NFBisms

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.

I do appreciate what Gilroy has to say about it:

Ultimately, the only reason it would ever feel “edgy” is because it’s Star Wars, but being blunt about it is more tasteful, mature, and sensitizing than acting like you snuck in something ~naughty~ into a typically kids-friendly property. I respect it. Star Wars’ history with SA in that regard is far grosser than how it’s used here as a terrifying truth about Empire and what it can empower.

Something that stood out to me as pretty cool was the kind of lounge-jazz music that played while Syril and Dedra were getting ready for the dinner with Eedy.

I’d become fascinated with the 70s/80s sci-fi cartoon/anime aesthetic in the past few years, and particularly how much its music could often be a mix of synths and at the time a contemporaneous disco/jazz trend. Droids certainly fell into this, despite having John Williams and Star Wars as source.

SO. Andor is taking the 70s retrofuturism pretty seriously, and that Syril/Dedra sequence helped me realize that I would actually love a more jazz-y OST.

Similar to that auralnauts video but leaning further into Jun Fukamachi, Shigeo Sekito, Jeff Tyzik, or even a Haircuts For Men vibe - rather than just Blade Runner or Blake’s Seven. Like, that could genuinely work for this show IMO

I’d been collecting tracks like that for this other animated WIP Star Wars project I’ve been whittling away at, but I would love to try it for Andor too. Evoking this more could go hard, and fit right in with the ways in which the show is already a radical but retro take on Star Wars.

Could even throwback to the style of titlecards in Droids and Ewoks

and of course

Brandon Roberts’ score (the parts of it that are his and not just re-used Britell) is broadly leaning more into classic Star Wars more, but that one musical moment was bold enough to get me thinking. We already talk a lot about the ways Andor feels like pre-Disney Legends, but it also feels pre-Legends, pre-Zahn. I would love to put it more in that space.

sparky has the only good post in this already bad thread

yoshif8tures said:

timdiggerm said:

yoshif8tures said:

oojason said:

 

The same critics also said TLJ was the best Star Wars movie ever too…

I can not find a review online of The Last Jedi by Nicholas Quah. Do you have a source you can cite?

Let me clarify. Movie critics in general said TLJ was the best Star Wars movie ever, which it was not.
Now the same people say andor is the best.
My point being that their word has absolutely no weight at all.

well mine does, & they’re right this time

I actually already used the deepfaked versions! I forgot to mention it in this thread, but it should be in the IFDB listing

Hey now, you more than anyone know I can engage in a good faith discussion, we’ve had like 5000! My relationship with Vladius is just different.

Contrary to the two acceptable [apparently] camps of thought to have on The Last Jedi, probably.

So, turns out Nicholas Britell isn’t returning for season 2 (mentioned here) outside of a few tracks; Brandon Roberts is picking up composing duties.

I’m sure the general sound will stay audially & thematically consistent to what Britell established, but it has inspired me to re-open the project files and mess around using some of Roberts’ previous work. Obviously his actual score for Andor season 2 will take precedence for use in the final project, but I am already inspired to use some of his other stuff. The places he is different from Britell open up what exactly “Andor sounds like” and that has exciting possibilities for this.

Great notes! I’ve definitely been thinking similar things - if not more - about the foley work. I tried to get away with less back then and could only do spot-checks throughout the entire two hours for so long before I burned out.

But with this as a solid base that I’ve now spent more than enough time away from, I am excited to polish that aspect off. Especially as the season 2 score comes out and we’ll have all the thematic pieces / motifs to chew on. Should make the work a bit more creative and cohesive, rather than just technical and speculative. I’m excited!

yeah

“basic storytelling logic” he “should” be the wise mentor figure here who has something to teach the next generation

i don’t believe in this

Channel72 said:

WitchDR said:

rocknroll41 said:

So having all the main characters be men instead of women is “stepping out of gender politics”?

To be fair, Disney can’t write a single good female character to save their life. The only characters that have had any staying power are all male characters: Cassian, Din, and Grogu.

Mon Mothma and Dedra Meero are both incredibly written female characters. They’re more interesting than any of the male characters in Andor, except probably for Luthen. But I agree these are exceptions or outliers among mostly crappy Disney Star Wars productions.

tony gilroy rey movie when

PM sent to anyone who’s asked btw

Also just FYI for everyone, I’m renaming all the currently available files to “V1” ahead of season 2 just to delineate the difference between them and the eventual post-season 2 versions. I’d like to keep them available for archival purposes and I figured this would be less confusing. The old “V1” thru “V5” were just early drafts anyway, consisting of very minor tweaks and technical fixes between them; ultimately the same creative choices refined towards what’s stood for the past year.

Another way of looking at it is that, if I knew I would be making so many ‘versions’ then, I probably would have started with the naming conventions “v0.1” to “v0.5” leading into what is now V1.

I’m anticipating with the soundtrack pool expanding upon season 2’s release (as well as whatever new contexts might arise) I’ll be approaching the whole thing a little differently, with entire song / tone choices being different enough to warrant being called a new “version” and not just an iteration on the previous.

I don’t know if this makes sense or will ultimately be necessary, but yeah.

Things I’m looking out for in season 2 regarding this edit:

• A theme or motif for K2
• A theme or motif for Yavin 4
• A theme or motif for Krennic
• Possible Rogue One OST synthesis. Reversion to some of the original score might be in the cards here, Britell and Gilroy know they are producing a lead-in to an already made movie and might make the connection to it themselves. I do miss the real Stardust reprise and would reinstate it anywhere if needed.

I feel like we already knew this. Just season 2 matching season 1’s budget was always going to go this way, and it’s not like we don’t see it on-screen + the fact that the seasons are twice as long as almost all the other shows, if not only in episode count but runtime as well.

I think the one thing he’s “wrong” about, is that ROTJ codified anything about the setting’s potential.

Years of EU material - engagement from fans as writers just like he was at 15 - have taken the property in the diverse directions he craved throughout books, games, comics, etc. Stuff like the prequels’ commitment to slapstick, and the ST’s derivate nature is definitely symptomatic of ROTJ - but Star Wars as a whole is such a canvas, and in part because of its mythological nature. It has one of the most recognizable pop culture iconographies ever created.

What that does - the value of that, that a new IP doesn’t have - is that “The Galactic Empire” and “The Rebel Alliance” or “The Jedi” are a language unto itself. You can be literate - fluent - in Star Wars, and in broad ways too. Look no further than Tony Gilroy treating Star Wars lore as a history to research for Andor. George Lucas himself is able to make commentary on our assumed institutions by playing on the expectations of the myths he established.

These are the kinds of complex iterations that a blank slate story needs time and goodwill to build up to - not to mention on a meta level, wouldn’t have the cultural cache that the Star Wars iconography brings with it. There is genuine power - in a similar way a Christian could call something “demonic” and that has meaning - to Lucas making an observation about the world, and making it a contributing factor in the fabled, evil Galactic Empire’s rise. That’s allegorical weight that the Hunger Games’ Panem doesn’t have. That Dune needs to explain over two movies or more.

Star Wars is broad and pulpy, and that allows for depth in the margins, in iteration. It more than other sci-fi, is at the point of Sherlock Holmes: make him a doctor for this one, or Watson is Lucy Liu in this one, this one’s about his cousin, and here’s a heady deconstruction of his tropes. But it’s Star Wars, and it’s already a pastiche, ripe for modulation and dissection.

Not to say that narratives more blatantly about, say, the Troubles of Northern Ireland, police corruption in Baltimore, or the Bush administration - can’t also be great, but they have a different type of less palatable baggage; are limited by the scope of reality. Star Wars as a framework can go further off the tip, in those directions, far better than other sci/fantasy settings can. Especially because I think it’s encouraged by the original creator’s work (prequels) itself, more than maybe LOTR in a similar position ever would. Really the property is as dogmatic as its fanbase allows it to be.

Superweapon VII said:
After Andor’s finished, I wanna see a Rogue One special edition which brings it tonally in-line with the show.

👀

yes, that should be assumed!

Channel72 said:

NFBisms said:

“Politics” do not [necessarily, or often] work via the same mechanics as a fable’s moral or lesson. These aren’t ‘messages’ at the end of an after school special or Saturday Morning Cartoon episode.

They are manifest in all work, as a reflection of the author’s perspectives, the context in which work is created. It can be as simple as the Empire dissolving the Senate being portrayed as bad, or as thematic as Leia being portrayed counter to conservative femininity. There are things you wouldn’t write, and things you likely would, if you were to write your own story. That is politics.

Lucas can go back outside of his initial intentions and verbalize what precisely might have inspired him. It’s no different than Spielberg realizing how his parents inadvertently inspired how the aliens communicate in Close Encounters. But instead of making The Fabelmans, Lucas makes the prequels.

Having political inspiration inherent to oneself doesn’t even have to interplay with intention. I absolutely believe Lucas intended to just make a fun, swashbuckling space opera. I absolutely believe Lucas was more influenced by Flash Gordon than he was Vietnam. But the context from which the story arose from him is worth talking about, especially for himself to analyze. There are aesthetics and what a story is (its genre form, its intention), and then there are the values a story inherently has.

Right, I’m mostly reacting to the (implied) idea that Lucas began writing Star Wars (either the OT or the Prequels) with some clear, historical/political allegory in mind, in the way that, say, George Orwell did while writing Animal Farm. I think it was more like, Lucas was thinking “I want to write this cool story with space ships and lasers and wizards and fairy-tale endings, and I sure love those old WW2 movies and serial adventures where they fight Nazis. But I also think my cool film-school friends are on to something with this anti-war and revolutionary stuff that’s going on now. I feel like I have something to say about all this, so I’ll sprinkle in some thematic fragments here and there.”

I mean, these perceived allegorical dimensions of Star Wars always seemed way more “tacked on” to me, and much less organically emergent from the story itself, than other comparable sci-fi like Dune or Star Trek.

I think what pulls me away from the idea that he just threw disparate stuff into a stew - is how notoriously overwritten and specific his (pre-edit of ANH, the prequels) writing was/is with proper nouns and fictional jargon. (In a way that is closer to Dune or Star Trek). While also, paradoxically not really being very precise about it all personally. He’ll still call lightsabers “laser swords” in interviews, and as seen with the prequels, is never married to his own story if he has a different idea.

I think Star Wars DOES live in a very metaphorical/allegorical space for Lucas in that way; a canvas for what he wants to say on topics from politics to cosmology. It’s not lore to him. I often think back to how unintuitive it is for Lucas to want to emphasize, that, no the Trade Federation are not Separatists actually during the Clone Wars. This, to the bewilderment of people working under him (including Filoni!) I think it’s clear Lucas has intention, he’s just usually all over the place as a storyteller. But that idiosyncrasy is the political dimension. He’s more consistent to the politics than the story.

So sure, it’s not clear, specific allegory but it is all freighted with his own views about any number of topics from conception. He’s not throwing a bone to his peers - he’s literally one of them, and just found his own way to express an ethos. An expression can be more than one thing. Revolution as a fairy tale is not a hard synthesis to parse out. It’s easier for me to take his word for it than it is keep downplaying what’s fairly obvious. He does THX before Star Wars. The Empire in Star Wars is a far closer to home dystopia than the one depicted there.

Anyway, for a clear example of Star Wars with (mostly obvious and intentional) political messaging done correctly, see Andor.

I think Andor is amazing, and in a lot of ways I prefer it to Star Wars proper, but it is jumping off of a state of play that is completely consistent to George’s Star Wars.

Channel72 said:

Yeah, I mean, whenever someone talks about Star Wars being “WW2 in space”, it’s generally accompanied by clips of X-Wings banking like a WW2 fighter plane, or gunners manning a huge laser canon and firing out the window into space like on a WW2 battleship, etc. The “WW2 in space” thing mostly refers to aesthetic/stylistic choices manifested in the groundbreaking visual effects. The story itself is more closely analogous to an asymmetric conflict between insurgents and an oppressive technocratic dictatorship.

More precisely, it’s pertinent that the influence is, as Mocata mentioned, Dambusters and the like - not archival footage or documentaries about World War II. The old war movies being pulled on are important for what they contribute to film language, not the subject matter or what they “educate” about history. It’s iconography, how to communicate heroism and bravery in war. What a good dogfight looks like on-screen.

But perhaps it has more in common with a fantasy where an evil Kingdom is defeated by an unlikely hero than anything rooted in real world politics.

To this point, these aren’t exclusive! People hold real-world viewpoints in more or less the same ways as a story. Those ideals came from somewhere first, and then were narrativized.

“political messaging”

“Politics” do not [necessarily, or often] work via the same mechanics as a fable’s moral or lesson. These aren’t ‘messages’ at the end of an after school special or Saturday Morning Cartoon episode.

They are manifest in all work, as a reflection of the author’s perspectives, the context in which work is created. It can be as simple as the Empire dissolving the Senate being portrayed as bad, or as thematic as Leia being portrayed counter to conservative femininity. There are things you wouldn’t write, and things you likely would, if you were to write your own story. That is politics.

Lucas can go back outside of his initial intentions and verbalize what precisely might have inspired him. It’s no different than Spielberg realizing how his parents inadvertently inspired how the aliens communicate in Close Encounters. But instead of making The Fabelmans, Lucas makes the prequels.

Having political inspiration inherent to oneself doesn’t even have to interplay with intention. I absolutely believe Lucas intended to just make a fun, swashbuckling space opera. I absolutely believe Lucas was more influenced by Flash Gordon than he was Vietnam. But the context from which the story arose from him is worth talking about, especially for himself to analyze. There are aesthetics and what a story is (its genre form, its intention), and then there are the values a story inherently has.

That’s just the thing isn’t it? Most of the prequels’ production predates 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ response. He’s already challenging the ‘moral authority’ of neoliberal order in TPM, before even the turn of the century. It’s not hard for me to believe that Lucas was not a fan of American foreign policy even back in the 70s, when it was popular among artists to be critical anyway.

I can agree that it’s not manifest in the OT in overt ways, but on paper it’s young people radicalized against hegemonic power and joining rebels. Think about how Luke indifferently lives under the Empire and even yearns to join the Academy as a banal escape at the start of Star Wars. A New Hope in that way is almost the fantasy of a 70s college protestor blasting “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye while picketing police brutality, or Watergate, environmental issues, etc, etc. (Stuff like the Biggs deleted scene makes this a lot clearer.) The World War II imagery just empowers that kind of youthful anti-establishment as noble a cause as those heroes in fable. Rebellion as a heroic war movie.

This does not mean Star Wars is commenting on or even being overt allegory for any specific issue. Star Wars is not “about” Vietnam. I just don’t think Lucas is “making it up” to sound cool or edgy, when he talks about what it means to him. We’re talking about a hippie cosmology-loving, anti-war film student here.

It’s important to note also that WWII films are not necessarily about the history of WWII; like Westerns they are mythology of ideas. It’s about the iconography, a valorous vision of heroes and unambiguous evil; at the time a more modern template for a war adventure in the burgeoning film medium. Lucas employs that imagery because he’s a film buff. It’s not like he’s saying anything about 1100s England when he pulls on Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood.