#why isn't everyone watching Andor instead

[heroes-fading]

the problem with s3 of the mandalorian is I don't care about the weird cult and whomever wrote the dialogue should face criminal charges

[avelera]

Andor brings the importance of money and economic systems back to mainstream sci-fi/fantasy

So fun fact, one reason I love "Andor" so much is that they have money in it.

Right off the bat, in episode 1, they start establishing that things cost money in this sci-fi industrial town where we find ourselves. People have jobs. There are things people can't do because they have money. There's things that even people with money, like Mon Mothma, can't afford because money isn't infinite and it requires logistics to move around. There are haves and have-nots in this society and the Rebellion will sink or swim based on if it can pay its people and purchase equipment. One of the first major arcs is a bank heist.

Ok, so why is this so huge? Shouldn't it be obvious that money makes the world go 'round, even in a sci-fi setting like Star Wars?

Well, here's the thing. Think about all the Disney-owned movies you've seen. How many of them talk about money in any kind of concrete terms? It does happen, but it's quite rare and it's almost never to the extent that money matters in "Andor". A character might have "rich" or "poor" as a character trait, but economic systems are rarely discussed, why certain people do or don't have money isn't discussed.

This is for a very good reason. Back in the mid 20th c., entertainment companies like Disney made a conscious choice not to talk about economic systems in their stories. Why? Because to do so forced the story to take a stance in the existential battle between Capitalism vs. Communism. Even seemingly innocuous story choices like the injustices a poor kid might face in a story could be seen as taking a stance, not something you wanted to invite with things like the Red Scare going on.

But it's really a shame that this choice, which was in response to the political conflicts of the time, has been so perpetuated and that companies like Disney still avoid the concretes of money in most of their works. And that warps the conversation within those works and within society at large as a result. More often in mainstream genre fiction stories as a result, stories must play to fantastical elements and undefined Good vs. Evil to explain why a conflict is taking place between two sides. Certain "So what?" factors and plot elements don't quite line up. Money and resources are at the heart of most real world major conflicts, but by focusing on "good" and "evil" instead you obfuscate the interests involved, the motivations involved, what everyone is getting out of a conflict when they choose to help or not to help. You can't feed yourself on idealism alone.

By leaning into the existence of money, resources, and the haves-and-have-nots of a society, Andor is able to couch its story of revolution in real world limitations for the characters and real world obstacles. It makes everything deeper, more satisfying, more understandable as to why anyone is doing anything. It's hard to talk about fighting a fascist state like the Empire if you don't talk about complicit corporations, or forced labor (because even the Empire can't afford to pay for the sheer amount of labor it needs otherwise) or how everyone on the Rebellion side can afford these fancy X-Wings.

I hope shows like Andor will be taken to heart, not just by more mainstream works of genre fiction using the inherent conflicts that arise from a defined economic system, but also by younger creators who may have grown up on a steady genre fiction diet of "money only sort of exists when it's needed for the plot, if at all". So much worldbuilding is impossible if you don't understand who has resources and what economic systems are being employed. So much character conflict is shallow if you can't define who has money, who has resources, and who has obstacles from not having a limitless supply of those things, and what are those obstacles?

It's super refreshing to see and I will reiterate, Andor is perhaps the best show out there right now from a writer perspective and everyone should watch it.

[bleakbluejay]

i have a theory that part of the reason why i don't hate this season is that i'm kinda in a vacuum about it. i never saw tcw (i saw the first 2 episodes like a week ago) so i don't know shit about bo-katan, and i never watched andor (which, given "mandalorian isn't like andor" is one of the most common complaints i've heard, it probably raises everyone's standards too high so they forget how silly and stupid mandalorian is).

so i'm watching all of this with face-value, with nothing influencing my opinions on it or anything, no background knowledge beyond gifs or shitposts i see on tumblr. and i do see a mild decrease in writing quality and strange writing choices, but nothing that's really grabbed me by the collar and yanked me out the way it has for so many others.

and maybe that's because they know something i don't. but if knowing what they know ruins the show so severely for them, i don't think i want to know. i kinda prefer things being fun and stupid instead of depressing and stupid.

[dersite-dragons]

For the past week I have been thinking about Kino's "I can't swim" line in ep 10 of Andor and I literally will never get over it so here's my breakdown on why it's so devastating.

One way out. Words everyone, but most specifically Kino had been repeating ever since they found out no one was being released. One way out, and yet all the prisoners seem to be interpreting that as "fight or die" but that's two ways out...isn't it?

Not for Kino. Not for Kino who remembers they're surrounded on all sides by water. Not for Kino who knows he can't swim. To him, one way out really means just that. Death is the only way out for him if he's not being released, it's just how he goes about dying that matters.

That's why it's so painful. Because Kino knows death is the only thing that waits for him, and yet after thinking only for his own self interest for so long, being selfish because he's terrified and desperate to survive, he makes the selfless choice. Because even though he knows it's going to kill him, it's better than dying slowly stuck where he is now. So he thinks like the leader he's supposed to be, and helps everyone else instead.

And that's why it hurts so bad. Because when he's standing on the edge, staring down into the water and watching all the men dive towards their freedom, he's realizing just how much of an impact he made, and that he really could still do something selfless. And he doesn't say it with fear, he honestly almost looks like he's laughing, because he's bewildered himself with how heroic he's been.

Fuck that line destroyed me dude, this show is sick as hell.

[endversewinchester]

I think Rebel Alliance soldiers vs Galactic Empire make a compelling anti war story than Acolyte. Further more as Rebel Alliance soldiers can take it to far to the extreme as shown in Andor and Rogue One if they are pushed too far. From the Galactic Empire said we can see from a point of view how they are also bad with the crimes they commit related to historical matters. This is why I think Star Wars Acolyte story does not hold weight as it doesn't make a convincing the jedi are bad as it isn't well written as the kind of story knights of the old republic and especially its sequel game have done showing the bad sides of the Jedi. Everything in Acolyte seems rushed, the main character Osha is far too similar to Sabine Wrens handling in live action Ahsoka or should I say repeating the same mistakes as Sabine Wren had done in Ahsoka. New Star Wars writers post The Mandalorian and Andor think women heroes in star wars committing far more selfish acts of evil make strong compelling characters. Am I not the only one who noticed Sabine Wren and Osha are portrayed as inexperienced and easily corruptible manipulated good aligned force users? This is bad writing for the women of Star Wars. Ahsoka who is a no nonsense hard fought rebel morally grey Jedi should have been more focused on training Sabine Wren to control her emotions first before using her force jedi powers as mental health is just more important with the power of friendship, sympathy, and empathy than power itself. I do not like how dehumanized Sabine Wren became now I hate how dehumanized Osha is as well. I believed Osha was going to be on a path like Luke Skywalker optimistic willing to do some good as he would in Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope but the terrible direction writing is causing Osha to receive hate from negative critics.

So you’re saying you’d like more on the OT era. That’s valid! I think between the OT, Kenobi, Andor, Tales of the Jedi, Star Wars Rebels, The Bad Batch and Rogue One we have a lot of content in that era. It’s understandable that lucasfilm wanted to do something different as for the stories not to get repetitive.

I don’t think the point of the acolyte is the Jedi are bad, anon. The show went through great lengths to establish that Sol made a series of mistakes based on the information he had at the time rather than the actual truth. Fandom is treating it as “Jedi bad” but the show really didn’t go there. Instead they are criticizing the entitlement of the Order in believing they know best about everything.

Second, I don’t agree Sabine and Osha are alike? Lol. Sabine has a much stronger personality than Osha ever did, and she renounced being a Jedi because she couldn’t get a hold of the force. Osha otoh is already force sensitive and she was “expelled” from the Order for not being able to put her past behind her. It’s not the same arc, but you are allowed to dislike one or both of them.

I also don’t think either one of them are easily corrupted force users? Lol WHAT. Just because Qimir upset her doesn’t mean she will turn into a Sith and go around slaying everyone in her path. And Sabine was selfish, yes, but Ezra and her are extremely close and she made a choice to protect someone she loved.

Guess which character we spent the entirety of tcw watching who forfeited being good for the sake of his friends and family?

And yet I don’t see you or anyone else say that’s bad writing, or that he’s weak. So we’ll agree to disagree there.

Third: I personally dislike force sensitive Sabine as a plot, however you are forgetting Ahsoka didn’t want a padawan. We see her refuse to train Grogu. She wasn’t ready because she had a lot of Anakin-related trauma which is very valid and was only resolved on screen in episode 5 of that show. A little after that is where Sabine learns how to use the force. It’s called character development. To say they are done dirty because they need to go through growth in their arcs is certainly a take.

And fourth: people are review bombing and using bots to bash the acolyte without even watching the episodes. (Seriously. The ratings go down before the episodes are even out). The hate isn’t legitimate. They are doing it because of women, people of color, space lesbians. It doesn’t have anything to do with writing and I would not waste my time worrying about the people running those bots if I were you.

[makiruz]

Finished watching Andor, woo!

It's was fine.

So the action climax of the prison arc was episode 10, and it was good, but then episode 11 was filler. Seriously it was like instead of prepping for the finale, everything stopped for padding; the biggest example is the scene in Narkina 5 outside the prison, nothing happens, Andor and the other guy are barely stopped, and kinda ruined the impact of the prison break, you know everyone jumping to freedom it's very evocative, but then that scene kinda brings it down to Earth. So, my brother and I were talking about Andor and Star Wars; Star Wars is a fantasy show, that's not just in the way things are magical but the structure itself, it's bit like a fairy tale; in the first movie you have the 2 droids that are like goblins or golems, the wizard, the black knight, the princess, literal divine intervention in the climax; the second one has the fight in the belly of the beast, twice; but Andor isn't like that, it's not magical, and the Narkina 5 scene is the example, we have the jump to freedom which is very symbolic, very evocative, and then we get the real life consequence of doing that and it kills the symbolism; honestly it should've cut straight to the beach planet where Andor hid his stuff, it would've been better

I rather liked the final episode, but watching it I was like "why are all these characters here?" Why is Syril and his second hand here? Why are Luthen and Mothma's cousin here? What's the point of the other rebel lady, the girlfriend? The Imperial Lady has stuff to do, but it's barely. That's generally a problem with this show, it has a bunch of characters and they don't do much, what's the point of Mothma? by the end it almost seems that it's to sell her daughter to that banking guy, like freaking Game of Thrones. What's the point of Luthen, what is his motivation, also yeah, why was Andor so important in the first place?

The biggest problem with Andor is the pacing, it's not just that it needed more aggressive editing, it's that the show kinda stops, twice. After the heist in Aldhani, Andor leaves the Rebellion and goes to the beach where he gets arrested for no reason, while I enjoy it on a thematic level, on a structural level it feels like hitting the pause button on his development to send him to jail. And the show hits pause again on episode 11, this time for everyone

Okay, the space battle, I liked it even though it wasn't good; I didn't realize I needed that until I saw it, and it made me realize Andor is lacking the 3 core Star Wars elements: Aliens, spaceships and magic. We finally get aliens with lines in episode 11, and not only are they in an entirely unnecessary scene, they're more like the trolls from The Hobbit (the book) than people. Spaceships, again it took 11 episodes for Andor to show dogfights. Magic doesn't just mean the Force, it's the fairy tale/fantasy element I mentioned earlier; Andor is trying to be cyberpunk when Star Wars is fantasy (my brother argues that it's High Fantasy, but I'm not sure I'd go that far)

Oh yeah, the other thing that bothered me; Maarva, Andor's mom, is apparently an important member of society, would've been nice to establish that early; this last arc seems to be a lot about Ferrix and the people, but we've barely seen them, never mind seen them be a community, it's like there's a lot of things that should've been established earlier but weren't. In a way it reminds of me Kamen Rider Gaim, in which the Finale matches the beginning of the show, but not the previous 5 episodes, like the wrote the beginning and the end, but not the middle.

To finish, I know I sound very negative of Andor, but I don't hate it, I kinda like it, at times, pacing aside it's not a bad show; what happens is that people said a lot of things about this show that aren't true and it's annoying. They said it was more adult than other Star Wars shows, it isn't; they said you see the Empire be evil more, you don't; it's really no different than any other Star Wars show, like Rebels. I know I've compared it to Rebels a lot before, but it's because Andor is basically the same show as Rebels, but in Rebels you see the way the Empire impacts the every day life of the people of Lothal, you see the characters have a connection with their community, you get the tragic backstory of everyone, you see the Empire enslaving a bunch of Chewbaccas including an adorable baby Chewbacca; in Andor you don't get to see the Empire massacring innocent people until the very end, when they riot (this by the way is uncomfortable to me because we haven't been shown the negative impact of the Empire's presence on Ferrix until they rebel, so it kinda looks like it's saying it's the Rebellion's fault and not that violent repression is the default mode of the Empire)

My brother has the theory that people who claim Andor is the best thing on Disney+ is because they're comparing it with Rings of Power; and I'm not as positive because I'm comparing it with Rebels

[jyndor]

I think you conveyed my point better than I did. I expected Andor would be tough to watch if it was going to tackle serious issues. What I didn't expect was Bix not being an "active participant" in the show. Like you said, she is treated like a punching bag. Even if Bix gets to fight back in future episodes it will still mean she spent most of the time suffering in different ways. Same for Cassian. Rogue One doesn't spend half the movie showing Jyn being in Wobani. The Force Awakens doesn't fill Poe's screen time with his torture.

Andor is educating through shock value, which seems to be working for some viewers. It doesn't for me. I think there are others like me who wanted to be inspired by representation in a Star Wars story and instead are watching their representation be treated like punching bags. Which is different from people who don't like the show's message. The type of suffering is not surprising. The amount of it is. I think it's too much and that they could convey the same message with less. This makes the show a hopeless slog to watch at some points.

I don't understand why other people aren't sympathetic. Is nobody else upset with how horribly Bix has been treated compared to any other female lead? Even if people don't agree, they should at least be respectful. Thankfully you have been which is why I'm writing this in the first place.

I want to second the other anon that was excited for Bix and Cassian. I understand what you meant but I thought the tension in their relationship would come from the plot. Now it seems they are simply terrible for each other. Like you said the show would be a lot better if Cassian was younger. Watching an adult man try to pay off his debts while the woman marketed as his romance gets tortured was not what I signed up for. Even if Cassian turns out to have been a rebel this whole time like you said, it's too late. -- Bix anon

Anon I cannot possibly be saying my point correctly because no one understands that I get the point of what the show is saying but that I struggle with WHY the WRITERS decided to GO IN THIS DIRECTION lol like I do not know how I can put it any other way besides they're doing what they've decided to do very, very well but I don't get why they made some of the decisions they did.

I think what I'm hearing from some people is that they feel validated by seeing the realities of fascism and white supremacy in the treatment of these characters. I cannot speak to that and I feel uncomfortable even pushing back when someone says that because like... yeah it's never going to be my experience.

I personally don't agree that it is using shock value to educate, but I understand why you feel that way. To me most of the show has actually not been gratuitous - it's served a narrative purpose and wasn't just there to get eyesballs on them or like idk to make people gasp. but there are some choices that make me think there needs to be some more voices in the writer's room (Clem's execution for instance is one that I'm sorry it just doesn't sit well with me.) Like shock value for shock value's sake is the og Game of Thrones to me, but also what is and what isn't gratuitous is very personal. It's literally you know it when you see it. Everyone will have different standards.

And that's very important for you to decide. Is it too much for you? It may be. That's disappointing as hell but I don't think there's anything wrong with people who are too close to the issues they're talking about needing to step back and not engage with the show.

I've seen much worse examples of torture porn but I cannot deny that Bix's passivity is something I don't like as a literary choice - not as a realistic thing or unrealistic thing. Maybe if the show has these characters take on serious leadership positions (we know Cassian will be a captain at some point so I'm not worried about him rn even if I am disappointed) in rebel cells that will help? I didn't have high hopes or really much feeling about how their relationship would go because they called them on and off and I just hate on and off relationships LOL.

I do think it's telling that the show has handled most of the women characters so nicely but Bix has been treated like a punching bag. It does feel odd, but I don't even hate them having an angel of death kind of Mengele character, like I think that's important! but idk it felt a little unnecessary to see her being tortured - the aftermath would have been enough imo. THAT felt like the most gratuitous moment in the show.

Not for nothing, I want to flag something because I don't know that I would be as concerned about how passive a character (as opposed to dynamic, again, not in a political sense I'm talking academically in a literary sense rn) Jyn is also very passive in her own story. Things happen to her - in the film she is abandoned by her parents, picked up by saw, trained and raised as saw's daughter and a partisan rebel, abandoned by saw, is in prison, is broken out of prison, is put on a rebel mission with Cassian, and is given Galen's message by Saw - ACTIVE MOMENT she goes to try to save her father and then gives her message to the rebel council - and then she is given an army by Cassian, we don't even see her planning the Scarif attack or anything. She is pushed along by the actions of others with a few exceptions. I think part of that is a result of the reshoots - which Tony Gilroy did so much of that he is credited as screenwriter of Rogue One. He did not write the screenplay, he did a LOT of the reshoots so he changed the story enough to have that credit (it's a union thing iirc). I don't know where it happened but somewhere Jyn sort of lost a lot of spark (as well as a lot of dialogue).

I want to flag that not because I think like Gilroy is some misogynistic demon lol and I think he's done a great job with the politics of the show for the most part. but I don't want to ignore the feeling I have that Gilroy has some blindspots and women may be one of them.

the funny thing is that I am actually loving the show and I don't know how else to say it. I don't know that I'm being clear, and I feel like I'm just repeating myself over and over again at this point and it's a little aggravating tbh because I just feel like I must not be saying my feelings clearly.