A/V Just Announced 7 Years Ago: Andor!! It happened!!!

The official site Databank has updated with a handful of new entries related to the most recent episode. Beware of spoilers.

 

Except there are trailer scenes of Mothma at a party in her apartment. I think it will come, or at least a similar event.

Ah, very cool.

Oh, hey a name for one of this minor, one-scene planets. Nice, we don't usually get those for a whi-wait a minute? Frezno? Planet Frezno are you seriou - is it in sector California?

Well, I suppose plenty of other worlds are named after real places.

 

On the other side of the coin, the barren moon where Vader and Obi-Wan fought in the Obi-Wan series has a Databank entry that's literally called "Barren Moon."

Frezno may have been a placeholder name that just hung in there and eventually ended up in production. Could also be a GL homage, as real-world Fresno, CA is not far away from Modesto and is where his father was born.

Definitely. Tatooine is famously named for Tataouine, a city in Tunisia near where some scenes for ANH were filmed. There are undoubtedly others.

 

Do you think Dr. Quadpaws went to the same school as Doctor Mandible?

The fact that Frezno was specifically a California place kind of threw me at first, but when put like that yeah I can see it as a homage.

 

Hey even Jedha is a real city... no big deal!

 

Can we all take a moment to appreciate the real star of this last episode, which is to say, the lighting? Even just the interplay between light and dark throughout the episode was fantastic, including how it got steadily darker throughout the first half (until... boom)

A bit of an image dump of how this worked, but it's really amazing (also, yeah, spoilers):

Spoiler

The first 10-15 minutes of the episode is fairly bright like this:

Then we start to see the darkness on the upper edges of the screen, but it's slow:

Definitely starts to get uncomfortably dark after a while:

Military base turns its lights on (we get quick shots to it changing its lights throughout the episode, which is easy to ignore due to the tension in the plot):

Still outside, really getting dark now so you can barely see the characters:

Base is basically black:

This is just cool, with the base in the back - things start to change now:

This scene, in particular, is excellent (the wavering light, the Imp officers you can barely see coming in and out of the dark):

This moment right here steals the show:

THIS. JUST THIS. ZOMG.

(there are like 50 silhouette moments like that, but that one with the TIE pilot is just phenomenal)
Colors start to intensify:

Colors change -- lots of beautiful TIEs fighting

And then a few wonderful scenes like this (rewatch this part carefully, and how the camera moves in and out of the cockpits right through the glass -- it happens to both the ship the heroes steal and the TIEs, several times):

This episode is worth rewatching multiple times, there's so much happening and so many amazing tricks with the camera. And while rewatching, check this scene again because it explains something I didn't catch at the end while watching the first time (again -- major spoilers):

Spoiler

Skeen is actually crying in this scene. That sort of explains what happens next. Is he really so heartless? His faith in the rebellion came from Nemik.

 

TIE pilots got to prove yet again that they're some of the ballsiest people in Star Wars. Here flying their relatively delicate starfighters straight into a rainbow meteor shower like it's a 'bullet hell' genre video game, and in the movies doing high speed chase in an ultradense asteroid field. Zero hesitation.

TIE fighter academy must be like Top Gun, but pretty much everyone is Maverick.

 

With a very high death count added in.

Survive your TIE training? You must be good.

 

Given the Tie-Pilots amount of luck, they should test them for Force potential standardized as Luck equals the Force in SW!

I bet the final choice every Tie-Pilot has to face before graduation is: Either you go up against any threat and condition out there, or you go up against Lord Vader 1:1 in space. EVERY single one of them would choose the better odds, aka not Lord Vader

 

Except Baron Fel. Or Soran Keize.

 

Maarek Stele and the Secret Order of the Empire are watching him closely!

PS: The Secret Order being a Tie Fighter thing, I do wonder if it primarily recruited out of "lucky" pilots!

 

In my mind, the doctor is the same species as Chef Gormaanda.

 

First place my mind went to was this guy from the Droids cartoon, who turns out to have an established race - Jillsarian. It's an easy headcanon from there to assume Quadpaw and Gormaanda are from that species as well. (Surprised to learn that, over 40 years on from the Holiday Special, Gormaanda's actual species has never been identified.)

 

The fan wiki Star Wars Legends makes Doctor Quadpaw as a Ychthytonian from The New Rebellion.

 

I remember watching documentaries on fighter pilots as a kid, and I remember it being said that fighter pilots are rather arrogant as a rule - namely, this was being said by some of the fighter pilots being interviewed. That if you told a room of pilots that only one of them was coming back from a mission alive, everyone would feel bad for all the doomed people in the rest of the room.

 

I feel like they should have just shown the TIEs getting crippled and forced to abort their mission, rather than being destroyed by the debris. The latter feels a bit like too much of the "Imperials are stupid and incompetent" trope.

Yeah, she definitely came to mind for me as well.


Mmm....so far this feels like a pretty bog-standard origin story for Cassian. The only thing that seems noteworthy to me is his habit of shooting first and asking questions later.

 

It more came across as "This is how determined they are to recover the ship".

 

Actually, couldn't they have just flown around the meteor shower and then intercepted the ship in low orbit? You know, like what they did in Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2?

 

Not really. The eye covered so much of the sky over them that the time it would take them to go around would be more than enough for the Rono to jump into hyperspace.

 

Haha yeah you might need to re-watch it, it's not something you can just fly around.

 

Hmm, nevermind then.

 

Woah Holy Mother of Mortis... this episode trumps everything previous easily!

They did it, they did it!

Every scene a big YESSSSSS!!!!!

The music, the suspense, well done, and all amidst that we got stuff I'd never thought we'd see in the GFFA!

I am still processing this beauty of an episode!

Spoiler

Who is Mustache ISB? Armand, that you?

Business cubicles and raised walkways and did the supervisor wear a SW version of a business suit with a brandnew designed version of a SW tie? Brilliant redesign of classic earthy look!
Syril remains great to show us the average life of the GFFA... and the cubicle buro screamed BoSS to me!

Coruscant Brutalism montage for the win, cannot get enough of my architecture P0RN!

DINNER PARTY, WE GOT A DINNER PARTY!

ALIENS AT THE PARTY!

Cute styled up Vel on Coruscant? I initially did not recognise her.. WOW
Luthen's girl Kleya truly is badass... or is he her girl actually?
Btw... nothing can stop me now to ship Vel and Kleya, sorry not sorry!

Moooorrre Spaceport scenes are always welcome!

Let's ID every dinner guest as Mon so nicely walked us past literally every one in every possible angle! Thx Tony for that!

The Empire going overkill in their robbery reaction was so stunningly awesome...

But hush now, I need to finish the episode....

 

Spoiler

Colonel Yularen of ISB.

 

Spoiler

I literally jumped out of my seat when the dialogue showed Yularen speaking and then eventually to the face reveal that closely resembled his ANH appearance. I never expected Yularen to show up as I saw that Major Partagaz would be his proxy for the entire series. Nice to be surprised.

Mon Mothma's scenes were really intriguing. She clearly doesn't like Luthen's tactics, perhaps because that's not what she wants the rebellion to be just like Saw Gerrera. Perhaps the circle she's part of isn't the future Rebel Alliance but a different one that Mon steals away and gets Cassian in the effort. I like how coy she and Tay are about their politics on the Empire. Perhaps that's why Chandrila is a lead world in the Alliance, perhaps the Chandrilans do oppose the Empire but are as cautious as both they are. And scenes with Leida Mothma, this obscure never really mentioned never really explored daughter of Mon in Legends, it's clear that she is being shown off by her father and she's uncomfortable with it but he doesn't want to seem like the baddie so leaves the decisions to her mother. Perrin isn't really coming out on top as a parent or husband really.

Vel dresses up mighty fine and Kleya looks nice with her hair down and in red. I hope Cinta is okay.

Meero clearly sees the greater picture and I have a feeling that now that she has control of Morlana sector, she'll be the one who gets Syril Kahn in her staff. He's the in to what she hopes to do. Would it kill her to at least show some emotion though? The way she roles her jaw indicates the represses a lot and I hope she gets to express it more. I wonder who she's really being warned against? Blevin? her other inspectors? or the "good" major himself?

And Niamos fascinates me. Have we ever had a beach front world?