Star Wars: Andor on D+

[Techwright]

  On 11/21/2024 at 7:42 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Somehow, the thread returned...

 

There's only a few scant clips and details about Andor S2 so far, but from the looks of things...

...the direction is still absolutely on point. Just look at the setup for this frame, dammit.

How you can see those characters relate to each other just with position, expressions and costume coding.

And, yes, wardrobe crew and location scouts are still on point as well.

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"How you can see those characters relate to each other just with position, expressions and costume coding."   Not to mention lines. 

 

My two years of being an art minor in college long, long ago have mostly atrophied, but I still retain enough of my art composition training to realize this still could be used to teach the next generation of young artists.  Every line in this either points to the central two characters (even the "line" created by the storm troopers' helmets), or frames in the two characters by narrowing the broader space, much like rings on an archery target.  In this case it is the diagonal lines started by the support beam in the upper right corner, the single rafters' beam to the left of Mon Mothma, the light/dark divide on the floor, and the diagonals behind the troopers.   With a paining or a relief, I'd expect this kind of structure.  The artist, as Bob Ross used to say, has complete control of the composition, but I'm always amazed at the movie camera achieving it, as there are creations not made by the photographer, namely the building in this case.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Here. We. Go.

 

 

Arright, here we go:

  Reveal hidden contents

• …may need that track. For reasons. 
• Lookin' slick, Diego. Clearly the theatre of ops has moved to the Core Worlds, where you get arrested for 5 o'clock shadow.
• Not one but four corridor walkdowns. Much badassery.
• Krennic's getting a lot more to do in this one (though I didn't know Imps liked High Society).
• K2-SO's in town. Hopefully we get lots of Alan Tudyk snark.
• I don't know why you need a dance sequence in all these shows now. (Maybe it's a contractual thing for Hotstar.) I don't mind, and it'll probably be a nice relief moment.
• Forest Whitaker also returns as Saw Guerrera and gets more big speeches.
• Not sure what that ugly spud of a ship is seen taking off from a base they've just raided, but not one for the Lego toy collection.
• Syril and Dedra are back... though not together. Probably. The 'Ship From Hell, that one.
• Lots more action and big ol' Michael Bay 'splodeyness.

 

Edited February 24 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Techwright]

  On 2/24/2025 at 7:09 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Here. We. Go.

 

 

Arright, here we go:

  Reveal hidden contents

• …may need that track. For reasons. 
• Lookin' slick, Diego. Clearly the theatre of ops has moved to the Core Worlds, where you get arrested for 5 o'clock shadow.
• Not one but four corridor walkdowns. Much badassery.
• Krennic's getting a lot more to do in this one (though I didn't know Imps liked High Society).
• K2-SO's in town. Hopefully we get lots of Alan Tudyk snark.
• I don't know why you need a dance sequence in all these shows now. (Maybe it's a contractual thing for Hotstar.) I don't mind, and it'll probably be a nice relief moment.
• Forest Whitaker also returns as Saw Guerrera and gets more big speeches.
• Not sure what that ugly spud of a ship is seen taking off from a base they've just raided, but not one for the Lego toy collection.
• Syril and Dedra are back... though not together. Probably. The 'Ship From Hell, that one.
• Lots more action and big ol' Michael Bay 'splodeyness.

 

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Saw all that and...

  Reveal hidden contents

• Syril's mom's going to be back.  The one character I really want to backhand.
• Showing Andor on the Yavin 4 moon.  Of course, this could be moments before he meets Jinn Urso.
• Lots of wheat fields with almost nothing else in sight.  Considering the scope of Star Wars, I'd guess Andor is on Lothal which is intriguing because this is the same time line as Star Wars: Rebels, making me wonder if we'll get several of the cast in a Lothal episode. So many possibilities both heroes and villains. They could easily show Hera or Rider Azadi, and possibly Zeb, though that would be costly.  They'd have to cast younger actors for the teens, since this is a decade before live action Ahsoka.    I'd be particularly pleased if they managed to de-age Freddie Prinze Jr. and put him in as his character Canan Jarrus.  Since it's hard core spy work, though, my money would be on Rider Azadi, Agent Kallus (on either side) or Hera showing up.  Kudos if they bring in Governor Price.  If it is Lothal, I have to suspect it is something tied to the TIE Defender program.
• Andor in the cockpit of a TIE, and its not a Defender.  I believe it may be a prototype Avenger.  The scene with a missile taking out a ground vehicle shows enough of the wings to suggest an Avenger. 
• Mon Mothma at the dance scene.  Political event?  Part of her daughter's wedding events?
• Hooded girl with Andor:  his long-lost sister? or more likely Bix?
• Brasso, that big, tough, rock-steady friend of the Andor family is back. This time on that wheat planet looking like he's getting caught by storm troopers.
• 5 guys in a corridor with a mish-mash of trooper gear on.  I see what looks like elements of the bulkier snowtrooper chestplates, Imp officer hats, speeder trooper goggles, etc.  What I don't see, curiously, is any stormtrooper helmet on any of them.  Most unusual for a team of stormtroopers, who nearly always remain anonymous behind their helmets.  This makes me think that what we're seeing is a specialized hunter squad.  The question is whether they're a squad hunting down rebels, or are they a rebel squad hunting down imps?  I'd like to think it's the latter and the armor is a mish-mash of the spoils of war.  But why wear the imp officers' hats into combat?
• Is that Mon Mothma speaking with Krennik?  Framed in the shot between them is certainly the red-haired crime boss that demanded her daughter in bargain for his money.

....and...not an alien in sight.  I even freeze framed all the group scenes: no aliens.  This, I think, is the one disingenuous bit.  Humans are the dominant species, yes, but Star Wars is chock full of alien species, many of them, like the Twi'lek, are quite common.   It's one point that makes me feel at times like Andor isn't really Star Wars, but a really great sci-fi story nonetheless.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

  On 2/25/2025 at 5:51 AM, Techwright said:

I even freeze framed all the group scenes: no aliens.  This, I think, is the one disingenuous bit.

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Trek lore is that humans spread from the Earth and encountered aliens... well, as alien as 60s prosthetics and makeup would allow - and either teamed up with them or fought them as part of the Federation. So you see a lot more of them.

 

Wars lore is that humanity arose on the old Core Worlds - Coruscant claimed to be the original homeworld, but they're snotty buggers - and then sent out gen-ships and sleeper ships, either cutting deals with or just overrunning local species to set up outposts. (Darth Plagueis the Wise considered humanity to be the most adaptable species, not least because of their sheer, dumb bloody-mindedness to succeed in the face of suffering. And therefore rather useful to the Sith.)

 

But beyond the lore, the famously grumpy* Tony Gilroy is famously not a massive Wars or sci-fi fan, and wanted to tell a human drama story using the Wars toybox. With that in mind, it's unlikely aliens (even Hera or Zeb) are likely to make an appearance, as it would take the audience a little more work to connect with them.

 

*Every writer has their own favourite vox auctoris character - and they're usually easy to spot as they'll get the best speeches.

Tony's was Kino Loy.

[Techwright]

  On 2/25/2025 at 10:10 AM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

But beyond the lore, the famously grumpy* Tony Gilroy is famously not a massive Wars or sci-fi fan, and wanted to tell a human drama story using the Wars toybox. With that in mind, it's unlikely aliens (even Hera or Zeb) are likely to make an appearance, as it would take the audience a little more work to connect with them.

 

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☝️ This far more than the lore, and that is what I find disappointing. He's basically creating a sci-fi story that could be told in any universe just by renaming a few concepts, like the Empire and the Rebellion.  It needs a tweak using the formula set up by George Lucas. 

 

Consider the original six movies.  Aliens are everywhere, except on Imperial properties (with very few exceptions, such as Thrawn).  Imps are very racis species-ist, to probably coin a phrase, but that's part of their fascist "charm".  But in common folk areas, even in core worlds (recall the Coruscant diner scene from the Prequel Trilogy) , you'll still find aliens milling about.  There were, eventually, a few background aliens in Andor season 1, but even then, they were all new inventions for the show.  Previous Star Wars works had the pattern of introducing a few new alien types, but largely using those types introduced in the Original Trilogy.  Even other modern Star Wars works are doing that, such as the Shistavanen pirate captain Brutus in the very recent Skeleton Crew.  If I recall correctly, the wolf-like model for that first appeared in the famous cantina scene in A New Hope.

 

It would be one thing to tell a human-centric story on a single world colonized only by humans and their droids, say something on the edge of Wild Space where tens of thousands of years of settlement has yet to take place.  It's another to use many, many worlds and blatantly refuse the Star Wars design.

 

Please don't get me wrong.  Andor season 1 was nothing short of amazing, it's just that it left me actually desiring Lucas to come do a special edition and put a lot of aliens (or even a few) into the background shots to act as balance for the SW formula.  Just that.  The foregrounds can remain that human-centric story.

[Trike]

I thought there were plenty of non-humans in Andor’s first season. Am I misremembering?

 

To me it felt like the non-human quotient was about the same as Star Wars - they’re present but in limited quantities. Mostly it’s Chewie and the two droids, with a couple background aliens here and there. Andor was the same way: 95% humans, a couple aliens sitting in the bar, and a couple front and center.

 

Edit: I just turned 60 on Wednesday, so it’s never been “A New Hope” for me, always just “Star Wars”. But the retcon title “Episode IV” from 1977 is the one I’m referring to.

Edited March 7 by Trike

[Techwright]

  On 3/7/2025 at 10:14 PM, Trike said:

I thought there were plenty of non-humans in Andor’s first season. Am I misremembering?

 

 

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I'm not sure "plenty" is the right word, but you are not wrong, there were some aliens, but if you'll go back and check, I think you find that absolutely none of them are aliens from any other Star Wars work.  And, although I cannot swear to this, I'm reasonably sure the aliens are only in the background.  There is no prominent alien, even in a secondary role, like Chewie. That has never happened before.  There often are introductions of new aliens, but every Star Wars work has built off the original movie's menagerie, especially off of the cantina scene, and in extension off of the full Original Trilogy, with Jabba's palace bringing in a lot more aliens.   It goes back to what ThaOGDreamWeaver was saying "Tony Gilroy is famously not a massive Wars or sci-fi fan."

[Trike]

Well, Andor is also the most Empire-centric story we’ve seen, and the Imperials are racist and xenophobic. There’s literally only one non-human in the Empire’s ranks, so there aren’t any in the Imperial senate or the various offices we see. But every time the show goes to a non-Empire location aliens are present.

 

True, there’s no Chewie or Yoda equivalent, but I find it odd that people are complaining about this when throughout Andor there are almost as many alien characters as black characters. I don’t recall a single Asian actor. That seems like a bigger issue to me, honestly, because the rest of it is very Star Wars. Although being whitewashed is pretty on-brand too.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

 

Nice little EPK for you - and I think they heard you. We now have a grand total of 3 (three) aliens visible: two posh Senators, and what looks like Chewie's Canadian cousin.

Also - I wonder if we know, or will know, that kid running across the wide open prairies...

[InvaderStych]

  On 3/17/2025 at 7:00 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Chewie's Canadian cousin.

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Some say he dines on a steady diet of Ewoks, and that if he had been on the Death Star those Bothan spies might not have lost their lives ... 

 

All we know is he's not The Chewie, he's The Chewie's Canadian Cousin!

 

Sorry, couldn't resist the reference ...

[twozerofoxtrot]

TIE Advanced, my beloved....

 

 

 

....did Andor just sort of give up on finding his sister or what?

[Techwright]

  On 3/17/2025 at 7:00 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

 

Nice little EPK for you - and I think they heard you. We now have a grand total of 3 (three) aliens visible: two posh Senators, and what looks like Chewie's Canadian cousin.

Also - I wonder if we know, or will know, that kid running across the wide open prairies...

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That's definitely a good thing, though I'm not sure any of them have appeared in Star Wars before.  Possibly the yellow one talking to Mon Mothma.  It seems somehow familiar.

As to the "Canadian cousin", the first thing I wondered was whether it was a Talz, but I'm not sure the head is right.  The second possibility (and I stress "possibility".  I'm spitballing here) that occurred to me is more fascinating, to me at least.  What if it really is a wookiee? A polar wookiee.  So far in canon we've only seen reddish-brown and black furred wookiees, but they're also all from the forests and jungles.  So often, planets in Star Wars are treated as singular bioms, but what if someone creative realized Kashyyyk could be like Earth, with multiple bioms?  Then you could have the wookiees that had white hair for the polar regions.

 

  On 3/17/2025 at 11:28 PM, twozerofoxtrot said:

....did Andor just sort of give up on finding his sister or what?

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I've been wondering that as well, and I'm not liking where my thoughts are taking me.  Remember what Cassian was at the beginning of Rogue One:  jaded and spiritually bankrupt, willing to kill his own side if he feels it advances his goals.  What if in season 2 he does find her, or worse, his enemies find her, possibly at the climax of the story, and circumstances force him to kill her?  With two exceptions (K2 and Melshi), we don't see any of his friends or family in Rogue One,  which may just mean they're elsewhere, or it may indicate a catastrophic loss, which would lead him to that dark place in Rogue One.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

  On 3/18/2025 at 2:49 AM, Techwright said:

What if in season 2 he does find her, or worse, his enemies find her, possibly at the climax of the story, and circumstances force him to kill her?

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No fridge so cold as a fridge in space.

 

I'm hoping Tony's too good to go for that ancient, creaking, irritating story beat. Then again, we've only seen two to three minutes tops out of nine hours(ish) of content between these two trailers, and a lot of that was sizzle reel 'splodey stuff. If she must be 'fridged, let her go out in the most glorious double-wide fridge with its own ice dispenser, icing as many Imps along the way as she can.

[Heliphyn34u]

  On 3/17/2025 at 11:28 PM, twozerofoxtrot said:

....did Andor just sort of give up on finding his sister or what?

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  On 3/18/2025 at 2:49 AM, Techwright said:

What if in season 2 he does find her, or worse, his enemies find her, possibly at the climax of the story, and circumstances force him to kill her?

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  On 3/18/2025 at 1:31 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

No fridge so cold as a fridge in space.

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I love the show, but it does kinda irk me that Andor's search for his sister was just dropped.  I mean, he's been through a lot, and sometimes life is just like that -- you get no answers.  But this is fiction, a story told deliberately to make a point, or several.  I don't need her to be fridged, I don't need a big plot arc about her, I don't even need Andor himself to find out what happened to her -- just some kind of nod to the audience about it.  Like, close your parentheses, sheesh.

 

Very much looking forward to K2S0's entrance.

 

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

They may pick it up again in this part.

Or parts, if I’ve read right: I’ve heard this season comprises of three interlocking stories with large time jumps between them, dropping us off at Rogue One.
 

So it’s possible she’s involved in one of them, or he spends some of that intervening time doing the looking and we pick it up when he’s back on the trail.

Or they just drop and fridge her, which would disappoint.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Final trailer:

• More corridors.
• For “different kind of mission”, read “suicide.”
• Bix on the farm planet looking happy.
• Does look like a Talz.
• They know about the Death Star… “the monster will come for us all”.
• “Revolution is not for the sane” is a superb line, btw.

[Techwright]

  On 3/28/2025 at 10:52 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

 

• More corridors.
• Does look like a Talz.

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1. Corridors:  Makes one wonder if they will give Cassian, or perhaps one of the other characters, a hallway fight/domination scene such as that started with Vader in Rogue One, and perpetuated by several Star Wars characters since then.

 

2. Now that we have a clear view of his face at 0:48, he's not a Talz (unfortunately), but something just as cool.  I even have the character's name, so dropping in a spoiler box:

  Reveal hidden contents

The character is Moroff, a Gigoran of the planet Gigor, basically a frost world.  Gigorans have a lot in common with Wookies: long fur, prodigious strength, an inability to speak Galactic Standard, warrior mindset (mercenaries), etc.  They're basically Wookie parallels from a polar world.  They wear a mouth guard that acts as a translator unit.   Moroff was the first of this species to appear, and he premiered in Rogue One, so it makes perfect sense that he's here in Andor.

 

I'm wondering what the flying craft is at 0:32.  It doesn't look familiar, nor Empire, so my first thought is cargo craft, Trojan horse attempt by the Empire. Judging from the reaction of the folks on the ground, they're suspicious immediately, possibly due to an unscheduled appearance.

 

I keep wondering about this wheat planet.  In the dining scene (0:28), we can see what appears to be a communications tower and stubby rock hills in the background, both of which have associations with crop planet Lothal in Star Wars: Rebels.  I'd like it to be so, but something feels off.

 

I'd like to see Eric Voss' translation of the Aurebesh on the wall at 0:43, when K2 yeets a trooper over the bridge.  My own attempt to translate failed, though I was able to determine that the video was reversed. (K2's "backpack" features are reversed, as are the Aurebesh letters).  While I got several letter right, I'm sure, much of my failure revolves around at least one symbol used twice that does not appear in any aurebesh translation graphic that I've looked at, which makes me wonder if someone is messing with those who seek out the translations.

 

I find Luthen's appearance at 0:54 interesting.  I'm wondering if this scene is showing some inward struggle related to the two faces he shows to the public: the foppish curator of archaeological wonders and the revolutionary.

 

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

  On 4/1/2025 at 3:47 PM, Techwright said:

 

I'm wondering what the flying craft is at 0:32.  It doesn't look familiar, nor Empire, so my first thought is cargo craft, Trojan horse attempt by the Empire. Judging from the reaction of the folks on the ground, they're suspicious immediately, possibly due to an unscheduled appearance

 

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Clearly they don't like the look of it...

 

It *does* have the flying bridge and a little bit of the delta wing common to Imperial/Clone Wars Republic era designs, so I'm thinking either Imp - some kind of superheavy constructor, carrier/troop vessel, or pre-Death Star demolitions vessel - or it is an old Republic-era supercruiser that's been repurposed, either by the Empire or the fledgling Rebellion.

 

If this is introducing the Rebels, something that big could deliver an Imperial Planetary Occupation Facility. Though the weird snub nose doesn't look quite like the old place...?

 

And Lothal was home to an Imp skunkworks, so pulling a Firefox on an advanced TIE fighter would be a nice prize.

(Yes, that gag's been used before, but at least I'd get to post this.)

 

Edited April 1 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Techwright]

  On 4/1/2025 at 4:59 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

 

Clearly they don't like the look of it...

 

It *does* have the flying bridge and a little bit of the delta wing common to Imperial/Clone Wars Republic era designs, so I'm thinking either Imp - some kind of superheavy constructor, carrier/troop vessel, or pre-Death Star demolitions vessel - or it is an old Republic-era supercruiser that's been repurposed, either by the Empire or the fledgling Rebellion.

 

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I've been doing some digging, and I think it might be a Gozanti-class cruiser, or possibly the variant Imperial Gozanti-class cruiser.    I magnified the image, and though fuzzy, the ship does bear the "slash" window up on the nose, as well as the stubby wings. What I though were rounded edges, were just distortions of the poor image.  The ship appears to have the appropriate edges on the nose cone.   The tail area is a bit confusing.  Again, the image is fuzzy, but it almost looks like someone mounted a dopplar radar ball on the tail.  Standard Gozanti-class have a tail gunner in the spot.   It's probably just the poor quality of the image, again, or perhaps this is another Gozanti-class variant.