Palpatine didn't really care who a person was or what they looked like, in the novel Palagueus specifically called him a psychopath (exact words) who see's people are things in his way or to be used. Before Palpatine kills him entire family.

The Prequels contextually change the OT. And Disney, contextually change it again by scrapping all above.

Something something dyad.

But yea, the idea is Palpatine deliberately foments hate He doesn't actually care if people are black or aliens or whatever, if it helps control people and gives him power he will do it.

He's designed to be a completely unredeeming villain with a very simple motive which he pretty much screams at Mace Windu before committing a race hate crime.

Rather than a specific ideology, it's more the excitement of power or conflict. Which ROTS shows in droves as even as he's fighting Yoda to death he's having the time of his life.

If what you like about Star Wars is the Force, the Jedi and all the space magic then I can see why you would be disappointed in Andor. Even though that's the main appeal to Star Wars for me as well, it was quite refreshing watching a more grounded, political and "serious" story unfold.

I think the Star Wars fans are in a mixed on Andor. I for one really enjoyed it because it was the most grounded Star Wars, and by that, I mean it didn't have a lot of fan service like Ahsoka did. The build-ups is what really help the show giving you those tensions and the characters were good to follow, I like that Emperor girl, Andor himself was so-so. I really like Rogue One, Andor lives up to my expectations.

Glad we're getting S2 in 2025.

@uninspiredcup: would you recommend that novel?

A few years ago I was shopping for some more Star Wars stuff but then Disney or whatever made stuff canon/not-canon, and I sort of didn't want to invest my time in things that didn't "count" towards the official lore.

Which is a shame because the novels with Luke's family and Han's/Leia's family sounded pretty great with Mara Jade and Jacen and Jaina Solo.

I wonder if that's why people are mixed on it. Maybe they need that "grounded in Star Wars" for it to feel like Star Wars, and if it isn't, then they don't like it.

I enjoyed it for that reason as well; I like the stuff that is grounded in lore, but at the same time if a Star Wars project can stand on it's own two feet--in other words, it'd be good even if it had nothing to do with Star Wars--then I appreciate that as well. SW-rich lore is good and all, but it can be used as a crutch at times and if they keep talking about Jedi or Skywalkers or what have you but the rest of it is weak, that's a crutch.

As I said earlier, I liked Andor because it honestly could have been any other franchise or a new one or whatever and I think it would have been good. Plenty of sci-fi has aliens and droids and planets lol.

Finished Andor.

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

This show is so anti-Star Wars. No alien characters, no fantasy elements, total rejection of good and evil (Only grey, including the ones on the right side, who are all unlikable by the way.) and this lifeforce that is supposed to be everywhere. Just a bland sci-fi.

I can't remember caring less about the ending of a series. I didn't have much desire to start that last episode (nor the one before it), and when I did I only made it halfway before going to bed, and before I finished the last twenty-something minutes today I waited until the very end of my day (putting it just after episode 2 of Paranoia Agent, which I'm delighted to rewatch for the first time since I was a teenager), and was rewarded with shit. My lack of enthusiasm was partly because I'm sure that I won't watch season 2, like I didn't watch The Mandalorian season 2.

I'm sick of Disney's dramatic speeches about hope and defiance with intensifying music in climaxes. Comes off as so fake, absolute cringe after the townspeople marched with their instruments (which was already fricking cringe).

I don't care for this judgmental view it has of arranged marriages. Seeking out partners oneself is working out SO well with most of those marriages (usually late into adulthood, after they've already been spoiled by unhappiness, grown cynical and defensive) ending in divorce, if they find someone at all.

The tease of the Death Star after the end credits made me think, "So what?" We know what happens, we've seen it destroyed. It doesn't need to be teased with such a sense of doom anymore. Prequels largely have nowhere to go, really.

Might give Clone Wars another try. Quit it after two episodes a few years ago because I didn't like the look. Not Genndy's. That looked cool.

Yea, you can pick up DP on Kindle for basically nothing. £5.99 or something. It's widely regarded as one of the best Starwars books. It's not cannon anymore, but most folk just ignore Rise Of Skywalker (Dyad) and consider it canon.

The (actual canon) new Thrawn books are great as well. Disappointed with Thrawn in Ahsoka, he has a fucking awesome introduction in Episode 6 but acts dumb as shit in 7-8, far superior in the books.

£2.99 on Kindle, nothing.

To each their own, but that's exactly why I liked it.

For like 99.9999% of the galaxy, they didn't now any of the sci-fantasy that we came to love in Episodes 1-9 and other content. They never met or saw a Jedi or Sith. All they had was the backdrop of a war and the oppression (or peace and stability, depending on your view) of the Empire.

It's nice to a see a different story from a different perspective.

I did miss aliens, though, you're not wrong about that. Assuming they did that for budget reasons as I imagine that makeup, prosthetics, and CGI costs a lot. Andor didn't seem like it was necessarily "low budget" but it definitely seemed a bit more modest in scope than most Star Wars stuff (which is something else I enjoyed).