Andor Official "Andor" Series Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

MSW is claiming (on their Patreon, crediting a "solid source") that Gareth Edwards is deeply involved in the Cassian show, and not just with a "producer" credit. This could be anything ranging from directing lots of episodes to...being a key creative lead...to lots of other things, I suppose. This is excellent, excellent news to me, and perhaps the best Star Wars news I've heard in a long time.

 

According to this, he could help in producing other shows, Star wars shows.

 

Really nice to hear about Gareth being heavily involved in it, it only makes sense.

I do kind of hold a little concern about potential creative headbutting though, I do think this should have its own voice rather than just be "Rogue One the series" type of thing. It should probably go even darker, and not fall into the trappings of all the big spectacle/scale stuff that tends to permeate Gareth's work. Go small, gritty, a handful of characters in the thick of spygames. Steven Schiff's the guy for that a million times more than Edwards is, and having a feature-film director on a TV set with a bunch of people from what world may just get a little headbutt-y. Doesn't have to, when they're friends like Favreau & Filoni, but potentially can when it's people without a prior relationship.

Gareth for the tone and some cool cinematography, yay, but leave the substance to Schiff & Friends. They're better writers by a mile than Gareth is, much as I love the dude. But yeah, PG-13 The Americans the **** out of this thing, I say, even more than Rogue One as a baseline.

 

I doubt Gareth is involved as a writer. I’m excited about the sheer beauty and sense of realism he brings to worlds he creates, particularly if Greig Fraser is also DP on this one. He can really elevate this from a good TV show, to a great TV show that looks and feels like a film. Together with the excellent Americans showrunners, I’m imagining a visually stunning, epic-scale version of the kind of spy stories we see in Americans. In space.

The baseline should be Rogue One meets the Americans. After all, we’re talking galactic stakes that dwarf the US-Soviet conflict. That has the potential to be one of the best and most unique TV shows in TV history, if they get the mix right. Why recreate the Americans, or Rogue One (or only treat one of them as a baseline), when you can create a true hybrid of the two that would represent a TV show unlike any that’s been done before? There’s real groundbreaking potential with this one.

 

Well, yeah. I'm just hoping they really get into the heads of these people, the nitty-gritty, the psychological stuff, in a way that Rogue One could only scratch the surface of in a movie and in a way that Gareth Edwards...let's face it, doesn't have the chops to do.

If he's directing a few episodes here-and-there, and handling the camera side of t hings, great. His strengths. Just hoping he's not shepherding the show as a whole, as even though I 90% love what he did with Rogue One, we've got shinier stars here in the talent booth. Schiff better be the big dog on set here, Gareth being involved gives me a little pause in that sense - even with the production issues clearly Kennedy gets along with him (and why shoudn't she? He basically delivered, the production problems were way overstated), just sort of hoping he doesn't have more overall clout on the production than Steven does. If you're going grim, small/local in-the-trenches spy stuff, you should lean into that as much as possible. Gareth's simply not the guy for that. Schiff is.

 

Schiff is the showrunner, and that’s because (IMO), he’s going to bring some Americans-level complexity to this spy story. So I don’t have fears there.

Agree to disagree on Gareth, though. His main characters in Rogue One, though necessarily broadly drawn for a 2-hour Star Wars film, are still more psychologically compelling and realistically human than any other characters in the Star Wars universe. I think Edwards is mostly maligned because he doesn’t insist on his characters shouting all their lines, acting like buffoons, and over-emoting in corners of rooms. He has a more observational, less ham-fisted and more minimalist style than a lot of genre directors, and I like that a lot about him. Reminds me of Villeneuve, Kubrick and Cuaron in that way.

That said, I agree with your critique when applied to Godzilla. There his characters were too thin. But I don’t at all agree with that characterization of Rogue One.

But of course, this is a TV show. By its very nature, it’ll be more psychologically complex than Rogue One. So I don’t see a reason for concern.

 

Well, I mean, the criticisms of Godzilla seem to sort of be the same ones people had with Rogue One, the characters not really popping and all. That being said, his strengths are on show in both as well, both total visual feasts with some really nice production design and a real sense of foreboding to the whole thing.

But yeah, all-in-all, Gareth's more than welcome here, especially given the character originated with him. Just hoping "more Gareth" doesn't mean "less Americans team". That show was ridiculously, shockingly good. Like, "step aside, Breaking Bad" level good. Did a re-watch of the final season a month or so ago, it's still just bananas.

 

Right, I just found the comparisons to Godzilla to be really off-base. Rogue One is the most emotionally resonant Star Wars film for me, because of the characters and their respective arcs, and I can’t even remember anybody in Godzilla. So I think Rogue One was a massive improvement.

And I’m with you on The Americans. An incredible show. And its finale? Perhaps the best in TV history. So combining the genius of those show-runners with a person (Edwards) who out of all the Star Wars filmmakers since Lucas, I think gets the appeal of this world more than anyone? It’s a total dream.

I don’t see it as a zero sum. More Gareth, in my view, simply means an elevation of The Americans show-runner’s work. This time, their grasp of character will be clothed in unbelievably epic galactic grandeur. That sounds like the best thing ever.

 

I see Rogue One as part The Guns of Navarone, part The Bridge on the River Kwai and part Annie.

 

That’s, like, the best recipe ever.

 

I like Edwards' Godzilla.

 

I can't help wondering what if they hadn't killed off the leads at the end of Rogue One but used this for episode flashbacks and during the events following A New Hope?
When you've bought a new franchise to develop it feels a shame they couldn't have developed it somewhat instead of what they actually did.
Sincerely wish the best for this series nonetheless.

 

I prefer that Lucasfilm makes great movies first, and then “develop the franchise.” In that order. And part of what makes Rogue One a great movie is the ultimate sacrifice of the whole crew.

 

They killed off every character that could've been pivotal in future stories, Saw and Cassian would've been interesting to see woven into the story of the Rebels between TESB and ROTJ. Or an alternative mission to Endor that happens 24hrs before Han's Strike Team, led by Jyn and consisting of Bistan, Pao and Bodhi. They land on Endor with a mission to disrupt communications and take out a back up shield generator.

Sadly though, because ultimately RO is a anti-war film and usually in them virtually everybody dies.

 

Huh? Anti-war film? The center of the narrative is literally about the main character trying to convince the Alliance to make war (necessarily) on the Empire, then leading a military attack when the Alliance fails to act, which then precipitates “I say we fight!” Raddus to join the war effort, followed by the whole Rebel fleet in a massive military action against the Empire

If anything, Rogue One abides by the philosophy of “just war.” Sometimes, it’s the right thing to do. Especially when the adversary has a planet-killing weapon.

I have no idea how you can watch this film and decide that it’s an anti-war film. Quite possibly the most bizarre interpretation I’ve ever heard.

 

Yes anti-war... where is the glory? What the heroes do is not by choice, it's by necessity, Jyn says so. The Rebels have a choice, be decimated by the Death Star or fight, hardly a pro-war argument is it?

And the ultimate sacrifice...by Jyn, by Cassian, by Bodhi etc...

 

This is incredibly simplistic. Very few people, if anyone, is "pro-war" in general. One fights a war to either to survive, or to defeat an entity that threatens a way of living, or the values of a society. Jyn argues that war is necessary for that survival, and to protect the galaxy against an evil that threatens to destroy the values of the Republic. That's a just war argument. And the main characters sacrifice their lives in executing that warfare.

Anti-war is a philosophy that's commonly associated with being opposed to warfare. Close to synonymous with pacifism. I don't see that in this film at all. It's not a jingoistic film, for sure, and so it doesn't relish in war. But it's not anti-war either.

 

What is a "pro-war" film? It's generally a film that is either used as propaganda to promote a war or it is one that glorifies the war and the violence. I see neither of these in RO, in fact I see the opposite, may be it's something quintessentially "English" in the way war films are viewed. The general aim of the anti-war film is to explain to an audience the cost of war, in terms of fatalities and the psychological damage, not always whether the war was worth fighting.

If you want to label anti-war as a pacifism and against war then that would make every WWII movie as being pro-war. Gareth Edwards himself claimed the film was inspired by The Bridge on the River Kwai, that is considered by critics as a classic anti-war film.

You're fully entitled to disagree, that's a freedom that was won in WWII that we enjoy today, and Edwards may have been hinting at the decisions made at the beginning of WWII with the Rebels dilemma. It could be seen as a similar kind of decision as Churchill had when the Nazi's invaded Poland and the similar decision as Roosevelt had when the Nazi's threatened France and Great Britain. Churchill choose to go to war, not out of necessity as the Nazi's didn't threaten Great Britain, he chose because it was the right thing to do. Opposite of that was Roosevelt's decision to keep the US out until Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. Was Roosevelt pacifistic or was he unwilling to commit US lives on a war that didn't directly concern the US?

The Rebels had already chosen to go to war, they'd already committed acts of war against the legally ruling government of the galaxy. What Jyn was calling for was for them to launch a large scale assault, to commit to an action that would cost the lives of virtually all but a few that fought. The film shows the cost, the film shows the horror, the film shows that ultimately choice was taken out of the hands of the leaders because the Empire had a weapon that would win the war there and then, something neither Churchill or Roosevelt faced at the beginning of WWII.

That's why I see RO as a anti-war film.

 

But the film absolutely wasn't focused on the cost of war, either physically or psychologically. It was focused on the virtue of sacrifice in war, when one's cause is just. Jyn and Cassian's sacrifice was not portrayed as wasteful. Their deaths were portrayed not as tragedies, but as heroic. That's not pro-war. But it's certainly pro-just war. And not in any meaningful way, anti-war. Unless, of course, we define anti-war so broadly that it's essentially the wrong description to use. The film shows the loss inherent in war and sacrificial war acts, but it does not present a message that argues against warfare. Which is how I would define anti-war.

I mean, Admiral Raddus was essentially Winston Churchill. And he's meant to be viewed, in Rogue One, as an unequivocally positive figure.

Rogue One is essentially a Battle of Britain film. Not many would consider that an anti-war story.

 

Viewing R1 through the idea of this series happening, it strikes me that R1 itself might have made a better TV series than film, it's just that that wasn't where anyone's head was at at the time. I do think all the characters are either really great or at least very very interesting, they just don't all have the time to develop with a SW movie framework. Now, the protagonists MIGHT have been better served if we'd cut a bit of the villains story... the reshoots are a problem here because not only do the fan-servicey Vader (and Tarkin) moments eat up screen time, but the Krennic story doesn't really add up post-reshoots and tends to suck the air out of the room as it is. Plus room has to be made for big Death Star moments etc. that justify the cinematic-ness. For what it was, I think the decision on a high (if not absolute) casualty count was a good one, but now that we have a series and no way the time frame can encompass, say, Baize and Chirrut, well, bummer. Which is not to say cool new characters can't be created, it's just that that cast was pretty good and might have been better served in a series.

 

I love it, yeah, a shame the sequel messed with the tone and went all fanservice-y (really disappointing, I really like Dougherty as a director too). But let's be honest, having a knack for actual characterizations probably isn't exactly Edward's strong suit. He's a visual guy first-and-foremost and a big-broad-ideas man, you sort of need to filter his imagination through other people for best results. Which isn't a huge complaint, hell, George is basically the same.

All-in-all, way more glad he's a part of this than not. Just hoping we don't get any "hey, TV people, I directed one of the movies!" headbutting. He doesn't seem like the type to throw his weight around like that anyway, guess I'm just hoping he & Schiff are on the same page with stuff, it'd be a shame to have Edwards win that hypothetical content argument by default/status.

 

Yeah, given how willing he was to collaborate with Gilroy on improving Rogue One’s narrative, I think he’ll be very collegial, and not headbutty in the least. And I’m coining the word headbutty. Right here, right now.

 

Better than buttheady, I guess. Duh huh huh.

 

We're just going to have to disagree.