NFBisms

oh ok yeah! 😃 responding more to mocata a page back

See this is the stuff that can be hard to discuss in good faith if you actually want to believe that. Anakin says that when literally all Palpatine has said is “unlimited power~”

Everything else is understandbly muddled / up for interpretation but this one is pretty straightforward as an almost filler line, emotional reaction. If anything, in the read that he’s been played - he’d still be buying the trick!

nah

Fair enough, doesn’t necessarily exclude the prior read though. I certainly understand where Anakin being tricked becomes such a popular perception.

Sure, but we should also note that Palpatine never outright says he knows how to do what Plagueis did. Even when the mask initially drops, the verbiage is about “having a complete view of the Force” and “using his knowledge,” which is consistent to how he continues to discuss the topic post-Mace Murder, where he emphasizes discovery. It’s an academic seduction almost; forbidden research that Anakin won’t get from Jedi teachings.

The Force is still a great mystery, but maybe a practitioner as “powerful” as Anakin could unlock it if only he had access to all of that knowledge~. That is the function of his being gassed up, playing off of the allure of knowing more about the Force than the Jedi would tell you. It’s not meant to be a direct transaction, tit for tat heel turn.

I think Anakin still has more agency in that than just being duped.

I don’t think I ever articulated it better than I did in this conversation with Channel72 (including the next few replies)

It doesn’t excuse any of the bad stuff but I do think people tend to project a lack of agency onto his arc. So many of us have been working backwards from the grandfathered critiques of the prequels’ stupid plot, and not really engaging with where it is at least trying to interplay with the themes of the OT. (I also think this understanding is entirely consistent to The Clone Wars Anakin!)

A lot of this stuff “works” better in conversation with the OT, exactly as movies made decades after. Of course they fail to complete the fabled saga where Star Wars (1977) is a fourth installment, but as idiosyncratic Lucas joints commenting on them, they are fascinating to dissect. Don’t let anyone try to squash that curiosity!

Anakin Skywalker was not manipulated 🤓

Vladius said:

NFBisms said:

Vladius said:
I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.

Always amused by the chip on your shoulder about this topic, but I do think this would be interesting to hear!

That’s why I won’t talk about it. You can probably infer if you’ve already read all my other posts for your amusement.

I mean, I am being sincere here. I think if there’s something genuinely important to you here and not just kind of an annoyance with people you could just ignore, that’s a real discussion worth starting IMO

Vladius said:
I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.

Always amused by the chip on your shoulder about this topic, but I do think this would be interesting to hear!

Love that henzINNIT; that’s what I’ll go with for now.

Speaking of. A cut of Episode 13: Single Reactor Ignition (V2) is now up in the same folder you can find V1!

When it’s all done, I’ll switch out the versions (V1 their own archived folder) and export the episodes out as MKVs with subs and metadata. I will actually be working on episode 15 this week, since I’m mostly happy with episode 14 as is, and 15 will have the next most changes from V1 in the set.

Anyway, as for 13, here are the broad changes from V1:

• New recap
• Ferrix anvil // date cards
• Reinstated extended sequence of Krennic’s shuttle approaching Lah’mu
• Cut the moment where Cassian looks on at Jyn in wonder as she beats up the stormtroopers
• Some foley polish
• Minor scoring differences. I opted to stick close to what I’ve done already though. Partly out of laziness, but mostly to preserve what this edit “is” as a unique artifact I guess. Since there are others starting to do their own thing with the same concept.
• Thanks to @Chase Adams, alien subtitles have been updated to match Andor’s
  

VERSION 2 UPDATE

Finally had some time over the past few weeks to whittle away at this. I think I won’t end up changing too too much from V1 - most of the changes will probably be in the final episode.

Here’s a quick test of the first 10ish minutes of “episode 13”

(I will probably change the title from “Jedha” to something else. Pitches welcome)

(also will be more polished on release obv)

Differences in this clip from v1:

• New quick and dirty recap of what’s important from the official last arc of season 2
• Ferrix anvil // date cards
• Reinstated extended sequence of Krennic’s shuttle approaching Lah’mu
• Some new scoring for the transition to BBY 1

Other than that, you’ll notice I didn’t really change too much from V1. Maybe I’m too attached to what I’ve done?

Something I am kind of trying to figure out is what date to actually put onto those new date cards. Jyn in the movie itself does say it was 15 years since she last saw her father. But canonically, as per StarWars dot com and Wookieepedia, the Lah’mu sequence takes place in 13 BBY. The math doesn’t work out and that doesn’t even account for whether I am counting from 1 BBY, which apparently is the correct date of Rogue One, not 0 BBY. It’s a bit confusing so I opted for taking Jyn’s word for it and adhering to all of this still being BBY 1.

Here’s a clip of the new score for Jyn’s entrance into Yavin after Wobani

Again, nothing changed on Wobani from V1, but I tried to pad the Yavin sequence out a little bit more by including some footage from one of the initial teasers, to squeeze in the new motif.

Oh I wasn’t trying to shut down the idea, just discussing! Ultimately it’s up to Eddie, I forget I’m also working on this sometimes LOL.

I think I actually do have some issues with Gilroy in Andor season 2 not quite actually building to Rogue One thematically (he avoided watching it IIRC!) in more than just this way, which is where my POV comes from. But I do get where you are coming from. Vader as this almost intangible, immaterial representation of fascism for Krennic to hit the wall on, is a cool idea!

I just like the more mechanical, institutional way it comes back around to everyone all the same more - rather than evil escalating up to totem pole. The banality of it, how human it all is, is part of what’s always made the imperial stuff in Andor compelling.

Broom Kid said:
I think cutting him period is probably going too far. Krennic bullying Dedra pays off in the way he ends up becoming just like her when he butts up against that same fascist ceiling in Rogue One. She overreaches and winds up getting put in her place by both Partagaz and then Krennic. Krennic overreaches and gets chumped by both Tarkin, and then Vader. I get the general instinct, but I also feel like Gilroy is looking at Rogue One (and was looking at it when he got called in to fix it in the first place) as he’s making Andor and knows what it is he’s both leading into and also mirroring in subtle ways as he builds out his arcs.

Cutting Vader for the sake of cutting him to make Rogue One feel more like Andor feels, to me, like a short-circuiting of what Andor was doing in the first place by trying to build TO Rogue One.

I disagree and I think my reasoning is in your reasoning - Dedra is never actually put in her place by Partagaz directly, so there is no real parallelism in having there be a “both Tarkin, and then Vader” for Krennic to rub up against. It’s not even really intuitive for there to be two representations of a fascist ceiling per character. Tarkin is more than enough.

I feel like it breaks down more like this: Partagaz is explicitly in Dedra’s corner for pretty much all of the show, and he only throws her under the bus off-screen as a means of self preservation. Krennic is then in his corner, but states he can’t protect him, which comes to bear for Partagaz after Heert’s failure.

[Dedra -> Partagaz -> Krennic -> Tarkin] works well enough, cleaner I think than having Vader in there for no real reason. Vader isn’t contending with bureaucracy / careerism / survival in the way those characters are, it’s not actually a compelling thematic bit to add him into the mix; he’s just annoyed.

these guys are pretty classic SW bickerers; the thesis of with the right leadership (Leia) the himbos (Luke and Han) can achieve real rebellion is all there

RE: V2, I am sorting through every idea I’ve been pitched, and working through how I want to tackle it all at the moment. Getting a feel for the S2 soundtrack, etc. To be honest, I have a lot going on IRL right now and haven’t had a day off since last Friday - but I have some time this weekend into Monday to get really down to it.

I think where I’m at right now, as I’ve ever been, is to stay mostly conservative about the film. The novelty of the Andor score on it is the extent of my ambition here - I’m not entirely trying to “fix” it outside that concept - with the few exceptions (Vader/Krennic scene, Ponda Baba, etc) being trivial enough to remove and non-transformative to the narrative/structure. We’ll see what else as I get through it. I will address some more specific suggestions in later posts when I have the time.

But yeah, on top of some new season 2 music, there will be some presentation changes. I am planning on including the Ferrix anvil/BBY title cards. I will be editing a new recap at the top of “Jedha”.

I think eventually I’m going to just export the movie without any of the music, so that people can do the more radical work they’re looking for themselves though!

You could probably DM me on Fanedit.org? I’ve been getting a lot of requests on there from new accounts.

Literally what Nemik’s manifesto is about is contextualizing it all as The Fight

I hate the Disney intro with such passion, but I think consistent to that, I also don’t think presentation uniformity across all of these is necessary. For a show like Andor especially - it deserves to be presented as its own work with its own identity. I think a lot of these could stand to separate itself from the saga and “branding” more, if anything.

For anyone curious, of the work we’ve done so far, cutting Movie 5 wasn’t just a matter of melding the episode tops and bottoms. That would have made pretty inelegant time jumps in Cassian’s subplot, so I needed to split up the progression, shuffling the first few scenes of episodes 2 / 3 to accommodate the flow.

Some more ideas for Movie 5, attempting to be consistent to the one word titling structure.
Maybe still not super punchy, though. And maybe real stretches lol.

‘Home’

• “You’re coming home to yourself.”
• Chandrila - Mon Mothma’s home planet
• Cass refers to Bix, Brasso, and Wilmon as “home”
• Eedy visits Syril and Dedra’s home
• Yavin eventually becomes rebel home base

‘Compromise[s]’

• The planned drop to Porko has been “compromised”, as has the Ferrix crew’s status on Mina-Rau
• Thematic to Mon’s plotline; the wedding itself is already a deal with the devil, but now she must also compromise her ideals and allow Tay to be killed.
• Thematic and somewhat ironic to the Maya Pei brigade plotline
• Dedra proposes a compromise to Eedy
• Could be with/without the plural form

‘Conference’

• The imperial conference on what to do about Ghorman
• A wedding is a conference, kinda
• The Maya Pei brigade are having a conference, kinda
• Dedra meeting Eedy, kinda

‘Divergence’

• Parallels movie 1’s title (Convergence)
• Describes how things are coming apart: Tay, rebel infighting, Ferrix crew’s cover on Mina-Rau, etc.
• idk

Haven’t come up with any for the second arc / Movie 6 just yet

I feel like partisan politics should be where the line is drawn, sure, but regardless of conservative, liberal, leftist, anarchist, etc. we are an imperial core as The West (if that’s where you are), comfortably watching a Disney+ show and having time to bullshit on the internet about Star Wars. It’s not like the previous administration in America isn’t just as complicit in war crimes and more. Andor is political, but not as a pseudo-campaign piece for a specific political party. What’s left of Maya Pei’s group are depicted as idiots, and they’re basically infighting radicals. No one but the structure of “Empire” is being singled out here as the galaxy’s evil. And no one is a clean-handed paragon of virtue.

To equate the stuff in Andor to one president or to “belief systems” or specific modern analogy is missing the point. It’s like Gilroy says, he’s writing from history, but we don’t learn history as trivia. There are mechanics, theory, cyclical patterns that we’re supposed to be able to recognize - and as a society, ideally work to avoid happening again. Recognizing fascism means recognizing all of its forms, and pretending that doesn’t exist intentionally inside of a work would be to miss out on half of what makes the show so good.

To an earlier point and hopefully this brings us back on track, is The Empire supposed to be one nation/country? @Vladius

In Andor alone, there’s Corporate Zones (PreMor) and Ghorman having their own autonomy, but we also know there are places like Hutt Space, like Bespin before ESB. It feels like the set up here is something sort of like the European Union. It’s not a perfect analogy because again, that’s not the point, but it does have valences in how cultural hegemony can often be understood as an iteration on imperialism. It’s how you can have all the ways the Empire is the Nazis - but also tackle the nuanced ways a modern western power slips into fascism all the same. The Empire is parabolic composite of all empire

You’re not being apolitical, is all I want you to realize. To bring it back to the show, does Perrin’s pursuit of joy and complacency with all that is “tedious”, “boring and sad” in the galaxy not still enable the Empire? This is one of the ways I am talking about Andor as still contemporaneously resonant. He is doing your whole bit, but even less malciously. At least he doesn’t believe in anything.

You are spouting an agenda by pushing the idea that others have an agenda, that Disney has some kind of earnest (and not profit driven) political interest in “changing the world”. They make ads for toys and merchandise. You haven’t triggered me or challenged any belief system I have because it’s just not that deep for me.

If you want to talk about the show, this show, I’d just prefer we all engage with it and what it’s doing fully, instead of silo-ing off topics of conversation and ideas just because of whatever you want to believe about other showrunners or Kathleen Kennedy. You literally have demonstrated time and again ignorance to how any of this works or has worked, clung to very specific, disproven narratives - and then hide behind it being an opinion with everyone else just out to get you because of politics. I just want us to be able to talk about Gilroy’s influences openly.

Genuine question, but is it literally just gender stuff where that line is drawn for you? Like if it’s rhetoric about “women empowerment” or whatever, that’s too political? But any other political themes are fair game? Even as just a send-up to history, you have to realize Gilroy is working on this stuff as cyclical and resonant to contemporary context.

That’s how any of this works as well as it does, it’s rooted in real and relevant things we can feel, even if you don’t have the tools to articulate it, or just choose not to. Fascism and authoritarianism describe phenomena, and function through theory that has been worked out academically for decades. They aren’t just something that popped out in WWII Nazi Germany once in history and never happened again.

you know the last star wars show was just star wars twilight right

Meanwhile Tony Gilroy is out here saying Andor is the “most important work he’s ever done”. dude made Michael Clayton

Vladius said:
NFB I don’t know what you mean by “Star Wars’ history with SA”.

just all the sex slavery. I think the biggest offenders are the cartoons playing it coy about that being what’s going on when women are bought and sold at auctions. It’s treated very callously, like a fact of the universe - but doesn’t even center on the ugly traumatic experience of the victims like it is here. It’s just always been there because it was there at Jabba’s Palace so it’s “Star Wars”-y enough to be included. Twilek women portrayal in general was in an odd, skeevy place pop culturally until the late 2010s, and it seeps into how they were portrayed throughout Star Wars media up to that point. But even Rebels falls into making comedic light of Hera being bought and sold for ~reasons~.

At least Jabba is only shown forcibly licking and killing a Twilek slave so that he can get comeuppance later (like the Imperial in Andor). Filoni still wants you to think Death Watch is an honorable and cool warrior culture after showing them take concubines post-village sacking.