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I'd say Saw is a classic accelerationist leftist who wants the Empire to crack down more and behave more oppressively because it fuels more popular rebellion. The more the Empire behaves disproportionately the more people are pissed off. Plus he's a dude who was fighting for one cause or another his entire life. His view is likely that the empire is just a continuation of the corrupt republic. He's looking at a longer struggle. Edit: he's the kind of person who always gets thrown under the bus by political leaders. Also, in some ways his actions on Jedah confirm the effectiveness of his brutal tactics. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 00:53
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Also digging the show a lot. The line from Vulture (I think) about the first episodes being Ken Loach's Star Wars was only slightly exaggerated. It's nice to have a SW show that actually pairs nicely with Tokyo Vice, which I've also been watching, in terms of aesthetic, detail, characterization and pacing. Quite nice.
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Oct 10, 2022 01:42
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Farm Frenzy posted:Skimming wookieepedia and there's literally one example of saws' 'extreme tactics' across the entire canon You have to take the alliance's word for it in Rogue One really because you're right: they never show anything other than him being a bit of an rear end in a top hat across all the animated series and video games. I'm hoping in this series we'll see the actual poo poo. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 03:55
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Halloween Jack posted:In Rebels he's just an rear end in a top hat to a bug man for no reason. Lame. Yeah, it's not the best word choice given its association with reactionary/right-wing politics. I just meant in the sense of believing that making life worse under the empire would accelerate its demise.
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Oct 10, 2022 07:04
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I think the photography and use of digital also makes a big difference in how Andor looks. Lot of a really close-in shots of characters and action gives it more of a tactile, claustrophobic feel (it really is shot more like a Bourne movie or Michael Mann thriller that a lot of SW shows). There are fewer sweeping vistas than you get in a lot of SW. A lot of the starships and fighters are seen from the ground, lending a sense of realism. The first time you see a TIE fighter or imperial shuttle it's a limited view, "shot" very matter-of-factly, almost like a camera crew shooting a real shuttle on location. The scenes in Coruscant are very tight, tend to follow characters very closely, almost as if they shooting on location in a real, crowded city, treating the vistas like something locals are just bored with rather than "holy poo poo look at this amazing FX work!" Even the choice of introducing the city top-down directly overhead creates an immediate sense of "this is a real city." The digital stuff looks more believable when it's presented in a mundane way. You add gorgeous, well-designed sets, production design, costuming, props, etc., it really hits a high level of believability. It's almost like they wanted the whole thing to feel like a real crew shooting in real places. Large, expertly-lit sets help. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 08:14
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Jose Oquendo posted:drat what a great episode. I think this basically should have been Rogue One instead. Visually, Andor matches Rogue One so well, that Rogue One really seems like the final arc episodes of the series.
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Oct 12, 2022 22:55
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I'm hoping if we get more of that manifesto it lays out the argument that the empire is a natural outgrowth of the corrupt class-based oligarchic republic, and that simply restoring the republic isn't enough. I like the idea of a schism between rebels who want more democracy and redistributive/collective ownership policies and rebels who just want back the old corrupt cash money Republic. I'd like to see a conflict between the more radical rebels and the emerging Rebel Alliance, not just in terms of Saw's tactics but in terms of ideology. If they could finesse that in that would be cool. It's already been suggested by the corpo space cops. Were they ever good? Probably not.
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Oct 13, 2022 01:56
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If this show ever does force users, Sith, Jedi, or other, I hope it's just a blur of insane action that none of the characters can comprehend. Like just a blur whirling through their ranks, something that seems almost supernatural. I hope it neve goes there at all, but if it does it should be from the normals' perspective and not center the force user in the action. There was that rather terrifying Vader moment in Rogue One that would kind of work in the Andor context.
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Oct 18, 2022 00:32
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josh04 posted:It was the department of standards. They're the people who get to say whether or not the Death Star needs guard rails. I feel like the Republic created the no-OSHA policy as some social darwinist way of weeding out the population. Anyone who can't maintain their sense of balance have no business in an advanced galactic civilization.
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Oct 19, 2022 22:47
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Jerkface posted:i just wanna say its insane that its canon that all Andor does is win win win for the rebellion and pull the hottest rear end in the galaxy. Andor FUCKS. Bix and space floridian beach bunny are 100x hotter than anyone who has been in star wars except Natalie Portman. He's gonna end up in a threesome with Moth Gael Bernal and an older hot imperial sex mom.
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Oct 19, 2022 22:50
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Falukorv posted:Yeah there are a couple of actors on Andor that initially makes me do a double take as they are cemented in my mind by their earlier performances in other genres. Baiting disproportionate responses was a basic revolutionary tactic throughout the 20th century. One of the reasons why the Vietnam War was so unpopular globally was because the US's response to a guerilla insurgency in S. Vietnam was bombing the ever living poo poo out of N. Vietnam and often horrible search-and-destroy missions. Some of the worst decisions in the conflict by France and the US was strongarm tactics like concentrating people into strategic hamlets and a bunch of other overreactions. Everyone from Che Guevara to Ho Chi Minh to Carlos the Jackal to the IRA to the RAF to the PLO to the Algerian independence movement to pretty much every leftwing insurgency was about the provoking the regimes they fought do horrible, oppressive poo poo because it would make people angrier, speeding up their revolutions. Now, whether or not it actually worked strategically and whether or not they they themselves created better societies is all very questionable, of course. A lot of them were sociopaths. But that was their logic: provoke the state into doing really unpopular, horrible poo poo to build popular support. The SW brain trust obviously disagrees with this philosophy, which is why any representations of less-than-savory Rebels is spelled out as "bad" and the noble Rebel Alliance having a standup, if asymmetrical, fight with regular troops is presented as "good. I love all this bullshit, so I don't care. And I'm loving seeing some of this less savory poo poo get a dramatic shake in Andor. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Oct 21, 2022 |
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Oct 21, 2022 04:04
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Sash! posted:If I'm putting my boot on a neck, I need to have a reason beyond power for power's sake. Power is an end in itself for a lot of people. But there are always fellow travelers: ultra-nationalists, bigots and racists, "traditionalists" (sexist family values types), religious fanatics, paranoids, insecure upper and middle class communities, monarchists, violent sociopaths, revenge-seekers, people who just want stability, and opportunists/profiteers/sycophants along for the ride. Having watched a lot of SW media over the years, it seems like many of these are represented or alluded to at one point or another as part of the empire. Some people want power, others are fine worshiping it.
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Oct 21, 2022 17:32
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No Mods No Masters posted:I feel like fascism usually rides with the implication that if you are a member of the good in-group you will be treated well. That's always been a bit hard to see with the empire. Is the in-group people from coruscant? British accent humans in general? I always imagine the Empire would have become some nightmare wizardocracy like the original Sith home world over time, with a bizarre nihilist death cult at the center of a state based on raw power and fear. The bureaucracy would eventually give way to a cowed, ignorant population worshipping the emperor. I'd say SW writers view such an insane idea as inherently unsustainable. Which is why the Sith are never able to end the balance. Despite being around for a long time, the emperor is shortsighted with tunnel vision. The ideology of the empire is just a construct the emperor couldn't care less about. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Oct 21, 2022 |
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Oct 21, 2022 17:38
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zoux posted:This show is all about the banality of evil and in Arendt's Banality of Evil the point is just how easy it is for people living in a free democratic society to fall into and even participate in a fascist oppressor state. You're right, but they don't last. They're not actually sustainable. Few societies last, but the death cult ones tend to burn out in under 20 years.
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Oct 21, 2022 17:47
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zoux posted:Oh also that's what the Death Star was for, and Leia even noted herself that it was a self-defeating strategy. Though I suppose we never get to see if her political theory bore out thanks to loving Galen Erso, the traitor. I agree. In fact, I'd say democracy itself is an outlier. Also, Andor is good.
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Oct 21, 2022 17:53
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:I loved that bit too. What do you mean my randomly drawn up sectors, with no regard given to the populace, are stupid??? Not sure if he was joking, but I had a chuckle too. Not the same word. Beware homophones. Well in this case, they're not even pronounced the same.
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Oct 21, 2022 23:39
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exmarx posted:i think it would be okay if they used palpatine diegetically "Coming straight at you from JizzRadio100, the latest dance hit from Emperor Palpatine and the TIES. Number one across the core worlds, it's 'Executor Suite!'"
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Oct 23, 2022 01:46
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:It's pretty tragic that JJ Abrams et al. couldn't conceive of Nazis not finding themselves in a dominant position. I hate the utter willingness to just destroy the republic again for story purposes. It's like, great, you basically undid everything the rebel alliance was supposed to achieve, all in the name of going BIGGER and BADDER. You thought the death star was bad? Now we got one laser that can destroy all the core worlds. You thought the empire was bad? Check out this fleet of a million star destroyers, each capable of destroying planets. That whole escalation approach to this stuff is just inane. They could have created drama and action around smaller scale stuff and made it work. But no, let's retread everything but BIGGER. The prequels are inept at best, and yet still much better than that goofy poo poo.
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Oct 25, 2022 22:36
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theblackw0lf posted:I've actually never seen Rogue One. I was wondering whether I should watch this before Andor but I think I'd enjoy it more watching it after. Honestly, you can just save Rogue One for the end of the series since it basically capstones the whole thing. Season 2 will be setting it up. Unless you really want to watch it, in which case go for it. It's like my third favorite SW film and worth a stream. But I also watched Fire Walk With Me before Twin Peaks season 1, so what the hell do I know?
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Oct 26, 2022 20:29
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It's funny how all the content mill sites love using the term "easter egg" for every cameo or bit of continuity between Andor and the rest of SW. It's just world building folks, it's not a secret surprise. An imperial character from New Hope showing up isn't a loving easter egg. It's right up there with drama being characterized as "nothing happening."
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Oct 26, 2022 20:47
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One thing I really dig about Luthen, in terms of both writing and performance, is how fast he can move from being cordial and open to vicious. In the Saw exchange, he sort of flatters Saw for having the money and resources to purchase the high-end goods but when Saw cools to his proposal he immediately reframes it as Saw begging for scraps. The modulation is amazing to see. The thing about Mon's arc that I look forward to is the underlying steeliness coming out. Hell, she'll probably sign Luthen's death warrant. I suspect the show wants to present her as a smooth political softy so the utter ruthlessness of her moves against Saw and likely Luthen later on will really sting. I suspect she may be the most brutal and calculating of all of them.
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Oct 27, 2022 19:52
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stev posted:Only a handful episodes are out of order and it's either for dramatic effect, intentional flashbacks (they revisit that first planet a bunch and it becomes sort of a flash point for character development) or the network just wanted an action heavy episode to air at a certain point. Yeah, and by time you get to the final season (produced a bit later), it looks fantastic. I'm still in awe of that jumping ship to ship attack Ahsoka pulls off to this day. It's so kinetic.
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Oct 27, 2022 19:56
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Also, the Jar Jar episodes early in the Clone Wars are loving awful.
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Oct 27, 2022 19:57
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stev posted:He never goes away and all his episodes are bad. Yeah, but they seemed to be more frequent early on. At some point a memo went out with LESS JAR JAR. Imagine being stuck with those scripts.
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Oct 27, 2022 20:04
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I think the time is ripe for Disney to do a Duckverse SW show. edit: Emperor Glomgold.
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Oct 27, 2022 20:06
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galenanorth posted:I'm wondering what's a Galaxy Partitionist. It sounds like how Joe Biden and some Republican primary candidates wanted to partition Iraq into separate states including Kurdistan, but with the whole galaxy Yeah, probably divided along historic cultural lines.
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Oct 27, 2022 20:46
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Anarcho-Commissar posted:Rewatching this episode, the soundtrack is very Vangelis/Blade Runner. Really sets the mood well. Indeed, though that sci-fi arpeggio bit they play periodically throughout the series (the ship docking at the prison in this episode) has some serious Mass Effect vibes. Obviously, there are plenty of other precedents for that sound other than Mass Effect, but every time I heard it I feel like I'm watching one of those brief text intros from the ME series. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Oct 27, 2022 |
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Oct 27, 2022 23:05
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Alan Smithee posted:It owns You mean grind on him right there in that chair? That could be the next frontier of SW.
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Oct 27, 2022 23:07
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Sankara posted:As always, slavery being a thing that exists when there are droids is a pretty strange component of the setting. But I suppose in this case, cruelty is the point. The things they're making don't look like they serve a function, just a thing to assemble because gently caress you. Or it's cheaper to pay for slavery than droids and automation. You have potentially trillions to employ in forced labor. No one has ever explained to me the price of an average construction droid. Also, the empire might have an aversion to droids or at least too many of them.
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Oct 28, 2022 22:42
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As others have said, Andor really does show the daily, banal evil of the empire in a much more impactful way that other SW shows and movies. The empire in the films was very easy to fetishize aesthetically hence the weird IRL cult around it, like people who drive around with a bunch of imperial symbols on their cars. The sheer magnitude of its military power impressed more than repelled. It looked cool. Andor has done a pretty good job of showing how mind-numbingly boring, bureaucratic, aesthetically ugly, sadistic, and unsexy it is. It's just the worst climbers trying to climb over each other. It's the first SW thing that might leave most people uninterested in the empire as anything other than a metaphor for real-life human brutality.
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Oct 29, 2022 00:26
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One thing I definitely appreciated on my second watch of the latest episode is how quiet Cassian is throughout the entire prison section. Clearly a bit shellshocked by the realization he might be trapped in hell for years, slowly taking in the environment, and just getting down to work. His expressions throughout the prison scenes are like a minor masterclass in acting without speaking, with just body language. You practically see the thoughts running through his head. Subtle stuff.
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Oct 29, 2022 04:30
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I generally like most Star Wars, even though I'm ambivalent about a lot of the ideas floating through it (religious orders maintaining peace, hereditary titles, inherited super powers that make people special, cavalier attitudes toward the deaths of billions/trillions (events used as blink-and-you'll-miss-them plot points), absolute notions of good v. evil, etc. All the streaming series have issues that annoy me--overall sloppiness of most of the live-action shows (excepting Andor), too much fan service (a little fan service is good), and the tendency of most of the animated series using only 5 or 6 canned plot concepts over and over (I like Filoni Bologna, but dude is on auto-pilot) . But overall I enjoy this stuff. Well-realized setting, interesting aesthetic, cool spaceships and goofy pulp adventure. I like the over-the-top operatic poo poo, the more hectic Space Western poo poo, and this arty slowburn poo poo. I only had time to commit to one cinematic universe, and SW easily beat out Marvel. I've basically been chasing the high I got seeing Empire Strikes Back in the theater in 1980. Before Rogue One and later the Mandalorian and Andor, the highs were diminishing fast. But I can turn by brain off for it and enjoy it for what it is. Even with my ambivalence about a lot of it, I generally enjoy the whole stupid thing, even the abysmally stupid Book of Boba and the prequels, which I like to think of as a factually accurate but badly made historical epic directed by an incompetent filmmaker living in the SW universe. I went through a phase of hating the prequels (and they are poo poo), but bad SW is still SW. And I know that despite being loving tired of the Jedi, I'll be streaming loving Ahsoka day one. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Oct 29, 2022 |
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Oct 29, 2022 10:10
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Slashrat posted:Not gonna lie, I would give a Star Wars legal drama a shot at this point. Every episode will just be an imperial judge handing down a summary judgement without legal counsel resulting in the suspect of the week either being executed or enslaved on the spot.
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Oct 30, 2022 03:54
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One of my major beefs with Dooku and the whole of the Clone Wars is no one every really lays out what actually motivates the separatist worlds or Dooku (other than he's a Sith lord). He's such a compelling character with a lot of flair, but there's little evidence of any conviction or ideal. He's hollow as hell. And indeed, they never lay out a compelling reason why anyone would support the separatists. Now I'm sure there is all kinds of comics, novelizations, EU content, etc. that lays this whole thing out, and you can infer some things. But in the entire run of the Clone Wars, I never saw any kind of serious exploration of why people hated the republic enough to engage in a huge, costly, brutal war. It was kind of a wasted opportunity. I feel too often, they treated their villains like stock cartoon villains instead of characters. General Grievous was the worst offender.
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Oct 31, 2022 23:52
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I don't see him as evil or a scumbag at all. He's realistic and trying to ensure the best case scenario given an incredibly horrible situation. At least thus far we haven't seen him getting any "privileges" or special treatment. It's worth pointing out that even kapos were mostly people just trying to survive in impossible conditions, though I'm sure some relished the opportunity to bully fellow prisoners. He just strikes me as pissed off and ready to get the gently caress out. I wouldn't judge inmates in the US prison system for trying to get out and cajoling their fellow prisoners for doing it. So much of the series is about how people operate on the margins, trying to make the best of what's in front of them.
Love Rat fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 2, 2022 02:02
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NowonSA posted:I feel like the prison's been putting the scare into them to make sure they don't spill the beans (probably including threatening them with what they ended up doing/warning them what the consequences would be), and they finally struck out and it bit the prison in the rear end. Exactly. When people ask about the logic of the Empire, I ask was the Holocaust practical? Extreme ideologies tend to be practicality-proof. Sadism and murder is the point. Squeeze whatever labor you can out of your victim, but in the end of the day, they're all going to the same place. Extermination is the end goal, with getting some cheap parts being only a short-term goal. Also, to someone else's point, those prison facilities could be left over from the Clone Wars, so the empire just moved in, cutting capital costs of building new facilities. The show is entering that nitpick phase with the fans, where every single creative choice or perceived plot hole is analyzed to death. It's the downside of good writing. Edit: every weakness is more noticeable. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 2, 2022 21:50
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Owlbear Camus posted:I would agree that Cassian is not the most interesting person in his own show. The villains are just stealing it. I like Cassian. It's not an explosive performance, it's a slow burn. Honestly, Luna's performance is wonderfully understated throughout his heist/jailbreak arcs. He doesn't run his mouth constantly or chew scenery, but just slowly processes poo poo around him, only occasionally losing it. I don't think he holds down the center, because in this show he doesn't have to. He's on his own journey like everyone, though his contains more self-discovery. Mostly everyone else, minus Karn maybe, know who they are. They're layered too, and revealing new facets, but Andor is on a more personal, private journey. I'd also add that it's a VERY seventies performance, very internal, very New Hollywood. And I enjoy seeing it. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Nov 3, 2022 |
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Nov 3, 2022 22:55
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"Nothing happens" is a pretty common description of human drama among escapist genre fans. The "nothing" is the drama. edit: all kinds of stuff is happening with Motha. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Nov 3, 2022 |
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Nov 3, 2022 23:00
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Quixotic1 posted:For all its flaws, I still like Rogue One as well. Give me a last season of Andor which just remakes the movie. They could probably shoot a bunch of new stuff and just recut the movie with it to essentially tie it more directly to the series if they wanted. They visually match pretty well. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 18:52
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Owlbear Camus posted:I've said more or less the same thing before, It's a really interesting counterfactual to imagine just what if any kind of Star Wars we'd have if West End Games and Timothy Zahn (who used the RPG books as a setting bible) weren't doing their thing expanding the setting in the late 80's through the early mid 90's. They really kept the torch lit when there wasn't much Star Wars to do besides play with vintage action figures and watch your well-worn VHS tapes again. They were like the modding community of the late 80s and early 90s. Lucasfilm basically outsourced the creative process and scooped up their favorite fan work.
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Nov 4, 2022 19:08
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