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

Wow, what an episode!

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This was superb. From the quiet, well executed base infiltration, the Empire's contempt for the Aldhani, its response to the robbery on Coruscant, Mothma seeing that the Senate is a hollow shell, the spectacular escape sequence through a meteor shower, it all flowed perfectly.

The character deaths all worked too. Each didn't feel like a gotcha moment, was different and distinct. Skeen? Bye bye bastard but Nemik? Everyone likes Nemik. Tarmaryn? He ain't coming.

I also really liked how it emphasised the menace of the air base. Much as an early episode of The Mandalorian showed how dangerous AT-STs were, so did this episode do the same for TIEs. It's easy to be dismissive of a trio but if your ship has no defences, they're lethal.

I have no idea where it goes from here and that's a great feeling.

 

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That tribe singing song was catchy as hell ahha. Also look at how bitter the tribe leaders was when he threw the fur on the fire.

I honestly thought Skeen was going to say it was a test but nope, opportunistic scumbag. So did the multi-armed doctor have the same facial features as Maz? Maybe it was reusing the head of the Maz puppet from Episode IX

The Rebels literally worked and Imperial Officer to death! That's cold, yo.

 

Re the broader discussion here, I actually think it's incredibly important that franchise art not be for everyone. Thanks to Marvel and the Star Wars ST and some recent Star Trek stuff, it seems like all franchises are just doubling down on a single formula--this should feel like the old stuff you like!--and doing it over and over again and refusing to experiment. But imo that gets old really fast, and even on a business level the downside is that your audience is pretty much fixed and likely to decline over time unless you're literally Marvel.

The way to sustain a franchise is to treat it as a broader playground for different types of stories and even different genres. You'll always have the superfans who will watch everything no matter what, but individual stories should do different things so that people who like those individual things can watch them. There are a lot of people around the edges who won't watch the latest Star Wars thing but will watch a certain kind of Star Wars thing.

Andor is the first piece of franchise entertainment I've seen in a really long time that seems to be trying to go for it creatively and doing something different genre- and format- and feel-wise from the "mainstream" franchise.

But anyway, per the latest episode:

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Very well executed imo. The Imperial commandant was perhaps a little too slimy, but I kind of liked that the guy he's trying to impress actually seems to be a pretty nice guy--and he's the one who gets killed for being brave and sticking up for the kid. And yes, Rebellion or no, obviously it's not an enormously honorable plan that relies on holding an unarmed civilian woman and child hostage to effectively just steal a lot of money.

It's a reaaaaaaaallllll shame to lose all those great characters (Vail and Sinta are the ones that survive, and they're kind of the least interesting in the group--especially Sinta, who's barely gotten any lines), but it definitely drives home the nature and impact of the Rebellion.

I think what Andor's done really well so far is to give us an ant's-eye view of the Empire and the Rebellion and the GFFA--or really not an ant's eye view, but just an ndividual person's view. So much of what we get in Star Wars is from the perspective of either grand systemic Galactic politics or the elite of the supernaturally or technically gifted and blessed--even the Ghost crew, with its literal Jedi and Jedi-in-training and Mandalorian princess and fabled alien warrior and best-ever pilot.

Most people in the Rebellion are not at all like those sorts of people, though--they're like the Andor rebels. All of these intense, passionate people, mostly outcasts, from vastly different backgrounds and with vastly different interests who all end up slung together doing their best to follow a plan. And for these "normal" rebels, a TIE Fighter is scary as hell; a single Imperial officer is a real threat; you spend months training meticulously, and then complete the mission while losing your entire squad. A Galactic Rebellion would have to have probably millions of ex-Stormtroopers and bitter ex-Imperial officers and young ideologues and embittered ex-cons, and many of them die.

Also, yes, it's almost a throwaway scene, but I do like the glimpse of the Imperial Senate as a half-empty haven of dilettantes.

One presumes that Luthen will track down Andor, but it's also interesting to get such an open-ended ending to the arc. He is not yet committed, though he does stick with his honor and reject the temptation in the wilderness offer.

And can I say, that last scene of Luthen quietly laughing is really remarkably satisfying. Because we've seen what this victory means.

 

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I can't help but think about how sad everyone is about Nemik's death despite it being fairly obviously coming, and contrast that with the reaction to Wade's death in Obi-Wan..really drives home the difference this long term, slower storytelling style can accomplish.

 

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I think it's not so much how obvious it was, but the nature of it. He didn't get shot trying to escape which I think most expected, but after everyone thought he was safe, and in an entirely avoidable manner.

 

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Is it weird that in this episode I was rooting for both the Imperials and the Rebels? Like I wanted the Rebels to succeed, but I was rooting for the Imperials to survive the unfortunate situation they found themselves in. That's what made the whole thing even more tense.

 

I’m consistently impressed by how everyone in this show is written as…a person. The Imperials at the base even had workplace banter.

 

This was really good. Great tension. Good use of them too.

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I liked the Engineer, he was good. he was cool.

Also I hope the manefesto gets more play.

 

This show is full of surprises and I'm loving it

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In the middle of things, the Imperial commander dies of a freaking heart attack... Who would have seen this coming in a SW show? But there was also some nice foreshadowing to it; with showing how the commander got so fat that his old belt won't fit.

And the Rebels somehow forgot to account for Kimzi, a lowly tech character, and it was he who proved to be a "shatterpoint", as Mace would have said.

For one moment, I thought the "doctor" they mentioned would turn out to be Dr. Evazan. After all, he made a cameo in Rogue One.

 

That’s easy, it’s all leading to the actual formation of the Alliance to Restore the Republic.


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'K, someone defenestrate this wise-ass

 

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Strangulation it is.

 

Remember…



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This principle is precisely why I didn't ask what "defenestrating" is.

 

That one isn't going to go the way you think.

 

He did, but not until they twisted his arm about it.

 

Throwing something or someone out the window.

 

See? Now, whatever could it have been that the rest of you were thinking?

 

Something very different than what it turned out to be, and I'd probably best leave it at that

 

As an aside, think about what this means for the historical event known as the Third Defenestration of Prague.

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True that definitely also plays a role in the reaction.

It isn't a heroic death, just a sad and painful one.

 

...This is the funniest thing I've read all day, just FWIW.

 

I find the lack of

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Coruscant High Society Dinner

still disturbing. That latest episode cheated me out of my most expected scenario!

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Mon im Imperial Senate was nice but no cameos there either, and even Luthen got a not so interesting quick scene. The entire Rebel heist was done well, but overall felt too stretched and did not catch much of my interest. Nice space-spectacle though visually!

Hope next episodes are more like the 2 episodes before this one. This one was the weakest so far of the great show that Andor is.

 

Think that scene has already passed. Don't believe there was any intention of showing it. Was just written into the show to show the divide between Mon Mothma and her husband.

 

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