Anchorhead

It’s pretty clear at this point that Season 1 is the only one for me. In a Star Wars show, we finally started into a story with new characters, new planets, new far far away adventures. Two seasons later were back to Tatooine, Corruscant, and he’s flying around in a Prequel ship. It’s evident the powers that be can’t leave The Solar System Far Far Away.

It doesn’t help that 30 or so Mandalorians practicing combat on a beach looks like bad cosplay LARP. Not to mention, they don’t seem to be the brightest. Everything they do is right next to where a monster lives. ?

In the end, when the baby dinosaurs walked off the ship, that was my ROTJ moment where I realized the show is going in a direction other than one I’m interested in.

StarkillerAG said:

I thought you liked Andor, Anchorhead. Did you change your mind?

I liked a lot of it, but the prison episodes and the amount of time spent with the quest team were way too long. I thought I’d watch it all again, but when it got to rewatching 5 or so of the episodes, I couldn’t do it.

The Andorlorian®
This nearly hour-long episode ended up being 40 minutes of people sitting at a picnic table outside their apartment complex and talking. What started as something that felt very OT-like with the Bo/Mando/TIE chase scene, devolved into an episode of Andor where meaningless characters have meaningless episode-long discussions. It didn’t help that the set looked like an 80s TV show.

So far, this season feels like the directionless mess that was BOBF.

fmalover said:

Reading the latest posts on this thread, I would say that’s my biggest problem with Filoni, his total inabilty to move on from characters and milking them for all their worth. This is best expemplified by his incessant shoehorning of Ahsoka in every last bit of SW media.

I agree 100%. Ahsoka is becoming the character version of Tatooine. Enough already.

screams in the void said:

It probably would have been better if those 2 episodes from BOBF were used to open the season here instead

For sure that was an odd call on their part. Book was a mess and using Mando to hold interest seemed weird (if that’s why they did it). Plus it can be confusing if you don’t follow both shows.

At our weekly lunch time TV\Film discussion at work, there was just that. One of my coworkers had bailed from Book after a few episodes. First question to the table was “Why does Mando have the baby again? I thought he went with Luke”.

Crossover is fine between series and can be fun sometimes. I was really happy to see James Woo show up in WandaVision because he was a great character in Ant-Man and the Wasp a few years earlier (plus I’m a huge Randall Park fan). However, one series shouldn’t be a requirement for the other to make sense. Woo as a character\plot element doesn’t affect one show or the other if you haven’t seen both.

I’d say I agree with the less than impressed reviews here of this first episode this season. A bit of fan service and largely predictable. I suspect it will get better as Sackhoff gets more involved.

The kid’s helmet at the beginning was a nice callback to the 1978 Holiday Special.

Did some housecleaning on this last page.
Bring it down a notch.

4th and 5th were just filler. Prequel episode and Last Crusade homage. Disappointed is an understatement. Hoping they get back to the depth and seriousness of episode 3 again.

That was one of the best episodes, from either season. Really well done.

Yeah, the split team story gave them time to focus on them more than usual. For me, that was the best part of these two episodes. The second one felt close to what would make for an interesting live action story.

The first two episodes of season 2 dropped today. Watched them both, enjoyed them both. I found the second episode particularly interesting. It was the usual Bad Batch style of story and pace, but a bit more serious than I expected. As with season 1, very interesting style of animation.

Through the years I’ve never made any secret of my dislike of The Shrunken Universe. It’s one of the main reasons I’ve really enjoyed Andor. I suspect that’s the case for a great many people. Reviews for Andor mention it’s detachment from what’s come before as a big part of its success. That and the incredible acting, writing, and production.

All that said; while watching these two episodes of Bad Batch tonight, I realized that it’s still nice to come home for a little comfort food once in a while. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

I do think we’ll see someone else turn. Having it be an ISB officer would be interesting. She’s far and away one of the strongest parts of the entire series (for me), so her turning would be fantastic.

I saw some of it. I skipped around on a few episodes once I decided to bail from watching it fully. From the few minutes I saw, it was done well, as were the others. It’s just not something I found interesting.

Loved the finale. Personal favorite scene was Dedra being dragged through the street by rebels and her hyperventilating freak-out after she’s rescued. Clearly not a combat experienced field agent.

I watched through to the post-credits. Very cool to see, but very expected. I figured that was the case a few episodes earlier when we saw the insane volume of identical pieces.

Genevieve O’Reilly continues to absolutely bring it as an actress and as a character. Outstanding work.

A much stronger episode than the two or three preceding it.

That was very cool to see and a nice connection to 1977. Works perfectly within this series.

As a huge fan of the MCU, I’ll admit to having MCU Fatigue this year. For me, part of it is the quality drop-off (story, not presentation) as well as the amount of content. As some have pointed out, more is usually better if you’re a fan, but I have little interest in some of the content. Below is Phase 4 for 2021 & 2022. Easy to see where some people with busier schedules might find it daunting. I can always squeeze in an hour somewhere to watch a show I like, but on several of these I either bailed or didn’t bother. Bolded the ones I’ve seen and maybe a thought or two.

WandaVision (2021). Outstanding. I still go back for an episode every now and again.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). Didn’t move me one way or the other.

Loki season 1 (2021). Outstanding. I still go back for an episode every now and again.

Black Widow (2021). Liked it, watched it twice.

What If…? season 1 (2021). Bailed after three episodes. Didn’t find it interesting.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). One & done. Didn’t find it interesting.

Eternals (2021). Not interested.

Hawkeye (2021). Loved it, watched it four times, only in December so it stays as Christmas

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Two & done. Might watch again one day.

Moon Knight (2022). Zero interest in the character, but the performance of Oscar Isaac is outstanding.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). One & done. Didn’t find it interesting when Wanda wasn’t on screen.

Ms. Marvel (2022). Not interested.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). Italics because I bailed after about 15 minutes. Seemed stupid and uninteresting.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022). Bailed after 4 episodes. Terrible CGI and a ridiculous story. Loved the end title artwork.

Werewolf by Night (2022). Watched it four times already, possibly my favorite thing to come out of Marvel Studios.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Will wait for Disney+

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022). No interest, but will probably give it a look.

I don’t see where we’ve discussed this. I watched it today and thought it was very interesting. Behind the scenes look at the series from idea to completion.

timdiggerm said:

But wouldn’t they just be like “…hey I was supposed to be released!” to their new team, and then we end up with the same problem?

Perhaps that level of discovery by the prisoners of what really happens is what led to the floor mutiny (or whatever it was). Sort of a - “Fine, we’ll kill the whole section if you don’t like what we’re doing. Anyone else have something they care to say?”.

rocknroll41 said:

I really enjoyed this way more than I expected to!

I wasn’t going to even give it a look until I perused this discussion. The animation is fantastic. As Tobar already pointed out, it looks photorealistic in some scenes. I have a bit of Ahsoka fatigue, but it’s a nice extra between Andor episodes.

Top notch as they all have been. Also a nice build up to his getting Serkis on board, at least it seems like it.

Best moment for me was Karn waiting outside the building for Meero. Her reaction was some of the best for her as a character yet. Again, Denise Gough has an incredible ability to portray shock, surprise, fear, nervousness, and anger all in one take, often without saying a word. She is mesmerizing, much more so than just her physical beauty. For me, she is absolutely commanding in every scene.

I feel like Karn is eventually going to let his anger and lack of self discipline get him into trouble. He should be at least thankful that Cassian didn’t kill him when they first came into contact. Typical of his momma’s boy personality, he can only see what he wants, not the good fortune and charity he’s been given.

Another question for the board, if you would indulge me.

In keeping with the above comments, the response does seem to be overwhelmingly positive. For me, it’s the deeper story & characters, the realism, and most importantly the lack of connection to The Saga. However, I do have a close friend who isn’t all-in and in fact has some criticisms. We have a weekly evening nerd call where we discuss all things film & TV pop culture. We tend to stay primarily on Marvel, Star Wars, and DC.

His criticism of Andor is that it’s so grounded in an Earth-like reality that doesn’t offer a real escape from a long work week or our real world stresses and problems. The very thing I like most about it is the part that has disappointed him. His biggest criticism was from an episode or two back where we see Syril at home with his mom. He gets up, goes too he kitchen, eats a bowl of cereal, and then gets ready to go to work - where he sits in a cubicle wearing a suit & tie.

As he says, the world and our culture are a mess and life can be very stressful, is it too much to ask for just one hour a week where he isn’t reminded of it. I absolutely get that and I agree. It’s nice to step away even for an hour or so.

He says for him it was just too much like Earth to offer any escapism. I found the Earthiness to be a bit interesting (the cubicle part, going on a job interview, etc), because a great many of us may exist in that very world. I’m very happy with the show, where he wants more droids and aliens. Note: he was very happy that the vacation planet offered up what he’d been missing.

What say the board: Too Earth-like or no?

Question for the group. Contains a spoiler

Do you think Kleya is acting on her own by arranging a meeting with Vel and telling her to kill Cassian? I get the feeling from the secretive nature of the meeting and Vel wondering why Luthen isn’t there with her that Kleya may not have told Luthen about her plan. I also get the impression that Vel isn’t going to do it since Cassian protected her by doing away with Skeen and leaving her all the money. He did the right thing for her, I think she’ll return the favor.

Darth Caliban said:

Might be simply anti-disney bias that prevents the perception of everything good or great about the show for some people 😉

No doubt.

All,

Let me clear up something before we waste any more time on this tangent. I’m not knocking Han in-universe or as written. It’s very likely that Han was my hero before most of you were born. I don’t need him explained to me. My point, and I stand by it, is that he’s nowhere near as dangerous a person as Cassian, nor is he ever in as much danger. When we meet him, he’s in trouble with one gangster because a single deal went sideways. If he were in any real trouble, he wouldn’t be hanging out in a bar down the road from the guy to whom he owes money.

As someone said earlier, he’s more of a happy-go-lucky type of guy. He’s selfish (as Leia points out), and has no apparent passion or higher cause. As presented, he comes across as a legitimate charter who sometimes takes side gigs smuggling. He’s shown to be that in EU novels also. Everyone we see him kill is in self defense. Cassian practically lives a witness protection lifestyle no matter which planet he’s on. We see him kill people in cold blood, not necessarily in self defense because he never waits that long.

They both make money illegally, they’re both interesting to watch, and both are sort of anti-heroes, but they are not the same types of people.

McDonald’s.
Had it for breakfast just this morning. My usual 6:30 AM egg biscuit with a cup of coffee. I have that same meal every Monday on my way to work.
Full disclosure; I’m a vegetarian, so I don’t take advantage of either the way most people might.
That said, the Impossible Whopper from Burger King is very good. I have one maybe once a month or so.