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The cinematography, editing, writing, and overall feel of this show far exceed any Star Wars movie I've seen. I had long since written off the Star Wars franchi

The cinematography, editing, writing, and overall feel of this show far exceed any Star Wars movie I've seen. I had long since written off the Star Wars franchise as a shameless cash grab since the original movies but they proved they could do something cool with it. I'd definitely watch a new movie if it were handled by the same team that made Andor. Prequel, sequel, side story, or re-telling of the originals.

ghaff 1y ago
For quite a while, the further the films/series are separated from the original trilogy, the better they seem to be.
- meowface 1y ago
  The first sequel just mirroring the original movie was so lame. Reference-baiting.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    It's probably hard for the producers not to do fan service. But they can go overboard.
- lucideer 1y ago
  Ironically Andor is one of the closest to A New Hope narratively.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    It ties in but isn't really part of the main storyline except incidentally. You could say the same thing about Rogue One though the tie-in is even stronger in that case. The Mandalorian is pretty separate other than baby yoda.
    - lucideer 1y ago
      It's not part of the main storyline of Luke's journey as an individual & the Jedi order but it is a very big part of one of the main storylines of a ragtag bunch of rebels sticking it to the empire. A storyline which I'd argue was strongest in A New Hope & the initial trilogy & was weakened by the increased focus on individual storylines in the anakin & rey trilogies.
      - sho_hn 1y ago
        I'd say this is giving the Anakin trilogy an unfair shake: While I don't enjoy watching the prequels much for being clumsy films, you have to hand it to Lucas for trying to significantly expand his space opera by adding in galactical politics, etc. Any thrust to make Star Wars about ideology and governance (and specifically parliamentary democracy vs. facism) really came from the prequels, and arguably you couldn't have Andor without their template just as much as A New Hope delivers the plot hooks for its premise. In retrospect, while its flowering may be Andor, it's the prequels that gave the franchise a bigger signature and message than just being a family drama. Taken together they now make Star Wars about something, which I think it never really had before. "What's that star war about?" is something you can answer now.
        toyg 1y ago
        Yes, the overall narrative of the prequels was good and very promising. It's so unfortunate that they turned out to simply be shockingly bad as movies - "clumsly" really doesn't describe how stodgy and badly put-together they were. I honestly hope Disney will eventually remake them from scratch, with the excuse that FX have progressed dramatically since then. They could even reuse McEwan, considering he's supposed to be an older character already.
        jimbokun 1y ago
        I don't think any of the politics from the prequel trilogy lands. It's too cartoony for that. Whereas Senator Mothma's story arc had me engrossed from beginning to end. From the complexities of a Senator's social life, to her financial difficulties, to the medieval like politics of marrying off her daughter for the sake of a political and financial alliance, to her risking more and more, to her brave and powerful speech condemning the empire. There is nothing in the prequels that hits nearly as hard. Because it's all dialog the audience isn't paying attention to because the Jedi stuff is more engaging, and because the political stakes never seem that great.
  - marcosdumay 1y ago
    You could have the exact same story on a completely different universe, without using any of the Star Wars IP by doing only superficial adjustments. But also yes, it's the closest thing to the original theme since the second movie.
    - colordrops 1y ago
      The second season is heavily tied to in-universe events that lead to Rogue One and A New Hope.
  - e3bc54b2 1y ago
    It is one of the reasons I love Andor so much. Rogue One was so good that it elevated a A New Hope and Andor in turn (especially after S2) elevates Rogue One in similar fashion. The movie/show on their own are some of the greatest, but they don't limit their achievements to themselves and like a rising tide lift whoever they connect to. It is really really hard to pull that off, and people in Andor somehow managed that twice.
- ninkendo 1y ago
  I maintain that the Jedi are the most boring thing about Star Wars, and the less about them we hear in a story, the better. Andor managed to go the whole series run without a single lightsaber going brrr, and it’s the best Star Wars outside of the original trilogy. The empire is a compelling thing to make stories about, and what Andor does well is actually make the whole thing believable. It’s not a bunch of cackling supervillains aiming to be maximally evil, like it is in so many of the movies… it’s an actually-believable thing, filled with characters with their own motivations, none of whom are explicitly evil by themselves, but through all of them evil is done. The episodes of season 1 when Andor is arrested and sent to prison are the most compelling and actually-scary depictions of the empire ever put to film. It’s just that good.
  - fmajid 1y ago
    What I really liked about The Acolyte is that it showed how evil the Jedi really are behind their holier-than-thou propaganda. Whoever governs really should implement a R&D program to eradicate the midi-chlorian infestation and rid the galaxy of the scourge of both Jedi and Sith in one fell swoop.
cwillu 1y ago
You're aware of Rogue One, right?
- meowface 1y ago
  I watched it for the first time immediately after finishing Andor. Definitely better than the other Star Wars films but definitely not as good as Andor. (I'm aware the showrunner of Andor co-wrote Rogue One, but Andor really seems like a different tier.)
  - mcv 1y ago
    Andor is by far the best Star Wars. Rogue One is very good, and the only movie that's in the same league as the originals, but Andor is so much better. I don't think we'll see anything on the same level as Andor again; they already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2; it's simply too expensive and costs too much time to do it this well. But I do hope that future Star Wars shows will try to follow at least some aspects of its example: better writing, more human stories, focus on core themes, not on fan service or milking established characters. Of course production values will be lower, but I can live with that if they get the other stuff right.
    - meowface 1y ago
      >they already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2 Wow that's a shame. I had no idea. Assuming they could've kept up the quality, that would've been amazing for their reputation and retention.
    - carrychains 1y ago
      That "cut" happened before they even started working on the show. Despite the original thought of 5 seasons, it was essentially planned for 2 seasons right from the start.
      - kranke155 1y ago
        From Gilroy’s own telling, it happened during the filming of Season 1 in Scotland? That seems to be what he told Happy Sad Confused on their recent interview. He realised that everything, absolutely everything in Star Wars needs to be designed, that it took ages to do, and that it would be forever to make 5 seasons. So he pitched to Diego to only make one more.
deleted 1y ago
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iainmerrick 1y ago
Yeah, it’s honestly hard to find a weak element. The actors are all great, the music is great (with an interesting progression from electronic to orchestral), the set design is incredible. It’s both timeless and topical.
- pixxel 1y ago
  [dead]
JodieBenitez 1y ago
> I had long since written off the Star Wars franchise as a shameless cash grab since the original movies but they proved they could do something cool with it. I'd argue they already proved this with Rogue One. Too bad we had the Abrams/Johnson dumpster fire.
mtillman 1y ago
Loved Andor. Unlikely Gilroy would do more Star Wars and if he did, he probably wouldn’t be given another $650M for a side character. Season 2 was $290 and that was after their budget was capped by Iger, they tried to spend more. Source: https://screenrant.com/andor-budget-confirmed/ https://screenrant.com/andor-budget-confirmed/
- meowface 1y ago
  On one hand I want to say "fuck it, let them have whatever the fuck they want", given they should've known how well-received the show is by critics and viewers alike and how they should consider it basically the savior of the Star Wars brand. On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day.
  - fernandopj 1y ago
    Andor S2 was around $350M and most likely paid for itself and some. [1] > On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day. You're right, in the sense that Andor was an exception regarding every other SW show on Disney+ for the past 4 years. All had high production costs and seems like Andor is the only one which recouped itself. Acolyte was a spectacular viewship failure. So the business logic would be to cap costs, most likely in half for now on. I don't have high expectations of Disney learning the right lessons from Andor & Tony. [1] https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-andor-revenue-disney-plus/ https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-andor-revenue-disney-plus/
    - imglorp 1y ago
      How exactly does a streaming show pay? Is it measured in new subscriptions when viewers hear the buzz and sign up to the service due to that show? Otherwise, the users stream it, or don't, they pay the same either way. The inverse question too: why do streaming platforms cancel popular shows? Watcher count doesn't seem to be the metric I think it is.
  - toyg 1y ago
    > the savior of the Star Wars brand I think Rogue One is the best Star Wars ever and Andor is in the same vein. But. The savior of the Star Wars brand is always going to be the latest lightsaber-fest for 10-year-olds. That creates customer loyalty that will survive forever. Those kids then grow up and get to bitch about the new lightsaber-fest, and to fawn over the artsy drama.
Arkhaine_kupo 1y ago
I would recommend Skeleton Crew. Its def aimed at younger crows but if you have nieces/nephews or kids of your own its a delight. Basically treasure Island/ goonies in space, it is campier than Andor but does what it aims for amazingly. Cause andor can get quite heavy on the fighting fascism and sometimes finding a treasure map is more the vibe than seeing holocaust planning meetings I didnt watch anything mandalorian past season 2, never watched boba fet, obiwan or ahsoka because I thought it would be Dave Filoni getting action figures and bumping them together, and friends who watched them agree with my intuition. But yeah of the new star wars stuff Andor and Skeleton Crew are both amazing in very different ways
- duxup 1y ago
  Skeleton Creis basically the movie Goonies .. but Star Wars, and it’s tons of fun. They should make a new Skeleton Crew show every year with a whole new cast. It really hits the lighthearted adventure button that to me is the core of Star Wars.
manmal 1y ago
The prison episode is a masterpiece and would have been an amazing movie on its own. It‘s weird how zany the other SW shows and even movies look now in comparison. I‘m really sad there can’t be another season.
- sbarre 1y ago
  I am hoping that they follow this up with stories set between the original trilogy movies, with some of the characters that were expanded on in the Andor show (and new ones too). It feels like there's plenty of room in the timeline between those movies to keep telling stories about the rebellion against the Empire, in the same tone as Andor.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- brianzelip 1y ago
  Be sure to watch for after the credits of the last episode of season 1!!
- m3kw9 1y ago
  I find the credit heist escape was epic
rockemsockem 1y ago
I've made peace with the fact that "Star Wars" basically means nothing w.r.t. what kind of story I can expect, both in terms of quality and variety of story. Gotta look for talented people in charge of the project and make guesses at quality that way now. I'm hopeful that with Donald Glover running the Lando movie that it'll be good, but otherwise IDK of anything else in Star Wars that I'm really looking forward to...
nprateem 1y ago
[Spoiler-ish] It's just a shame the show largely fails to build emotional connection with the characters. When bad things happened I mostly felt nothing. The other thing that has always plagued SW is the fact they can travel through hyperspace, have the tech to destroy planets, but largely lack CCTV, autopilot, effective homing missiles, HD displays, etc. It's a weird mix of 70s tech and super sci-fi. It's like, if you were leading a rebellion, would you have your secret base rigged with remotely detonated explosives, or need to go back and cackhandedly manually destroy your comms, etc? Suspension of disbelief is stretched to breaking point sometimes.
- themadturk 1y ago
  The problem with this is that you expect tech in the Star Wars universe to echo the tech in our universe. First, of course, is that Star Wars is science fantasy, and second, why should technology progress through the same pathways ours have taken? Tech in Star Wars isn't explained, it just is, and it fits the world George Lucas created and the story he wanted to tell. Space fighters fly the way they do because WWII fighters fly the way they do; autopilots don't work because they weren't a thing in the Saturday afternoon serials of the era Lucas grew up in and was trying to emulate on screen. It is a weird mix, but the best thing to do is just leave any desire for realistic physics or Terran historic progress at the box office.
epolanski 1y ago
I gave it a try, and it wasn't bad indeed, but honestly I have too much fatigue towards all this repetitive milking of IPs to keep my interest up.
hulitu 1y ago
> The cinematography, editing, writing, and overall feel of this show far exceed any Star Wars movie I've seen. Yes, but by sucking big. The story is nonexistent, the scenes with children do not blend in the story, the story is boring as hell.

ghaff 1y ago

For quite a while, the further the films/series are separated from the original trilogy, the better they seem to be.

meowface 1y ago
The first sequel just mirroring the original movie was so lame. Reference-baiting.
- ghaff 1y ago
  It's probably hard for the producers not to do fan service. But they can go overboard.
lucideer 1y ago
Ironically Andor is one of the closest to A New Hope narratively.
- ghaff 1y ago
  It ties in but isn't really part of the main storyline except incidentally. You could say the same thing about Rogue One though the tie-in is even stronger in that case. The Mandalorian is pretty separate other than baby yoda.
  - lucideer 1y ago
    It's not part of the main storyline of Luke's journey as an individual & the Jedi order but it is a very big part of one of the main storylines of a ragtag bunch of rebels sticking it to the empire. A storyline which I'd argue was strongest in A New Hope & the initial trilogy & was weakened by the increased focus on individual storylines in the anakin & rey trilogies.
    - sho_hn 1y ago
      I'd say this is giving the Anakin trilogy an unfair shake: While I don't enjoy watching the prequels much for being clumsy films, you have to hand it to Lucas for trying to significantly expand his space opera by adding in galactical politics, etc. Any thrust to make Star Wars about ideology and governance (and specifically parliamentary democracy vs. facism) really came from the prequels, and arguably you couldn't have Andor without their template just as much as A New Hope delivers the plot hooks for its premise. In retrospect, while its flowering may be Andor, it's the prequels that gave the franchise a bigger signature and message than just being a family drama. Taken together they now make Star Wars about something, which I think it never really had before. "What's that star war about?" is something you can answer now.
      - toyg 1y ago
        Yes, the overall narrative of the prequels was good and very promising. It's so unfortunate that they turned out to simply be shockingly bad as movies - "clumsly" really doesn't describe how stodgy and badly put-together they were. I honestly hope Disney will eventually remake them from scratch, with the excuse that FX have progressed dramatically since then. They could even reuse McEwan, considering he's supposed to be an older character already.
      - jimbokun 1y ago
        I don't think any of the politics from the prequel trilogy lands. It's too cartoony for that. Whereas Senator Mothma's story arc had me engrossed from beginning to end. From the complexities of a Senator's social life, to her financial difficulties, to the medieval like politics of marrying off her daughter for the sake of a political and financial alliance, to her risking more and more, to her brave and powerful speech condemning the empire. There is nothing in the prequels that hits nearly as hard. Because it's all dialog the audience isn't paying attention to because the Jedi stuff is more engaging, and because the political stakes never seem that great.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  You could have the exact same story on a completely different universe, without using any of the Star Wars IP by doing only superficial adjustments. But also yes, it's the closest thing to the original theme since the second movie.
  - colordrops 1y ago
    The second season is heavily tied to in-universe events that lead to Rogue One and A New Hope.
- e3bc54b2 1y ago
  It is one of the reasons I love Andor so much. Rogue One was so good that it elevated a A New Hope and Andor in turn (especially after S2) elevates Rogue One in similar fashion. The movie/show on their own are some of the greatest, but they don't limit their achievements to themselves and like a rising tide lift whoever they connect to. It is really really hard to pull that off, and people in Andor somehow managed that twice.
ninkendo 1y ago
I maintain that the Jedi are the most boring thing about Star Wars, and the less about them we hear in a story, the better. Andor managed to go the whole series run without a single lightsaber going brrr, and it’s the best Star Wars outside of the original trilogy. The empire is a compelling thing to make stories about, and what Andor does well is actually make the whole thing believable. It’s not a bunch of cackling supervillains aiming to be maximally evil, like it is in so many of the movies… it’s an actually-believable thing, filled with characters with their own motivations, none of whom are explicitly evil by themselves, but through all of them evil is done. The episodes of season 1 when Andor is arrested and sent to prison are the most compelling and actually-scary depictions of the empire ever put to film. It’s just that good.
- fmajid 1y ago
  What I really liked about The Acolyte is that it showed how evil the Jedi really are behind their holier-than-thou propaganda. Whoever governs really should implement a R&D program to eradicate the midi-chlorian infestation and rid the galaxy of the scourge of both Jedi and Sith in one fell swoop.

cwillu 1y ago

You're aware of Rogue One, right?

meowface 1y ago
I watched it for the first time immediately after finishing Andor. Definitely better than the other Star Wars films but definitely not as good as Andor. (I'm aware the showrunner of Andor co-wrote Rogue One, but Andor really seems like a different tier.)
- mcv 1y ago
  Andor is by far the best Star Wars. Rogue One is very good, and the only movie that's in the same league as the originals, but Andor is so much better. I don't think we'll see anything on the same level as Andor again; they already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2; it's simply too expensive and costs too much time to do it this well. But I do hope that future Star Wars shows will try to follow at least some aspects of its example: better writing, more human stories, focus on core themes, not on fan service or milking established characters. Of course production values will be lower, but I can live with that if they get the other stuff right.
  - meowface 1y ago
    >they already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2 Wow that's a shame. I had no idea. Assuming they could've kept up the quality, that would've been amazing for their reputation and retention.
  - carrychains 1y ago
    That "cut" happened before they even started working on the show. Despite the original thought of 5 seasons, it was essentially planned for 2 seasons right from the start.
    - kranke155 1y ago
      From Gilroy’s own telling, it happened during the filming of Season 1 in Scotland? That seems to be what he told Happy Sad Confused on their recent interview. He realised that everything, absolutely everything in Star Wars needs to be designed, that it took ages to do, and that it would be forever to make 5 seasons. So he pitched to Diego to only make one more.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

iainmerrick 1y ago

Yeah, it’s honestly hard to find a weak element. The actors are all great, the music is great (with an interesting progression from electronic to orchestral), the set design is incredible. It’s both timeless and topical.

pixxel 1y ago
[dead]

JodieBenitez 1y ago

> I had long since written off the Star Wars franchise as a shameless cash grab since the original movies but they proved they could do something cool with it. I'd argue they already proved this with Rogue One. Too bad we had the Abrams/Johnson dumpster fire.

mtillman 1y ago

Loved Andor. Unlikely Gilroy would do more Star Wars and if he did, he probably wouldn’t be given another $650M for a side character. Season 2 was $290 and that was after their budget was capped by Iger, they tried to spend more. Source: https://screenrant.com/andor-budget-confirmed/ https://screenrant.com/andor-budget-confirmed/

meowface 1y ago
On one hand I want to say "fuck it, let them have whatever the fuck they want", given they should've known how well-received the show is by critics and viewers alike and how they should consider it basically the savior of the Star Wars brand. On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day.
- fernandopj 1y ago
  Andor S2 was around $350M and most likely paid for itself and some. [1] > On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day. You're right, in the sense that Andor was an exception regarding every other SW show on Disney+ for the past 4 years. All had high production costs and seems like Andor is the only one which recouped itself. Acolyte was a spectacular viewship failure. So the business logic would be to cap costs, most likely in half for now on. I don't have high expectations of Disney learning the right lessons from Andor & Tony. [1] https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-andor-revenue-disney-plus/ https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-andor-revenue-disney-plus/
  - imglorp 1y ago
    How exactly does a streaming show pay? Is it measured in new subscriptions when viewers hear the buzz and sign up to the service due to that show? Otherwise, the users stream it, or don't, they pay the same either way. The inverse question too: why do streaming platforms cancel popular shows? Watcher count doesn't seem to be the metric I think it is.
- toyg 1y ago
  > the savior of the Star Wars brand I think Rogue One is the best Star Wars ever and Andor is in the same vein. But. The savior of the Star Wars brand is always going to be the latest lightsaber-fest for 10-year-olds. That creates customer loyalty that will survive forever. Those kids then grow up and get to bitch about the new lightsaber-fest, and to fawn over the artsy drama.

Arkhaine_kupo 1y ago

I would recommend Skeleton Crew. Its def aimed at younger crows but if you have nieces/nephews or kids of your own its a delight. Basically treasure Island/ goonies in space, it is campier than Andor but does what it aims for amazingly. Cause andor can get quite heavy on the fighting fascism and sometimes finding a treasure map is more the vibe than seeing holocaust planning meetings I didnt watch anything mandalorian past season 2, never watched boba fet, obiwan or ahsoka because I thought it would be Dave Filoni getting action figures and bumping them together, and friends who watched them agree with my intuition. But yeah of the new star wars stuff Andor and Skeleton Crew are both amazing in very different ways

duxup 1y ago
Skeleton Creis basically the movie Goonies .. but Star Wars, and it’s tons of fun. They should make a new Skeleton Crew show every year with a whole new cast. It really hits the lighthearted adventure button that to me is the core of Star Wars.

manmal 1y ago

The prison episode is a masterpiece and would have been an amazing movie on its own. It‘s weird how zany the other SW shows and even movies look now in comparison. I‘m really sad there can’t be another season.

sbarre 1y ago
I am hoping that they follow this up with stories set between the original trilogy movies, with some of the characters that were expanded on in the Andor show (and new ones too). It feels like there's plenty of room in the timeline between those movies to keep telling stories about the rebellion against the Empire, in the same tone as Andor.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
brianzelip 1y ago
Be sure to watch for after the credits of the last episode of season 1!!
m3kw9 1y ago
I find the credit heist escape was epic

rockemsockem 1y ago

I've made peace with the fact that "Star Wars" basically means nothing w.r.t. what kind of story I can expect, both in terms of quality and variety of story. Gotta look for talented people in charge of the project and make guesses at quality that way now. I'm hopeful that with Donald Glover running the Lando movie that it'll be good, but otherwise IDK of anything else in Star Wars that I'm really looking forward to...

nprateem 1y ago

[Spoiler-ish] It's just a shame the show largely fails to build emotional connection with the characters. When bad things happened I mostly felt nothing. The other thing that has always plagued SW is the fact they can travel through hyperspace, have the tech to destroy planets, but largely lack CCTV, autopilot, effective homing missiles, HD displays, etc. It's a weird mix of 70s tech and super sci-fi. It's like, if you were leading a rebellion, would you have your secret base rigged with remotely detonated explosives, or need to go back and cackhandedly manually destroy your comms, etc? Suspension of disbelief is stretched to breaking point sometimes.

themadturk 1y ago
The problem with this is that you expect tech in the Star Wars universe to echo the tech in our universe. First, of course, is that Star Wars is science fantasy, and second, why should technology progress through the same pathways ours have taken? Tech in Star Wars isn't explained, it just is, and it fits the world George Lucas created and the story he wanted to tell. Space fighters fly the way they do because WWII fighters fly the way they do; autopilots don't work because they weren't a thing in the Saturday afternoon serials of the era Lucas grew up in and was trying to emulate on screen. It is a weird mix, but the best thing to do is just leave any desire for realistic physics or Terran historic progress at the box office.

epolanski 1y ago

I gave it a try, and it wasn't bad indeed, but honestly I have too much fatigue towards all this repetitive milking of IPs to keep my interest up.

hulitu 1y ago

> The cinematography, editing, writing, and overall feel of this show far exceed any Star Wars movie I've seen. Yes, but by sucking big. The story is nonexistent, the scenes with children do not blend in the story, the story is boring as hell.