It’s a show based on the most forgettable character in the most forgettable Star Wars movie
Regardless of the general public’s knowledge on Cassian, Rogue One remains of my favourite star wars movies and Cassian has always been one of its highlights. One of the best disney star wars characters imo.
Pacing is out the window but I actually loved this episode. Adored every part of the Coruscant plotline, it felt genuinely rich in worldbuilding and quite nuanced, and I really did become invested in Pershing and Elia as complex characters. In fact I’d watch a whole show about them and this cloning stuff.
That Tie Interceptor chase was brilliantly directed as well. A pretty thrilling start, although out of place for a slow-paced and tonally unusual episode.
Haven’t seen all of the others yet
Visions is kind of weird to rank because I absolutely love the premise of the series and the creativity seen in all of the shorts, but because they’re shorts, it’s harder for the series as a whole to really stick with me. Loved The Ninth Jedi though, that’s a classic.
I expect the Bad Batch will try to sneak into Mount Tantiss and shut down the zillo beast cloning project. My big question is whether the Empire will have finished whatever experiment they’re doing on Crosshair by the time they get there. Maybe he’s being genetically modified to be a Death Trooper or something.
The Bad Batch has no right to just casually throw in episodes as good as The Outpost. If every episode had that level of storytelling quality it would have been a serious contender for best Star Wars show.
Jon Favreau: “Do you think anybody but us, the people who grew up with it, anybody would care? Because I know to younger people, that’s what I figured out, that the younger people have a whole different perception of what Star Wars is, each generation. For the millennials, it’s the Prequels. Zoomers, sometimes it’s The Clone Wars. I’ve seen people come up to Dave Filoni and that’s their entree into it.”
I think he’d be surprised. I’m a zoomer and I’d love to have the OOT released in HD, and I don’t think I’m the only one. Releasing the theatrical editions for nostalgia purposes really only serves older generations, it’s true, but that’s important too. And there’s the issue of film preservation to be taken into account as well. It’s a bit of a strange response from Jon imo.
I wonder if he WOULD be able to influence the decision on releasing the films. I imagine Disney are probably scared of the drama it might create.
I haven’t seen the new episode yet, but my expectations for the latest season are at rock bottom right now. If you count Book of Boba as part of the series, the trajectory of Mando seems to be a constant downward slope. It’s a shame, because season 1 was awesome, but the title of “greatest Star Wars show” has been fully transferred over to Andor for me.
Same although I had been going off mando since the end of season 2.
I don’t think it was a bad episode, I enjoyed many of the aspects which I think have made mando charming in the past, but my god the dialogue has been getting worse and worse. Moments of stilted or exposition-y dialogue could easily be forgiven in season 1, because there were more good moments than bad and I felt invested. But now for me it’s almost unbearable sometimes. Far worse than any line to come out of the prequels. And I don’t feel particularly invested in the quest for this season - I know Din doesn’t actually need to be redeemed, and even though I should care just because it’s important to him, I don’t think that’s been well conveyed at all.
I’m excited for the rest of the season, but it’s only really because of potential cameos and action scenes from the trailers that look cool. Maybe future episodes will get me more on board.
Oh and as number one Rebels fan I have to say the scene with the purrgil in hyperspace was easily the highlight of the episode for me. A beautiful live action debut for them, a quiet moment of Grogu feeling simultaneously amazed and intimidated by the wonders of the galaxy and turning to Din for comfort, a serene bit of music from Joseph Shirley, and absolutely no Jon Favreau dialogue to be heard. Bliss.
I just hope it’s not overlapping plans like they did with Mando in the BOBF. That was just a terrible idea no matter how you look at it. Not to mention Bobas behavior in his own show contradicted the way he acted in Mando season 2. They have practically ruined many story beats for the sake of cramming Mandos tale into the very weak BOBF. I guess I’m just pessimistic about it considering that crazy decision.
Yeah I feel the same way, it’s hard for me to get excited about the show anymore.
Honestly, that’s almost exactly how I felt watching the GOUT when it first released. It felt jarring, like I was watching a prototype or rough draft of the movies I was familiar with. I do think a part of that, though, was due to the GOUTs having such low visual quality. Watching Despecialized for the first time honestly made me see the movies differently, since it was like watching a modern remaster.
I’d love to watch Despecialized, this has made me want to finally get round to it!
I picked up the 2006 editions of the original trilogy in a second hand store a few months ago, and just watched the GOUT version of A New Hope. Since I’ve been a member on here for a while, it might be a surprise that this was my first time properly watching any of the movies in their original versions.
I grew up with the 2004 edition of ANH, which is what made me a fan (that, and Angry Birds Star Wars… in the midst of a good number of people who were seated in cinemas back in 1977, I’ve really felt the generational difference) and while I’ve been interested in the SE changes and the ethics of film preservation, vfx authorship etc for some time, I never actually sat down and watched the OOT in full before now.
My issues with George replacing the original films and the work of talented special effects artists will always remain the same. But I have to say this viewing has cemented the 2004 Special Edition as the version of the film I know and love, the same way many are nostalgic for the original version they watched on release. It’s occasionally jarring to expect a noise, a line of dialogue, or a completely different shot from a scene and be abruptly reminded that it’s not there. It’s like I felt the frustration that many older fans felt watching the altered editions, but in reverse. And at the same time, I know if this was the first time I was watching the movie, I probably wouldn’t think of anything as awkward or outdated in the same way; nothing would seem out of place. I think if you’ve ever watched something and fallen in love with it, any differences upon a rewatch, whether good or bad, will just seem intrusive and wrong.
A few other observations: Vader’s voice seemed more distorted in this version and it helped lend even more of a sinister robotic quality to him than I’m used to. Previously, the addition of more aliens or creatures in the Mos Eisley streets might have seemed justifiable, but I think Andor has changed the way I feel about ‘too many humans’ in Star Wars (i.e: I don’t care). I think there’s a fine balance to strike: the world should feel familiar, and only tinged with strangeness - veering directly into the alien and other-worldly should be saved for special moments. Strangest of all, I actually kind of missed the Jabba scene - redundant, yes, but I like exploring more of the criminal world of Mos Eisley, and I think the fade transitions and abrupt change in music in the scene’s absence derail my immersion more than any questionable Jabba CGI does.
Sorry for the long and rambling post, but hopefully some of you might find my first impressions of the OOT interesting.
Gotta give credit where it’s due, last week’s two-parter was pretty thrilling (even if Echo’s departure felt very unearned) and today’s episode was surprisingly heartwarming. Nice one bad batch.
Honestly, I think Omega is one of the few good parts of the show. Her having to grow up on the run in a troubled world and the Batch having to become a family for her is the heart of the series - or at least it was, I don’t really think they’ve developed that sufficiently well and the novelty has worn off a bit for me.
Of course I enjoy the Ralph McQuarrie inspired designs for everything in this series but wished the aspect ratio mirrored THE CLONE WARS, and most especially OT & PT. Y’know, 2.35:1/2.40:1.
I sometimes wonder what Rebels would have looked like in the letterbox aspect ratio. I think it was purely for budgetary reasons they had to make it 16:9 - less to render and all that. Still, I kind of prefer that for TV since it fills the whole screen.
Not that active on here any more, just popping in to say today’s bad batch episode might be the most soul crushingly boring and inconsequential episode of tv I’ve seen in my life. I miss andor. That is all.
This series might be the single best piece of Star Wars media ever made and I’m not exaggerating.
You can tell a mile off this is going to be yet another fantastic end-of-an-arc episode. I hope those guards on Narkina get a taste of their own medicine.
I have the same good feeling about The Acolyte that I had about Andor. It has creative leads who are very acclaimed for non-SW work, and everything I hear about their approach to making the show makes me optimistic. Funnily enough Andor and Acolyte are probably the two Star Wars Disney+ shows that general audiences have heard about the least, but I feel like they’ll end up being the two best - maybe by a long shot.
Just rewatched the last 2 episodes with a friend and it’s really quite disturbing when the power goes out in the prison, when you know the reason why. It’s unsettling anyway due to the tension and the fantastic sound design but more so in context.
Andy Serkis was a pleasant surprise! I had no idea he was appearing in this. And his acting has been fantastic. As others have said, him slowly accepting that him playing by the rules meant absolutely nothing was fun to watch.
I think it’s a big theme of Andor that an authoritarian regime doesn’t care if you play by the rules. If you get in their line of fire, there will be no mercy for you. Timm helped the Corpos, but he got killed by them anyway. Clem was trying to break up a riot and keep things peaceful, and the Empire killed him anyway. For years Kino has been effectively acting to benefit the Empire, keeping his workers “in line” and as productive as possible, but he’s ultimately trapped there just like everyone else.
Another banger of an episode, really ramping up with the tension and fear you would feel living under an authoritarian regime. The dread that settles in as word of what happened on level 2 gradually reaches Cassian’s group was particularly well done, and the torture scene must be one of the most disturbing scenes in the franchise. The Empire using the dying screams of the children of an indigenous tribe they massacred to torture information out of prisoners… morbid.
It’s an interesting twist that Vel is Mon Mothma’s cousin, she keeps having surprise family members we didn’t know about. I wonder what their history together is like. It also adds to the line in ep 8 about Vel being a girl running from her rich family, since Chandrila is beginning to seem like the planet where all the wealthy and ignorant people are from.
I can imagine that the dinner scene, where Vel gets asked why she hasn’t got a husband yet, is an awkward real life conversation many a lesbian has been subjected to. Any gay representation is of course a positive, but it’s good that the showrunners haven’t just thrown it on the surface (a la The Rise of Skywalker) so it’s there, instead going in-depth into the complexities and downsides of Cinta and Vel’s relationship. I hope we see more of them since, as a big lover of Kanan and Hera, possibly doomed wartime romances are very much my thing.
Episodes 3 and 4 (last two Dooku episodes) were fantastic, I loved them. The rest I thought were fine. Sadly the last short takes events from a canon novel, Ahsoka and changes them up, probably the most major break in continuity in the new canon so far.
Interesting to note that retcons of published work almost exclusively come from shows Dave Filoni has worked on. I love the man but I do take issue with his disregard for published media, the work of authors in books and comics should be no less valued in canon than the writing for screen projects.
Judging from my experience, I would guess that the majority who have watched it have at least liked it, and most have loved it. I’ve certainly seen people say it’s been boring, or feels too different for a Star Wars series, or whatever. It’s all down to taste I think, you can never please everybody.
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.
Spoilers:
I have a feeling there’s more to the relationship between Luthen and Kleya than meets the eye. She seems to be his assistant, but the way she spoke to him at the end of episode 5 made it feel like she was the one in control, and now I agree it seems like Luthen has no knowledge of her meeting with Vel.
I love the music in general. Nicholas Britell has always been a favourite of mine.
Agreed, that blew me away. Well said.