I watched it for the first time immediately after finishing Andor. Definitely better than the other Star Wars films but definitely not as good as Andor. (I'm aware the showrunner of Andor co-wrote Rogue One, but Andor really seems like a different tier.)
Andor is by far the best Star Wars. Rogue One is very good, and the only movie that's in the same league as the originals, but Andor is so much better.
I don't think we'll see anything on the same level as Andor again; they already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2; it's simply too expensive and costs too much time to do it this well. But I do hope that future Star Wars shows will try to follow at least some aspects of its example: better writing, more human stories, focus on core themes, not on fan service or milking established characters.
Of course production values will be lower, but I can live with that if they get the other stuff right.
I was actually hoping for 4 seasons. Considering how they put 4 different, excellent stories in season 1. Season basically told a single story (the Ghorman massacre) spread out over 4 years. There were many moments where I'd hoped they'd dive a bit deeper into some other aspects, like what would become of the Maya Pei Brigade, the stolen TIE Avenger, other missions where we see Andor grow into the expert spy that he's clearly become. And of course more about how they bring the various parts of the rebellion together, the move to Yavin, etc.
I think there was more than enough room to fill at least another season. Maybe two.
It built tension by itself. Time skips reinforce the idea that things are _moving fast_.
If we didn't have them, it would turn it into a drag. A dramatic year looks much more impressive when you compare it to what was a year before, than when you look at it day by day.
This explains one of my criticisms of the show, which is I would have really like to see more of the development of the rebellion on Yavin, as it stands they sort of hint at it, but I was somewhat unsatisfied by the explanation or fabric of that evolution. Lots of core plot progression are showed through images, when the whole point of a tv show is that you should be able to show it more gradually.
These I think were 12 episode seasons, maybe five 8 episode seasons would have been better.
That "cut" happened before they even started working on the show. Despite the original thought of 5 seasons, it was essentially planned for 2 seasons right from the start.
From Gilroy’s own telling, it happened during the filming of Season 1 in Scotland? That seems to be what he told Happy Sad Confused on their recent interview.
He realised that everything, absolutely everything in Star Wars needs to be designed, that it took ages to do, and that it would be forever to make 5 seasons. So he pitched to Diego to only make one more.
> hey already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2; it's simply too expensive and costs too much time to do it this well.
From some of the interviews I saw it seemed like the time aspect was the big driver. One in particular Diego Luna was talking about a conversation he had with Gilroy and Gilroy was like "God it'd take us 10 years to make this". I get that logistically that can be a tough thing to do with actors, and also it'd be a bit odd to have Diego Luna be very noticeably older in Season 5 than he is in Rogue One.
Return of the Jedi does have the most important scene in all of Star Wars: the confrontation between Luke and the Emperor. The rest of the movie has plenty of shortcomings, but that scene more than redeems it.
They did a really good job tying Andor into Rogue One, but yeah Andor is just far better in terms of pacing, etc. And because they have to rush the plot in R1 (meet Jyn, she doesn't care about the rebellion, oops never mind now she's leading the rebellion) it ends up seeming much shallower emotionally. They also seemed to have to have a bit of fan service.
Rogue One was my favourite Star Wars production before Andor, now I wish they could throw it away and remake it as Andor Season 3. It deserves to be told in full.
Not referring to that actually, I think that was actually a great bridge to Ep 4 that helps put the story in context for casual fans.
More the presence of the Force and Jedi lore. They were so close to not having that be part of Rogue One but were still forced to include the mystical super beings in some way. Andor was able to fully detach from that baggage, focusing on the little people doing their part. And when they did bring in the Force healer in the second season, it was exactly how you'd expect average people to respond to a mystical power that you didn't directly witness. Hope, faith, skepticism, denial, rejection.
As far as Vader goes...it does make you wonder if he's just toying with Obi-Wan when he meets him like 3 days later...
> it does make you wonder if he's just toying with Obi-Wan when he meets him like 3 days later...
I disagree.
If you set aside the difference in special effects capabilities, Vader is clearly being cautious in the light saber fight with Obi Wan on the Death Star. And we know that's because Obi Wan kicked his ass on Mustafar (THE KENOBI MINI SERIES NEVER HAPPENED I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT). And then Obi Wan never actually intends to fight Vader in earnest. He intends to become a force ghost all along. Still one step ahead of Anakin's understanding of the force.
Rogue One was the first standalone movie in the Star Wars universe. There was a lot of uncertainty about how it would be received. I don't blame them for ham-fistedly shoving in there some extra linkage to the main canon... and even with that, it made much less than the "regular" sequel trilogy.
You guys are excluding the George Lucas movies from discussion right?
In my opinion nothing ever came even close and I gave up on SW after the second Kylo Ren movie. Rouge one was cool though, also first episodes of Mandalorian..
Should I really try Andor after all the bad stuff Disney made?
A few days ago I watched the new LILO and Stitch and that was great, so maybe good people still work at Disney …
> Should I really try Andor after all the bad stuff Disney made?
It's difficult to articulate Andor's quality to someone who hasn't seen it & is framing it in the context of things like Mandalorian. I can't stress enough that it's absolutely not just a "better" tv show than Mandalorian, &c. Not only is that an understatement, but it's also a fundamentally different beast to those shows. It's in a different category of quality.
I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan, fell in love as a young kid. I remember being in 8th grade and being so excited for the prequels, and then walking out of the theater after Ep. 1 and feeling like something was just... wrong. I knew that it was junk, and not the Star Wars I fell in love with.
And from there it was pretty much further and further downhill, with occasional glimpses of hope that were quickly dashed. I tried to watch a couple more entries after the prequels, but I finally gave up and wrote it off. I've missed almost the entire last 10 years of content.
A buddy at work finally convinced me to watch Andor, and I'm so grateful he did. It is superb. I read a reddit comment that said, "This is the show that made me feel ok to be a Star Wars fan again," and I can't agree more. In a lot of ways it still feels different from Star Wars. It's hard to explain because it's in the same universe, and has similar themes (which is why it doesn't feel totally out of place), but the tone is different. It's not about Jedi knights on a mission from destiny. It's about ordinary people making decisions, and choosing hope, in the face of the oppressive might of the Empire. But god is it good. Excellent writing, great acting, suspense, intrigue, nuance, and powerful emotional scenes (that are earned by proper story buildup).
So all of that is to say, it might not be exactly what you expect, and it won't simply be "Star Wars, again," but yes you should absolutely watch it. It's a fine work of art.
I actually greatly prefer the prequels to the original trilogy. I suspect it has to do with the fact that I was a child when episode 1 came out and I was still a child when the prequels concluded.
A big part of the problem is that these movies were written, basically, for 12-year old boys. You're not going to be able to get that spark back as an adult, and it's not easy to make a movie that appeals so strongly to both demographics. And much like wu-tang, star wars (and other fun stories) is for the children. Andor is at least more adult-oriented, I think.
So, do I like the new movies? No, I literally slept through the last two they were so boring, and I found the lack of coherent plot baffling. And yes, it does make me a little sad. But seeing little girls dressed up like Rey, I'm reminded that there are better things for me to care about.
I think it's probably even truer of TV series than films that you can't really go home again. But then I'm probably forgetting various Disney and other films that I probably loved as a kid that I'd find it torture to sit through today.
IDK, I feel like good kids movies tend to stay good into adulthood. Presumably you wouldn't feel like it's torture to sit through something like the Lion King (the original of course) as an adult? Like I'm not saying they're amazing movies, but I feel like good kids movies aren't painful for adults to watch. You can still have good writing, it just has to be something a kid can follow.
Some stuff this is true with, but other stuff can age better. I loved MASH as a kid (huge props to the writers for pulling that off), but it's side-splitting as an adult.
Very aware of that. And probably 70s hold up better than 60s but with a little bit of research could probably come up with cringeworthy 70s and 80s examples to (of which MASH is certainly not one).
A New Hope came out between my junior and senior years in college, and I was totally blown away (as I had been ten years earlier with 2001: A Space Odyssey). When my youngest son told me the prequel trilogy was his favorite Star Wars I couldn't believe it, but he pointed out that it was the Star Wars he was raised with, and saw for the first time in the theater; it was formative for him. My oldest son first really saw Star Wars when the Special Editions hit theaters, so he comes somewhere in between his younger brother and me.
I've never given up on Star Wars, though obviously there's little good to be said about the sequel trilogy and much of the Disney output. It took me a long time to even see Rogue 1, but I recognized it was something special, and Andor even moreso. (Though I will admit I like eps. 2 and 3 of the prequel trilogy more than I did at first.)
I agree with most of what you're saying—that much of it is driven by nostalgia, and it's not worth getting super worked up about these things, and it's fine for people to like whatever they like—but if you do want to get into a discussion about art and the relative merits of these shows, there are good arguments that the originals executed on things like character and plot that the prequels just didn't. Red Letter Media did the best review series on why exactly the prequels felt so unsatisfying to so many people, and it's more than just preference and has to do with blunders in fundamental aspects of storytelling. All of that said it's totally fine for people to like them, and you're right that there are better things to fret over.
I enjoyed the Red Letter Media series but felt it was unfair on the Prequels (which is fine, RLM is still a great series.) I ended up watching the OT a bit after Episode 2 and found them to be just as campy and flaw filled as the Prequels just in different places. But this has been litigated to death on the net since Usenet days so I'm not sure if we're gonna break new ground here (:
Oh yea, critiquing movies is fun as hell, and with a franchise like star wars there's basically endless opportunity for it. I basically think Phantom Menace gets way too much critique, Clone Wars/A New Hope/Return of the Jedi don't get enough. Empire Strikes Back is really good, and whatever the third movie is was just kind of bland and depressing(it has some of the best action sequences of the series, but Padmé should have featured more strongly before dying offscreen.)
But there's a reason why the star wars fandom has such a stank reputation, and it's 100% because adult men care way too much about something meant for children to a quite creepy extent. Two things immediately come to mind: 1) the explicit and physical sexualization of Leia, which I understand but definitely don't think was necessary in retrospect (at least not so ham-handedly), and 2) the abuse of the guy who did the Jar Jar Binks voice acting. It's not his fault Lucas wrote the character as a moronic alien speaking patois. I wasn't aware of the abuse until long after it was over, but I adored jar jar binks as an eight year old boy and didn't understand why he was thereafter sidelined. This makes me also question whether criticisms by adults of the new content is a reflection of what we actually loved growing up. Could a character as weird as Yoda make it into a film now without catering much stronger to people eager to deconstruct him into eg orientalist stereotypes? Would Luke really be allowed to kiss his sister? Would Han Solo be allowed to shoot first, really?
Even the sexualization of Leia—look I'm into pulp fiction, I understand what shallow sexual stereotypes can deliver in terms of entertainment, it wasn't and still isn't crazy. You can see the same phenomenon in the current explosion of mass-published erotica ("romance"). But the stories I've heard about what Fisher was subjected to make me look at the fandom with pretty severe prejudice. It makes nerds look bad, and I also think the success of Indiana Jones shows that this wasn't necessary. It's also not the easiest thing to explain to a child or teenager who grasps something of the power dynamic between Jabba the Hutt and Leia but doesn't have the social knowledge or, frankly, cynicism to make the sense of it we do as adults.
I had the same reaction to you seeing Ep. 1 for the first time, but I've come to respect the prequels. Not for their acting certainly, but for the way Lucas' scifi retelling of Roman history is so relevant to our current moment. Clone Wars and Rebels both start out pretty childish I think by the end they're nearly as gritty and serious as Andor.
Update: Clone Wars especially benefits from finding a good best-of episode guide to help move the story along.
As someone who’s starting reading non-jedi Star Wars books, I realized that Jedis are just a splash in the ocean.
There’s Thrawn universe, Battlefront, Rebel era, X-wings, Bad Batch, too many to mention.
This can't be true. I'm reading all these positive accolades for Andor in this thread and there's no way I'm watching it.
Star Wars after Jedi is garbage. Lucas got me with those awful prequels and Disney got me with the first 2 new movies. I will never watch another Star Wars anything outside of the original 3 movies.
Either you never really abandon your Star Wars fandom or you're lying. There can be no other choice.
One cannot be shat upon by corporate hucksters that much and still think, "okay. I'll give 'em one more chance to shit in my eyes and ears"
In a strange way, that makes it a better fit as a prequel for the original trilogy.
Compared to other Sci Fi movies at the time, Star Wars introduced a grungier, lived in universe where space ships got banged up and dirty, various species hung out in treacherous backwater saloons, and smugglers were just trying to make a living in the shadow of the Empire.
That's the reality Andor is set in, without the Jedi, and you really feels the difficulty of living in that reality without magic powers or a laser sword.
It’s a different beast. For me, there’s too many things in Andor that don’t fit conceptually, logically or tonally with the original trilogy. So if you like the world building the OT did and/or hinted at, Andor might not come through on that. Of course, the prequel trilogy (again quite a different beast) had similar issues.
For me it fits perfectly well if you're coming at it from the perspective of people in the same universe who've never seen a Jedi or the Emperor in their lives.
Yes, it's easy to view Lucas' films with a rose-tinted lens, but try and watch them now and you see: poor acting, poor writing, one-dimensional characters and plot points.
Word of warning, because there is just so much praise online about it, it is a very slow burn. I gave up on first season half way through. I picked it up again after first season was fully out because of all the good reviews and was happy that I finished.
I recently rewatched season one in preparation for season two with my partner who hadn't watched it, and she wanted to give up around the same point I did previously and only powered through for the same reason. She was also happy that she finished
> Should I really try Andor after all the bad stuff Disney made?
Andor (at least Season 1) is very slow, boring, suffers from "static heads talking at each other" cinematography of modern movies [1], main character is just not a great actor.
All that said, it's definitely worth a watch:
- most, if not all, major characters (apart from the protagonist) are very compelling, chew through every scene they are in, and are great matches for their parts
- Empire is finally shown as a proper huge, relentless, uncaring bureaucratic machine it must have been. Run mostly by efficient ruthless bureaucrats.
- Rebels are not angels, are not a single conformist mass of do-gooders
- The dialog is mostly great
It's a much better show than Mandalorian. It's arguably the best Star Wars after the original trilogy.
[1] Most modern productions are incapable of shooting "walking and talking at the same time". Most modern movies and TV shows have actors placed against each other rigidly, with not a hint of motion, as they say their lines at each other
I'm on both sides of the fence with early Mandalorian. I need to watch it again until it jumps the shark because I don't know how early it did that.
The latter episodes were incredibly laboured, with the narrative being spelt out, as if to a child, by various characters. I think it may have always been like that, but the look and feel overwhelmed the ridiculous dialogue for a while.
If they were more clever with the body language of the main character, then the others wouldn't have had to carry the direction of the storyline so heavily verbally. Again, I think this was done well early, but kinda lost in the desperation for grogu storyline and screen time cuteness.
I'd have to watch it again, and right now it ain't worth the time.
I watched two or three episodes of The Mandalorian and was very underwhelmed. Childishly simplistic plot, but much too violent to be a kid’s show. (Although now I say that, I guess the original movies are both childish and violent.)
There’s a bit where the main character very obviously levels up and gets to choose a power-up. Then he sees somebody else with a different power-up and goes “wow, I should get one of those”. That confirmed to me that it wanted to be a videogame rather than a serious drama.
Agreed. First couple of episodes are so good, when I was watching it really felt like the magic from watching EpIV again, as everything felt like being introduced to a new culture far away.
It really nails the feeling of watching an old Western movie where a cowboy bonds with an innocent person who needs protection against all odds.
As far as I'm concerned, The Mandalorian started out silly (Manadalorian honor code / the fucking helmet!), disjointed and boring, then there was that garbage episode where he randomly defends a village from Bad Guys, then I gave up on it.
I thought Mandalorian was trash, every episode a video game fetch quest. In general I hate modern Star Wars. Andor is in a different category and totally worth it.
I didn't really think Rogue One was anything special and thought sequel movies were trash, but I still watched every Andor episode as it came out, it is really good.
I think for older fans we don’t get it. My son is 15 and grew up with the animated series, for him that’s peak Star Wars and I think he’s right. His buddies really loved Rogue One. The magic is its simplicity.
I think like the Asimov books, Star Wars is best as fantasy history. The forward looking ones (that horrific “final” trilogy) are just awkward stories.
While you can't dismiss New Hope as it was just breathtaking at the time of its release, Empire Strikes Back was arguably peak, and you needed to wrap it up with the third movie, there's a good argument that Rogue One was the second best film after Empire. And probably Andor as a series after that. Unlike a lot of people I don't mind series wrapping up after a season or two. Even in the best cases I'm starting to lose interest by season five in a lot of cases.
(I think the prequels were worse than the sequels but they're collectively pretty unmemorable.)
I agree with you 100%. I found it interesting that in this particular circle of kids, they rate the attack of the clones much higher, as the animated series is kind of a “Star Wars home” to them.
Any way you cut it, it’s really cool how people consume them in different ways, and there’s enough material that over time we can just discard garbage like 8 hours of walking through the desert.
Attack of the Clones is IMO not bad. Had Phantom Menace (and Jar Jar) not poisoned the well so to speak, I'm not sure the prequel trilogy would be as vilified as it is. Have never watched the animated series.
Everyone gushing over Rogue One... but it was at best barely competent.
10-20 minutes of static talking heads, 5 minutes of mediocre action. Repeat until the end. Meaningless side-quests. The final is a thousand cliches one after another culminating in a "main computer at the end of a rickety walkway" and "a kiss at the sunset".
The only reason it's hailed as the greatest movie ever is because so much of the Star Wars is just objectively shit.
I know what you mean and I completely disagree. It's a subversion a standard trope. Moreover, the fraternal relationship between the two leads is a reference to Andor's arc in Andor. It's an ending about sacrifice that wouldn't make sense in any other context.
