NFBisms

I think the critic/audience distinction on RT is completely unproductive and should be abolished, but I think the fact that a critic’s knowledge of film isn’t cursory is what gives them more weight. It’s just populist snobbery to construe that as “elitist” just because they have more education or put the work in to have that engagement IMO. If anyone could be one then we’d all be

Criticism isn’t about being right or wrong, and even the perspective of it as “consumer review of product” is wildly off base about their value in society, but I digress

Maybe I’m just dumb, but other than the music evoking it - I really didn’t see Rogue One doing the classic gee-whizz space opera? They were kind of going from tragedy to tragedy, under the orders of a militarized intelligence op. Interspersed with drama more than any of the characters having some sort of clever fun. And they all die in the end.

I think the whole “grimdark tone” discussion is off-base of what I was actually saying about Rogue One’s internal logic though. ESB could be dark, ROTS could be dark, The Clone Wars could be dark. Rogue One is moving in a different space than just gesturing towards unpleasantness in the ways those do. I’m not denying the tonal dissonances in Rogue One, but the proto-Andor DNA can’t easily be washed out because K2 has some one liners (I’m assuming?).

I do want to stress that to me the part of Rogue One’s DNA that translates over into Andor isn’t just the visual aesthetics or surface tone. When I talk about its “geopolitical texture”, it’s in how:

• Jedha is understood and talked about as an ongoing warzone. The franchise typically conceptualizes war as skirmishes beginning and ending in an afternoon, so much so that we have signifiers like BBY to denote the Death Star run that was over in 20 minutes. We visit Jedha as a place that more or less carries on in the midst of heightened tensions, until it doesn’t.

• The Alliance conceptualized as different factions, and rebels as a whole having diverse ideologies. Saw as an “extremist” compared to Yavin’s cell is a broad example, but it’s there - and there’s also just subtle flourishes to the in-universe speak that maintains The Empire as an Establishment over this revolution. The Rebels are typically understood almost as its own secret pseudo-government/military, but so much of Rogue One’s first acts emphasizes how beholden they still are to Imperial law, and how fragile whatever authority over their people actually is.

• Careerism in the Imperial ranks is given grounded play here. Between Krennic and Tarkin, but also in the Ersos’ blurred professional/personal relationship to Krennic, particularly what’s suggested in the Republic/Empire transition period. Catalyst is a pretty good book so maybe some of that is leaking into my appreciation here, but Rogue One still provides the space for this kind of detailed worldbuilding, and services more grounded drama than melodrama.

And then there’s other stuff that just fills out the world far more thoughtfully than we’ve gotten from the franchise recently. The Whills as a non-Jedi institution that has their own, non-instrumental relationship with the Force is a great concept! I’m not saying it gets to really dig into these things, but it’s coming at it exactly how Andor did. And when I say “seriously” I’m NOT talking about tone or grit or darkness, but in how it lacks pretension and cynicism. It’s all about buying into this Star Wars thing like it was a derived from a sci-fi TTRPG guidebook; nerdy engagement with a fixed, detailed lore, blowing up an aesthetic element and giving it logistical play. Pretending this was all real, and that it should feel real, and be handled like it was real material. Not winking at the conventions that betray that illusion through whimsy and one liners.

It’s not about What Would George Lucas Do, it’s unconcerned with reacting to questions of What Is The Spirit or “Soul” of Star Wars? None of that genre-play or legacy-posturing. Just being a movie. It can be dry because of it, and it’s absolutely mashed together with a more traditional Star Wars third act, but I really do think it’s all there in the macro.

I think the value of Rogue One was always in its approach to the galaxy, that Andor then took the ball and ran with to its full realization. Andor doesn’t happen without RO and not just as a parent film to the spin-off.

Like, all the fanservice and Fated Plot were just grist for a film that dared to look at the classic lived-in OT aesthetic, and conceive of it as lived in beyond the visuals. It gets a wrap for being “slow” in the first half but the geopolitical texture it establishes for what’s usually been a pulpy backdrop was enticing IMO. Even the characters being unremarkable and thinly sketched added to that sense of scale; the conflict of the time as tangible “historical” incidence, not genre theater inhabited by larger-than-life figures.

It’s cool in that sense! I think all of that is overlooked because Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba show up on Jedha, but there’s a lot of stuff in the film’s storytelling language that originated what Andor is now. It took Star Wars as a lore seriously, which for me was a lot coming off the heels of TFA which clearly conceived of Star Wars as a brand more than anything.

Man, there’s nowhere else on the internet but an old-school discussion board to have nerdy diatribes, I don’t know where else to take it

I actually liked The New Republic being conceived as its own brand of neoliberal horror, but I don’t know, the conceptualization of what The Empire as an institution even was, is disappointing here. While I get the surface level comparisons to Andor, it doesn’t have a grasp on any tangible theory to fill out the spaces it’s playing in. (And certainly not the writing, it’s very journeyman here.) For as much as it “explores” a postwar reconstruction, it still moves in a Good/Evil, malice-of-an-out-group kind of ideology.

It’s a pretty high school social studies understanding of historical play.

Maybe I’m just attached to the interpretations provided by the prequels and then Andor, but Imperialism as Establishment, as oppression evolved from power evolved from status-quo, works far better for me than “Imperial” conceived as a pseudo-nationality. The episode codifies the former Empire’s structure as one that went out of its way to be bleak and awful; Palpatine and his powerbase as one and the same.

It just rubs me the wrong way that it’s even being called Andor-lite. They’re not necessarily incongruous in the macro beats, but philosophically coming from entirely different places. Without any real poli-sci informing the premises, its storytelling ambitions are just cynical for the sake cynicism.

I’m usually down on Filoni, but after a rewatch of TCW and TotJ I want to give him some benefit of the doubt. Don’t get me wrong, his stuff is still so variable in quality, but the underlying motivation behind all of it can be thoughtful and ambitious. When it’s brought [somewhat] to the foreground like in the Dooku Tales, it really works IMO

He has his annoying hobby horses for sure, but Ahsoka was a good character once. It’s the team-up of him and Favreau that I think enables a lot of the schlock. I may not agree with or buy into Filoni’s Star Wars all the time, but at least he’s interested in more than the theme park. Favreau feels like the guy that says it’s okay to indulge like that, and has the perspective of someone removed from the franchise’s prior history. He knows all audiences haven’t watched the cartoons and understands how wide the net should be for a big one. It worked well in Mando season 1 as the first live action tv series, but it solidified an emphasis on form that’s restrained a story itching to evolve.

Oh I’m sure. I think it’s like 85% there already anyway. I’m just don’t have a creative itch for its use.

I will say, something that does entice me about using AI in edits is the problem solving of making specific models to blend to a scene. So far, in threads like Hal’s Ascendant, everyone is focused on training models based on clean, high quality audio[book] sources. And while that’s ElevenLab’s best practice suggestion, that’s based on the hypothetical commercial use they’re leveraging for. If you’re trying to get a new line to blend perfectly, to emulate the background noise and quality of a specific vocal clip - the AI will do that at a certain clarity. Those are the imperfections or incomplete data for a model that’s meant to be a holistic replacement for a voice actor, but IMO has worked perfectly in my private tests for blending a new line to a specific scene.

A lot of the pleasure of this for me was scavenging appropriate HC clips and finding ways to incorporate them. That was fun and creative in a way that I enjoy. I also wanted to let his [potential] performance shine as much as possible, “prove” that he could probably convincingly pass as the same archetype if given the material and direction to do so. Even if I were to generate new fake Hayden lines, there’s something about knowing he never said or performed them that takes away from that premise.

Idk, I’ve been a little iffy about AI in these spaces, at least for myself personally. I think it’s exciting and cool to watch for other editors but not really anything I would find any fulfillment from. Maybe that changes with another idea I have down the line, but it’s so counter to what made this particular edit fun for me.

To answer the question about feasibility, it is possible, I’ve played around with it already. Just not interested

I will re-release the edit a little more polished soon like I said a few months ago, though. I think if anything, this AI stuff has given me a great out to stop thinking about this edit as ongoing

pls

Having played with this myself, it’s scary how well this works. I’m having some existential feelings about some of the work I’ve done before this tbh

Mostly in polish and tightness, hopefully it’s more or less the same in all the ways it matters

Wow, everyone getting ahead of me haha, that was going to be in one of the new clips in a more holistic post about what I’ve been doing with this edit.

I wanted to come back to this with more to show but not even a few days after I started work on it again, this thread got bumped (and now this lol)! Well, whatever. Yeah, I’m back at this. I dug up my old laptop’s drive and have been going through and syncing/re-sourcing files, redoing edits, etc.

I’m hoping it will be the final version so I can finally put this old edit to bed. And then back to OLD BEN and COAXIUM BEBOP, I swear

• 1080p
• Tone down the extra audio additions by like a third
• Tone down the sillier stuff (to tighten pacing, as well as being over some of it. No more extended elevator antics or excessive droid talking, for example)
• De/re-score parts of the film; let the film breathe a bit, make a more compelling tone throughout
• No more color grade, or at least a subtler one

If there’s anything about this edit I was most proud of, it was how much I was able to change Anakin/Obi/Padme’s motivations in the story, and I think that may have gotten lost in the all the other ambitious stuff I was cramming in and experimenting with. So I want to just focus on polishing presentation of those elements now, and not just keep throwing shit at the wall. Like I said, I’ll have a more holistic post at some point this month.

EDIT: Also I was never going to add TCW footage this

Hey guys, I have some stuff to detail about this edit’s future soon so I’d rather not send out a draft that is outdated 👀

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Short of writing breakdowns for every episode and being even more annoying haha, I’ll just say that it really just depends on your preferences and what excites you I guess. I personally had a feast to chew on every week and sure, it wasn’t of the plot moving, action variety, but I found it incredibly concise in every ambition it had.

I guess to help you level, I wouldn’t concpetualize Mothma’s arc as “backstory”, implying it as a piece of a larger puzzle being The Saga. It’s its own Story in itself and if you can’t appreciate in on those terms, then it’s whatever

“Faster More Intense” was always kind of patronizing, no? I think to go there for the audience they were obviously going for here, the creative team would have to be intentionally condescending.

You’re asking for this show’s strength as slower paced, broader scope work be stripped, in favor of offering something any other Star Wars thing already has. It’s the kind of cynical, bad faith storytelling I think many of us are burnt out on, as though a SW audience would only latch onto the familiar or the flash. Maybe that just means I don’t like Star Wars™. 🤷‍♂️. If it’s good, it’s good.

yotsuya said:

timdiggerm said:

yotsuya said:

It largely circled back to where it started, at least for Cass.

Not at all! Cassian has undergone a tremendous conversion. Whereas he went with Luthen out of desperation and took part in the Aldahni mission for money, now he’s preparing for action by listening to Nevik’s manifesto and joining Luthen willingly, dissatisfied with any life but one of full commitment to the cause. He is a changed man.

He’s change by the events of the last episode more than all the rest of the season. That is my issue. Nevik’s manifesto is far too similar to his mother’s speech.

I actually don’t think the last episode changed him at all. If anything, he went into the last episode a certain way and ended it just verbalizing that to Luthen. You’re exactly right about the manifesto vs Maarva’s speech. But Maarva’s speech wasn’t for him, he didn’t need to hear it anymore; esp. since she pretty much said all of that to him herself in episode 7.

A small thing about this show that is actually such a big thing, is just how many parts there are. The breadth and scope of this thing is unrivaled in television on a logistical level. So many characters that won’t appear outside their respective arcs/settings, with no spoken name, get full beats in the storytelling and even written lines. It’s kind of insane when you think about it.

Shows are usually broken down between Series Regulars, Recurring Cast, and Guest Stars. The narrative structure necessitated by that is pretty consistent and easy to notice. A main ensemble will be relatively small, have some background constants, and will occasionally cross paths with a temporary presence for an episode or a few at a time. Even shows as big as GoT will often relegate the [collective] whims of ruled subjects (of which there are probably thousands in-story) to dialogue between main characters about them, or extras as set dressing - acting out a mob, attending an event, a large battle, etc. But they lack individual agency and are a homogenous whole outside recurring/guests as their ambassadors.

It’s almost subtle, but there are so many bit parts in Andor. Narkina 5’s prisoners, the troops in the garrison at Aldhani, the community on Ferrix. It communicates so much depth in the world here not just because Production Design Good™, but because the space is so filled with characters, not just extras. It’s a show full of Glup Shittos actually getting moments.

This wouldn’t be out of place in a two hour movie, but this is TV

I was pretty ready to say Andor was probably the best Star Wars thing ever produced tbh. Frankly, it just aligns with what my tastes in media have become since I first saw the movies as a child.

BUT I put ESB on the other day and it still rules so hard, and in ways Andor will never have ambition for.

Like, I’m at a place where Andor’s imagination for the universe is more meaningful to me now, but the originals’ combination of elements is so idiosyncratic and likeable, I can still admire them as an adult, their place in culture, in cinematic history, and how it makes me feel. I feel like I shouldn’t trust that feeling, because it comes with so much nostalgia and baggage - maybe it’s not objective! But I really think I would still adore them as fun, odd films if I was just seeing them for the first time.

Between Andor and the OT, I think their mutual existences just make each other better.

Star Wars doesn’t deserve Andor 😭

What’s your archetype psychoanalysis for someone who thinks the sequel trilogy is extremely apolitical, but that Andor is antifa lmao?

Vladius said:

I like the show a lot but I wish people wouldn’t throw around terms like “spy thriller” or “political thriller” or talk about how it dissects capitalism or something.

Those are corporate buzzwords just as much as anything else. The MCU does the same thing, they put out a movie and they’ll call it a “political thriller” or a “heist movie” or a “horror movie” and then they just make a normal superhero action movie with some genre flavoring. And I like those movies a lot, I just don’t like it when people read marketing materials and then spout them verbatim from whatever Kevin Feige or whoever said. People here did it with “The Skywalker Saga.” That was a marketing term used to promote Rise of Skywalker. Even though most here hated that movie, they bought it hook, line, and sinker and felt compelled to make unnecessary 9 movie mega edits because of it, because you have to have the complete Skywalker Saga.

Guarantee most people today who use the term “political thriller” would not even know that genre existed if it weren’t for these corporate brands using it in that way.

Star Wars stands on its own without feeling insecure and talking about how this is ADULT and SERIOUS and INTELLIGENT. It’s just a well written, well made, well directed show.

I think the counter-shill can be just as unproductive, because I do think someone like Tony Gilroy put a lot of thought and effort into making his show.

I think it’s a shame that all other media more or less gets to be taken in as their own pieces, to be analyzed with all the nerdy film stuff that I fell in love with as a film fan in the first place. But Star Wars doesn’t get to have that anymore, because of The Boss, I guess. Not saying every project released under Disney deserves it, but I lament how we can have threads discussing stuff like what balance in the Force means to us individually + other headcanons, or even how much George Lucas may/may not have known what he was doing, etc… But Andor - dense with its own substance and cool things to dissect - is still stuck in the culture proxy war. Even when it’s positive, it’s just, “Can you believe how much better it is than BOBF or Kenobi???”

Either way, I think drawing attention to Disney [The Nebulous Entity] Doesn’t Care, as though that’s news to anyone, is ironically far shallower a direction to lead discussion than anything the show is putting down itself. I’d rather appreciate where studio and artist meet in the middle and that there can be wins on the creative side of this soul-crushing churn, than rehash the same tired cynicism that fundamentally misunderstands how the industry works anyway.

I haven’t used the “political thriller” moniker myself, but I do think this show is very, un-accidentally political. I don’t see the purpose in handwaving any intentions or themes in the material.

It’s just a little disheartening to write up an earnest, excited breakdown of cool things I could take away from the work, and then for someone to twist it as corporate shilling

the music slaps, actually

MalaStrana#2 said:

Fan_edit_fan said:

MalaStrana#2 said:

Still following it: I get what this series is trying to do, I see the efforts, just too bad it’s soooooooooo slow with no emotion (and a bit of a very lackluster casting, especially Diego Luna, totally uninteresting). I thought it was going full “Bourne” but it’s now closer to “Michael Clayton”… which is kinda off topic. It seems the series will only be 24 episodes spanned over 2 seasons: they better hurry to start telling a story (and not just close ups of sad people’s faces), there isn’t much time left already.

We are watching two different shows it seems. 🤔

Not really: I just don’t find anything great about it, while you seem to enjoy a lot public servants reading files and people hiking in the highlands.

That’s Gilroy’s go-to magic trick though, isn’t it? Externally, it’s “public servants reading files” - perhaps a dry, soulless environment or a bleak state of affairs - but philosophically, it’s about everything. It has hope, it has meaning. It’s emotional in its repression thereof. It’s in a way, very Star Wars.

You brought up Michael Clayton. Big law firm representing a corrupt company is “boring” on paper, but it’s entirely compelling in practice. Sharp dialogue and excellent performances carry us through scenes of tense bargaining and self reflection; very writerly, very classy. Conversations become the action setpieces, where real violence is rare and morally disappointing. But the important bit is that Michael isn’t just contending with UNorth as a corporate villain, the movie is really a struggle for his soul. The plot elements may be sociopolitical, but philosophically it’s universal and human. It’s about redemption, about conscience. Tension releases when the right thing is done. The Bourne movies as well. Political thriller, but about love, identity (obviously), purpose.

The through-line of Andor is multi-dimensional in the same ways.

Dedra and Syril represent the banality of evil. Overachievers at their jobs; they’re not trying to oppress the galaxy - they just want that promotion, or even to do the Right Thing when a corrupt system won’t. Syril’s pitiable life informs his feelings of powerlessness. Dedra’s aspirations are seemingly blocked by unfair prejudices. They’re looking for meaning and purpose in their lives, and it’s damn near innocuous - but it affects so many under the boot of the institutions they work for. Syril exacerbates already strained community-cop relations on Ferrix by over-exercising power he’s always lacked [that cops maybe shouldn’t have]. Dedra is pushing the Empire to go even further than that in the name of her career.

It takes the mythological pop culture villain of the Empire and adds shades of capitalism and everyday bureaucracy. Underdogs as inherently sympathetic, placed in a familiar [almost American/British-coded] systems… but now, closely related to and prototypical of the Space Nazis we knew. That allegory is cutting and radical criticism of our Establishment in many ways. It’s Andor’s appeal as socio-politically conscious, but it interplays with the universal themes of disenfranchisement and life-meaning for many of the characters caught in its web.

Cassian needs meaning, but doesn’t know what he believes ideologically - he just knows what he’s against. Many of the Aldhani crew come with their own baggage but offer him a more articulate manifesto and direction for his pent-up anger. The narrative is so wholly about revolution, but more importantly all the different fires that spark individually from circumstance. Rebellion as instinctual and universal. Syril and Dedra are rebels too, in their own way.

…

“I’ve been saying all along we need a stronger hand with these affiliated planets. There’s fomenting out there, sir. Pockets of fomenting. Corporate Tactical Forces are the Empire’s first line of defense, and the best way to keep the blade sharp is to use it.” - Linus Mosk

“It’s so confusing, isn’t it? So much going wrong, so much to say, and all of it happening so quickly. The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it. And that is the real trick of the Imperial thought machine. It’s easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident. But they have a fight on their hands, don’t they? Our elemental rights are such a simple thing to hold, they will have to shake the galaxy awfully hard to loosen our grip.” -Karis Nemik

The dialogue is consistently this crackling and philosophically concise. It’s not boring - it’s just as theatrical as a good SW film, perhaps in a different flavor. It’s not dry or mundane - this isn’t “realism”, it’s still dramatic. But instead of pulp and flamboyance, there’s wit and precision. Swordplay-like exchanges between detailed characters. To pare it down to its external setting and action feels obtuse. What they’re saying - how - matters more than the superficial.

…

What makes it Star Wars is that this has always been there. Revolution and rebellion, the search for meaning, family, oppression and the lure of power. These are elements of Star Wars interpreted thoughtfully and expanded upon thoroughly. Always under the surface of the genre-pastiche, but shaded in its ethos nonetheless. At the forefront in Andor.

What does it mean to rebel against an Establishment? How does that Establishment keep its power? From Lucas saying the rebels were Viet Cong to “Nute Gunray” being a Newt Gingrich/Ronald Reagan mash-up, Andor is taking Star Wars’ politics seriously for once. And it’s filling out its world with real and complex emotions, not just the broad big ones. Maybe it’s 40 min too long for you, but the material when you can engage with all of it has conviction.

“Nothing” happens, but I’d argue everything does. This has more weight than fantasy adventures about things that aren’t real.