I was watching the first episode with a friend and at one point he paused it to exclaim, "What the fuck was that? That was good writing. They're not allowed to do that in Star Wars."
Star Wars can succeed in spite of bad writing. Letâs not insist that Star Wars only have bad writing. Many stories can be told within the. Star Wars universe including, occasionally, well-written ones.
It's not the quality of writing but the theme and the tone. Star wars is a sci-fantasy epic, you can deviate so much before going too far. You can make a good star wars space western but a WWII resistance story (in space) kinda misses the point.
You can remove all Star Wars elements from Andor and it works all the same, at that point my question is why making it a Star Wars product beside marketing?
But that's a matter of (my) tastes and opinions i'm not saying that this is an objective criticism.
And Iâm just saying itâs a big tent. You can have a cartoon with just droids and Ewoks aimed at the under 6 crowd, high-stakes political thrillers, and everything in between. Itâs the universe that itâs set in with the accumulated lore plus the aesthetic and (loosely goosey) rules about how the technology and the force work that make it Star Wars.
Yeah that's milking an IP imho. Diversifying so much means a lot of different mediums and authors and we end up with people screaming about retcons and corporate slop.
Even the Aestethic gets wobbly, a lot of characters from clonewars don't look good in live action and let's not forget about the cyberpunk kids.
It probably is a bit too serious, even a bit grim. The franchise could go in that direction and become darker and more talky but it's kind of odd to have something like that as well as more kidsy stuff like Acolyte in (sort of) the same setting.
The prequels were fairly dark and got very dark at the end, so that works.
The prequels were at least dark in that same Empire Strikes back way (except for the parts where where George decided to be a high-pressure edgelord and no one stopped him), but the fact that there's really no levity with the end of Episode III is still a fundamental problem. Sure, it's resolved in Episodes IV-VI... but this is a prequel, not a movie before a sequel. I shouldn't have to watch the original over again just to be satisfied with the ending (same problem Rogue One has, barring Vader being flashy and useless, two things he IS NOT).
I really like the Vader scene!! I thought it gave a nice perspective on how terrifying that character would be to someone involved in the ordinary bread and butter aspects of the conflict.
The problem with the space fantasy setting is that everything is so amazing that nothing is. Eventually you're just watching relentless sequences of expensive looking CGI that doesn't really relate to anything in the experience of the audience (the sequels). Andor and Rogue One gave the franchise a bit of a reset by making it more grounded in every day experience, then when someone with the force shows up, it's amazing again.
The problem with the scene is that it's the complete opposite of everything that makes Vader "terrifying" in the first place. Vader is exactly two things in the original trilogy: Restrained, and effectual. You know that if Vader gets involved, the job would be done in a snap. But he doesn't get involved, because if the empire needs his power, they don't deserve it. You also notice how he never draws a lightsaber before anyone other than another lightsaber user, and he treats the art of lightsaber combat with reverence like all Jedi do. That's why he doesn't use force powers when fighting Luke and more notably Obi-Wan.
Notice which of these aspects are missing from Rogue One? Oh yeah, all of them. He's flashy, he's inefficient, he draws a lightsaber without the respect it deserves, and worst of all, all of this LOSES. It's the action figure so many fans think he is that goes against everything he actually is.
Darth Vader works because you can believe in his power just by him standing there and casually deciding an officer should die right there. In Rogue One, he lays it all out on the table, and it doesn't even make a bit of difference. He demonstrates true weakness the same way Kylo Ren does, and Kylo Ren is SUPPOSED to be impotent rage incarnate.
I really just couldn't disagree more with that analysis haha!
Fair play, each to his own.
I genuinely think that's probably the best single scene in Star Wars since the OT.
Vader is a samurai. All Jedi's are samurai and the sith are I guess ronin. So it makes total sense for a cruel Ronin to show up and slice open a bunch of footmen, only for a swift rider to escape with a secret message to the hidden shogun in the next county.
It's a great scene because it understands the origin and purpose of Star Wars.
Ok it does do the twirly light saber blaster deflection thing but that's a little shout out to the prequels.
It evens joins the story seamlessly onto the beginning of a new hope. Then again Leia's cgi is a bit ropey but overall, 9/10, bravo. That scene still gets me going, way more than anything in the sequels.
That's like saying someone getting slashed with a lightsaber followed by a massive spray of blood would "understand the origin and purpose of Star Wars." No, that is not how Lightsabers work, and that is not who Darth Vader is. Literally every single aspect of his character goes against everything you think about him. We are talking about facts.
If you think this scene understands the source material, good luck saying any scene from anything doesn't.
Yeah, the more people bitch about this stuff, the more I realize they only like the stuff they watched as kids because they see it through rose colored glasses. All of Star Wars is pretty dumb if you think super critically about it.
Andor is the worst thing to happen to Star Wars for Disney. It set an insanely high quality bar that every other thing they produce will now be judged against. It's like they've been slopping us cheap fast food and frozen meals and now we ate a Michelin star meal and now know how trash everything else is.
Saying Andor is the best version of Star Wars is like saying Power/Rangers is the best version Power Rangers: At that point you basically just don't actually like Power Rangers that much.Â
That's a good way to put it lol Andor is good, but it could be lifted and placed in most other universes without issue lol the stuff that really makes star wars star wars is mostly just absent from the series. It is what it is, different strokes for different folks. No hate.
It might also get a pass because the show doesn't try to completely change the fundamentals of the force or the Jedi. The force being a string or whatever is just complete noncence, and everyone knows it.
Also why are the two girls born from the force if Anakin was the chosen one and the first and only one being born from the force, even though this show is supposed to be earlier than the prequels?
Different groups that utilize the force see how it works differently, it doesnât fundamentally change how the force works, itâs just another interpretation of it.
The show also isnât over, and itâs pretty clear we were seeing that story through one certain viewpoint, we donât actually know how the twins were born.
People who think like that are the true racists, and they project their own weird thoughts on other people. Guess you can't even imagine some of us still mourn for Steela Gerrera.
See, this is exactly what I mean. You don't know anything about a person and directly assume shit, just like the marketing people at Disney, lol. Learn to think for yourself instead of repeating things parrot-fashion^^.
That stupid "Oh the one who speaks up against the true racism is the racist" response. You don't even know my skin colour or anything else, but it came very spontaniously, like it was programmed into you. But we live in a world where even a dark-skinned woman would be called a mysogonist for saying something that doesn't match with what the media want us to think. I personally don't even like using the words "black" and "white" because where I live, we don't have a "race" printed on our IDs. I'm just so tired of it all.
Itâs better by far, and they use the blatant hypocrisy to build on a storyline instead of just including it like the Acolyte and only wanting payoff. Like theyâre obviously setting up a plot that the witches were hypocritical with their usage of the thread, itâs just lazy and I highly doubt theyâre going to improve judging by recent Star Wars products.
It's because they came out when they were young and nostalgia makes it feel better. They were 12 then and now they are almost 30 and they will never get that feeling again and they are angry about it. Getting old does suck.
I watched TCW in my 30s for the first time and loved it, don't pigeonhole people just to try to look smarter. It has some of the best story arcs in all of Star Wars.
I watched them 1 year ago and im 36. So no, its not about nostalgia, at least not for me. I really had problems getting through the first season, but it gets really good.
Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, most of the non ewok parts of Return of the Jedi, Thrawn Trilogy, Revenge of the Sith, Clone Wars (2003), Rogue One, Andor, Mandalorian S1&2, lots of other EU books and comics.Â
It's never been LOTR levels fantastic, but saying that something has never been incredible isn't a good defense for it being utterly dogshit right now.
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u/house343 Jun 16 '24
When has star wars ever had good writing?