Andor - Is this... good Star Wars?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2022
- Some have called it slow, some have called it clever; some find it boring, others are intrigued. Is Andor any good? And, more importantly, is it even Star Wars?
Support the channel!
Patreon - / thelittleplatoon
Substack - Bonus Content (from the other guy)
platoonpost.substack.com/
Friends of the channel - go subscribe
@TheMovieCynic
@MrBrownAlliance
@GEEKWHATInc
The Critical Drinker's Open Bar discussion
• Open Bar #24 - Andor, ... - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
The complete review: th-cam.com/video/xLHFqnrC3uQ/w-d-xo.html
You should do the last three episodes!!
That last line was like the End scrawl from Ego of Ratatouille.
the ussr, ccp, north korea are totalitarian not communist or socialist. all are totalitarian. we call nazis fascists and not socialists right? then why call any country or nation communist when they arent? your spreading the most basic american propaganda and its cringe.
You horrible little racist twat
44 seconds in and I already don't give a fuck.
The dialogue is phenomenal compared to just Star Wars but also 95% of other shows as well. It took me by surprise.
Andor’s has shockingly realistic, naturally written dialogue. It’s beyond impressive - it even matches if not upstages House of the Dragon.
Then there is the sets and cinematography and fight choreography. All A+.
If the dialogues of "Andor" are surprising, it is doubtful how much you have seen in your life.
@@davidluduena8730 it’s not an Aaron Sorkin movie.
@@JoJoJoker very far from it.
@@davidluduena8730 You seem to be a bit mentally retarded. When a company released shows and movies with horrible dialogue then out of the blue has a show with good dialogue. Well then that is surprising…..
"Theres no reason for Young Andor to be angry during the flashback scenes..."
Totally, should be sunshine and rainbows after the imperials show up to your planet, strip it down and kill members of your tribe. Hmmm I wonder why he's upset.
Also his very first point about a manufactured conflict “he has no facial expressions” yeah almost like a guy trying to lay low in an extremely dangerous area 🙄 this dude is off his rocker lol
Was mashing away at my keyboard but you beat me to it.
Especially when they kill the teenager you idolize who let you go on your first expedition with the big kids and you copied her face paint and thought you were so grown up and tough but it turned out you were just a scared little kid and you let her die. Not sure why seeing your reflection, with the face paint, would remind you of all this and make you blow up or anything.
It was probably the Republic that ravaged his home planet, excellently showing that colonialism is not something the Empire has monopoly over. But I totally agree with your comment - of course Andor will be angry at colonizing powers.
@@davidrossi5096 Expressionlessness is something I had not registered until now, and it only lends more credibility to Andor. Russians, Chinese, they clearly learn to suppress their expressions so they can go unnoticed.
I took Marv's "when the banging stops" threat to be psychological warfare. She was trying to freak out the Corpos so that when the banging eventually did stop, they would be too frightened to continue to worry about her.
The banging seems to really just have been a warning to everyone to get to cover because the presence of the Corpos could get people caught in the crossfire. Marv used that practice to her advantage.
No one:
Literally not a single soul:
People who haven’t watched the show (for some reason) reading the first sentence: Hol’up
That’s a good explanation, but I think that constitutes doing at least a bit of work on the writers behalf. It may be I was expecting something too generic, but you’d have to make just as many assumptions to arrive at the other conclusion. I do like that reading of it, though. Hadn’t considered it while writing the script.
Nice fan fiction
@@TheLittlePlatoon That's completely fair. I would just say that it occurred to me immediately on the first viewing. I might just be reflexively plugging plot holes but that was the impression I got from the scene.
@@DirectorDelta touche
I totally felt the guys in the bar at the start never really thought Andor was laughing at them, they were just making something up to try and provoke him. Something to give them an excuse to cause violence toward him in a public place but Andor never took the bait. I genuinely thought thats how the writers were trying to portray that scene right when I watched it.
met 2 guys like that recently in a bus. They were harassing people (me included), no reason for it other than we were there
"Wanna get some service at the brothel?"
"Nah, let's bully a stranger instead"
and he made the wrong analysis by linking this scene to a cowboy in a bar trope when it's obviously police harassment
@@sneeson They were getting jealous that Andor is getting the barmaid's attention, and also they are drunk. Not unusual to see drunk people behave like that at all. All the interactions depicted in Andor are pretty much spot on realistic. But hey some SW fans need cartoonish SW because they're children.
@@zxbc1
So they made a Star Wars show specially for people who think Star Wars is childish?
AKA not Star Wars fans.
They've been doing that for a while now, it's not working out too well 🤣
Tbf, explosives weren't "spawned" in the street... the previous scene Cassian asks if he has more slap charges left when he's looking at the decoy speeder... the decoy speeder crashes near those three guys, the explosives are triggered... seems like a pretty simple setup, but I get how people might have missed it
I get how people may miss it, but they shouldn’t if they are to do an analysis and claim it as a mistake
I don't know, I thought Tim made enough sense as the jealous boyfriend. The first time he meets Cassian is in a seemingly close/secretive relationship with his romantic interest. He's the jealous boyfriend who goes a bit over the top, which I thought was reasonable enough. Though I did think the initial stalking was a bit odd at first since his introduction gave me the impression that his relationship with Bix was less developed than it apparently was.
He's a 3 dating a 7,of course he's going to be possessive/suspicious lol
From a logical point of view, always marry a woman uglier than you
@@kirathekillernote2173 In that case, I'm screwed.
It's just really lazy and stock. He is really nothing but "jealous boyfriend", being jealous, doing the things the jealous do, and all he does is call the cops on our protagonist, something any number of people could have done.
@@derekdrake8706 There's always someone worse, put effort and you'll be just fine
It’s obvious that young Andor and his friends are all wearing adult sized clothes but there’s no adults.
And they don’t explain it. Which is bloody great.
@@ThaUltimateHunter yes, that's what the original comment is referring to
I thought what happened was super obvious when I watched it. They mention the disaster on Kenari many times. I'm fairly certain that they're the children of all the worked from those mines. There was some sort of accident that lead to all the children being parentless and having to create their own society
@@BlarghMeow I also wondered where the adults were. One thing I noticed as an inconsistency is the ship that crashed was a Republic ship, so we're to assume this was during the clone wars when Andor was a kid. However in one of the later episodes it was said the Empire abandoned that mining operation due to toxins, but it was already abandoned when Andor was a kid...
@@zaab-yaoh9302 not an inconsistency. The Empire is the Republic, not an entirely separate entity, so it makes sense for people to retroactively use the new name. People do it all the time when talking about history.
If Andor was born on 33 BBY and was taken when he was nine, that would be about five years before RotS.
@@user-yo7hz8gw4t seems like made up head cannon explanation. Easier explanation is writers aren’t perfect. Loved the show btw. Andor is my favorite, story wise.
I think you're missing nonverbal cues for young Andor. There was a scene where he was staring at the leader girl that died. He then copied her makeup style with the mark down the middle of the chin. You can tell he either looks up to and respects her or has affection for her. He also wasn't the only one up top right before she died, the entire clan was. I dont think he was left there as a lookout, I think he was just there with the rest of the clan hdiding in case something bad happened. And his reason for destroying the ship is because the people that came out of it killed the girl he either looked up to or liked.
Not to mentioned we are easy to judge seeing movies, taught , etc. what to do and how. If they were kids left there their parents dragged away as slaves or sg., they might saw blaster fire, shiny dangerous thingy the first time. He seeing his reflection for the first time also shows their level of understanding things.
I'm sure there will be references later too, due to her sister.
Also for me it was clear it was a flashback, since the droid's paint was new, intact.
This show like to just hint things, and let you wonder about the details.
Agree, he seemed to miss most of those subleties, including Marva's very obviously different hair color in the flashback. Kind of surprising, I thought he was more observant than that.
@@CatalinaAquarium I have to admit there were multiple scenes through these episodes i also missed watching them for the first time. Including why Luthen tried to break off from the tractor beam (so they turn it up to max (from 2 to 5) making his counter measure more deadly), Luthen speaking about artifact via com with his assistant (it was code for finding and eliminating Andor before it's too late), or Mon Mothma framing his husband for gambling to leak false info to ISB, etc. etc. etc.
This is a remarkable show, with no "we will show it 3 times then even tell you then show it again, chew it in your mouth", as in most shows. Which I highly appritiate. But underestimating the show is super easy because of this, easy to miss multiple subtle clues, indications.
And many things come only from deduction, never directly shown or told.
(For example what Bix told the ISB regarding is Kreegyr the Axis, but since they are still hunting for Axis after Kreegyr is eliminated it's clear they know heisn't Axis, Bix confessed them the truth)
I am pretty sure kid Andor had a chance to maybe prevent that person being shot in the back but was too scared to say anything. Then in the wreck he had a little moment of self reflect and got angry with himself and started smashing because he is a kid and probably doesn't have much emotional control. IDK, it might have been what the writers where trying to get at, but the kid actor just wasn't able to portray it very well.
I took that has Andor rebellious spirit, he always does things on his own while everyone was taking care of the leader he went for revenge by destroying.
Later u see that he cheets, swindler everyone on Ferrix for his own goals, when he joins Aldani heist is for his own goals too, but has the show progress you can see a change in how he operates and relies on others or urge them to action like when he was in prison and finally ending in him becoming ready to face the Empire once again.
Disney is so arrogant that they could never imagine that someone like the Andor writers could be among them. Be in their production studio, take their funding, and use their marketing machine. All to produce something with a message so fervently against their own interests with their own tools.
Andor is art on so many levels, especially in the irony of the corporate environment it was created.
I wonder how nobody's been talking about this!
@@armingunther5171 I’ve seen some small channels touch on similar themes that inspired my comment, but all the big channels are just copying and pasting the same analysis.
Careful! You go spreading that message to much the suits might get wind and shut down season 2! Cool username btw
@@DatJNP Thank you! Don’t worry, they’re too arrogant to realize.
Fair point lol@@Fractured_Unity
I've heard from several reviewers about the "lack of expressions" from Cassian and I'm so confused. He is miserable the entire season and it shows. Not only that, but the subtle changes in his expressions tell so much. The moment after he kills the second guard focuses on his expressions and his acting is brilliant.
Same, I think his acting is phenomenal! Add to that that Cassian is a pretty guarded person anyway and it makes so much sense that he doesn't telegraph his emotions like that. And it is also so much more interesting to watch.
yeah ive seen that criticism go around but i never agreed either. his acting is definitely much more subtle but its not bad or absent. he has very small shifts in his body language and especially his eyes that convey what hes thinking constantly
I think it's because he's intentionally playing a very subdued almost depressive nihlistic role. (as opposed to the more common nihlistic stance which isn't depressive at all. Most Atheists are nihlistic and continue living life perfectly normally, because while they don't believe in any universal meaning they prescribe their own meaning to life) He very openly is just trying to get by and generally hates most of the world as his default setting.
Timm's "I'm getting tired of hearing that" is a shining example of Andor's effective writing. It tells us that Timm and Cassian has had that "are you hitting on my gf?" conversation multiple times. And to put a nail in the head, Cassian replied with "Then you better find yourself a less complicated woman", which is basically just telling Timm to go find a new girl. That is 100% sus
^this..
Also I am more than a little confused about totalitarian regimes (corporate or state) which value loyalty and toeing the line (aka the Empire or RL life dictatorships or even the Nazis ) find themselves outsmarted by people daring to abuse the system "obey and do not question" against them, and pretend. LP, please just take a look at the plethora of espionage coups (and grifts ) relying on people assuming stuff is in order if presented with it forcefully enough, British society loves their daring commando coups from WW II times...
..... leading to stuff like capture of Enigma rotors, codebooks, or waltzing into the HQ of the British army in North Africa to talk to the commander in chief (done by SAS co -founder David Stirling, ) etc etc etc. Don't think stealing an IFF_Nav database is all that much more difficult, especially given that Andor is working in ship repair/disassembly
Around 1:03:27, you talk about how the chaining of the ship wasn’t set up. I thought it was…we got a shot of Andor’s friend walking away from it.
Also, just because they are employed by the corpos doesn’t mean they like them. The working conditions look terrible, and they probably aren’t paid much. They are also forced to wake up at a specific time every day, and have a set curfew.
It's also pretty clear that Ferrix, unlike the world we opened on, has little to no corporate presence on planet aside from punitive expeditions like Cyril's. It's an oppression of the 'things suck, and no matter what you do, things _still_ suck' type rather than a more literal boot on your face.
Yeah, when he walked away from the ship, I instantly knew that thing wouldn't fly anywhere. How could anyone miss that?
It was 100% set up and very clearly so.
Even more reason why they wouldn't actively destroy and kill their employers. Then again, I think the bigger problem about that whole thing is the Corpos parking their Ships in that junkyard and then leave it unsupervised in the first place. You'd think the City would have some sort of Police Station or anything where they could land.
There's a line from one of Syril's co-workers when he asks about finding a Kenari male on Ferrix, where his co-worker says something along the lines of "It's in our jurisdiction, but we don't run things out there; they've got their own way of doing things." I think it sets up finely that Ferrix is an independent world that might simply pay tax to Preox-Morlana. It is, after all, in the "Free Trade Sector" of Morlana space.
Andor is just phenomenal television.
I've been procrastinating to watch it because I'm worried that it will be like Rogue One, passable, but applauded as 'great' because of the endless stream of shit released by the same studio. I hope you're right
@@xitaris5981 its very very good, if you like good story telling. Beste series of the last years!
@@xitaris5981 Rogue One was the best of a bad bunch(a low bar, yes), with some genuinely great moments. But Andor was just great on its own merits.
It’s fucking awful.
Phenomenal compared to everything else in the past 10 years. 😢😢 Old films, (some) video games, and Arcane are all I can truely enjoy now.
The only reason it wasn't weird for me when the town people started banging metals to signal to each other, and in fact it was familiar for me, was because I live in a society where people collectively hate any armed person in a uniform; someone sees a police on the street, they start to honk their horn, and suddenly and unexpectedly everybody joins in on this irritating civil disobedience just to annoy the uniformed person and show them just how many people hate them. But I guess it's correct that for most people this scene might be a bit unexpected and unexplained in universe.
I live in Europe, so it's not something that I was familiar with. Yet I still understood the reason for the inhabitants banging on metal. It's set up well enough in the previous episodes how exploitative the empire is, and how their out-sourced police force is partly filled with people, who use their newfound authority as an excuse to bully others.
I find it rather irritating, that we are then to assume that people on this planed somehow have not come hate the corpos - just doesn't really make sense.
Some of the points he makes in this video are a bit questionable, as it shows that he just wasn't paying attention. Rather than it being an issue with the show.
Andor has a lot of deep themes around occupation and colonialism/imperialism. For a Euro-American audience most of whom have no cultural memory of being occupied or colonised for very long (yes I know it happened during the war) this sort of thing is alien. Especially for North Americans and Brits. Show it to someone from Ireland though and they'll know exactly what's going on.
You missed Tim's introductory scene...he gives looks at Bix and Andor. He clearly is suspicious of their current relationship (and its implied that they did have a past intimate one, which Tim might be aware of). Bix also disappears a lot. So all of that makes Tim suspicious. So when the bulletin comes, he see's Bix's reaction and then wants to see what she read. I think all of this is established.
Yeah. That's the one area in which I think Platoon dropped the ball a bit. It was quite evident before that he was suspicious of Bix's relationship with Cassian, and seeing the two of them meeting in bars and whatnot only increases his suspicion of cheating, so he looks for info, and upon discovering Cassian was wanted for murder, he rats him out for one of 2 reasons. Either he was super jealous and spiteful, or he wanted to protect Bix by getting rid of Andor, knowing that association with a wanted man was extremely dangerous. Whatever the case might be, I don't think his behavior is too strange or plot device-ish. If a guy suspects someone is moving in on his girl, he'd probably want to gather info as Tim did, and the reaction to that info depends on the person.
I agree that’s the chain of events. What I don’t think was sufficiently established was the justification for that chain of events. I think you have to make some pretty big (and not invited) assumptions about their background and relationship, which the show presents as a relatively recent thing. I understand the point of his suspicions and where they come from, but the mere fact of suspicion doesn’t justify (or make plausible) any and all subsequent actions. So I think you’re right in that this is what the show probably intended, but I’m criticising how it delivered on that intent. Underdevelopment, not *no* development.
I thought Bix was one of the kids on the planet with Andor when he was a kid. Tim mistakes their long friendship for more and is mad jealous.
@@TheLittlePlatoon I don't know, when your GF is being seen with some other man a lot without adequate explanation of their relationship, and other times flat out leaving without explanation, only vaguely answering quarries with "Running errands." I think any man would be suspicious and want to investigate farther. The reasonable suspicion is followed by a reasonable investigation, where Tim attempts to figure out where Bix is going and what she was up to. He then only discovers information that seems to hint at her cheating with Andor, and with him clearly being the jealous type and perhaps a little drunk, Tim reports Andor, reflecting a lack of moral character. I'd hardly call this a situation in which "Any and all subsequent actions" are entirely unjustified. In fact, everything but the snitching on Cassian was entirely justified from his POV.
@@TheLittlePlatoon That's fair, I thought his reactions to seeing Andor conveyed enough for the viewer to make that inference. I think this speaks to a larger point about this "EFAP" review style. I love your work and also enjoy Mauler...but this frame by frame analysis has the tendency to miss the forest for the trees. Like discussing the triangle ship. Not sure why that even warranted a comment for example (and to add a comment, I welcome new designs and shapes. How many triangle ships do you want to see?) I appreciated your Star Trek commentaries as you looked at the big picture...that is looking at the forest...not nit picking every tree (and yes, I know you would not call it nit picking but at some point that is what it becomes as legitimate criticisms get lumped in with nit picks about the shape of the ships).
This is genuinely one of the worst criticisms of a show I've ever seen. At one point you're lamenting the show for not letting you fill in the blanks and then criticizing it for not filling in the blanks when the show literally does. The writing isn't even subtle, you just straight up miss it. Most of your problems are nitpicks or questions that are answered later in the season, you know, as shows tend to do. Actually incoherent.
Dropped the video a short while in to scroll through the comments, precisely because of this.
Most of his criticism so far has been vapid at best, mostly just him failing to pick up on obvious subtext or even just text, or him crying about shit because it offends his dumbass sensibilities.
They were making up a reason to mug him, he didn't cause any actual problems. Hope this helps your understanding of the opening
3:48 when I watched it, I interpreted his expression to mean irritation and trepidation (like he really didn't want anything to draw attention to him but he knew those guys would do something stupid. So he was anxious).
His expressions convey a lot.
How I understood Cassian tagging along with his tribe during his backstory, it seemed like it was his first time joining them, was the other kid had smacked his hand away from the face paint as if he wasn't allowed to use it and therefore not allowed to go. This would explain his fascination with seeing the abandonded mines for the first time, why he kind of just froze on the spot when the Republic dude was getting up, and why it took him until his friends were carrying the shot girl back to camp to actually come out of the shock and get angry. I agree his rage fit in destroying the ship controls is seemingly random and only used to keep him there long enough for Marv to find him, but I don't think it's completely implausible. I always enjoy your insights, and look forward to the rest on this series.
Never underestimate writer Tony Gilroy.
All of this being rather obvious. Not sure if this reviewer is being intentionally thick, or is really this unobservant
Yeah, i found this part very obvious. The leader had to tell off her seeming second-in-command because he was trying to prevent Kassa from joining the scavenger party. Even the first time watching it, I understood that it was clearly his first time.
My man here jumping to conclusions so fast he could win Olympic games
Re: Child Kassa marvelling at the mining operation while the others just walk past: I got the distinct impression from the earlier interactions, with the hand-swatting and face/arm painting, this is Kassa's first time out, and the older kids weren't too keen on him coming this time, either. So he may have genuinely never seen that mining site before.
And as for taking it down a notch, and dealing with the Imperial underlings rather than the "proper" Empire... I'm all kinds of happy about that. Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight did this rather effectively, as well. The first several stages in that game are spent in seedy underbelly areas fighting rando thugs and stuff... You don't see your first stormtrooper in that game until like... mission 6 or something, so it feels *big* when you actually run into them, as opposed to the first Dark Forces where you're gunning down legions of Stormtroopers by mission 2. I can appreciate a slow burn, and the longer we wait for the first stormtrooper, the more impact it will have. Hopefully at that point they don't fall back to the meme-ish "lol stormtroopers can't shoot" nonsense... rather than our introduction to them, where they absolutely curbstomped the Rebel troops in the first movie. Then do it again in Empire Strikes Back.
I do see many connections to Dark Forces 2, the fmv's with the macro binos i felt were similar.
This was my read on Kassa as well, which also is why I didn't have a problem with his wide-eyed acting. I saw him as an innocent (inexperienced) child that wanted to imitate the older kids, but had no idea about the dangers outside the camp or what he was getting into. To him, this was all just a big adventure, and I think he probably didn't think to warn the others about the guy getting up because he just didn't understand the danger. If that was the case, he could have felt that it was his fault that the leader was shot when he did nothing to warn her, and that could have caused his anger. I still think that one of the other 20 kids that all seemed to be watching the same area should have spotted the guy slowly getting up, but whatever. I agree that these flashbacks were not the strongest parts of the show.
How are there only kids on that planet? Is it ever explained?
@@SwiftNimblefoot Don't think so. Wondering if maybe we'll get into it later, when/if someone actually gets close to Cassian.
The teenage girl leader was his hero. She OKd him going out with the big kids. He painted his face like hers. He was so proud to be allowed on the expedition. When she was shot, he was frozen in place, just a scared little kid, had just been admonished to stay quiet. He blamed himself for her death. He saw his face painting in the reflection. He was angry at himself, thinking he was big and tough, but he had let that happen to the girl he thought he was growing up to me like. He was angry at everything the ship represented, the chain of events leading to the death of the girl he admired.
He entered the ship despite the risk for the same reason he followed a lead about the whereabouts of his sister and went to that planet despite the risk. It's in his character. He had to know; he couldn't not do it.
This reviewer missed the entire storytelling and meaning of the flashbacks.
Maarva looks like she's in her 50s in the flashbacks. She looks like she's close to 80 in the present, or about 20 to 25 years older. Seems about the same amount of years Cassian aged.
@1:01:50 If you paid any semblance of attention, you would know that he was informed that the fugitives were heading their way and as an added measure he tells the other security officer to keep pushing Cassian and Luthen towards their squad.
The bar scene is fine.
You're skipping over the fact that they're corrupt cops, already drinking, Andor dead pans their brash yet still friendly introduction, has gotten service earlier than than them and is also being served by someone they'd rather see than what they are to be provided later.
It may seem light, sure - but it still ultimately escalates from there.
The lines of "is there something funny" is more him commenting on his own appearance as just a look form Andor, someone who he is currently already annoyed of, is now eyeing him up. The intention isn't meant to have Andor "do funny".
Not sure how much you go to clubs, bars or pubs but dumb confrontations like this is pretty damn plausible given the situation.
Please do the later episodes, especially episode 10, Luthens speach is some of the best written Star Wars I've come across. To me, the fact that my mind was screaming "everything" throughout the crescendo of the speach speaks to its impeccable craft.
he won't he's a limey fag and he just likes to complain and all the silly things he complained about in first 3 episodes were explained in further episodes so it Made him look like a dumb fag lol
Maarva’s speech in the finale was fantastic too
speech*
do people still watch star wars series ? lame
That funeral speech was cringe BLM b.s.
Well, that was a pretty cynical take on Andor compared to a lot of other reviews. Though I certainly can't blame you for reacting in a deeply cynical way to anything coming out of Disney Star Wars (or anything) these days. At the same time, a lot of your critiques come across as the sort of thing a professor might say about a student's paper when that student is way ahead of their classmates and legitimately mostly good, but brought down here and there by sloppy moments.
Overall good but sloppy in some places is a great description.
Still the best Star Wars since Rogue One.
That's how low the bar is, that's what you're willing to accept
@@nolabets3130 well a lot of his critiques are also wrong anyway because if you watch the show closely they're actually explained through dialogue or body language. Timm for example is clearly suspicious from the start because Cassian and Bix used to date. He's been suspicious for a while. He says he's tired of hearing Cassian s excuses when he comes over and talks to Bix putting her in a mood. That was conveyed obliquely through both body language and indirect dialogue but it was very clear. Despite reviewers complaining about "show don't tell" they seem to have trouble with it when a show actually does it.
@@IshtarNike yeah that's a fine example and I somewhat enjoy this show but I'm also old enough to have seen really good shows and I've noticed the declining quality and the bar is so low that what used to be an given and standard for a good show is now celebrated as amazing, you have to have noticed it as well.
@@IshtarNike true but it was really badly written & acted which made it a chore to watch imo. The characters & actors playing them were so dull & at times it felt like l was watching a foreign series which was really badly dubbed into english...the dialogue was just so awkward. I feel like people are giving the series way to much of a pass. If it wasn't based in the SW universe, would people still enjoy it?? I doubt it.
Even if Disney begins to produce half decent (let alone spectacular) Star Wars productions, I think that fan goodwill isn't even on fumes at this point.
It is truly spectacular how quickly Disney burned Star Wars as a franchise to the ground so quickly.
Yep. Specially since we know the next big thing will be handled by activists instead of actual writers. Prequels were garbage but Rogue One was fine; Mandalorian and Bad Batch were fine but Book of Boba and Kenobi were garbage... There's a very clear pattern. So if only the low stakes shows are gonna be good, what's the point? As you well say, fan's goodwill is about to fade into oblivion.
Completely. Star Wars was my whole childhood from age 7 onwards, into my 20's 30's and beyond. I now spend a large chunk of my weekends every year dressed as Chewbacca collecting for charity and spend 4 figures every year on collectible stuff.. but I've not watched Andor (have no intention to) and my money goes to independent creators/prop makers/etc who care about old Star Wars like I do. Disney could go and produce the greatest story ever written now... I just don't care what they do anymore
@@VictoryWorks Dude get a life. As much as I like Star Wars don't make fictional stuff the center of your world.
Even though I maintain that this show is better than Return of the Jedi (so far), I have never considered it enough to redeem nu-LucasFilm. A true redemption would be a complete decanonization of the sequels, Solo, Boba Fett and Obi Wan shows.
@@EbonyPope he's out there doing charity lol, for all we know he was much more of a life than you ;P
No clear delineation (between flashback)? What about the obvious change in the droid? I thought that the change in age between the droid and Marva were very apparent markers to convey the time shifts despite the fact that they may be a little jarring. I think I've grown accustomed to being pulled into flashbacks in such a way. Although I agree that the young Andor scenes on Kenari are a bit crude and bereft of talented acting, at least they're not very long and eventually serve to explain how Cassian ended up on Ferrix in later episodes.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the droid's condition is significantly better than "present day," which suggests it's a flashback, and the camera immediately tilts up and confirms that it's a flashback. I don't understand this criticism. How can someone be a visual media critic and miss this?
@1:03:44 Earlier Syril is told that the people of Ferrix have their own way of doing things. They don't work for the corporate authority. The corporate authority administers the section of space they reside in. Syril is explicitly told that while their jurisdiction technically extends there, it is a bad idea to go in there guns blazing.
Now that it’s over I can confidently say Andor was a fantastic show. I hope you review the rest of the series
They won't. This sort of channel exists to complain. If an antifascist, dare I say leftist woke television show is good? You'll never hear about it.
One andor video. Twelve She Hulk videos. Eight Obi-Wan videos. That ought to spell out the agenda here.
@@TheHauntedKiwiHe literally replied to someone else saying he's posting a full review on his second channel 😂
@TheHauntedKiwi she hulk has an agenda?
It’s sad that so many people still refuse to watch, and or just ignore/hate on it because of uhh… bricks…Kalashnikova..? (
I hope he doesn't. This reviewer is painfully bad at seeing anything beyond the surface of a given episode. He misses obvious clues, left right and center.
I think that Andor stopping to look at the strip mine suggests that, instead of seeing it for the first time, he's seen it many times before and he's lamenting what it represents for his people/forest/world. Also, it seems puzzling that you didn't catch the setup for Timm ratting out Cassian. Timm clearly dislikes Cassian for the fact of his being Bix's old "bad boy" flame. He's worried about Cassian dragging bix back into trouble, or back into bed, and sees this as a way to get a potential menace out of the way. The "ground work" was laid literally every time Timm looked at Cassian or disapprovingly questioned Bix about him.
I disagree with the first point, I think! In the scenes where the kids are preparing to leave on their scavenging trip, the other kids, especially the leader's (seeming) second-in-command tries to prevent Cassian from joining---which immediately told me that he thought Cassian was too young. It was only when the leader told her deputy off that Cassian put on his face-paint.
@@andrewfortmusic That's a great observation, if you're saying that Cassian wouldn't have seen the strip mining machinery because he'd never been on a hunt before. I imagine that even so, this is something they would all be aware of, as it has totally shaped their lives. None of those kids are old enough to be Cassian's parents. Thus, even if he's never ventured out *with the tribe* before, he's almost surely aware of what happened to his and everyone else's parents. And he's probably either snuck off and explored that mining site on his own before, or he's heard plenty of stories from the older kids about the steel behemoths that ripped up the face of their world and devoured their parents.
@@niconoire I'm sure he was aware of it via stories, but judging by his reaction, he was unaware of its sheer size. Your logic is solid on its own, but young Cassian's immediate reaction--to wander off and observe it when no one else did--tells me that he'd heard of it, but was just now seeing for himself, and the reality of the situation seems to be hitting him for the first time.
It's like the difference between hearing about a disaster--like an earthquake or tsunami or 9/11--and actually seeing the devastation. It's an entirely more visceral thing.
@@andrewfortmusic Yeah, that makes total sense. And I think it just further speaks to not only the thought put into this show and the worlds depicted, but also the quality of the actors who depict living in it.
@@niconoire it’s an incredible show-it’s been living rent free in my head since it came out. Very very nice to be able to discuss it with another person who loves it as much as I do :)
When you talk about media conditioning, one thing that I think doesn't get talked about enough is that there is increased pressure for authors and script writers to grab the audiences attention immediately and never let up. A lot of writing courses strongly emphasize that you should never trust your audience to have patience with your story because if they put it down they might not pick it up again or if you fail to grab them in the first sentence of your story they will never pick it up. That combined with the increase in very short form media (TIk Tok, Instagram, even TH-cam) there is a general perception that there is no audience for "slow", carefully built shows or books. Many writers literal don't trust their audience to pay attention if they are not dangling keys in front of them because they have been taught their entire career that we can't be trusted.
While reading your comment, a lecture by Charlie Kaufmann came to my mind that he gave a couple of years ago. Basically saying; if you want to make money as a writer in Hollywood, you can pay money and learn the formula in a school, it's not difficult. But if you actually want to connect to your audience and help reduce the collective loneliness we all feel (he is an idealist for sure), you have to dig deeper and seek art for arts sake. But for obvious reasons; no big studio is interested in that if you can make more money off of mediocracy and recycling whats already been successful. In this case; I really enjoy Andor thus far but I think the expectations for shows in the current commodified state of art we are in, are just too high.
But, well, there is so much media around, you really have no time to invest in so many shows. If they do not grab you from the get go, not gonna watch more. And 3 episodes of this is just really boring and slow so far.
I stuck around with Falling Skies and that show only became good 5-6 episodes in, but these days I do not have the luxury of time
@@SwiftNimblefoot I am more talking about a level of fear and uncertainty that modern authors and scriptwriters have that if a writer is not "getting to the good part", in Andor's case the explosions and fighting, then the audience will abandon it. I agree that Andor is paced not just slowly but also poorly, but I can get behind the idea that the first two episodes were about building tension and setting up who Andor is before pushing him out into a larger world to face the consequences of his actions. If you are not interested in Andor I get it, that is cool, but there is an audience for slower paced shows and stories where the writer isn't tripping over themselves to get explosions, shocking reveals, or the drama between the romantic leads on screen. I am certainly not defending the nothing burger that is Rings of Power, but Andors first episode starts with the inciting incident and does set the stakes. House of the Dragon has been doing something similar where it opened with the inciting incident, the death of the queen and prince during childbirth, and setup the central conflict of succession in the first episode. House of the dragon has certainly done a better job pacing its story but I at least respect Andor for trusting me enough to pay attention and not need to shove pointless explosion in my face to keep my attention (again I do think they drug it out to much but I respect the attempt).
I think tims motivation is that he suspects a relationship between bix and cassian so when he finds out cassian is wanted by the law then he sees that as a chance to take cassian out of the equation
Exactly. How did Platoon miss that? Basic jealousy. He is punching after all!
"Andor deals with immigrant experience" might be the most shit take Ive seen past few days
I’m trying a new vocal EQ in this video. It’ll either be sexy or horrific - I know nothing about audio mixing.
Next video will be Rings of Power Part 2. These will probably be alternating so I stay at least partially sane.
Thank you for all your hard work :D.
can't really tell the difference except there seems to be a lot of sibilance, at least at my end. It clears up a bit as it goes. Strange.
Good observation. These shows just like Kenobi don't "feel" like Star Wars. Even the prequels although abandoning the much loved "used look" at least felt like Star Wars concerning the droid designs etc. This bar looks like the planet in Obi Wan Kenobi. It looks and feels like Blade Runner not Star Wars.
It is both sexy AND horrifying.
Horrifyingly sexy, if you will.
Thank the make The Little Platoon is here to bring common sense and knowledge 🙏🏽✊🏽🍻
I think this is the first Star Wars flick that hasn't focused on member berries, and lots of badly aimed Pew Pew, Pew. I feel this could lead to new characters, settings, and story lines away from the Holy trinity of Luke, leia, han. Which is refreshing.
Will die a boring death. Like the show is already
All three characters died a while ago, with Leia's actress being also actually dead in real life too
Well, the thing is, if we want to bring any of these new characters into the modern timeline, it'd have to be either the grandkids of these characters, or other characters that were inspired by them in some way.
Haha this whole show is a giant Member Berry😂
@@grandarkfang_1482 that was always the problem with the sequels as movies is that unless we are gonna spend a ton on cgi that wasn’t there yet they were never going to be about the OG cast and always about the next generation. Hell they probably would have done that in the early 2000s if the prequels weren’t around becaus that’s how it always goes
This set in the latter part of the Empire. This is 5 years before the Battle of Yavin. That's what the "BBY 5" text at the very beginning notes. Yes, in the Star Wars universe, they use that battle as the BC to AD flipover.
I’m aware of that, I think I misplaced the start of the empire - I had it much closer to 9 than 19 in my head!
One thing I’ve always wondered: before the battle of Yavin, what were they calling those years? And even if the Empire redid the calender in RotS, making that Year of the Emperor 1 (or something), what were the years called during the Republic?
@@balrighty3523 bby and aby aren't used in universe, they are used outside of the story so fans can get a sense of timeline. There is a episode of eckharts ladder about this here th-cam.com/video/iY-hN0mChPk/w-d-xo.html
@@randomdude185 I was just about to say this. Eckharts Ladder's video on this is pretty interesting, although I disagree with the new official way of doing it with there being a 0 ABY but no 0 BBY.
In republic it is used ARR or after and before Ruusan reformation. Important edict that vas designated so important that maked year 0
holy crap for someone so smug I would have thought you would get what the guards were doing in the beginning of the show. They were looking for a fight because they wanted to rob him. They are corrupt guards. He doesn't want to bribe them. The "fee" is their score. Andor just knew how this works because it was probably not the first time he was in a situation like that.
For someone so smug, theres quite a lot of other dumb remarks he makes during the rest of the video.
At least as far as I've seen, cuz I got tired of his shit and am now just scrolling the comment section.
@@TheSpeep Same. Was subbed but had to unsub. He chooses some random person’s critique in the very beginning to make it seem like people are saying “you have to be a migrant to watch”. No one’s fucking saying that. Just sounds like persecution fetish to me
@@redvibezHe gave a different opinion on something you like, cry more
@@TheSpeep yeah had to stop watching when he was so confused at the droid transition from present to flashback. How in the world can that be confusing to anyone? Along with so many other things that made him scratch his head but were obvious to the rest of us. Just looking for shit to complain about, I suppose
@@joshuameadows4922nice butthurt response. All in all the video creator seems to be a first draft princess. Little Rian Johnson type. I would agree most of his points.... and then goes on a weird tangent on a thing he didnt understand (bcs didnt care) and/or fucks his own point on the writer not needing to say it out loud on things he missed.
Andor is an amazing show. I hope to see a full review of the show
Just finished the script - it’ll be a second channel video, though, as I don’t have the time to do a full plot breakdown.
51:15 ...no? Not at all. The droid itself is in pristine condition, Marva's hair is colourful, not grey, Clem is someone we've never even seen before. This is a good match cut
I’m looking forward to seeing your thoughts on episodes 4-6. I’m really liking this show so far and episode 6 was pretty damn good
And episode 7 was just as good imo, even tho it acted as a “stand-alone” episode.
You probably wont get it im guessing.
@@Youcannotfalter Maybes after rings of power 2
Episode 10 was amazing
the thing you were missing with young andor is that the other kids try to leave him behnd in the beginning. they arent generically bullying him, but excluding him from warpaint to go raiding. thats why he looks at the mine in wonder, hes not gone this far before. also their parents all died in that mine, i forget when that was established though, maybe not this early.
Thanks for the review and interesting thoughts on this show. Here are my long-running notes that I started keeping while watching your review:
I disagree with your assessment of Timm. My take on him was that he and Bix had been working together for a long time, during which he presumably developed feelings for her, and then they decided to start hooking up. This isn't outright stated in the show - well, some of it is - but I think that this fits with their personalities as far as we see them. He reads to me as a guy who is investing in their relationship much more than she is. She is a little more walled off and seems to think of this as mostly just hooking up. Because Timm is thinking of this as a developing relationship, he starts getting more territorial, which we see when he confronts Andor after Andor first talks to Bix. Then Timm notices that Bix is hiding something when it comes to Andor. We know it's that she is a fence, but Timm doesn't seem to know that, so he naturally assumes that Bix might be hooking up with Andor on the side (the show implies that Bix and Andor have a romantic and/or sexual history). When he checks the computer, it's because he notices her turning the screen off as soon as she sees him (an overreaction on her part). When she leaves, he checks the screen to see that she was looking at and apparently trying to hide information from him about Andor, which of course makes him even more suspicious. This leads to him following her to the bar where she meets Andor after putting off Timm for a date, and with an alcohol-infused sense of betrayal he lashes out at Andor by contacting the CorpSec authorities about him.
After finishing the review, I think that your read on Timm is just off.
The young Andor actor is fine imo. This doesn't seem too far off from how I've seen many kids act...I think most of us were derpy kids at some point. I also think that they were trying to impress that he is innocent and inexperienced, even in relation to his own tribe. To me, it looks like he was trying to transition from the younger kid group to the older kids that do the scouting for the camp. this is why that one kid smacks his hand when he reached for the ash to mark his face - he wasn't considered mature or old enough to join them, but the leader of the group seems to allow him. Then we see young, derpy Andor putting on the face paint with a goofy grin because he's just happy to be included. This is the face of an innocent child that has no idea of what life outside the camp is like. He's been sheltered because of his age, and this is probably why he's the only one to marvel at the strip-mining pit. The others have been on scouting/gathering patrols, but it's a first for him. I do agree that this is the least compelling part of the show, and opens many questions about why a group of kids is living in the jungle on an industrial planet.
I don't think that the lady from the beginning of the show showing up when CorpSec gets the hologram of Andor is a coincidence. From the dialogue, it sounds like the staff called in Cyril Karn once they had the tip, so it would make sense that they also had instructions to call in the witness to look at the holo once they had the records. Yes, it seems to happen quickly so it does seem like they rushed the timing to move the plot or for dramatic effect, but it does make sense that they would want her there as quickly as possible once they had a name for their suspect because they would have records and probably holos ready for the witness to look at once they had a suspect.
On the scene between Karn and Sgt. Kostek, you said that this scene is not great because it overtly explains things that were already insinuated earlier in the show, which is unnecessary. While it does do this to an extent, I don't think that was the point of the scene. It wasn't to fill in gaps in our knowledge about how things work in this sector of space; it was to build the characters in the scene and establish a relationship for them. Sgt Kostek explaining how the Corporate Security forces is the last line of defense against lawlessness contrasts what we've seen so far, which is the complacency and corruption of the CorpSec authorities. So, it does do some additional world building because we have only seen a willingness to care from Karn so far. This is where character development and relationship building come in. You can see how Karn's demeanor changes completely once Sgt Kostek starts talking because he finally finds someone that thinks like him. They are a little different because Karn strikes me as a bit of an idealist, but Sgt Kostek is a blunter military-minded person. They both believe strongly in law and order, but Karn is the head/heart to Sgt Kostek's boot/fist. Their meeting and Sgt Kostek's willingness to embolden Karn is part of what sets the stage for episode 3 where things get way out of hand. Sgt Kostek sees this as a chance for his group to make an impression and get the recognition that they deserve, and Karn sees this as his opportunity to follow his ideals and show that doing the right thing (in his mind that's what law and order is) truly is the best way. Of course, things don't go as planned and at the end of episode 3 we see that the senior inspector was right all along (he's one of the best characters in this arc imo).
For the ship design, I will just say that this is the Corporate Sector of space, so they will have their own ship suppliers. I think they fit well enough in the sector of space they are in. CorpSec doesn't need things like Star Destroyers because they are corporate entities, not a galactic government. As a corporation, cost would be top of mind, so they would most likely go for practicality and low-cost over everything else. Of course, that's just guessing, but I can definitely see this as a ship design for this sector of the galaxy. They did have some separatist ships, but we do have to remember that this whole operation is only going off of what Karn can scrape together with no higher approval. It's actually impressive that he managed to get this squad, and probably due to the fact that Sgt Kostek is so eager to actually do something. He gives the impression that their unit is pretty much never used, so they would have the bare minimum of resources and clunkiest ships.
The box isn't a mystery box, it's an NS-9 Starpath unit which can be used to track movements of Imperial ships. This comes directly from the show itself, so no external knowledge of Star Wars is required. I personally just assumed that Andor boiled down his explanation about how he got it to a very rough idea behind whatever actually happened. It's not like he was going to give a play-by-play of what actually happened to this random guy, so he essentially said that he had an opportunity to get at one and pulled a con. By not explaining the origin, it can be as involved or as simple as your imagination dictates; or he could just be lying or bending the truth, which we do see him do in later episodes. Anyways, there's no mystery there, it part of what moves the plot along, and will drive at least part of the Imperial involvement in the show since they will want to know how this box came to be on that planet in the hands of criminals. Yes, there are unanswered questions about how Andor got it and it is, in fact, a box, but there's no mystery around what it actually is or its function. That's called plot, and really it's more of a sub-plot. It might be interesting to learn how Andor got it, but the show is more interested in what is going to happen going forward. Even Luthen didn't care about it and told Andor he's more interested in recruiting Andor to his team. Incidentally, the box was only marginally useful in bringing them together because Andor mentions to Bix that her buyer was interested in meeting Andor before he knew about the box. It just gave a reason for Andor to interest Luthen in coming quickly with the money that he needed.
I could say a lot about the city fight scene, but I've already written way too much. I will just point out that Andor specifically asks Luthen if he had any more charges just before the speeder getaway scene, so that was presumably Andor's idea rather than Luthen's. The guards didn't shoot because they were first taken off guard and then the explosion drew their immediate attention as they got away. I've seen some people that acted like Luthen was ruthless for unnecessarily blowing up the speeder to kill the guards as they got away, but that's silly. Sure, they were riding away with the guards momentarily processing the change in the situation, but they would have gotten over that quickly enough to shoot them in their exposed backs as they rode away on a speeder bike. His timing allowed a few moments of surprise to get them part of the way before blowing the first speeder up to eliminate and/or distract the guards while they continued their escape. They were in a fight for their lives and very likely would have been shot after a few moments if he hadn't blown the charges (inaccuracy of villain shooting notwithstanding).
10/10 analysis. I still maintain that whoever wrote the show had expert advice. All of Luthen Rael's actions were cold, calculated, and exactly what a paranoid spymaster would do.
Yeah, as I understood it, the lady from the bar was the one providing the info that the suspect was actually a *Kenari* male, so to me it made a lot of sense to have her in that scene. I didn't find it contrived at all.
Good points. It was confusing to see those things being treated as confusing, when to me it was just "Oh, good, it's decent show don't tell."
I keep on imagining what the prequels would have been like if they had had a tenth of the character depth, script, and story telling this show has. Anakin's downfall would have been much more convincing and emotionally devastating.
The way you described the first episode as setting a slowing ticking clock is perfect. Andor COMPLETELY is on a ticking clock because we know how his story ends. Didn’t think about it at all until you mentioned it.
So there was the comment made early on in the bar scene where Andor glanced at the other guys and they tried to pick a fight with him, that the writers faked a reason for the guys to be angry by picking said fight. The thing is though there are people who will literally fight you for simply looking at them. It happened to me. One of the only fights I’ve ever been in was for the exact reason they picked a fight with Andor. There were 5-6 of us at a table and my eyes glanced over everyone every few seconds because I’m socially awkward and don’t know if I should look at people or not and one dude I guess mistook it for me “staring” st him and legit tried to fight me over it. I’ve seen the same situation happen quite a few times actually. Only once with myself thankfully. My point is maybe the writers weren’t contriving a reason for the fight, maybe they were in a similar situation and out it in the script because those kinds of people exist.
My guy living a main character’s life
It's completely believable that these two drunken wanna-be cops would be obnoxious and start shit-talking for no reason other than being bullies. Reviewer is just being thick to have something to say and pad out an overly-long review
I'd say - don't blame the kid for bad acting, blame the producers for casting him in a role that's clearly beyond his reach.
And yeah, as much as it seems like a bit of a leap to assume it was psychological warfare on Marv's part (i've read the other comment) we get to see her travelling the galaxy for what seems to be about 20 years so you could assume she's expirienced. And i would be shitting my pants internally if an old local said something like that to me.
It's very refreshing to see you like a show, but it also makes me kinda sad to see how desperate you are to get a good show. I'm not exposing myself to Rings of Power and i'm very sorry you have to go through this for our sake. We won't forget this favor.
No kid could do those scenes well. All they spoke was a bunch of random sounds. There’s no language to understand or pick up emotion. I think the performance makes sense in the context, tribal children living without adults find crashed space ship
1:03:53 i thought there wasn’t really a higher up or big connection with the empire, thought this was a low security outer region planet where it was a worker machinery culture, I think what establishes the trust and bond among the community is their wall of gloves, everyone has a specific pair and presumably because it is left out in the open nobody steals from another. A well knit community, also bell man. I like bell man
Agreed!
In general some of the points he makes in this video are questionable, as it just seems like he wasn't really paying attention when he watched those episodes. Rather than it being a story-telling issue of the show.
And yeah - the bell man is awesome haha
@@mejuliie ye I was watching andor on New Years eve and my neighbors probably heard i human cheering at 11:40 for a bellman
All I can say Andor is basically pure genius...so if its "not Star Wars" than your idealogy and opinion of Star Wars is at a rock bottom which isnt an Andor problem but either a Star Wars problem or a fan problem
I get the feeling this guy has never liked anything, ever in his life. He received gifts, summarily destroyed them verbally, and was then confused when no one continued to give him gifts. 😝
Strange take on Tim the jealous boyfriend, his actions seam pretty reasonable to me. He is dating Bix, but she have strange relationship with this other guy. They keep secrets, holding whisper fights in back yard and take mysterious meetings in local tavern (instead of a date with Tim btw). Guy is no good, he is a thief, lier, smuggler and in debt to half a town, and as we find out later, also happen to be his girlfriend's ex. From outside it look like Andor trying to drag her into trouble, or she is cheating on him, or both. It's only natural Tim decided to tip police about Andor, he most likely thought he is protecting Bix and getting rid of a rival in one go.
I think a lot of the points with Tim being a stick to the writers can be excused by his motivations of jealousy - or at least that’s how I took it. He was suspicious of Bix because Andor had come back and they were talking (quite obviously) behind his back. The subject matter he would be suspicious about. Which is also the reason he snitched - to get rid of him.
This just seems so obvious, not sure why reviewer is being so thick about it
Hiring Fiona Shaw for a show gives you the opposite of hiring Jameela Jamil. The former brings gravitas, nuance and screen presence. The latter…
Good point Roberto
You need to do another one of these once the series is over. It's only gotten better and better. It's star wars for the kids who are now adults. People have grown up with starwars, at least some of starwars should grow up with them.
Really liking your videos btw, if you do another Andor one, I'll subscribe
They needed Tim to be the one to call the police because Bix told him andors secret that he was from kanari since it was destroyed by the empire and he never really told anyone that wasnt super close to him. Its kind of all explained after the fact but if your reading the subtext it makes sense. the whole "when the banging stops line" was hillarious and worked well because it wasnt that she was giving an on the surface exposition to show the viewer something might happen it was her getting into the heads of the corpo to get them rattled because she hates them and theyre in her house
Some notes on the flashbacks. They depend entirely on body language to convey almost everything. Things I got from them: Derp has a bit of a crush on the girl that got shot or at least looks up to her as she seems to be a leader in the tribe. Derp is young, he goes to put on the war paint to join the party, someone stops him, the girl overrides him. I suspect that was his first time on this sort of raiding party. That explains both his curiosity at the mine and his anger and why he stays (to prove himself.) Is it great? Not really. Is it hamstrung by Derp's poor acting? Yeah. Does the show does at least the minimal work to get these events to happen? I think so. Someone else covered the the droid condition being your only real hint to the time transition, but there's another one. As they are approaching the planet to scavenge the crashed ship I think they mention the Republic, tipping you off that it's pre-Empire. (Or possibly the only mention of the Republic is later, I'd need to re-watch.)
It wasn't hard to figure out it was Cassian. We know he's got a sister from the very first scene. We know he's from a different planet than the one he's on now. We cut to a strange planet with a young teenage boy who has a sister. This wasn't hard to follow at all. Sometimes I'm shocked by people's inability to understand TV shows. Especially because of how much they bitch about "show don't tell" and then when they are skillfully shown something, they then complain that they weren't basically told with 30 different signs.
The thing is, BBY5 isn't really "early Empire". That's "the Empire's already been around for almost 15 years"...
We wouldn't really be getting a look at the early Empire in 5 BBY... By 5 BBY we'd already be seeing a matured Empire already starting to show stress fractures.
Kenobi was earlier Empire than this. Solo was earlier empire than this.
Both were awful, but if we were going to get a look at "early Empire", this is where we should've been looking.
The events of this show are, coincidentally, happening at the same time as the events of the Rebels animated series. And, as we saw in Rogue One, the two are linked. And we saw in the events of Rebels that the Empire was, indeed, already starting to face significant issues with social unrest.
Yup, someone else kindly pointed this out. I randomly got it in my head the Empire had started about 10 years later than it did. Should’ve checked.
The main writer for this wrote the Bourne films.
And it's amazing you can tell the jump in quality when the writer is someone who... you know... actually wrote something.
My guess is derpy Andor has just barely graduated from childhood and been initiated into the blow dart wielding "warrior" class of his community. This is why Andor reacts differently from the others to seeing the mine, as it was probably the first time he’s seen it. This community consists of the orphans of minors who were either all killed in some kind of mining accident, or possibly murdered by the Empire, perhaps for going on strike, ah-la Pinkerton style strike breakers of the late 1800s.
I don't agree that Andor as a kid has to have agency in those flashbacks. I think the point is that we see his home get ruined by a mining disaster, forcing them to salvage supplies from the Empire. This way of getting by puts his community at risk and we see he's angry at what the Empire has brought to his world.
31:14 there is no connection between Timm and the police. If you watch the show carefully, Bix is the one looking at the police bulletin. When Timm comes in she hastily and very suspiciously turns off the monitor. When she leaves he immediately goes to check the computer because he thinks she's cheating on him with Cassian and he saw her acting suspiciously. This is when he learns that he can get Cassian out of the way by reporting him.
Once again, Timm knows they used to date, watch how close Cassian stands to her when he's talking to her in that scene. Timms, watching through the window. Plenty of guys would be upset about a guy like that coming round to see his girlfriend and acting in that way. Especially because she starts acting weird, too. Honestly you need to watch more carefully because it's very clear.
Loved the video and agreed with most of your points, but it's unfortunate you skipped over how the show handled Tim's death, as I believe it ties into a wider point the show's trying to make. After Tim gets shot, the corpo that killed him takes his hat off in disbelief that he just took a life, and his leader confiscates his weapon and sends him back to the ship for killing a civilian. A fascist system has incentivized downplaying crimes that led to an overzealous inspector taking things too far that led to an encounter that killed a civilian, and then kills the one that shot him, and none of the death was looked at approvingly. The show has taken killing very seriously and doesn't mess around with death, Tim is a douchebag but the show doesn't celebrate his death because it's still a tragedy. (At least till episode 6, the rest haven't come out at the time of this comment) There have been no Stormtroopers, every on screen death has a person showing their face. All of it's horrific, even when it's justified, and that's the point that Andor is trying to make that Star Wars hasn't really done before.
I really hope you keep making videos on Andor, I saw someone say it was "Good filmmaking, just not good Star Wars" and as a die hard Star Wars fan, I couldn't be happier.
3:55 we must be watching different shows. He's a good actor. He's subtle. Watch rogue one just before he gets incinerated. Watch is expression carefully as the light reaches him.
For andor watch the prison episodes as he's on the ship waiting to go in. See the terror. He's good at it. He's just not overacting and hamming it up. He chose a cool indifference for those scenes and it's perfectly natural.
Episode 3 and 4 is absolutely amazing. The writing, the characterization, the acting, all just impeccable. Is it the best thing I’ve ever seen? No, but the stakes are clear, the directing is on point, and damn if I’m not invested in seeing where this story is headed.
Personally, I love this soundtrack and thought it was very memorable. The ending montage of episode 3 stuck in my head like glue.
You didn't need to do such a long video... Andor is excellent, acting superb, by far the best Disney has given us since buying Lucasfilm
And yes, it's "slow and boring" by today's "fast and furious" standards.
The only thing we need is to give this team more content to develop, like the other side of the coin about ex Imperials trying to get a grip on things AFTER the death of Palpatine and the ruin of the Empire...
By the way even the new Arrestor Imperial ship is awesome 👏🏾👌🏾
Well don’t worry somehow palpatine returned so we don’t need that kinda story, also SW heard what ya want and you shall now have a Rey movie taking the EU plot line from Luke. Welcome to SW where you don’t get what you wanna see, just want Kuntleen Kennedy wants.
wasnt the point of the guards confronting Andor in the first scene to be contrived? Contrived by the guards, right? They considered him an easy mark and were trying to intimidate him. I think it was a great opening scene.
43:26 "Platoon sits in the otherwise dark room, staring scathingly through his monocle at the burnt embers in the Fire Chimney. It reminds him of the once Glorious Star Wars, now in shambles; He adjusts his Top hat and takes another sip from his wine glass. Of course, there's Beethoven Symphony No.8 playing in the background" :D
I like how in all your videos you try to engage with all the source material and find something good about it, rather than merely an entertaining "this sucks" "this is stupid". Gets into a lot of details, from the ship reuse to the structure of fictional societies and what questions come up, and this show does bring up some interesting ones about its world.
I agree. Sad that most internet reviews are as split just like the us political party system, and no middle ground.
I am complete agreement with your point about media conditioning. Between shorter length TH-cam videos, TikTok and similar types of spastic media, it rewires your brain to seek out pop & flash over actual stories. Bad Reboot uses this cynical type of story telling to
People complaining about this show need to detox with slower shows/stories. It's a marvel (heh) to see a more mature structure to the pace of the set up. Cassian is making his rounds on Ferrix after being "away" to set up who the people around him are, what his motivations are and what he is trying to actually hide (who he really is). He's not jump-cutting to somewhere to get a McGuffin to appease plot device person x (with zero set up as to why the McGuffin matters). He's trying to get money so he can continue to surreptitiously search for his sister.
His motivations aren't noble, they're not trying to tell some massive overarching narrative, it is as simple and human as it could be. He's got so little in his life that connects him to his past. Once he's part of the nascent Rebel cell, he's not really there for any noble reasons either.
Yes, I should not have been retconned. :)
31:24
The reason Tim is being so shifty is that he thinks Biggs and Andor are boinking behind his back.
And seeing the message the thing Biggs was looking at tells Tim that she knows more about Andor’s situation that she is letting on and instead of just talking to her about it he instead decides to act shifty as all hell cause he’s jealous that his GF might have a side dude.
That into had me in stitches >∆
@19:24 All of the interactions Cassian has with the people of Ferrix are important. He speaks with Brasso to establish his alibi and for the audience to learn that they are friends, while also giving some minor insight into Marva. He speaks with Bix to establish that he needs to sell the starpath unit and for the show to establish their previous and current relationship and how that will affect Timm's perception of their later interactions, he speaks with Nurchi to establish to the audience that Andor owes him money and that Andor is not above screwing people over for his own benefit, as he lies to Nurchi about his money "being in play", this will become important later in the show. Finally, he speaks to Pegla to establish that it was not Cassian's ship that he used last night and that he no longer has access to it.
Andor does seem a lot better than most of the SW shows that came before it, but I'm getting very tired of star wars turning into essentially a different timeline earth. It seems like 90% of every planets population is humans, and the aliens that do exist either have no effect on the story or very little. As well as clothes in general looking very similar to real ones
100%. But aliens require effort.
Fair point. It's a problem with alot of sci-fi. Or when they do have aliens, they are shallow and uniform. Even doing what old Doctor Who and Star Trek did and just having them be humans with something funny looking about them would help.
20:13 "Why is Timm stalking Bix." He's jealous. Andor is a womanizer, and Timm is deeply insecure about his nascient relationship with Bix. And with good reason: she clearly doesn't feel much for him ("one night a week" she tells him). You seem very detail oriented, as is the show, and I'm surprised you missed this.
I remember watching this show and thinking how slow and boring it is, but I was surprised to hear that a lot of people have been saying that this is one of the best Star Wars TV shows. It’s like you said, that we’ve been so conditioned to watch a more simplified storyline and pace that we expect any Star Wars media to be the same cookie cutter story.
I’ve been through this before when I didn’t like Legend or Korra because it wasn’t just like Avatar and Star Wars Rebels because it wasn’t like TCW, but after rewatching those two shows with different expectations, I like them now. Based on precedence, I think if I watch Andor again, I’ll like it.
I personally thought it was quite good so I’m interested to see what you think if you do a full review.
almost all good take, but you missed the point about the dirty "live' percussion that sounds like a punk band is playing in a small scotland town in 1989. that grittiness is really sweet. they purposely intended it to be jaarring because cassians world is in a turning point.
I think you glossed over the fact that the we know Pre-Mor security like to act like cops -- according to the hostess -- so it's reasonable for them to see Andor's awkward and paranoid posture as an opportunity to flex their authority as dirty beat cops and possibly mug him, which they do.
Don't understand the rant about Tim, he is doing all that he is doing because he is jealous and insecure because the girl just uses him when she is bored. I found it pretty established.
I'm pretty sure Timm was only spying on his girlfriend and eventually calling the Corpos on Andor because he was jealous and petty and thought Andor was out to cuck him or at the very least he thought Andor would bring trouble to him and his girlfriend which isn't exactly far-fetched.
It doesn't come out of nowhere either. in the first two episodes the show already establishes that Timm doesn't particularly like Andor nor his friendship with Bix.
So when Bix acts all upset, shifty and mysterious every time Andor visits her then yeah - I can see where Timm is coming from.
I do agree with one thing though: Timm and Bix being a couple in the first place is more than a little implausible. There's absolutely no chemistry between the two of them. I think Timm's role of "the snitch" could have been played much better by an over-protective father or mother who then gets caught in the crossfire.
34:57 - You might not recognize him, but that guy, Alex Ferns, was absolutely a scene-stealer in the mini-series Chernobyl, as head of the mining group.
I enjoyed this review. I liked the step by step take. I didn't agree with several bits which also I found intriguing. This seems like a very cerebral take that often seemed deaf to the emotional resonance that I clearly perceived in a scene. As an example, I thought the flashbacks clearly showed the incredible pathos of a young boy, with a real sweetness to his nature, affectionate and protective of his sister, but eager to join a scary but irrisistably exciting world of adventure with the big kids' for the first time. It showed also that he is exceptionaly brave and willing to take risks even at that young age, and that he has a fierce loyalty to those he cares about, an indomitable will and a natural curiosity about the world. This was all as clear as if it had been told to me on my first viewing of the flashbacks.
Possibly you were watching with your 'analytical side' or aren't particularly affected by these kinds of themes. But for me, it was a pleasure to watch it unfold AND it added a whole delicious layer to Andor's character. Could the boy have been acted better? I don't know - it seems pointless to ask when he so thoroughly appealingly got the job done for me... As for Andor the elder I don't know, to me, Luna's incredible facial expressions in this are pure gold.
Another example - I thought the jealous boyfriend was also full of pathos. He's obviously (to me) insecure and feels threatened by Andor's charisma and his girlfriend's obvious affection for him while at the same time is clearly un comfortable and ashamed of this jealousy, but incapable of resisting it's prodding to unforgivable behavior.
My theory is you were watching with left side of brain on hyperdrive working on the TH-cam critique. However we're all different so who knows. In any case thanks for the review - plenty of good points and and I'm eager to watch the next installment to see if the trend continues :-)
I think this guy got Timm completely wrong- I agree with your take here. There’s a lot to critically analyse in Andor but it’s a really emotional experience too, to watch it thoroughly, imho. This is all a bit too dry.
@54:51 This is incredibly uncharitable. He wanted to confirm that B2 had gotten back to Marva safety and was clearly going to ask him to convey more to Marva, likely telling her where he was going without giving her an oppurtunity to try and talk him out of it, but B2 didn't respond to him.
Well shift to flashback is clear (atleast for me) from look of droid. In future he is old and worn out with scrashes and so on. In flashback he has new and clean colour. Also kid wonders on mine because he is first time so far from villige -thet would be my guess. That colour marking of face should be some kind of marking of warrior. That is also reason why his sister had to stay behind and why he is upset when scout girl dies. She allowed him to be among those warriors.
I love the emphasis on how the rebellion was started by ordinary people that had enough from the beginning of the Clone Wars all the way to the Empire. It was not Force using elitist that started, fought, sacrificed, and won the rebellion , it was Andor and Friends. This show is captivating and everything that Star Wars should be on Disney+.
Or perhaps the ordinary people were just used by the corrupt elite of the Republic that caused the Clone Wars to begin with.
The scene transition into the flashback with the droid, when it drove down the road was rather obvious imo. It literally went from looking like a dinged up rust bucket to brand new from one scene to the next. I'm not particularly an attentive person. I miss a whole lot of details in shows like these, but even I saw the difference right away.
I think that's the whole reason why the focus was the droid during the transition into the flashback.
regarding the whole point at 19:00 : you're missing something:
They aren't "padding" everything, they are setting up an element of the world that wasn't introduced before. The Friend that Andor owes money to initially tries to go the clichee route of "oi, gimme my money, or my big friend there will break yer kneecaps", but in the end, Andor ridicules him for that, and the big guy actually enforces this, sheepishly revealing himself to be far too nice to act as an actual bruiser.
This establishes that this community tends to hold together, and that everyone knows each other by name. An element that will come up many times later.
Is this parody or irony? There are two drunk mall cops trying to intimidate a guy in a brothel. He doesn’t look at them funny. That’s the whole point of the scene. And it’s a brothel, not a nightclub. You’re looking so closely at the show you can’t even see it.
Of course the star wars show I was the least excited for had to be the most well done
I feel your pain!
1:05:00 I don't see a problem with the exploding speeder here. The episode already established that Rael likes to come prepared and he likes to come prepared with explosives.
Rael and Andor also clearly know that there's an ambush waiting for them since they surprised Karn while he was waiting in ambush. Rael knew the Corpos would blast the Speeder or he would cause the speeder to crash himself to lure the Corpos in to investigate.
this actually is some of the best characterizations of the first three episodes, establishing Rael not just as cautious and meticulous but also absolutely ruthless and versed in insurgency tactics.
Of course the Corpos wouldn't immediately shoot at Rael and Andor when they took off on another speeder - they were thinking that they had gotten them and all eyes were on the first vehicle after it flipped and before they could rally and regroup Rael triggered the IED on the first vehicle, killing and wounding enough security guards to force the Corpos to prioritize their wounded and not pursue him and Andor. These Corpos aren't trained soldiers, they're corporate security guards. Most of their training would have been in policing, investigation and perhaps riot control, not counter-insurgency. As an experienced insurgent Rael would know that and know how to exploit that lack of training and familiarity - which is exactly what he did. This scene is great because it shows the audience that Rael is lethally competent and not someone to take lightly. At this point the audience doesn't know for certain that he's a rebel leader but this scene establishes that he has no qualms about ruthlessly killing local security guards that are only doing their jobs, simply because they stand between him and his objective and not just in self-defence or in the heat of battle. The show manages to convey all this with very little dialogue or dry exposition. It shows, not tells.
Perhaps it's a little contrived that Rael would have enough explosives on him to trap not just the meeting place but also have enough in reserve to turn a car into a bomb but I don't think so since the show already established that he did come with enough explosives to trap said meeting place. It would have been silly if that car bomb came out of nowhere when he could have used the explosives to also prepare the meeting place. By having him use it to prepare the meeting place the audience is not just shown some of Rael's defining traits but also that explosives are a part of his repertoire so when it is used later it doesn't come out of nowhere.
20:11 the body language and small amounts of dialogue make it clear that Andor and Bix used to be a thing. She and Timm are new but she and Andor aren't close friends. He probably only turns up there when he needs to shift product so that wouldn't be day to day but it has been going on for quite some time. Timm knows they used to date and when he talks to Cassian he says he's "tired" of Andor coming around and hassling his girlfriend, in not so many words. He's sick of it and he's decided to do something about it today. It's actually made quite clear what's going on and it's not thrown in at random at all.
Good observation. These shows just like Kenobi don't "feel" like Star Wars. Even the prequels although abandoning the much loved "used look" at least felt like Star Wars concerning the droid designs etc. This bar looks like the planet in Obi Wan Kenobi. It looks and feels like Blade Runner not Star Wars.
I think the Prequels did vary too much from how Star Wars looked previously. Why the fuck was everything so much nicer and smoother and curvier? How did it all vanish in 19 years?
@@BWMagus Yes of course. But the shapes like the attack droids that would curl up and roll still had that Star Wars design. So did the pod racers. I'm taking about design language in a sense of lines and shapes. But the texture (smooth and clean) was different. That annoyed me A LOT when I saw it the first time. I think it's because the CGI at that time couldn't do very convincing soot and dirt textures. It might but be the main reason but I think it would have liked worse like anything else from that time that wasn't made practical. I mean compare the Nostromo in Alien to the Prometheus space ship. Although it's really good CG the Nostromo still looks better (except for the thrusters but that was a minute detail).
@@EbonyPope I am also talking about lines and shapes; the ships in the prequels were all smooth with gentle curves, while in the OT, they were harsh lines and sharp angles. The amazingly capable rolling defense droids also seem drastically superior to droids like R2-D2. The bipedal attack droids were far better than C-3PO.
Alot of this is just a reflection of the eras the movies were made in, rather than set in, but I did always feel a little pulled out of the Prequels when the tech just seemed so superior to what came 20 years later.
@@BWMagus As far as I know it fits the lore though. Before the war they were a more advanced civilization. I'm not saying they haven't done anything wrong. I'm just pointing out a lot of things you see still have Star Wars design language written ask over them. But with every iteration it got less and less. The charming used, rusted spaceships sometimes full of soot from some blaster that burned some of their shielding off were what made Star Wars so relatable. It really looked like people were living in those buildings and vehicles. I say it time and time again. Hollywood needs to go more practical. Unfortunately there are few directors who don't want convenience but realism like Christian Nolan. But they are few are far between.
@@BWMagus The great war. That's why. It even fits the lore someone told me. No guarantee for that though. I'm not a SW expert. But yes I get what you're saying.
Yes, the Force is Luke's Story, and this tells the story of how the Death Star's weakness was found. Remember the Force was an "ancient" religion and not seen for many decades. so having stories without lightsabers and the force is really important.
You are easily the most consistent, tempered and fair reviewer I've encountered. And possibly the one with the best sense of humour.
I usually can't suffer overly long vids about anything, but your reviews hold my attention. Great stuff.
The computers in Andor look so delightfully primitive.
Hey lil platoon! Relatively new and already love your channel, keep up the great stuff!
Glad to hear it!
Now a new name will be stuck in my mind for the next few days… “TIM” 🤣 as it replaces “Mighty Morphing Power Elf” 🤣
Thanks 😊
The way I read the “native” kids in Andor’s youth is not that they are a native tribe at all.
They’re all kids living in the remnants of what used to be their home. More likely these are orphans on a separatist colony or something, whose parents died fighting the Republic in the Clobe Wars.
25:06 well you were close, the slang word for scrotum is kassi(which is also the word for bag) . The actual finnish word kassa means cash register.