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.
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.