Andor The Imperials of Andor (spoilers allowed)

He is in ANH.

 

West End Games has plenty of those, which is where ISB came from in the first place, so if you can find yourself a copy of their Imperial Sourcebook that would be a good place to start.

Right you are, at least in legends sourcebooks, which admittedly canon seems to be drawing from.

 

Ahhh I've been sharing this fascination for a long, long time . Right now I think there are a couple of other Grand Moff confirmed in canon besides Tarkin (not self appointed ones, I mean) but I don't know much about them; I do believe there are 20 moffs, ranking above local governors.

After Palpatine the most powerful figure in the Empire is the Ruling Council, I think. The greatest power individuals like Vader (basically outside of any hierarchy) and Tarkin held comes precisely because they reported directly to the Emperor and not to Amedda, Pestage, Dangor and their ilk.

On the other hand, in the Tarkin novel, the ISB Director was not present, but Ison and Yularen seemed to be the top ranking ones in the organization (even below them, Partagaz should rank pretty high too). The deeper look we are getting in Andor of them is a dream come true to me, and the idea of them interacting with other agencies would be fantastic too... especially when Imperial Intelligence seems less prominent in canon than in legends.

 

Can I get a a "whoop whoop" for Heert's efficient assistance.

Even though he's on the wrong side and doing the wrong things.

Is he about to be out-manouvered by Dedra and Syril?

Also, the ISB scenes are brilliant. Clever but, man, they are ruthless. Wilful disregard for life - killing a pilot to just set a trap, amongst other atrocious things - just horrible

 

I think rebel pilot would have been ordered for death either way for treason though. But sure we are dealing with evil empire here. This show has definitely done this right. Imperials are nasty and disgusting as they should be. Their ideals don't see rebels as worthy of being treated like sentient beings.

 

These are the imperials I've been looking for.

 

In the latest episode, I got the impression the Imperials in the control room were so brainwashed by the prison environment or removed from their humanity; they were more concerned about how long it would take to get the generators working again! Is this a Syril-like way of thinking/obsessing?

The Imperial guards had the tools of death and rule of fear. It was great to see the uprising against this. The shot of them cowering behind a closed door was awesome.

The addition of a spy in the Imperial ranks was interesting too - trapped in their role by the Empire and the Rebellion.

And we've still to see how these nasty people deal with riots...

I may not like them. I may not agree with them. But I accept this great portrayal of the bad guys.

 

One of my favorite shots in such a powerful episode. To see the warden cowering after the way he and his staff treated the prisoners is such a subtle and poetic approach, it gives depth to even a five seconds shot. With everything from writing to directing, acting, music, photography working so greatly here, I feel the editing deserves praise by itself too.

 

I wonder if we're going to see the Imperials in the last two episodes (riot scenes?) be as instantly classic as Valin Hess (from Mando S2). I mean, Vanis Tigo has had some screentine..maybe more as events return to Ferrix? Deathtroopers have yet to appear?

 

We’ve yet to see that scene from the trailers of Dedra on Ferrix with deathtroopers behind her. So that’s coming.

 

The Arrestor ship was brilliant in this episode. Nice to see a smaller ship and smiler crew.

But still reassuring to see the same, self-satisfied captain at the helm. Another good portrayal.

Lots of Imperials in the final episode. Any story resolutions for this lot will be intense and chaotic and exciting I think.

I wonder if the cloak-and-dagger will be replaced by military might?

 

So I am in class right now and my teacher has been talking about the empire in Andor for the last ten minutes. I do have to agree with him that how the empire is portrayed is the best portrayal of fascism in Star Wars. Man I am glad I took this class.

 

That guy’s wise.

 

Considering that so far only Cas, Mon, Saw, Two Tubes and Melshi need to survive then the Empire can be seen as competent.

 

The Empire can be seen as competent even if they are facing heroes who have to survive. Heroes having to survive has very little to do with how competent or incompetent you let the villains be. The only thing you really need to pay attention to in regard to how cunning you make a villain, is to not make him seem all-knowing, because that tends to let writers write themselve into a corner from which they have a hard time firguring out how to have the villain lose in the end.

The Empire did look competent and was very successful in ESB, a movie in which the heroes survived. And while it lost in ANH, there was still a significant difference between how the heroes acted when facing the villains compared to stuff like the ST or the tv-shows. If you take a closer look at ANH and ESB, you will realize that while the heroes almost always managed to get away, they were still constantly on the run. They took down the occasional stormtroopers here and there, but for the most part they tried to evade an open fight. Compare that to Poe, Finn and Chewie running down a corridor gunning down a ton of stormtroopers in TROS - until the plot suddenly required them to be captured - the same thing happening in The Mandalorian again and again and again, or Rebels having an insignificant number of heroes somehow outclass a ton of enemies, an that is like night and day compared to The OT.

That's why stormtroopers have become utterly useless now, causing the need to add Death Troopers, Dark Troopers, Praetorians and all that stuff. They made the regular enemy troops and pilots so utterly unthreatening that any combat against them has become stale and boring. Add in space combat and it is the exact same thing. Just compare the dogfights of ANH to Poe gunning down five TIEs in three seconds, or Din and Bo-Katan taking down a whole bunch of TIE-Interceptors with ease. These sort of scenes have become filler-scenes devoid of tension. It's not like they don't know how to do it better. Look at the fourth episode of season 1 of The Mandalorian. The AT-ST was almost presented as a monster from an old horror-movie. That was awesome, though the difference compared to how the enemies otherwise acted was very glaring.

The issue with having henchmen who are just no threat at all, is that the whole system starts to look ridiculous. A big bad Empire needs to look like a big bad Empire, or else you might as well not bother at all. And that requires threatening villains and competent leadership. You can have the odd fanatic who is little more than that, but you also need the cunning and ruthless ones who can outsmart the heroes at times.

 

It's Empire, with a capital E, you rebel traitor!

@Oissan I wholeheartedly agree with your post. Stormtroopers, and imperials in general, could have been used so much better than "random enemy to be easily killed". We only have to look at how powerful the retreat scene in Hoth from ESB is. When you see the heroes fighting THAT kind of enemy, suddenly every effort they make seems noble and brave. Fighting two dozens guys that will be killed no matter where you aim, on the other hand...

Funnily enough, it's hard for me not to root for the Stormtroopers lately. I know that even in 40 to 1 odds, they are the underdogs. They are written so much as bots that it's impossible to truly believe there is a person under the armor.

 

I’ll capitalize whatever I please

 

Really, like empirE, or eMpire? Your insolence knows no limits!

 

No that’s just because I gave up on using periods and commas because I am stupid.

 

One reason that ANH, TESB and Rogue One are my 3 favorite Star Wars movies it that all of the rest of them are often filled with joke level incompetent bad guys that the protagonists don't even take seriously. The bad guys are at least treated as serious threats much of the time in ANH, TESB and Rogue One. To be fair, ROTJ isn't quite as bad as some of the others - despite the Ewoks. Andor just takes this to another level and it's one reason the show is so great.

Mowing down battle droids/Stormtroopers in the PT and ST is honestly just boring most of the time. Same thing with Mando season 2 and 3 (1 was mostly ok other than the last episode to some degree).

 

Not sure this has been mentioned here...

There has been some discussion about swear words in SW in another thread that reminded me if this guy...

I'd like give a big round of applause to Linus Mosk for being the first to slip in a real world, non-metaphoric swear in SW (I think).

I really liked to dislike the character. He wasn't daft either. It's a shame he's not back for S2, but that's the beauty of Andor. Everyone has a shelf-life.

 

The worst in this regard was Rebels, with Sabine jumping in among stormtroopers, openly mocking them about their inability to hit her, pausing for dramatic effect (during which they still couldn't hit her, from 20 feet away) - absolutely zero sense of danger or tension. Also, Mando was guilty of this. A character saying he was an Imperial sharpshooter draws a "that's not saying much" reply, to which he retorts "I wasn't a stormtrooper".

Ugh.

 

Yeah, that bugged me in Rebels too. They'd come up with a plan for an operation against the Imps, and a key part of that plan would involve running across flat open ground while being shot at.

 

According to Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide, Major Partagaz's full name is Lio Partagaz.