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

In keeping with the usual Databank SOP - not much. Here's a few tidbits I've dug up so far:

Spoiler

Taramyn Barcona is a stormtrooper defector. I forget whether this was mentioned in the show, but we learn what the Starpath unit actually does - "an N-S9 Starpath Unit uses proprietary Imperial signals and frequencies to coordinate and map the relation of a starship to every Imperial asset -- installation or vessel -- within nine radial parsecs." Morlana One is described as being under the control of the "Corporate Authority." Mon Mothma's husband gets a last name, "Fertha." Kleya Marki, Luthen's cohort at the antique shop, is described as "the perfect emissary, messenger, and enforcer, for Luthen's spy operation, with a highly attenuated intuition and unflinching commitment to the rebel cause."

 

Wonder how long it took the empire to reconstruct the surface levels and change the architecture of the buildings.

When did the process start and what actually happened during it? And what happened with the inhabitants during that time?

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Chances are the original inhabitants ended up in the foundations for the Imperial buildings.

 

Do you mean Sheev was massively pulling a Xizor?

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Cassian’s age.

Spoiler

So Cassian was 9 years in the Kenari flashbacks. 24BBY. Means he fought on Mimban 2 years after the clone wars.

 

I was kind of "whatever" on this show last week, when all these critics and some not hardcore Star Wars fans were raving about it because it was more like Blade Runner than Star Wars. I love this week's episode just because it has all these references and Easter eggs to sort of say "see this *is* Star Wars."

I don't think it's the best ever. The slow pace and abrupt episode endings are kind of irritating. I think most other Star Wars series are more effective as TV shows than this is. At least as regards formatting.

Still, I'm enjoying it

 

I have been quiet on this show so far because I’m unsure where it’s going. The first three episodes had strong aspects of the first few Rogue Squadron books, and had Dedra Meero been at all like Ysanne Isard I would have reasoned this was intentional. But Episode 4 has begun to sharply veer in other, new directions.

Quick non-spoiler comments: The CGI is amazing. Coruscant looks phenomenal, better than even the prequals. Even the action scenes are excellent. This show still suffers from the rest of the live action shows’ problems in that the scenery is too realistic (forest planet… another forest planet… dear Waru please don’t give us another desert planet!). But it carries a strong Dark Forces vibe, so I guess I give it that. Not just a certain blaster’s cameo, but the overall character of Andor is very reminiscent of the early period Kyle Katarn.

More spoiler-ish comments:

Spoiler

The first two episodes should have been combined. If anything, their pacing was terrible as a single episode each, and the end of the first episode was like “what, is that it?”. I can see why they began with the first three to get us on track, but I feel as though a little tweaking, not too much, could have rearranged the sequence of events so that each episode followed a succinct plot on its own. TCW, even the badly written cringeworthy TCW episodes, did that. I suppose an argument can be made why that’s necessary, but to not do it makes it seem like someone’s talking and you end the scene halfway through a sentence. The episodes didn’t feel ready to end yet. It was the simple fault of a pacing issue. Perhaps the first two episodes had originally been meant as one, and they split them randomly in between? That would not surprise me.

Regardless, the characters are growing to be likable, although almost all of them started out as dull stereotypes (Luthen Rael being the exception in Episode 3, but Episode 3 picked up the pace). Karn began to catch my interest as a Kirtan-Loor-esque character, who was always one of my favorite book villains. A guy with a weird moral compass, reminiscent of the police officer Jevert in Les Miserables, but the fourth episode showed this was not the case and that while he might have an obsessive vengeful grudge, he’s not working for the Empire. Nor is Meero Ysanne. The entire ISB group has potential, but haven’t been developed nearly enough yet.

Rael, Mon Mothma, and Mon’s husband Perrin Fertha are some of the highlights so far. Skarsgard is an amazing actor here, and carrying half the show with Rael’s character. The potential for Fertha to be a complete a-hole, which may be the case (still too early to tell), is really intriguing. You’ve got two opposed political parties married to one another. How did that happen? Or did Fertha slowly become Imperialist over time?

I’m still confused by the Sep biological weapon, and if it was even Sep since the “future” time claimed that Kenari was an Imperial mining world that the Imps destroyed. I guess they’ll get back to that plot later. I doubt they screwed up and put the wrong symbol on the ship. Would have been better to have alien Seps, but I guess they have to show it’s a virus. (again, Krytos Virus/Rogue Squadron connections could be made here… but not quite)

The dialogue sucks. Some characters have been able to carry it, but unfortunately other plots are played for the serious factor and it just doesn’t work so well. The scene between Meero and Blevin in the latter’s office is a good example. It’s done as a serious government investigation. But Blevin spends the whole scene using a metaphor about Meero climbing the ranks of power and falling. He’s not even talking about the issue at hand, every line he says is a corny metaphor about power. There’s a place for this kind of dialogue once in a while, but this scene isn’t it and certainly not the whole scene.

Everything is very 1970s in the first few episodes, until they get to Coruscant. I guess this is cool? I kind of like it. But it’s also like watching ANH and then suddenly they go to Coruscant, where everyone’s like “the 2000s exist, bitches!”

Overall I’m much more optimistic about the show after the 4th episode than I was after the first three. The plot involving the high-risk theft on the forest planet is going to be exciting, and Rael’s plot with Mon is going to be fun. The ISB and Karn’s plots have potential. The show’s development team just needs to get their act together on the pacing, because I feel like they’ve got a little gem here that’s probably likely to lose a lot of their non-hardcore-SW audience early on if they’re not careful.

 

I easily like Luthen the most as a character here.

Spoiler

I really really enjoyed his scene of getting into character as the antiquities dealer. I want to believe that is the character he is acting IU, and that the gruff rebel is his true face. That was easily my favorite scene in all of episode 4. Luthen going from grizzled rebel putting people in place on different rebel cells to refined antiques dealer spoke so much with zero dialogue. Putting on the clothes, rings and wig was really a great scene.

Stellan is such a great actor. I'm glad we have him in Star Wars and Dune.

 

Hmm yeah, it still feels really slow to me four episodes in. I'll still keep watching though, I'm curious to see where this goes.

 

I think slow is just the speed the show is going, but it doesn't make it better or worse.

 

So...

Spoiler

Mon Mothma's daughter is canon now. I was not expecting that.

 

Absolutely loving this show and can't understand people's impatience with it. We have 12 glorious episodes to enjoy, what's the rush!

 

Spoiler

Surprised me too. But it seems Jobin isn't at the moment.

 

Why would they realize both their dream in the NR. I would think that there who would still want nothing to do with a New Republic. And they are in it not to restore the Republic but to be free from it and the Empire and do their own way after.

Overall...I am enjoying the show. Not all action and explosions. Real character driven story.

 

Spoiler

I presume Jobin must be the older brother, and that he takes after mum.

 

Spoiler

The idea of a young idealist who engages with the theory of revolution, like a college Marxist-Leninist, is a character that makes so much sense for the story Star Wars is always telling, but as far as I know we've never seen before. Historically, so many revolutions were spurred by young students.

Also, Skeen's brother's death is such a real tragedy. There's no psychopathic Imperial Officer who shot him dead in a confrontation, there's not even a "crime" he committed that he was executed for. It's just the ways of authoritarianism and oppression, grinding you down until there's no way forward, there's nothing left. Much of the evil of today is not face-to-face, it's the unthinking systems that make life unlivable. It's wonderful to have some Star Wars politics written by people who can make it real, immediate, and gripping. What a show.

 

Also I believe this is the first time we've seen Imperial Army fatigues? At least without the armor on. I love it, with the pockets giving it a giving it a much more utilitarian look than the clean lines of the officer uniforms.

I'm also curious what they seem to be doing with the light gray uniforms. We've seen them the last few episodes in the ISB Headquarters on what appear to be underlings. Are the stark white uniforms a status symbol of high rank, and before you get there you have to wear the light gray?

 

The one flaw in this episode is it really needs the next to justify the preparations / set up done here. Now that is all good stuff, its taking time for us to know these characters ahead of the action. It just needs the action too.

Spoiler

It also accomplished the impossible: Charisma Voud became Syril and I actually felt sorry for the poor bastard. Well, up until he was obsessing over Cassian's holo.

The Coruscant sequences were excellently executed. Can't see anything good happening to Mon's family later on down the line.

And, at the end, Luthen knows he's set it all up, but can't determine how it plays out.

 

One thing I'm really enjoying in this show is how sparing it's been with more iconic Star Wars elements and visuals, to great effect.

Spoiler

Five episodes in and not a single stormtrooper or Star Destroyer, and the result is it was thrilling it to see that single TIE fighter flyby.

 

Yeah, I guess I haven't commented so far, but this is very much my speed of Star Wars (pun intended). Basically this is my favorite Star Wars thing by far since the old EU started sucking.

Spoiler

I'm really all about tone and atmosphere and detail, and so far they're absolutely nailing that. The Star Wars Galaxy feels a lot more real when you take the time to look deeper into different characters and their backstories and random droids and details. There's a tendency in modern franchise entertainment for everything to feel tiny (of which the Sequel Trilogy was the greatest sinner), but this show actually makes the Galaxy seem big and real and full of different people and cultures and systems and institutions with very different ethoses. From the ISB, where everyone is a tight-faced careerist popping pills, working overtime, and talking in grandiloquent shorthand, to Corporate Security, the ass-end of nowhere with random employees and corrupt bastards and a few damaged idealists and gung-ho gun jockeys, to the even more minor colonial Imperial outpost where you have to paint the rails, to the pastoral culture driven into poor housing and industrialism, to the glittering halls of (bored, unhappy) power, to the collection of bitter weirdos from all of the above worlds that make up the Alliance.

Overall, my favorite thing is that the show is finally remembering that Star Wars started out as basically a hippieish anti-modernity parable. The Empire in the show is, as it should be, the fulcrum point of all of technological modernity, from corporate feudalism to modern global finance capitalism to the Industrial Revolution to Communist land nationalization to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Youth Centers to every other bureaucracy in history to the Dissolution of the Monasteries to every secular/iconoclastic destruction of religious culture to the British Empire to the Prussians to Manifest Destiny to every technological-military system to every destruction of a native people or culture to the entire sweep of 19th century Colonialism and Imperialism. This is really how the Empire should be portrayed, as the appropriately vague, all-encompassing, shifting, melding, utterly hateable Leviathan target of every overlapping anti-modern and anti-technology and anti-Imperialist movement in the last 300 years, from reactionary Catholics to American Whigs to Marxists to hippies and back again. I particularly liked the random aside in the latest episode where the Marxist-esque student guy talks about their overreliance on Imperial technology as a form of control.

This is not to discredit any particular critique of the show from other standpoints. I'm the guy who loves texture and atmosphere and consistency first and foremost--I grew up finding LotR a little hard to get into but loving the Silmarillion. Lots of people enjoy Star Wars for spectacle and action and fast-paced humor, which is perfectly fine. Those people can absolutely watch the Mandalorian, a good show that I nonetheless go back and forth between liking and finding boring. Forgive me for glorying in the fact that Andor appears to be specifically designed for me.

For the things I like, the slower pacing does help, as does the fact that this show is not really about anything or anyone all that central. Sure, Mon Mothma is theoretically an important political figure, but in terms of Star Wars so far she's really the "briefing lady." Cassian Andor was a secondary protagonist in a film from like five years ago. Yet they've apparently handed Diego Luna & co the keys and let him spend as much time and energy on loving background detail and character stuff and atmospheric worldbuilding and modern-radicalism-echoing as he wants. I'm glad.

 

Spoiler

I was so hoping to see Mon's daughter get into trouble as a teenager on Coruscant... seeing some Underworld club or other way she can embarass her Mother by going to party and rebel against her parents. At the very least they could show us briefly a Coruscant High School or other popular youngster spot she is dropped off or Mon gets called to to sort out some trouble.

Can't wait for the dinner next episode... they can't back out of it now, can they?

Aside all the action coming next episode, the direct battle of the insurgents, I wonder how battle-some the dinner will become and show the hidden threats and veiled accusations of Mon's every day battles against Imperial High Society? Aside the already named ones, any surprise guests and last minute changes to the guest list? Hmm.. Would be fun to see Bail bring a teenage Leia to meet Lieda or them knowing each other from school.

Is it only me or is Luthen's assistant the one we see later on with hair down in a different dress and hood walking down a corridor as if undercover as seen in some trailers and promo material of future episodes? Or is that another character not revealed yet? Cause I saw some suspect that character to be Cassians missing sister on social media, but to me that was always Luthen's girl.

I suspect, of all the things that can go wrong, that the battle next episode will not go the way we think at all. What do we think or suspect?
Not all make it alive. Sure! Aside that?
They hit their objective, form a rebel cell and evacuate to hit elsewhere next?
Someone betrays the team?
Someone gets captured and needs to be freed next arc?


This is Gilroy, he knows what you suspect, so he will do something else!
What if Cassian is forced to betray the team to save his own skin? He does not want to, plan to, but it comes to it in the end?
What if loyalities change because someone finds something unexpected? Be it a lead to Cassians sister, be it something else for another character?
What if the mission we built up in detail will fail, setting up a risk for Luthen and his assistant that are prepped to run for it should it fail and anybody talk about him in captivity?
How will Syril and Deedra get to know where Cassian is and get back on his trail once they met up on Coruscant?
How will Luthen probably try to get back in the game and either help him or find/free him, to start over elsewhere?
What risk will Mon Mothma be in all this with Luthen probably gone on the run and his shop and assistant as well closed to her, cutting her off from those she wanted to support and connect?


PS: For some reason I think Mon Mothma's husband is hiding a secret... she is busy and gone most of the time, so what if he, aside being a snob bootlicker to the Coruscant Elite and Imperial Royal Court, has a dayjob after all she does not know about? He'd fit right into an Imperial uniform one day.

And evil me would go as far as suggest that Lieda is not her fathers daughter... given the arrange marriage as teens, does Mon have someone on the side? Her driver looks nice!

 

I would say about that...

Spoiler

I would think Stormtroopers would be something we would see in Imperial bases. As well as patrolling on Coruscant. Also would think we would see SDs in space above Coruscant as it is the capital. They would have some ships on patrol.