Andor season 2

Jdawg

Jdawg

Rear Admiral
anybody excited for the new season of andor, I love andor season 1. probably in my top three favorite Star Wars non games media.

 
Great episodes so far. Andor is pretty amazing and so very well written. It's almost incomprehensible that the empire in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show is the same Empire in Andor. They're like in parallel universes, where andor is closer to the expanse and Obi-Wan is closer to Spaceballs.
 
Great show. Must-watch.

Convinced my wife, who really does not care about Star Wars, to take a look and she agrees that it is just super solid storytelling, a rarity nowadays.
 
Vidmaster said:
Great show. Must-watch.

Convinced my wife, who really does not care about Star Wars, to take a look and she agrees that it is just super solid storytelling, a rarity nowadays.
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I'm not going to watch the final three episodes until tonight but I'm very excited. I fucking love the show. I've always been more of a fan of the stuff around the movies than the star wars movies themselves aka some of the books and Video Games Etc.... but this show is a masterpiece in sci-fi storytelling. The only thing that didn't work for me this season was andor's arc on the planet with the oposing rebels and the TIE fighter. that was very clunkily done.
 
I adored this season, strange as my love affair with Star Wars began and ended with the games as a kid, but some of these shows have been my favourite of anything airing, original or established franchise.

I think how you feel about the ending is going to depend largely on if you dive straight back into rogue one (I’ve got a feeling most will and Disney recommends it after the last episode).
 
Pedro said:
I adored this season, strange as my love affair with Star Wars began and ended with the games as a kid, but some of these shows have been my favourite of anything airing, original or established franchise.

I think how you feel about the ending is going to depend largely on if you dive straight back into rogue one (I’ve got a feeling most will and Disney recommends it after the last episode).
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I watched the final three episodes last night and I feel like it's more of an epilogue. To me the real finale was episode 8 and 9 but, 10 -12 is a great epilogue or a great prologue to Rogue one, it was brilliant.

Also this is how humor should be in Star Wars, when they finally got around to using K-2SO, it was just the right amount of humor, bloody brilliant.
 
I really enjoyed this show, the second season was very, very good. I also really liked how it attached itself to various bits and pieces of Star Wars lore - it was very strongly grounded in the Star Wars universe.

There is one catch to all this, however. In terms of material, this is fantastic Star Wars. In terms of spirit... this is not Star Wars at all. It just isn't (neither is Rogue One, of course). This kind of "shades of gray" approach is antithetical to Star Wars. The whole point of Star Wars was always that there was a dark side, and while even the good guys could commit evil acts due to personal flaws or failures, the moment you start justifying evil with the greater good, you've gone over to the dark side. The Rebels in Andor/Rogue One are not the Rebels of Star Wars. This kind of thing would be right at home in Wing Commander, but definitely not Star Wars. It's like a Lord of the Rings sequel that explores Gondor's anti-orc genocidal policies during its occupation of Mordor in the early Third Era. Such a sequel could very well be very well connected to the rest of the lore, and it could be very well done, and very fun to watch, but it could never, ever be a true part of the Middle-earth.

To be clear, I don't object to this show. I really mean what I said about enjoying it - and I'm sure I could enjoy that kind of analogous take on Lord of the Rings, if it was done well (sorry, Amazon). Such things can be fun "what if" experiments, and indeed one of the things I really appreciate about such experiments is precisely that merely by existing, they pose the question of what truly lies at the core of the given fantasy universe. After all, you can hardly say "that's not Star Wars" without first trying to at least define what Star Wars is or means in your view.
 
I feel like george tried to have some of these shades of gray in the prequels with the trade wars and politics of the republic. I think he failed miserably at it, but he tried.

I also just dont agree in principal. Its hard to measure star wars as a whole as far as morals go, bc the original story arc is so basic. This is the hero journey in a fantasy world, with a bit of sci-fi paint on top. The rebels are really in the back drop the whole time, we have no idea of their moral compass. Leia's planet blowing up is a blip on the radar as far as the movie goes. No real emotional impact. The rebel movement is just the back drop or used for cannon fodder, we dont get to know anything about them really. The "rebels" in rotj are care bears after all.

By the time the prequels came along, jedi were treated like super heroes, like a neo from the matrix. Or even worse yet anime power level characters, similar to dragonball z, especially in the games and cartoon clone wars show.

Andor does a great job bringing everything down to a human level, and it also does a good job of fleshing out the universe of how the Empire in practicality would have to function. How to control that many planets at once. Everything from using corporate police on some planets, to having a redundancy department that was a mile long. This is the type of show star wars desperately needed after 9 movies focusing on the hero journey. Or dangling memory berries at a constant clip in front of us.
 
Jdawg said:
I feel like george tried to have some of these shades of gray in the prequels with the trade wars and politics of the republic. I think he failed miserably at it, but he tried.

I also just dont agree in principal. Its hard to measure star wars as a whole as far as morals go, bc the original story arc is so basic. This is the hero journey in a fantasy world, with a bit of sci-fi paint on top. The rebels are really in the back drop the whole time, we have no idea of their moral compass. Leia's planet blowing up is a blip on the radar as far as the movie goes. No real emotional impact. The rebel movement is just the back drop or used for cannon fodder, we dont get to know anything about them really. The "rebels" in rotj are care bears after all.

By the time the prequels came along, jedi were treated like super heroes, like a neo from the matrix. Or even worse yet anime power level characters, similar to dragonball z, especially in the games and cartoon clone wars show.

Andor does a great job bringing everything down to a human level, and it also does a good job of fleshing out the universe of how the Empire in practicality would have to function. How to control that many planets at once. Everything from using corporate police on some planets, to having a redundancy department that was a mile long. This is the type of show star wars desperately needed after 9 movies focusing on the hero journey. Or dangling memory berries at a constant clip in front of us.
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Well, you may say you disagree with me, but I can see we are in fact fully in agreement: Andor is great, but not Star Wars. I said it more outright, you're saying it in a roundabout way, but we are saying exactly the same thing - there was a general tone and flavour to Star Wars, and Andor is not it.

Addressing your points specifically, all I can say is - you are exactly correct. Star Wars was never about the human level. It was never about practicality. It was literally about the hero's journey, super heroes and care bears overthrowing an evil empire led by a cackling supervillain - and about a son redeeming his fallen father. Andor, meanwhile, is like someone listening to that Star Wars conversation in the film Clerks, and saying - "hey, yeah, let's make a fanfic about all that nitty gritty detail, and about what Star Wars would be like with real people." And yes, it's an absolutely wonderful, incredibly fun piece of fanfic, and more kudos to them because it's so unexpected to make something exciting out of those nitty gritty details - but let's be honest about what it is, fanfic :) .
 
Hehe, last I heard the TIE Avenger was getting a LEGO set. I can't think of anything more in the spirit of Star Wars than trying to sell you overpriced plastic nonsense.
 
Quarto said:
Well, you may say you disagree with me, but I can see we are in fact fully in agreement: Andor is great, but not Star Wars. I said it more outright, you're saying it in a roundabout way, but we are saying exactly the same thing - there was a general tone and flavour to Star Wars, and Andor is not it.

Addressing your points specifically, all I can say is - you are exactly correct. Star Wars was never about the human level. It was never about practicality. It was literally about the hero's journey, super heroes and care bears overthrowing an evil empire led by a cackling supervillain - and about a son redeeming his fallen father. Andor, meanwhile, is like someone listening to that Star Wars conversation in the film Clerks, and saying - "hey, yeah, let's make a fanfic about all that nitty gritty detail, and about what Star Wars would be like with real people." And yes, it's an absolutely wonderful, incredibly fun piece of fanfic, and more kudos to them because it's so unexpected to make something exciting out of those nitty gritty details - but let's be honest about what it is, fanfic :) .
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Lol not remotely fanfic, it fleshed out a universe that desperately needed it. I would also argue the 1st 2 movies while a hero's journey, was more grounded and lived in. Yes rotj onward turned star wars into a live action cartoon. But andor does share some dna with empire and a new hope and a whole bunch with the books from the 90s.


I agree with rob here.

 
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Meh. If the Star Wars universe desperately needed Andor to flesh itself out, then Andor would be the TV event of the decade. More importantly, if Star Wars desperately needed Andor, then Star Wars wouldn't exist, Andor is about everything that Star Wars is not.

Again, I really liked Andor, so don't get me wrong. But: the world didn't need Andor. Nobody actually needed Andor. It's a flash-in-the-pan - just like Rogue One, it's a show we watched, we commented on, and we will forget about, because it contributes nothing to the Star Wars universe. Heck, it's worse than Rogue One, because that one at least had a great payoff, due to the way it led directly into the first scene of A New Hope. Andor is worse, because it's like Solo: A Star Wars Story. It tells a story no one asked to hear, no one was curious about, and everyone will forget within a year. Setting aside quality, which admittedly makes this particular comparison downright insulting, Andor is ultimately as important to the Star Wars universe as Caravan of Courage. That's what I mean when I call it fanfic - not because Andor is unofficial or uncanonical, but because it's a typical fanfic story, dealing with topics that appeal only to the narrowest of the in-group within the fandom.

To be clear, though, when I say everyone will forget Andor within a year, I don't mean everyone will forget about Andor. Just like Rogue One, it's going to be a show that hardcore fans mention to others, as "well, you might want to check out Andor, because that was really well done". But when asked what exactly was the story of Andor, their response will be "oh, uh... it's spy stuff, about this agent who... uh, does stuff... and it's really good."

No need to respond, I know you disagree, and there's no sense in arguing opinions - time will show who is right :).
 
I talk about Rogue One more than any of the sequels (well, in a positive light - I remember VIII because in my head it's now forever a chase where robbers escape on segways and the cops never call in a car from the other side, or seem to care when one one of the robbers stops for a cornetto), heck it's the only one of the new movies I've seen more than once.

I think Andor will probably be the only show I remember in 10 years time. I'll remember having fun with the Mandalorian - but I bet I'll have forgotten any specifics (and already have about the other shows - I honestly can't remember one thing about Boba Fett).
I wasn't asking about Andor at the time, but my biggest issue with Rogue One originally was a lack of investment in any of the characters. I feel like the show fixed that and I enjoyed Rogue One even more the fourth time around after having seen it.
 
Well, as I said, I don't want to argue too much about this - I know it's a weaselish cop-out on my part, but I think that if you like Rogue One and Andor that much, this just means that the core Star Wars products were never really your favourite, and by extension, Star Wars in general was never a favourite franchise precisely because of its fantasy aspects and lack of realism (and I'm pretty sure we've had conversations to this effect in the distant past, Alex :) ). There is, at the end of the day, a reason why Andor's viewership numbers are so low in spite of its very high review scores. I genuinely believe that most Star Wars fans just don't care about Andor, because it doesn't scratch that Star Wars itch - sure, they enjoyed it if they bothered to watch it, but most didn't bother to watch it, and most of those that did watch it just don't see it as very important. I will insist - without bothering to back this claim up with evidence - that to the overwhelming majority of the Star Wars audience, Star Wars is about the Force, light sabres, Jedi, and the Skywalkers.
 
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