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

Thought this might be of interest here. Spoilers for the whole season, obviously:

 

...that was one of the most upbeat Honest Trailers in quite a while.

 

Got a look at that ending scene again, with the construction droids assembling the components for the Death Star superlaser. Why weren't they using droids to begin with instead of prison labor? Droids don't get tired, don't have to be fed, make fewer mistakes, and you wouldn't need that absurdly elaborate security system to control the prisoners.

 

Well just a few reasons: Slicers, Droid Gotra, Droid Sentience Activists... and first and foremost: Antidroid sentiment post Clone War? Remember, they did use droid labor first when Geonosians began building it during the Clone Wars as a Separatist superweapon before the Republic took over and used Geonosian slaves instead of droids... before switching to Wookiees etc.

Just imagine a little girl speaking in public to Palpatine: "How dare you... Droids are people too!" At least he could have used human and alien labor and fed and clothed his workers. Nobody needs to use the word slaves.. but give them a chance to built something meaningful!

 

Eh, well they're already using droids for the final phase of construction...it would only make sense to do so for the rest of the process as well.

 

Because the cruelty is the point.

 

Well, Cassian says "we're cheaper than droids," and this is probably true, though only if you take into account the Empire's overall goals, which are mass pacification of a huge area in part through mass detention. We see the ISB Major commending his subordinates for increasing detention numbers, and the idea presumably is that the constant fear and disruption produced by mass detention is a necessary part of maintaining the Empire's idea of "security." So if you have all these prisoners anyway that you have to feed and house, you might as well use them to produce something.

Likewise, droids, while ubiquitous, have got to cost a fair bit to produce and maintain, as they require metals, programming, et cetera, and mostly can only perform a limited number of duties. Buying two droids is a pretty major investment for Uncle Owen in ANH clearly, and the droid factory in AotC is quite an elaborate affair. The number of sentients in the Empire has got to be truly massive, though, and you don't have to spend anything to produce them and very little even to maintain them. This is the same logic for why the Empire goes from using clones to using regular conscript and volunteer sentients.

You also talk about the elaborate system of the prison, but really the point of the episodes is that the hallmark of a prison like that would be its relative cheapness. You have to maintain only an absolutely tiny skeleton crew of prison guards, with one tiny command center that controls the floors, for a vast prison population all performing highly productive labor and fed with tasteless nutrient slurry and euthanized if they get sick. This is sort of the point of the episodes, which is that it's a very cheap and brittle system that can't function given mass opposition.

On the other hand, for the critical, delicate task of installing the final components of the superlaser in space, it makes perfect sense to use droids for their greater precision and reliability. And also their ability to operate in space.

 

I feel like that doesn't explain it either. These guys weren't political prisoners, they were petty criminals and randos picked off the street. Not to mention that if the Empire wanted to send a messaging saying, "look at us, we're evil bastards, look at what we can get away with" well, they clearly weren't doing that, because they kept the existence of the prison a secret.

 

Finished Season 1 this morning.







Bravo!

 

Well what are you going to do with these petty criminals and randos? Just let them chill in a cell? Nah, let's put them to work and get something out of them. Got a super secret project that needs working on? Why not use that free labor just mentioned? You don't have to pay them. You don't have to tell them what they're doing. They don't go home after a day's work so there's no chance of blabbing to anyone outside.

And regarding the cruelty being the point, I don't think we got backstories on everyone so I bet at least some are more than petty criminals or randos, but I don't think that even really matters. The message is "if you mess with Order you disappear and no one knows what happened to you". They don't need to advertise exactly what happens. They just need people to know you don't get away with it. Having the prisoners labor away on the next tool of this oppression is just icing on the cake.

 

And if you don't think cruelty is the point I'd say you aren't looking at the world we live in enough

 

Bingo

 

I know it happens in real-life, but there's always a political logic to it...and that doesn't seem to be what the Empire is doing with these prisoners. If they wanted to inflict cruelty for its own sake, then they wouldn't say, "do your time, then get out". They would just blatantly say, "lulz you're going to be in here forever". They'd probably have to beef up security as well if they did that. Rather, it looks more like the Empire wanted efficiency...to extract as much labor as possible, using the minimum number of prison guards.

 

And thus what happened. The prisoners capitalized on the confusion caused by changes in policy that the system was unprepared to enact.

Just the fact that the prisoners being recycled was so obvious, and the news so easily spread throughout the complex, is a microcosm of the empire's inability, despite all it's might and vast resources, to execute the orders and agendas of the Emperor/government fast enough and efficient enough to handle the ever-changing dynamics of the populace of the galaxy.

Quoth the Princess...

Andor has made this line more true to the story then it has ever been.

 

Just got the three (!) volumes for the Andor OST and gahhhhh they're so good!!!! Like eerie 1970s sci-fi mixed with genuinely new stuff. It feels like Star Wars without relying on the old themes.

Some of my favorites:

(OMG this track)


(one of many versions of the "Niamos!" theme that plays throughout the series):


(B2's theme really grows on you after a while... at first it seems dorky, but it's got that forlorn simplicity characteristic of Ferrix)

 

I love B2’s theme, I could listen to an endless version of that

 

Despayre was a penal colony in Legends.

 

I can't believe it took four years for them to get the first season off the ground.

 

Quality takes time.

They likely had to be careful with all the monologs.

That much awesome must be handled carefully.

 

Star Wars Andor filming in Dorset quarry cancelled https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-65338564


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Hmm. Wonder if it will pick up at that location later or if they will just find a new location to film at?

 

Given the uncertainty of the weather and when the site might be safe, I'd imagine they'd try to find someplace similar.