Star Wars: Andor (September 21st, 2022)

[a-dev]

Well, I'm bored out of my skull so I decided to give Andor a proper try.

And how's that working ou-

I still find the pace to be slower than a dying snail, and the characters are mostly completely uncompelling. I'm four episodes in and I'm having a hard time caring about any of them, especially our lead character who has all the charisma of a used dishrag. (I only saw Rogue One once and I slept through a lot of it, so I barely remember this guy...he's so tiny! And even with a goatee he just looks like a little kid. Weird.)

I'm on episode 5 now. There finally seems to be some semblance of a plot. The rebel leader lady Andor meets in the hills is very unpleasant.

At least it managed to keep my attention up until this point. That is, until we get to Mon Mothma's home life and everything comes to a crashing halt. What the hell is this, Downton Abbey? Why are these snooty snoots talking with thick upper crust British accents and wearing kimonos and arguing about the servants? God, tell me there's not another 8 hours of this to sit through.

I can't see why you guys are so ga-ga over this. Sure, it's different from the other SW stuff, but is that a good thing? It's completely devoid of ounce of humor or FUN. Zero fun.

It all feels so thoroughly British....like something I'd see on PBS in the 70s or 80s.

I'll stick with it and see where it goes, but man....this thing is a joyless slog.

Oh!

BTW, I like Rogue One but very much agree about this show.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Oh well...

 

[chrisstbh]

When the guy that hates everything dislikes yet another thing, shocker

 

[Otomofan]

I don't HATE it....it's just not that great. I'm gonna stick it out to see what happens, but there's more needless filler in this than any SW project I've ever seen.

And why do they have to say "shhhhedjeewwelll" every five seconds in that snotty British accent?


At least they don't play Beach Boys songs over the end credits.

 

[Otomofan]

OK, now I'm up to the part in Episode 7 where Andor was chillin' in Miami....and then got nabbed.

Now see? THAT'S interesting! The series could have easily started 15 minutes before this scene and it would be a much better way to grab viewer's interest.

 

[Otomofan]

PS...the Himalayan hippies dancing and singing was cringe-tastic!

 

[jaztermareal]

PS...the Himalayan hippies dancing and singing was cringe-tastic!

On that I agree!

 

[DarkChocobi]

It seems Hot Toys don't bother to purchase license for Andor series.

 

[Otomofan]

Well, I watched them all.

The first few episodes were like Ambien in TV form....

The "heist" episodes were decent, apart from the hippies dancing and singing. blech.

The prison planet stuff was great!

Any scene with Mon Mothma and her gay(?) husband and their loveless marriage and their dinner parties and their dumb daughter and their creepy child-bride culture and the arranged marriage to Prince Valium....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Awful. Just awful.

Didn't care much for the "Gangs of New York" finale. Very cliche to have Andor go back when he knows literally everyone wants him dead, and then have everyone conveniently assemble in one place. The marching band with Earth musical instruments was also lame.

It was better than BOBF and Obi Wan, but that goes without saying. Sorry...I'm more of a Mandalorian guy. I need some fun in my SW, not all this bleak gloom and doom.

 

[jaztermareal]

It seems Hot Toys don't bother to purchase license for Andor series.

They showed the Andor version Clone Trooper on the AT-RT so I am sure that will release. Maybe an Imperial infantry too since they have mudtrooper/combat driver armour moulds

 

[user 67922]

I made myself re-watch this over Christmas and have to admit I've gone from actively disliking the show to just about loving it. I honestly can't stop thinking about it. Something similar happened to me earlier in the year with The Batman. I really struggled with it on a week-to-week basis, and honestly lost track of the story and my interest went down as a result. It worked so well as a binge-watch, especially when seeing each story-arc as being its own movie. The prison episodes were where I checked out before, yet this time it was some of the most intriguing stuff for me. Anyway, I was really engrossed in it this time and I admit that I was wrong about the show. I think I was just in a bad place with Star Wars post-Kenobi and selling up my collection, I wanted distance from it. It gripped me in a way I didn't expect it would. Which surprised me as Rogue One is one of my favourite movies. It just goes to show you should never judge something on one watch. So apologies to anyone I've argued with over it in the past (eg Johnny Utah)

 

[Mandible]

 

[MeatHookGekko]

I made myself re-watch this over Christmas and have to admit I've gone from actively disliking the show to just about loving it. I honestly can't stop thinking about it. Something similar happened to me earlier in the year with The Batman. I really struggled with it on a week-to-week basis, and honestly lost track of the story and my interest went down as a result. It worked so well as a binge-watch, especially when seeing each story-arc as being its own movie. The prison episodes were where I checked out before, yet this time it was some of the most intriguing stuff for me. Anyway, I was really engrossed in it this time and I admit that I was wrong about the show. I think I was just in a bad place with Star Wars post-Kenobi and selling up my collection, I wanted distance from it. It gripped me in a way I didn't expect it would. Which surprised me as Rogue One is one of my favourite movies. It just goes to show you should never judge something on one watch. So apologies to anyone I've argued with over it in the past (eg Johnny Utah)

Where I think Andor really shines is it's efficient purposeful storytelling.

The "classics" to many people here, think of things like Terminator, Aliens, Predator and the like, are extremely economical in how they convey the total narrative. As much as some people despise Mel Gibson now, Braveheart was a really great film. But even though it was long, the storytelling was very compact.

Rings of Power and Wheel Of Time are headscratchers to many because there's a lot of bloat. There's plenty of potential to have good storytelling, it's just that it's not structured in an efficient way. IMHO, great films are ones where every scene is essentially and every scene is doing 3-4 different critical things all at once.





Even a smaller scene like this is doing 5 different things at once critical to the story.

The bane of Star Wars and Marvel pumping out as much as possible as fast as possible is the storytelling will inevitably lack purposeful execution, amongst other key issues, to start.

 

[a-dev]

Even a smaller scene like this is doing 5 different things at once critical to the story.

(Love the ''is it'' at the end of that clip, I've used it on the forum here before)

 

[DarkChocobi]

They showed the Andor version Clone Trooper on the AT-RT so I am sure that will release. Maybe an Imperial infantry too since they have mudtrooper/combat driver armour moulds

don't know what you saw in that promo pics of AT-RT man, but if the Phase 1 clones, again released under Andor license it kinda defeats the whole purpose for the anticipation of new Andor announcements...not ?

 

[e30ernest]

Were there still clone troopers in Andor? By this time they would have all aged out right? In Rebels (set a few years after Andor S1) Rex and his buddies were pretty much old men at that point.

I thought the troopers shown here were just normal Storm Troopers at this point?

 

[jedibear]

Still noting from HT from this. A f'ng She Hulk figure but nothing from Andor. Sheesh.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Fuming. We should have Cassian at least up for PO months by now.

 

[Bravomite]

When Hot Toys recently announced the licences that they had obtained they did not mention Andor. I don't know who the licence works for Star Wars whether they have a global one which allows them to do figures from any movie or show or if it has to be show specific but they did specify that they had Return of the Jedi, Clone Wars and Mandalorian.

 

[ScoutingForToys]

Were there still clone troopers in Andor? By this time they would have all aged out right? In Rebels (set a few years after Andor S1) Rex and his buddies were pretty much old men at that point.

I thought the troopers shown here were just normal Storm Troopers at this point?

Clone troopers shown in a couple of flashbacks scenes from when Cassian was a kid.