Andor Andor Episode 1.03 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Yep. He lost his parents at age 6 due to some incident in the Clone Wars. The crashed ship storyline happened when he was what 12ish? Not sure why Maara took to Cassian so immediately. Motherly instinct? And the whole Republic/CIS insignia thing is confusing at the moment.

So anyway - AMAZING show so far. Very impressed. Definitely made for a more mature audience. Not sure how my 11 yr old nephew is responding to it as I think at that age I'd find it very slow. But at my grand old age I'm loving it.

 

I think CIS-emblem thing hardly is error, they had to make those costumes so would be weird they made such a big glaring error and instead of hiding it they really made it clear viewer sees the symbol and makes the connection. Republic could definitely use false flag operations under Palpatine to manipulate populations or jedi. Turn certain people against each other etc.

It makes a lot of sense to blame separatists if Republic officers do something unethical themselves, since jedi or senate would probably not accept it. Sure The Clone Wars is big false flag in itself, but only sith know that and jedi suspect it, for others it is completely real war and Palpatine doesn't care about some casualties if operation makes tactical sense. If Republic officers come up with false flag operation against CIS, Palpatine is just proud to see he has created ruthless officers for his new Empire and he might accept it.

Separatist populations have very little real knowledge of the war, they are being fed propaganda. Would be very interesting to learn more about how Separatists portrayed likes of Grievous. We are shown he is pretty much a monster, but most separatists might have never met him personally and who knows how he is portrayed in CIS media. Maybe as hero who saves people from murderous evil jedi, propaganda in totalitarian countries is like that, ridiculous.

I think Cassian thinks he has been fighting against Republic/Empire since he was 6. He is already fighting for his life when he is part of this tribe on Kenari. So he probably blames Republic on whatever happened to adults on his planet. Maarva might be working for the separatists herself. There is this concept of Separatist privateers in Legends that has not been brought to canon yet. She and Clem could have some connection to CIS. They seemed independent, but that's the whole promise of CIS, independence.

BTW I noticed two interesting details in episode 3 when rewatching.
1. There is new(?) walker or walking droid of some kind, briefly seen in the background when Cassian speaks with Brasso and leaves. It looks a bit like At-Pt to me, but probably something else. I don't mean big four-legged ones that are everywhere on Ferrix (OI-CT I think) but small two-legged one that didn't look like At-St. It may be just a droid though, but don't know what model. Maybe it's later seen closer.
2. For those who complained about the lack of aliens other than "potato-heads" familiar Rodian race makes appearance on streets of Jedha in this episode when corpos are on their way to Andor's home. There is also some possibly new alien designs, one that looks like a sort of warthog-man (Timm talks with this character), One with bluish skin noseless face and small tentacles in head and one with some sort of lekkus and gas mask selling something on street. Maybe these were seen before but I don't recall seeing them before.

 

This one had grumble grumble and pew pew! I don’t care about this planet or these characters at all, though, I wish Mon Montha would show up already.

 

Ferrix and Kenari were interesting enough to keep the plot moving, and the action at the end capped off the downstream drama, but it felt kind of low-stakes given how we know the ultimate end of the story. Coruscant will add a whole new dimension.

I didn’t follow the spoilers/leaks/rumors too closely, but are we expecting to see Tarkin, Thrawn, or even Palpatine? Some big villains could really amp up the intensity, a scene with Mothma vs Palpatine could be dynamite

 

The flashback timeline issues are a tad confusing for sure, what also doesn't help is Cassian is meant to be 21 years old in the series and he clearly doesn't look that young (though he's had a hard life for sure). In the flashback it's hard to pinpoint his age, but depending on whether he's 12, 9, or 7 will determine when these events take place.

After reading everyone's views on the flashback timeline concern, how's this for a theory....

- The flashbacks ARE during the Clone Wars, therefore both the CIS and Republic still exist (if true I'm guessing it was the last year/final months of the war).
- Maybe Maarva (who is a scavenger) is a CIS sympathiser and believes all the reports saying the Republic are the 'bad guys'
- As the Death Star was under construction during this period, perhaps there was some type of weapons test performed on Kanari by the CIS, possibly a chemical one hence all the yellow smoke and yellow skinned human corpses. Or they were mining a hazardous material to be used as the DS superlaser but it exploded - hence why they turned to Kyber crystals!
- As noted by someone else, perhaps the CIS did use adult slave labour in the mine hence why only the kids survived
- Once the Empire came to power, they covered up the Kanari CIS test site by saying there was a mining accident to keep people away.

 

I like how this show is playing around with very gray characters. None of them are good guys. I mean a catalyst for the plot is a jealous boyfriend who may not have intended for anyone to die or for some Star Wars equivalent of Xanatos' militia to come down with a small violent army to catch one man. Timm probably thought Cassian was just going to get arrested and go to jail. It's not that Cassian doesn't deserve to go to jail, he did commit double homicide. But Timm's motivations clearly weren't for justice and I guess he never got out much since this is the same galaxy where the Trade Federation had a droid army.

I'm sorry as lame as it is they named a character Timm. They turned it up to 11 by naming the antagonist Cyril Figgis Syril. This guy is at first slightly sympathetic because it seemed like he was just determined to do his job and to do the right thing. The two guys Cassian murdered were annoying jerks who held him up and were hanging out in a brothel. Yeah, they might have just straight-up murdered Cassian first. But did they deserve to die? Was killing them right? No. A crime is a crime. But it becomes clear Syril is a parallel exploration into the elitism, exceptionalism, lust for power, and violence of Imperial officers even though he is just some sort of rent-a-cop captain. The scene of him standing there with his squad down and rubble on fire is the live-action realization of the scene where Pre Vizla throws an arm around Lux Bonteri and shows him a burning village. Interesting parallel there since Lux later also ends up joining Saw Gerrara.

Even Mama Andor is pretty gray. She seemed to have been pillaging a crashed ship with an unclear affiliation. Before we even get into the discussion of whose ship that was. She thinks the Republic will kill Kassa. Will kill this primitive kid. This is while standing amidst a ship where we have dead men who were clearly infected with something. It seems way too plausible there was some sort of biological danger on this ship and they were wearing the Separatist emblem on their sleeves. The only side confirmed to have been developing a bioweapon was the CIS when the Blue Shadow Virus was being cultivated for the exact purpose of a lethal and fast-acting virus to be unleashed onto an urban Republic planet. We also have the example of the CIS testing a superweapon on another primitive tribe, the Lurmen. She was so certain the Republic would kill him that she knocked Kassa out and kidnapped him off Kenari.

Shades of "Heroes on Both Sides" if this is a real Separatist perspective on the Republic. Republic Troops did commit some horrors offscreen. I like the idea that this is an off-the-books Republic mission transporting a bio-weapon to a CIS home world and we have people disguised. That would explain the lack of clones since these guys didn't look like deaged Tam unless we go wacky with it and say they had the Rako Hardeen plastic surgery. Also, A lack of battle droids if this is a Separatist ship. Let's face it, the kid and Maarva could have taken B1s clowns. That would explain why only a couple of Frigates are showing up. The only Republic officer I can think of who would sanction something like that. Who would be someone to fear around kids is Tarkin. Granted there are likely more. Rampart and Bragg have to be doing something before The Bad Batch TV show starts.

However, it makes more sense if this is all taking place after The Clone Wars. They did use a motif like in the last two episodes of TCW at times on Kenari. The ship in question is CIS carrying CIS officers with a bioweapon meant to be used against imperials or carrying compounds for secret mining operations or weapons. So Republic vs Imperial is interchangeable.

Wouldn't it be insane if this has something to do with Saw's group? Saw had Imperials in Republic armor come to massacre his group twice. The second time Crosshair succeeded and wouldn't have hesitated to take out some kids if they were there. In any scenario, I think Maarva is just a scavenger who was swiping scrap from the mining operation. She happened on the crash perhaps with no idea the biological component was on board. She killed an officer along the way.

This show isn't groundbreaking but it's entertaining. Give this one an 8.

 

I like the idea of Maarva being CIS-sympathiser. I don't like the idea that gas is connected directly to kyber crystals though. I think it would be more interesting to have another competing horror project based on biological weapons and with no connection to Death Star project at all. I seems possible they go that easy route and connect everything to Death Star again. But would be more interesting to portray Empire as sort of horror factory that has a lot of competing projects of different kind of terrible weapons. Krennic and his Death Star project being only one of many projects to suppress rebellion and rule people with fear. Also this show needs some storyline of it's own. Having Andor to destroy one imperial horror project would create a sort of conclusion to his story within this show and Death Star thing in Rogue One and ANH would be another problem entirely.

 

Didn't they say this show ends like 5 days before the start of Rogue One? Seemed like Cassian had been on the project more than 5 days, I would be that this show leads up to the Death Star (indirectly), and doesn't conclude on some other project. That said, I don't necessarily think troubles on Kenari are Death Star related.

 

I think this by far hypothetical Imperial poison project may be connected to for example sterilization of Geonosis which in itself is connected to Death Star project. It all eventually leads to Rogue One and Death Star, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be other storylines or other Imperial weapon projects in this show and some of them could be concluded only to find out that Empire has something more sinister going on.

 

Agreed. But I don't think this show ENDS on resolving some other project. I think this show puts Cassian progressively more on the case to getting the Death Star intel, and the final episode will lead us right into Cassian picking up intel from Tivik.

 

Probably, so the entire story of Cassian is concluded by Rogue One. Should we have similar show for Jyn Erso? She seemed to have interesting life as well. We know of her childhood though, but what happened between flashbacks and Rogue One is not really known. I think it could be interesting.

 

I'm wondering if the emphasis on leaving the mysterious box behind, because it's Cassian that Luthen is interested in, is a bit of a commentary about Star Wars storytelling. Even if it's not entirely intentional.

 

I'd be down for Andor in Reverse starring Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso.

 

The show is the definition of groundbreaking. Literally nothing like it has been done in Star Wars, or (I think) in any sci-fi franchise. Like it or not - I certainly do - it objectively breaks new ground.

9.5/10 for the first three episodes.

 

Abandoning the McGuffin for the character relations. I like it.

 

Can you elaborate on this? What you are saying sound very hyperbolic, but I'd like to understand a bit better what you mean.

 

There has been no Star Wars live action media done in this tone and style. A complex spy thriller that delves deep into the quotidian lives of its characters. It therefore breaks new ground for Star Wars. I’m also not aware of other sci-fi worlds of the social and political complexity of the GFFA being depicted in this way in live action. Star Trek comes closest, perhaps followed by BSG. But those are still mostly adventures or exploration stories. These first three episodes were just so…mundane! I mean that in a good way, but I see why some fans didn’t respond well to that. It’s completely different from any Star Wars live action media we’ve seen thus far. Workplace and relationship dynamics on such a granular scale is new for the GFFA. And therefore it’s breaking ground.

Ground-breaking doesn’t have to mean genius, either. Some conflate the concepts. It just means that this style of story hasn’t been done before in live action SW. That’s not hyperbole. It’s just…true.

I personally love it. But I now understand what that early reviewer meant when they said some SW fans will haaaate it. It’s just so very different than all other SW live action material we’ve seen, in tone, style and content.

 

Then the word really applies to a lot of things.

 

Andor could trigger the next phase of human evolution.

 

In this case, it just means that the show does something live action SW hasn’t done before. That’s all. It’s a descriptive point more than anything.

Wherein all humans wear blue and orange uniforms with matching train conductor caps.

 

plays x-men theme music

 

according to the official Andor episode guide on starwars.com, the flashbacks take place right before the clone wars start. So that explains why a character would identify them as republic officers, cause in that time period the war hadn’t officially started yet, but it’s not exactly the best continuity with Rogue One. Unless he’s speaking more abstractly when he says he’s been in “this fight” since he was 6, like maybe he means he’s been fighting for freedom since he was a child.

 

Maybe Republic activities on Kanari caused the death of his parents when he was 6. If that flashback occurred just before the Clone Wars started, and he looks about 10, then he'd be 32 in R1 and 27 in Andor.

 

Republic commerce guilds were pretty shady even before separatist crisis. Trade Federation was probably not the only one that actually killed people and got away with it.

 

Still gave this episode a 7, but it does admittedly feel like things are picking up. My main issues at this point are really only two things:

1. It still doesn't feel look or sound anything like Star Wars, now three episodes in. I understand branching out etc. But it still has to have SOME sense of familiarity, if they want people to stay interested in SW over the years.
2. It still takes way too long just for one relatively insignificant thing to happen. They could have put all three of these episodes into one really.

I hope this changes.