NFBisms

The reversion-back-to-“good” is a central tension to the read I’m putting forward here. To tie it back to the OT Vader discussion, in this perspective it’s a performance. Not even necessarily a mask on his true self, but a desperate grasp on to his better self. Gradual or abrupt, linear or nonlinear - is beside my point, I think it’s just supposed to be a struggle. And I do think that has interplay with ROTJ’s portrayal of Vader’s redemption. It’s playing with the question of ontological good/evil. Can someone fundamentally be “just” a psychotic killer? [is it] too late for me son

He wants to believe he has the morals not to kill Dooku, he buries the memory of the Tuskens because that’s not what a good Jedi [master] does. I think the amount of time spent in ROTS of him angsting about his responsibilities vs desires makes it relatively intuitive that he is performing, deferring to doctrine and procedure harder than ever before. (“Not the Jedi way” “against the Jedi code” “never been done in the history of the Jedi”) Compensating for his failure and disappointment in himself into rigidity

This especially when that’s not how he was characterized in AOTC. It’s basically Catholic guilt, sin motivating piety. The Tuskens being evoked early in ROTS as a response to Anakin’s performed morals is functional in that lens.

I do think you’re right about the weirdness of Padme being super cool with the massacre in AOTC, though.

The other things that muddle it is stuff like the Padme death anxiety simply making no sense, and yet being given central focus. The fascism that peeks out also generally just makes Anakin unsympathetic. It’s odd because these explain motivations for different parts of his arc - but they barely if at all synthesize with one another.

1. Padme is cool with Anakin killing those Tuskens because they need to be in love
2. The nightmares of Padme’s death motivate the deal with the devil
3. Anakin’s failed search for absolution explains the upfront costs
4. The fascist side of Anakin gives him something to stay around for when it all goes bad

It’s all a mess BUT i think can be kinda compelling to think through

Just stopping, and ending Star Wars forever

I’m someone who didn’t like the show up to this point, but I think the finale did kind of save it for me? I at least really admire what it was trying to do; I think the unsettling nature of the whole story kind of came together in the end. It did feel “evil” to me, the payoff of Osha being the one to strangle Sol to death in Jonestown just feels dark and appropriately uncomfortable, even if it wasn’t fully earned.

But yeah, it’s very weird and bad throughout, Osha and Mae never really work as characters, but I’m sold enough on this as the relatively mundane start of a secret rotting that informs the whole saga. It’s intimate with big implications, deceptively fucked up. I think that feeling it leaves me with is generally just a fun impression. I had fun with a trashy show.

Channel72 said:

NFBisms said:

When he chooses Palpatine, he’s making a deal with the devil to “save Padme’s life”, liberating himself from the [Jedi-informed] conscience he did have. It’s not that what he does from here “doesn’t count” but it’s not a reflection of who he is (well, idk, loaded philosophical question) or who he wants to be. Hayden crying is some of the most striking imagery in ROTS and it happens several times.

I think the problem with Anakin’s decision to follow Palpatine is the absurdly extreme cost of doing so that Anakin has to pay right up front. I mean, I can understand Anakin (or anybody, really) agreeing to do some seriously evil stuff in order to save the life of a loved one. But Anakin is told that, in order to save Padme, he has to basically mass-murder everyone he’s ever known, including children. That goes well beyond “my first Dark Side experience”. The justification, I guess, is that Anakin desperately wants to save Padme and he’s slightly pissed off at the Jedi for denying him a Council seat. But this is so weak - the character-work really isn’t there in the script to justify Anakin’s decision. It’s a ridiculous and jarring leap to go from “well I’m now an accessory to Mace Windu’s murder, I might as well just roll with the whole Dark Side thing” to “I will now methodically murder hundreds of people including defenseless children on the off-chance this Sith stuff pans out and saves Padme”.

I think it’s important that those upfront costs aren’t his First Dark Side Experience™. It’s still the Tuskens.

What I’m positing is that the guilt and self-hatred of that has permanence, informs his internality, even by the time of ROTS. When he bows to Palpatine, he can agree to the terms because he’s already spent the past three years haunted by what he’s done, already knowing well the shape of evil inside him. It’s what he’s been running away from, to reputation as a hero (a good man), and what he hopes is masterhood (vindication as a Jedi).

In the face of the Jedi’s persistent doubt and rejection, that protective self-image crumbles and he is left to confront the darker projections - the guilt, the secrets, like the wife he’s hiding, who he cares about most in this moment. Who has he been fooling? As a Jedi, he’s already failed.

So this all has more to do with himself than it does the Jedi Order’s faults to him, or even the politics of the situation. Anakin is lacking in the tools to actualize as anything more than the monster he’s feared himself to be, who Yoda always warns him he’d become. He’s fulfilling his own internalized hatred, and that started with the Tuskens. imo

(sorry btw, i don’t mean to be a prequel apologist, i also am disappointed with these movies, i just end up here when i have to think about it)

A perspective that can kind of make it all work for me is that Anakin does this stuff and hates himself for it.

We do see him struggle with guilt over the sand people (albeit in a badly written, painful-to-watch scene), so it’s in the text. But what’s crucial is that he wants to be a good Jedi and hero, that he knows what his responsibilities are, what’s expected of him. He isn’t overtly sociopathic - he cries about having done these monstrous things, and even in ROTS, just about his unbecoming feelings.

I think the evil he ends up doing - while contradictory to - can still inform, the colder more balanced Vader we get in the OT.

Anakin throughout the first half of ROTS defends the Jedi council and their doctrine to Palpatine; looks to it first, to Yoda, when having a crisis of faith. He performs The Hero, and his relationship with Obi-Wan is great: brothers with someone who thinks him to have grown wise, a good friend worthy yet to be a master. There is something re: his ambition for power there, but I think importantly with the context of his original sin (the Tusken massacre), a question also of absolution. And he clings to all of it. He yearns to be validated by the Order and find in himself that “hero” (to his 9 y/o self’s eyes) - up until it’s clear they would never let him in. Not because Mace doesn’t take him seriously, but because of what Anakin comes to accept about what he’s hiding.

When he chooses Palpatine, he’s making a deal with the devil to “save Padme’s life”, liberating himself from the [Jedi-informed] conscience he did have. It’s not that what he does from here “doesn’t count” but it’s not a reflection of who he is (well, idk, loaded philosophical question) or who he wants to be. Hayden crying is some of the most striking imagery in ROTS and it happens several times.

I think after burning down all that has caused him strife - good and bad - more than just an empty shell, is the motivation to meaningful affect control on his world. It is kind of a reset into the dignified agent of justice he wanted to be as a Jedi, just without the guardrails. And once again performing that role in cover and self-loathing of what more he’s done.

She even has a different accent at the start. Leia is an all-timer

Thank you! And very nice!

Channel72 said:

This episode fully leans in to what was implied about the Jedi in the Prequels: they go around imposing their will on the Galaxy like the Spanish Inquisition, snatching away Force-sensitive children essentially at gunpoint. The Coven acted like they had no choice in the matter, and instead tried to trick the Jedi into leaving. Nice “Guardians of Peace and Justice”. They’re more like the Galactic Gestapo.

I never liked how the Prequels portrayed the Jedi and this show really leans into that portrayal. Ahh well, it is what it is.

I’m someone who actually loves how the prequel Jedi were portrayed, but it worked far better for me as emergent background. Here, in making a point, the whole concept becomes less enticing. Particularly because it feels like the witches were intentionally designed and written to generate friction, already starting from an oppositional perspective, rather than letting the Jedi flaws come out in organic praxis.

It’s fun to see the pursuit of selfless detachment trip into selfish moral vanity, how faith in the metaphysical can lead to inaction and neglect, how pragmatism = paternalism, how responsibility becomes authority, how peace can lack justice. These are all cool themes - that “The Jedi kidnaps children” can absolutely be a symptom of - but feels forced as a character’s primary vendetta. It leans too far into the Jedi as stickler for nonsense rules, and not Jedi as an insitution worth dissecting. And especially when the alternative, opposing way of life is so vaguely defined - what are we supposed to be getting out of this?

I think if anything - if we really are doing the Rashomon thing - this should have just leaned into portraying the Jedi as Osha’s liberators, and then show her family as loving in the recontextualization. Not this odd middle ground.

Also, I don’t think this episode was that redundant. I mean, all we knew before was that Osha’s family died in some fire and Mae seemed to blame the Jedi. I didn’t necessarily expect that Mae herself started the fire. But I do agree that the first two episodes shouldn’t have revealed so much information, especially since so much of it was revealed in rather clunky expository dialogue. Like at one point one of the Jedi actually tells Osha something like “your entire family was killed, etc.”. Pretty clunky, and completely redundant since we see these events play out in Episode 3 anyway.

Mae was actually said to have started the fire first thing when Sol explained what happened to Osha’s family. It’s later the point of Osha staying behind when Sol confronts Mae at the end of episode 2, Sol can sense that Osha still feels angry at Mae for killing their family.

I feel the opposite about how they should have handled it though. I wouldn’t have minded leaving this all to the exposition until a more complete revelation later. It was already pretty efficient. Maybe have some short cutaways like when Maarva was talking about Clem in Andor, but a whole episode? idk. Perhaps this could have even been intercut with the present day plot if they were so dead set on it. I think my biggest issue is how much of the pace it slowed down for very little returns.

I think what made it especially frustrating was that this was all more or less what the exposition detailed in the premiere episodes. Nothing particularly interesting about the coven or the twins or the Jedi was revealed, they could have snuck some of these details into the first two.

Just kinda feels like a waste of an episode - even though I’m 100% sure we’re going to get a Rashomon-esque revisit of these events down the line.

BedeHistory731 said:

NFBisms said:

sad that anyone agrees with Anjohan, it’s just empty rhetoric

Yeah, but I find it pointless to try and change minds here (outside of purely technically discussions).

Fair, just wanted to stake a claim that the post at the top of this page doesn’t represent the community. I like it here a lot because it’s full of smart, thoughtful people, not the kind of stuff being peddled above. It’s like you said, this niche corner of the fanbase has always been a bright spot, we don’t need the outside culture war to plant a flag here.

Anyway, back to The Acolyte. Even if it’s pretty mediocre at the moment, I am interested to see if it will have more interesting things to do as it goes on.

Kogonada is directing the next episode, which is a very compelling choice to me; Columbus is one of my favorite films. I’m interested to see if any of his sensuous photographical style will translate on production design this overtly “loud”, if he was even able to imbue this with any of his own sensibilities. It seems to be primarily a flashback episode based on stills released on the official site.

Which also made me realize that Torbin looked so weird to me because he wasn’t actually an old man! That was Tommen from Game of Thrones lol. He’s probably going to play a big part in the flashbacks if he was cast, which also means it wasn’t a complete waste of Carrie-Ann Moss. The flashback timeline is probably pretty expansive.

sad that anyone agrees with Anjohan, it’s just empty rhetoric

+1 for Jenny Nicholson’s video, it’s genuinely really really good.

We have writer-arc pairs for S2 on the updated WGA directory.

Tom Bissell is a really interesting choice for the last arc, he’s mostly known for his video game stuff, but his career has largely been in nonfiction as a political journalist and critic, much of his work based around the Soviet Union and the legacy of communism.

The first season was already freighted with historical allegory and sociopolitical themes, but now there’s real researched weight behind season 2, which is so cool. I imagine as we go further into the revolution, this subject matter becomes more pertinent.

Gilroy has also said Bissell was brought in as the Star Wars fan of the staff; that synthesis should actually be kind of perfect for the finale arc overlapping with Star Wars™ proper.

Outside of the obvious stuff his background would bring (political history, Star Wars nerddom), he wrote a book, Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve - a spiritual/academic investigation on the early schisms of Christianity and the historical context of the Bible’s authors. For a show like Andor, it sounds like the perfect framework for developing the Force’s role in the Rebellion, similarly to how I speculated it would eventually factor in a few pages back. I’ve already picked up a copy and am excited to read it lol. hopefully some of this helps inform s2

Tangentially, in the first season, Gilroy mentioned Simon Seabag Montefiore’s Young Stalin as inspiration particularly for the heist and Cassian himself, and I did end up reading that as well. Really interesting book too! There’s a lot of insight in these sources and the writers’ previous work towards what exactly the show is doing, if anyone else was interested in that sort of thing. It only makes the show more satisfying.

^^goes to show anyone successfully baited into being mad is just a loser

RogueLeader said:
It’s possible this whole assassination plot is going against the wishes of the Master Sith, who I’m assuming we actually haven’t seen yet. But, I wonder if the Sith are manipulating Mae to kill these Jedi in order to begin chipping away at the facade of the Jedi Order. I think the ‘dream’ speaks to the way the galaxy views the Jedi, and how the Jedi view themselves. I think it will be revealed that the Jedi hold some responsibility for what happened on the twins’ home planet, and if the public finds out about it it would be a scandal. I think the Sith may be trying to slowly sour public sentiment of the Jedi. And on the other side of things, perhaps they know this scandal will lead the Jedi to become more dogmatic like we see them in prequels, and even more tied with Coruscant and the Senate.

I also get a sense that this philosophy has involved into an actual tradition that Sith have for their acolytes. We’ve seen Mae/evil twin reach for her target’s lightsaber during their fights, and her targets have commented on her fighting them without a weapon. It seems like Mae having to resort to her blades or poison is something she’s reluctant to do. She told Qimir she is going to kill a Jedi without a weapon to please the Master, but I wonder if in order for an acolyte to earn their lightsaber (and/or officially become a Sith apprentice), they have to kill a Jedi with their own weapon. And that weapon becomes their red lightsaber.

It is a little confusing where Mae’s orders and her own vendetta begin and end, but I think this is right-on - if not close - to what’s going on. Qimir and Mae’s conversations alluding to her killing at least one of the four masters without a weapon (and the poison counts), could just be them misunderstanding the aphorism. But clarity on it is probably going to come in hand with the revelations of what happened on Brendok - if it’s bad enough Torbin literally kills himself over the guilt.

Does feel a little like the broad strokes of the payoffs are already telegraphed, especially when the inevitable endpoint is that this all gets buried (or just doesn’t ever resolve in a meaningful way) - which makes me hopeful there is more to it than just scandal. These episodes are scattered with 5 minute mysteries (the twin, the poison, etc) that ultimately don’t matter, it’s hard to tell if that’s just weird writing or by design. I think we’ll get a better feel for what it is as we go along, but because it’s so early in the show there’s room for it to be the latter. Actually interested to see how these checks pay off.

I theorize they’re doing an earnest try at a Darth Jar Jar thing with Qimir, but that’s neither here nor there to the core mystery

It’s not amazing or anything, but it’s very watchable IMO! I like the characters so far and am on its wavelength re: the Jedi. There are decent hooks here. The production is perhaps not as up to snuff as what we’ve seen before - we’re firmly in television ass television - but that’s no bad thing tbh, that’s literally what this is. It’s still colorful and charming all things considered.

I like it. I’m not as compelled to watch week to week, but I’ll definitely wrap around when the season is over.

Yeah but it was the wealthy corporate alliance who had the droid armies. That meant something inside the prequels themselves, but importantly and especially feel like it means something in a show like Andor. Droids are purpose-built and have personhood in Star Wars to the point that it’s plausible to me that flexible human labor ends up cheaper.

Either way, it’s probably a Why Not? thing more than it is a real calculation. It’s not like we don’t have prison labor in our own world. the empire is evil, they’re trying to get as much out of everyone as possible

Well, the show pointedly says that they (humans) are “cheaper than droids and easier to replace.” It sets that state of play up very specifically. Even in real life multiple tasks one human guy could turn around, need multiple machines for the different tasks.

Slavery eliminates the cost of building droids in the first place, and in Star Wars those droids would basically be humans that need more maintenance than the nutri-sludge (oil changes, repairs, etc) anyway.

RE: the transfer scam, I think it was just feeding into the idea that the Empire is too arrogant. It’s not a scam they’ve been running, it came with the P.O.R.D. and no one thought it through to its inevitabilities.

Honestly such a waste - bare bones Cliffnotes scripts really let down the concepts, there’s nothing here the trailer didn’t already substantiate in a minute of montage editing.

And sure, it’s often felt like intentional withholding of interesting stuff in these animated shows, but this one uniquely bulldozes through the concepts it puts on the table. This was supposed to be answers and payoffs. Bariss’ speculative future was so exciting and compelling in imagination, that’s gone now.

One of the first scenes in this show is B2 being peed on, I don’t think levity is that off limits.

To be fair, that book isn’t good and most people wouldn’t have read it anyway.

Andor excluded of course, it’s so 70s right down to formally being the grimy thrillers Star Wars '77 would be analyzed as cultural antidote to. The writing is timeless, the mullets and moustaches, even the Niamos beachwear feel so in line with ANH’s time period. And don’t forget the junky analog tech! Machines are big and unwieldy; Dedra has to do what’s basically an archive search by asking an attendant to collect those files from giant tube computers. There are illegible glass interfaces of lines ala Yavin and Hoth, tons of tactile knobs and switches and buttons, etc. Modified AK-47s as the symbolic weapon of revolution circa the 70s is loaded imagery, just like the modified StGs and Mausers in the OT evoke WWII. I was hyped as hell when Cassian was sentenced to prison by a 70s credit card machine.

And it makes it thematic. Nemik has a whole right-to-repair bit about technology being lost or forgotten; one of the many ways Empire imposes its will is through centralized uniform technology, moving populace away from the different lines of communication and information they maybe once had access to. Seperatist projects like tactical droids with databases in their head, Techno Union touch screens, or Umbaran bubble fighters fall by the wayside in distinctly important ways. It’s great!

Stuff like that really puts us right back into the space A New Hope is in. Whereas, yeah, it feels like a lot of other Star Wars stuff recently just conceptualizes “Star Wars” as anything that’s been in the movies before. Fair game for inclusion at any point, regardless of its faux-historical context. Aside from looking like a very modern Disney+ show in lighting and costuming, I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t any real technological difference between High Republic and Mandalorian eras in Acolyte. I would have loved design that feels more historical than just “cool” for the characters.

hey guys is Star Wars bad

I don’t have a UHD source for Rogue One, sorry. If HDR is important to you, know this [currently] does not have it.

Definitely in the plans, yes! Especially if specific locations or characters get their own motifs.

EDIT: Also thank you for the praise to everyone who has left it! I don’t love bumping my own threads unless a specific question is asked (am also not great at receiving compliments), but I do appreciate it!

Channel72 said:
Anakin’s downfall should probably contain elements of both systemic failure and personal failure. But I think it should be more heavily weighted towards personal failure. Perhaps something like 40% systemic failure (failures of the Jedi as an institution, experiencing the horrors and injustices of war, etc.), and 60% personal failure (Anakin just being turned on by the allure of power, and his need for control in a chaotic Universe). The greater emphasis on personal failure is really required for Vader’s redemption in ROTJ to have real dramatic weight. It really needs to be Vader’s choice to embrace the Dark Side, and also his choice to save his son in ROTJ.

I agree with this! In my heart of hearts, this is how I see Vader, and I wish the prequels were much better films that communicated that.

Vladius said:

NFBisms said:

NOTE: Everything I’m about to say doesn’t mean I think the prequels are good

I don’t actually mind a lot of the PT’s lore on stuff like this; I find it infinitely more interesting that the story we knew secondhand via Old Ben wasn’t just exactly what those movies are, particularly within a narrative primed to disentangle and even criticize “from a certain point of view”. Even if most official material hasn’t taken full advantage of it (until Andor), I’ve always had a fondness for at least this era’s state of play.

Anakin / Darth Vader is purposefully re-contextualized as a kid, and I think there is some value in foregoing the fabled ‘Jedi Hunts’ (that were sure to have happened between canonical III and IV anyway) to examine what made the monster at earlier psychological and political points. He’s a failure of institution, radicalized by war, exploited by an abuser, abandoned by pedagogy. It’s a different flavor of tragedy than personal failure.

On some level, Vader’s evil is romanticized when depicted in a badass light; which would be far beyond a meaningful reason to do prequel films in the first place. I still enjoy stuff like Vader in Rebels, Rogue One, or the Respawn Jedi games, but I can respect that those weren’t new ground to break into the saga. They’re literally just depictions of what we know from the OT. The wholly imperfect execution didn’t make the prequel direction not worth doing IMO, and I can appreciate that it now lives in the objective text.

With regard to the surviving Jedi and Yoda calling Luke the last, an interesting question emerges in this context - What is a Jedi?

If our understanding of the Jedi has shifted from ANH’s idealized Knights Errant fable, to something closer to a monastic FBI and military branch - is ‘Jedi’ perhaps a political label, and not just a description of one’s relationship to the Force? After all, there are other Force users in-universe that are not Jedi. Whose to say that characters like Kanan, Cal, or Ahsoka are even Jedi [to Yoda] at all? Ahsoka was expelled before she could finish her training, Kanan and Cal gave up many aspects of the path to survive and fight back; none of them were in contact with or under the direction of the Rump Jedi Council of Kenobi and Yoda. Meanwhile Luke is trained by that council, the only project undertaken by them during the Galactic Civil War, and specifically has an uncomplicated view of who they were. It’s ultimately pedantic and matters mostly to justify Yoda’s line, but participation in The Order as institution is an important theme for Anakin’s downfall. It may very well be an important part of what makes “a Jedi” in the non-colloquial sense, to an official of its ranks such as Yoda.

Somewhere along the way this became an unpopular idea, but to me Luke not killing his father as counter to Obi-Wan and Yoda’s direction was always an early suggestion of what the PT would eventually, if dispassionately, present about the Jedi Order. So “The Jedi” may have been purged, but the light wasn’t and couldn’t be. I can square the survivor count with Yoda’s line when I think about how Yoda kind of sucked

Counterpoint - you’re wrong and all of this is worse, even if it was intentional on Lucas’s part, which it wasn’t.

Oh, I absolutely don’t think his intentions are all of this lol

I don’t really know what there even is to be wrong about though, I’m not asserting any real argument - honestly proposing a question more than anything. It doesn’t really matter to me what was intended or how it would/should fit into the OT. The setting just has so many implications and contexts that are interesting to think about as presented. Symptomatic of unclear / muddled writing, perhaps, but at a certain point embracing the emergent themes is way more fun than lamenting what could have been. The Jedi Order isn’t real, but the mechanics through which they interacted with hypothetical people and systems are. What we can extrapolate is much broader than the constraints of narrative tidiness.

Not that any of us are writing Star Wars, but burrowing into that philosophy is the kind of thing the franchise could use more of, as opposed to towing an imaginary line and chasing what George Lucas would do.