Star Wars: Andor on D+

[Techwright]

17 hours ago, 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.

"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:

Spoiler

• …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]

9 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Here. We. Go.

 

 

Arright, here we go:

  Hide 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.

 

 

Saw all that and...

Spoiler

• 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]

3 hours ago, Techwright said:

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

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]

3 hours ago, 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.

 

 

☝️ 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 Friday at 10:16 PM by Trike

[Techwright]

7 hours ago, Trike said:

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

 

 

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.