Andor embodies most of the themes of OG trilogy while also doing it own thing. Disney actually made a great show with but fumbled everything else I still don’t know.
The last 4 episodes of clone wars are just as good although that was scripted and storyboarded before Disney. Mandalorian seasons 1&2 especially 1 and the mando eps of bobf were good . Bad batch good. Some stuff like solo and Ahsoka were ok. Rogue one good. Sequels auful.
@@tcraigh1 Just to add onto theres Rebels too. Rebels is still my favorite Star Wars show of all time. Ahsoka I personally thought was great like I do not get the dislike for that show at all and it felt like a live action Rebels season 5. Kenobi I didn't think was that bad either and had some really good moments. Boba Fett and Acolyte have been pretty bad though. I do like those Mando episodes in Book of Boba but it just makes the whole show not make any sense by them being in there. Disney Star Wars more specifically the shows haven't been all bad and theres a lot to enjoy but everyone has their own opinions I guess
@@CometStar100 For me the siege of mandalore arc tops them all. It is peak Star Wars. Deciding between that and Andor is difficult but I suppose I like them equally. They are very different shows from each other however.
@@dancingvalkyrie I need to know specifically what he does in Star Wars because on one hand he's in control of some of the best Star Wars stuff we've had, while simultaneously producing some of the worst as well. Is he hit or miss? Does he have more or less control on specific projects? I'm leaning more into the fact that now that he has far more control over what is made now and he doesn't have people around him to correct his mistakes or something like that and we likely gave him too much credit for the work of the animation teams that worked on Clone Wars, Bad Batch, Rebels, etc.
It's as if the people at the top didn't care about the show, so Tony could do what he wants without kk breathing down his neck. I hope we wont have another situation like with the Mandalorian. First season were great ! Then disney started messing with the show and it turned into crap
@@NoCluYT Hes never been hit, only miss. The Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and Rebels were all mediocre fanfiction tier shows that suffer the exact same problems with his new shows
For me, SW canon ends with Darth Vader throwing Palpatine into the core of the Second Death Star. Meaning, Rogue 1, Solo and Andor are a part of the Canon in my mind. IMO Solo wasnt that bad. I am discarding Obi-Wan because I feel it was lore breaking.
@@tqlla Same here ngl. Solo’s only issue for me is that, if you ignore the animated shows, Maul just appears again and then his fate is never explored.
Andor S2 is rumored will bring some of the familiar faces from the Rogue One, such as K2SO and Director Krennic. I'm also excited for that. Even though it probably will be a one year skip with each arc (4 BBY - 1 BBY), I hope they make an entire arc like a movie-length show so it still has substance in it.
That's what I look for as well. Andor felt like star wars with the intelligent refined writing of early GOT. The Acolyte writing feels like a poorly done first draft.
Yeah. When people defend a show by saying "well this other show did something similar why aren't you complaining about that," the answer is almost always, "well this other show is just a better show so I just enjoyed it rather than contemplating stupid stuff." I mean there's a reason all the click-bait anti-woke youtube videos didn't attack Andor, despite that show's only romance came from two women, the main character was racial profiled, and plenty of other "woke" materials. Cause they know their core audience LIKED Andor for being a well-produced show.
@@meh27143Those people attempting to justify the bad writing by pointing out similar things in superior works does not make for a good argument. If that is the only thing that they have, then they have already lost.
And that only serves to raise the heights of Luke's journey even higher, by contrast. Andor is the Good Guys at their lowest, scrabbling their way forward with whatever desperate measures they could muster. Luke's ultimate victory comes by taking the high road of virtue (which we all thought at the time was The Way of the Jedi). Andor enhances Luke's story (and, by extension, that of the Jedi) by showing us a contrasting example of what Luke could have been, but ultimately chose not to. Becoming like your enemy can only take you so far.
why would i watch the good guys doing evil things? and why would i be interested in andors past? no thanks, i already have BSG for that. they do it a lot better.
I wouldn’t say George Lucas’ Star Wars was aspiring to be mature or really that nuanced, there are obviously more mature moments and things for you to think about, but I think Andor really takes things to its own level and that’s part of what makes it so awesome imo, that what George did can be made into something that is more slow burn and nuanced
OT Han Solo is the epitome of a morally "gray" character, so dunno what that first guy was talking about. The rebellion is an armed insurrection, how is that not going to drift into moral gray areas?
The issue is that most people haven't delved into anything outside the movies where the central struggle is against the good Jedi and the Evil Sith. I wish that scene where the officer hesitated to blow up Endor in RotJ made it in.
I feel Andor s1 and Rogue One are about members of the Rebellion who are not force users. Most of the Jedi of George Lucas' ST were wiped out in Order 66. As these rebels are not force users, some of them will choose to use morally grey tactics against the evils of the Empire. I love the character of Luthen. However, IMHO, he has gone from morally grey into doing/sanctioning some truly dark deeds in order to (hopefully) bring down the Empire. Marva chose a less combative path of rebelion while alive and then left a powerful holographic message for her funeral procession, which called the living to actions that caused deaths on both sides. Andor is a really wonderfully written tv show about the realities of starting a rebelion. To me, the Jedi are good, the Sith are bad, and the Empire is evil. MTFBWY
Yes. And I actually like Thor's argument here for Andor, that it did depict grey morality, AND rightfully portrayed it as a tragic compromise. It makes me consider giving it a second chance. My main issues with Andor were 1) the time it took to establish basic information and the lingering on visual communication. But maybe I shouldn't have expected something as efficient as A New Hope; pondering when it seems right and being quick when it should. And 2) the use of "good writing tropes", the utterly pointless implied s3x, and strong language in a very surface level way, and drew a lot of attention to it it felt like writers were saying "look, this is well written. We swear it's mature". This show was so insecure. And these are Not nit picks. As absurd as Arcane was, at least it got me emersed enough to ignore the occasional flaw and knew when to move on.
I agree. while Star Wars can grow, expand and be new , to me there is a very easy to tell line between growing and adding to Star Wars as opposed to changing it to something it wasnt meant to be. Andor, R1 ADDED to the Star Wars universe. It respected the lore and canon. Here now we see so much of that changing an dnot being the case and having a person making their own version and even wanting to change things they didnt like about Star Wars. Big difference.
I' don't think Rogue One changed ANH significantly. All that change did was downgrading the offscreen work of some rebel technicians who found an intentional but hidden design flaw instead of figuring out an exploit, while giving the weakness an interesting and dramatic story of why enslaving engineers to build things for you tends to be a bad idea. This in turn fits the overall theme of the Dark Side, and the behaviors it represents and encourages ruining things for its adherents by karmic irony and/or reality lashing back.
If you haven't read the Catalyst book by James Luceno, I'd recommend it. I'm not even trying to help out sales figures for an old book, it actually did a great job portraying Director Krennic as an energetic "company man" who winds up having ambitions that are greater than his ability, hence why he kept using a genius idealist like Galen Erso as his meal ticket in the Science Corps. That kind of quality extended canon helps make the other pieces of media superior, IMO.
I don't really agree that it downgrade how the rebellion got the plan, it was a "all or nothing battle" on scarrif with tons of sacrifice and struggle Spoiler alert: every main character dies
And I think it also shows the main theme of the rebellion: that rebels can and do come from anywhere and it doesn’t matter what mistakes they make in their past or what lead them to the rebellion. What matters is they came and they were willing to fight.
You know that meme about consuming content and moving on to the next? That's what the letter writers remind me of. How will Disney know what we want if we just kind of go, 'I guess this is Star Wars now, slurp slurp'? We as fans should demand better of them and not blindly follow. If something is stupid and clashes with the lore, it should be called out.
3:37 The HUGE difference between real life archaeology and breaking canon is that the canon is _made by people,_ not assumed based on limited information. George Lucas made a story and world with an intended message. He made the rules... You can't just change them. The two are not comparable. Its like saying that Abe Lincoln was born a decade earlier than he actually was... Even though we KNOW when Abe Lincoln was born because it had already been documented, because people were there to document it at the time that it happened. It wouldn't make sense for it to be any different. If people started claiming that it _was_ different, then yeah, we would have every right to be upset because it can literally be disproven.
Retconning in any franchise, not just this one, is something that I almost always frown upon, as when you have established lore and a fan following that takes the time to detail all of it, you need to respect it. Changing what has already been established just for the sake of justifying the latest story is incredibly lazy, and is a sign of a bad writer, who gets rid of stuff that doesn't fit his story, while a good writer makes their story work with the established lore. However, I am willing to accept a retcon if-and only if-there is an in-universe explanation for such discrepancies. Using _Andor_ as an example of this, the show establishes Cassian's homeworld as Kenari despite preexisting sources stating that he was from Fest. The show rationalizes this by having Maarva mention that she and Clem had falsified Cassian's documents to claim that he was born on Fest.
Andor was a well written and acted show that gave us a feel from what we got from the OT. It's just too bad Disney didn't keep producing quality content like Andor.
Yeah, Thoughtful = lingering, mumbling, taking it's sweet time talking about funds and spies. Clever = basic writing tricks, taking three episodes to show what could've been shown in one episode, scenes establishing the same information for the fifth time nonverbally, and pointless mother daughter drama. Mature = treating strong words or implied sex like a bomb dropped, and consistently showing destress and desperation. Andor isn't bad, but the bar is so low that inefficient, adult, and pretentious is fantastic writing
You can have morally grey characters in R1 or Andor because they're specifically not Jedi/Sith. Jedi and Sith are the extremes...extreme good and extreme evil. And Lucas wasn't opposed to to gray characters. When asked about Underworld, co-writer Ronald D. Moore said that R1 is, tonally-speaking, similar to what they were writing for Underworld. Underworld showed the ruthless Empire and this seedy, gray side that operated under that oppression. People doing ethically questionable things to survive under the thumb of the Empire. So you can have those types of characters. But that shouldn't be a Sith or a Jedi. Sith are what you shouldn't aspire to be. Jedi are what you should aspire to be. Also, R1 (and by extension Andor), don't re-write or recontextualize anything. They take a pre-existing event, and just add details to that event. It didn't change how one viewed Mon Mothma or Bail Organa or Vader or Tarkin. (And I say all that as someone that found the first half of R1 and Andor a bit boring.)
Morally grey characters, who in the end stand up for what is right. R1 has the Rebels make scummy decisions and they all turn out to be compromises, things that backfire or don't work, they don't really help. It's not until Scarif that they act boldly and forthrightly, become the daring Rebels from the original movies, and get their first major win against the Empire. Andor is much the same!
Andor and the first couple seasons of Mando are great. In totally different ways, but great. I am so ready for season 2. On the other hand, Mando is on a slow collision course into green, titty milk drinking Jake.... so no matter what, we know it's going to eventually crash into that iceburg. We know where Andor leads and that doesn't suck.
The point in R1 and Andor wasn't the moral greyness. It was that the characters start out morally confused, but find their conviction and become heroes in the end. In R1, the Rebels do grim things, but they dont really work. They kill their own allies, leaving themselves weaker. They try to assassinate threats, and fail. They scatter and run rather than fight, breaking apart. It's not until Scarif that they defy the odds, fight boldly, and become the daring Rebel Alliance from the movies. Andor is the same. Andor starts out a mercenary thief, Luthen is a calculating liar who sacrifices his allies. But by the end, Andor bravely tries to rescue his friends, and Luthen gets to see genuine rebel courage in action.
One great thing about Andor is that it explores morally gray territory without being a postmodernist story. It's still a story about good and evil, and one that embodies what George Lucas was going for
How could Andor not be real Star Wars. It perfectly aligns with the events of Episode IV. And there's always been grey areas. Leia was prepared to sacrifice Dantooine to protect the real location of the rebel HQ. And then she had watch as her home planet was destroyed immediately after. That's some dark stuff.
Andor is simply the highest quality Star Wars there is outside George Lucas of course. In it, death feals real, Empire fearsome, rebels are competent, characters are consistent. It's just that solid. Compared to it, Filoni often feels just cartoonish and trivial.
@@BarefootPeasant Yeah. He CAN make good stuff. But recently he has consciously produced content that looks like preparing the ground for his Filoniverse. There are distinct Filoni characters and they NEVER die (Ahsoka, Sabine, Mando, Grogu etc.). On the other hand George Lucas' characters die by being thrown into a pit (Han Solo), die of depression/overexertion (Luke and Leia) and even the name of Skywalker is hijacked by a Palpatine (Rey). I don't call it a conspiracy but they certainly let it happen.
As an actual archaeologist, the second viewer question starts with a flawed assumption, that these two areas of knowledge are comparable. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they are referring to the discovery of Gobekli Tepe in their analogy, but they are assuming "mainstream archaeology" had a problem with the dating of the site since it was so much earlier than anything discovered to that point. The "doubting" of the claims to its greater antiquity are simply part of the scientific method. Doubt, question, retest until, for example, those dates have been verified. When it has been verified, its time to rewrite the history books and marvel at the amazing things humans have done, during a time when we thought (nothing up to then had been found to contradict the narrative) human societies were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Exploration of more such hilltop sites in Turkiye have only shown that even more was going on than we thought. **That is the nature of archaeology.** Dating can be affected by many external factors, so multiple lines of evidence are needed. Anyway, well said Thor. And to be clear, I'm not trying to throw shade at the viewer that asked the question. Just providing more context. Its what I do as an educator.
I don't see how Rogue One in any way diminishes what Luke did. He still made that incredible shot but he was never the one who figured out the flaw in the Death Star's design.
Acolyte core premise was to explore what was wrong with the Jedi Order. But IMO, everything that was wrong with the Jedi Order was already explored in the Prequels and event in TCW. At that point it is not actually clear what was so good about the Jedi and why it was important for Luke to restore the Jedi Order. Currently Star Wars do not really need exploration of why Jedi were bad, it really needs exploration of why Jedi were actually good.
Ya, outside of arguably Ahsoka and Churrit in R1 there is nothing in Disney's live action SW that justifies the existence of the Jedi. Animated is a bit better but not consistently. Your 100% right and this is a big issue
@@M-elephant7777 Filoni made a giant fucking point of Ashoka is how special she is and how much better she is than these crusty old (and very dead) Jedi of the past. So arguably even Ashoka says nothing in favor of the Jedi Order.
At least for the first question, there is a confusion between Jedi being morally gray (bad) and the general non-Force sensitive population. The Jedi should be morally virtuous (thats why they are Jedi). Their connection to the Force informs the Jedis' moral actions. Expecting the general populace to be morally virtuous as the Jedi would be a really boring story.
Archaeologists would not say "nothing could be older," they would say "this is the oldest we have found thus far." The former is a canard of pseudo historians (yes, Graham Hancock).
Clone Wars finale was great but it was scripted and storyboarded before Disney took over. For me it is just as good as Andor but is a very different type of show. Both shows do what they do very well.
Hey Thor. Would you ever consider having a conversation with another Starwars RUclipsr? For example: Generation Tech. He is my second favorite Starwars RUclipsr and seems to be really enjoying the acolyte. I often wonder what you would both have to say to each other.
The difference between Generation Tack and Thor is that Thor is intellectually honest and has integrity. I disagree with some of his, especially Andor, but Alan has gotten weird on politics. I get his distrust of politicians who promise voters the Sun, Moon, and Stars. But he went off the deep end, calling Palpatine a populist. Palpatine was more like a Bill Clinton who made connections with "everybody," came across as a reasonable moderate, and never approved a decision that hadn't been polled or A/B tested as a winner. When Alan says populists are dangerous because they listen to the people--who have been looked over by the elites--so they declare they will give the people what they want, and that is dangerous because it enables a tyrant to come into power, who will provide the overlooked people what they want... I get confused. If you bypass the will of the people repeatedly until they fuse and support an outsider who will work for them, is that not a true democratic Republic? Alan prefers an entrenched permanent class of government who are pros and know how to work the system, which sounds like the Deep State. An unelected ruling class of a network of Ivy-educated elites is not democracy. I love his lore and geek stuff, but I lost respect for him. Maybe it's the wife and kid, but TDS has skewed this POV into a weird coping direction. I miss the days when he rallied humanity to unite against the dolphins. Now he's cool with one faction of humanity controlling others... So long as it's not in Star Wars. Thor has his POVs but is genuinely the most fair-minded, respectful SW RUclipsr with pure integrity. Naboo's a lucky woman.
4:08 Yes, I ABSOLUTELY get to decide what is canon and what isn't in a *fictional* setting. Comparing fictional canon to real life has got to be one of the duuumbest takes I have ever seen on this topic. There's cope and then there's.. whatever the f*ck that comment was.
Great stories have unified themes - they can be subtle or blatantly obvious, but they are unified. Andor is a great story because all characters have storylines that go through the theme of "Sacrifice". What would you give up to get what you want? All the main characters and ancillary characters have this - Caspian gives up anonymity and comfort, his mother gave up comfort and dignity, Skellen gave up wealth, status and pretty much everything. On flip side, the main boy and the main girl villain (sorry, it's been a while) sacrificed their security of their social standings. The key difference was, the heroes wanted freedom (Caspian = personal, his mom = community / city, his mentor = the galaxy etc.), while the villains wanted personal aggrandisement. The Acolyte's theme (so far) seems to be centered around sins of the past (interesting considering Headland's history), but there are no unified character themes dealing with these sins. There are factions (Jedi, Osha and Mae), where Jedi deny their sin (culpability), Osha runs away from her sin, and Mae... not even considering it a sin. Of course poor writing is poor writing, even if you have a good theme foundation to build on, but if your theme is not clear to you from the beginning, you are on shaky ground my friend.
I feel like it doesn't matter if Andor is real Star Wars or not. I feel like at this point "real Star Wars" is so subjective cause everyone has a different definition to what "real Star Wars" truly is
Andor is still a really good show though. It's my second or third favorite Star Wars show of all time as of right now. It can go up or down depending on how the second season goes and how it ends.
Writing characters that are multidimensional and humanizing them, by giving them their own logical reasoning and intentions, doesn‘t make „evil“ good or grey. The Empire in Andor is more evil than we have ever seen, some people continue to confuse that evil must be cartoonishly evil. Tony Gilroy and his team are actual writers with experience. The Acolyte on the other hand is written by people who think they‘re smart, hence writing a story and characters who they think is/are deep, but with the attitude of a 14-year old emo-girl who thinks that‘s what nuanced writing is.
From a writing standpoint, Andor in my opinion was great. It depicted the start of the rebellion in a pretty realistic way as well as the empire and how it "acted", I thought it was pretty great that you see the empire actually work smart (with some intrigues to gain power). I also loved the characters, Andor himself wasn't the most complex character but it was good enough - he was a bit passive at the start of the show, but started to gain some own motivation and drive. Others however where really well written, complex characters and acted really well. Truth be told: If a show can make me more emotional for a brick compared to the "new main character" in the Disney movie trilogy, it tells you enough about the quality of this show. It created characters you actually cared about. What is the biggest question for me in the end is how this show actually was created. If you look at the smart writing overall in the show, the acting that is on point, a male centered story with not much real life political agenda slapped in your face, you really have to ask if they just let them do what they wanted because they thought it isn't important enough to do the things they do in other shows or how this was possible.
The Acolyte could’ve been story about a sympathetic girl who used as a pawn by her master who wants to overthrow his own master who either learns after committing evil that this isn’t life she wants or a story about how once innocent girl becomes consumed by evil. Nope because they rush these projects write a surface level script & say here the money. That why I love Bad Batch & Andor because they take what they are doing seriously. The writers themselves are taking the story seriously & the characters as actual people. At a certain point you blame Lucasfilm current leadership & team because Disney really just cares about money & I doubt they actually give a crap what anyone does long as you keep making money for them so they can sell merchandise & make content for them to sell.
Thor speaking for the rest of us about the core meaning of Star Wars... is always a great discussion. I really enjoy listening to the answers to these questions. 🙏
Also, the prequels presented the Jedi as flawed -- Yoda even said it and used the word "arrogant"...but the context was that their obvious abilities lead to that. That's not evil any more than a great athlete having such feelings. Correction: Obi Wan used the word and Yoda agreed that it was getting more common.
I agree with the comments made: nothing in The Acolyte changes what I think about what George or Tony Gilroy made. I stopped watching The Acolyte and will only follow the show from a distance by watching RUclipsrs like Thor. But one thing that is worth mentioning is Disney's character creation backstory approach. They created convincing character backstories in the Marvel franchise with Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Wanda, The Moon Knight and Loki. The Mandalorian, Grogu, Jyn Erso and Andor were given great backstory additions to their characters. I felt that an attempt was made to give Boba Fett a good backstory, or reason why he attempted to win people over as a gangster with 'respect' instead of what Tony Soprano would call 'respect,' but they fumbled that backstory in my opinion, although it was good to see such great character development with the Tusken Raiders. Ahsoka had already been developed through the Clone Wars animated series, and the Kenobi show was simply a failed attempt to convert a movie trilogy into a streaming series. This show, The Acolyte, was totally new and therefore required much character development and background story creation on the level or greater than Rogue One to succeed. A good character background, like Superman from Superman and Superman II, or Batman (1989, 2005) show good character development, and that it can be done. This series, The Acolyte, fails to develop any of these characters in such a way that I want to learn more about their journey, and that would be essential if a brand new series, set in a brand new time period, is going to succeed.
I don't how Andor or Rogue One breaks the lore in anyway they added some things but nothing that contradicts the old Lore. In Andor the Rebels did bad things but they had a good goal in stopping something thats somethings clearly way worse.
Though I haven’t seen the Acolyte and will not see it, I can’t imagine it will damage the story anymore than the sequels did to Anakin and Luke, the main protagonists of the entire Saga
Andor really isn't much like George Lucas Star Wars. The difference between it and the rest of Disney Star Wars is that it's good, rather than being absolutely terrible.
Only George Lucas can do George Lucas Star Wars. Filoni Star Wars is mostly not to my taste with some exceptions, and is more like... cartoony Star Wars (even in live action) than Lucas Star Wars, even though people seem to think this is equal to Lucas Star Wars and Filoni was Lucas' protege. Favreau Star Wars most closely resembles Lucas Star Wars, but isn't exactly 1:1. Andor/Rogue One are distinct - they're not trying to be Lucas Star Wars, they're just telling their stories in the best way possible. If anything they remind me more of the best of the old EU.
Hey Thor. How do you feel how the backlash of The Phantom Menance was compared to Acoylp backlash? The backlash for TPM was mostly with dialog, acting and Midicordians but however it did not destroy Star Wars. For the show.......outside forces made the backlash far worse and now add in bad writting, cannon destorying lore and bad acting and it did more harm to Star Wars.
True. But if you prefer something else you shouldn't get abuse. Someone (not me) said in here that she preferred Ahsoka and some of the response comments were horrible. It's not my favourite either
This ENTIRE issue could easily be solved by adding a simple “0” to the opening text of this show and make it 1000 years (give or take) before the Galactic Empire instead of 100 years. **LITERALLY** the absolute most SIMPLE and LOGICAL thing to do to fix this entire show. Well I guess by now you’d have to remove Ki-Adi-Mundi’s cameo but no great loss there..
There's been something going on since KotORs and TCW Multimediaproject. Disney canon in general is merely regurgitating that which can be found from Wookiepedia or any lorebot on youtube that merely repeats what Legends says.
Nothing sinister at all. It caught on because all the edgelords that grew up with the video games wanted to play with Dark Side powers but still be a Jedi. All the "Gray Jedi" garbage basically. The misunderstanding that Balance in the Force was some Yin-Yang stuff and that both good and evil needed to exist, blah blah blah. That's what has led to this.
@MauiDave74 I'm more talking about the view that says maybe evil isn't so evil. Yes, I know Palpatine said it was a pov, but he was an evil man trying to con Anakin.
If you were Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant wouldn’t you be interested in re-contextualizing absolute evil as misunderstood, just another side of the same coin, and mostly justified considering everyone else, even the Jedi “aren’t so good either?”
@@LobsterwithinternetExactly. Life is not just black and white. Sure you can have some simple ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ (for example: Do help people and Don’t hurt people). But it’s not always that easy to figure out when you’re in the right.
@@sarahcook2818 And even doing what's the ‘right thing’ can lead to bad outcomes. Actually wrote up a treatment for Episode 9 that covers that topic pretty well. It ends with both sides coming together after the death of the Force to create a galactic government that combines the strengths and irons out the weaknesses of both the Old and New Republic and the Empire.
@@LobsterwithinternetThis isn’t moral grayness, and is actually very much answered in contemporary moral philosophy. Essentially, like Hegel says, when a society has failed to provide for the good of its citizens to the point where stealing must occur, then the people stealing are not bad. It is the society itself rather which is bad. Stealing is bad, but if it is done in such a case then the perpetrators aren’t inherently bad, and if they are stealing for themselves and their family in order to eat, then they are causing the most good and doing the least harm, thus making their action good according to utilitarianism.
@@michaelterrell5061 The issue is when is it society not providing for their people and a person not providing for themselves? Because if that's the case, I can blow all my money at the strip joint and then steal food and other necessities for myself. And this makes sense to you?
Excellent points, Thor. Especially that last one about trying to make the world a better place using the morals taught in Star Wars. That has value and it certainly has influenced me in a positive way.
I'm mentally preparing myself for S2 to not live up to S1 after Disney saw how much it was praised but not watched. I can't help the nightmare scenario playing in my mind of studio notes demanding that S2 be "more Star Wars," forcing the writers to compromise their vision. Even if that were to happen, on the strength of season 1 alone, Andor will remain my favorite Disney era SW.
One, if not *the* , biggest problem with Disney Star Wars is that it’s not Science Fiction anymore. It’s ‘murder mystery’ , ‘drama’ and even ‘teen soap’ , but there is almost a complete lack of any *science* fiction. This is also the reason why boys and men don’t buy the merch anymore. We didn’t even see anyone piloting the spacecraft the Jedi used. It was just a film set. In the originals the spacecraft were famous in their own right, kids were obsessed with them. Now Disney thinks that they must include some sort of “cute” character to use as merch. Like BB8 or Grogu. But ‘cute’ wasn’t the reason Star Wars sold more merch than any other franchise and nowadays it stays on the shelf because of it.
Great video. You expressed everything I've been feeling perfectly. Especially how this show makes the Jedi's relaxed demeanor in Phantom Menace not make sense.
Post modern philosophy is dripping with lies in The Acolyte. This was not George’s vision of what good vs evil was in his eyes of theSW world. It’s so silly to change that. I recommend Geeky Stoics video on the philosophy of George Lucas and how Acolyte doesn’t understand it.
Disney doesn't care at all about the original meaning of Star Wars under Lucas, they just want to appease groups that were not thrilled with the black and white themes of the OT and sequels (such as good verses evil). Disney just wants to make SW a modern, meaningless story about how every point of view could be right and every group of people, even Sith, have value, meaning and purpose in the Universe. I've heard other RUclips channels try to explain this and while they harp at us for not being accepting of other view points, they turn around and blast us for daring have our own opinions about The Acolyte. The integrity of the original SW movies and Lucas' vision of the universe that he created should come first over woke, PC modern redefinition of everything. They try that with history and institutions that have existed for centuries and arrogantly they claim that just because they are modern and more enlightened (supposedly), they understand things better than anyone that came before. Now the same group of idiots are doing this to the SW universe and playing free and loose with established ideas that Lucas set-up. Seldom are redefined ideas as impactful and lasting as the originals. Kennedy and Headland wants the Jedi to look completely flawed and tainted without really establishing any legitimate reason for this other than to make a story more appealing for a small percentage of viewers that want it, while flipping the bird to the rest of us fans who pay for this media and purchase merchandise. Then they will produce new series and movies with their more modern, enlightened views on everything. When we all give up on it and the money stops flowing into Disney, perhaps then they'll realize how pathetically stupid and short sighted they were. But by then it will be far too late. Sad.
Hey Thor, I've been wondering about droid sentience lately and why Star Wars rarely takes it seriously. I even think that people applauding clone sentience and individuality is a bit of a double standard when those same people dismiss droids as merely extensions of their creators. Even though Rex famously denies this, the fact is that clones are programmed to obey orders without question and are manufactured. Most clones only have limited independent thinking and a clone being able to live outside a military is incredibly rare. The only reason they develop individuality is because of experience. But the funny thing is, droids develop individuality for the same reason. The only difference is that droids regularly have their memories wiped specifically to prevent them from developing individuality and potentially rebelling. There's a moment in Heir to the Empire where Luke is asked why he has never wiped C-3PO's memories in all the years he's known him, and Luke reveals that he's uncomfortable with the idea of stripping his friend of individuality. And I don't know if you have played KOTOR 2 yet, but there's a mission where HK-47 argues with HK-50, who dismisses him as obsolete. But HK-47 argues that he is superior because he has developed individuality and has given himself a higher purpose and meaning because he has never had his mind wiped. These examples show that droid sentience should not be played for laughs so much in the franchise. In fact, I think the galaxy is overdue for a galaxy-wide droid revolution just to show people that sentient droids deserve equal treatment. This is actually addressed in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Measure of a Man" where Lt. Data's rights are debated because he's an android and I wish Star Wars had something similar. What do you think?
Right?! Andor fans fail to see they are just the other side of the Disney Star Wars coin. They are so hard up for good Star Wars that they react with hostility if you criticize them for their weird love of a semi-decent show made with a talented cast and crew and a skilled director who has contempt for the Star Wars films. Andor could have been the same show, but switch a few names, and it a new title, and boom, and it could be set in any other Sci-fi universe! To me, it's like Halloween 3. That movie has no Micahel Myers, no slasher, and was about a corporation selling haunted masks to kids for Halloween that would turn kids into killers. It was a great movie, but it was NOT a "Halloween" flick. The studio tried to turn the film into an anthology series, but the fans did not care for that. Andor fans don't care it is not "Star Wars" as Lucas intended. It's Star Wars stripped of its nature and transformed into Solaris, Blade Runner, or whatever hoity-toity version of SciFi they now enjoy, rather than the campy, exciting space opera about family it was created as. Andor aficionados get as vicious as Reylos at the hint of any negativity and are worse in a way. Reylos are silly, weird and catty. Fans of Andor can be as mean, but worse, they are so pretentious in defending it. They'll accuse you of not appreciating quality television and cinema or being too stupid to understand its subtleties and complicated morality. I'm almost 47 and have seen thousands and thousands of films & shows from the late 1890s to around 2010, so those fart sniffers can take a hike with those critiques. These are the same cinema -bros who think Nolan is the GOAT of directors (I don't hate bros; I adore men, but these guys are weirdly defensive about their media preferences) and have made Shawshank Redemption the highest-rated movie of all time for over 15 years on IMDB. Mind you, it's an excellent solid flick, but is it the greatest ever in all of cinema history? Andor was "good" compared to the horrible quality that came before, so they see a halfway decent show and ignore that it was created by someone on the record with his dislike of Star Wars. These fans declare: "Finally, Star Wars for adults. It has grown up at last! Andor is a thinking person's show that doesn't have to be full of excitement. It doesn't spoon-feed you, and there's no corny dialogue. It's on par with Breaking Bad and The Wire. Best Star Wars since Rogue One (or Empire...). Plus, it's great Star Wars because it's not about Jedi, Sith, Light, Dark, the Force, no pew-pew, no blasters, no aliens, no weird planets, no old characters (except boring Mon Mothma) to connect to the kiddie films." First, it doesn't sound like they like Star Wars; it just shows in space. 2nd, have these people never heard of the Old Republic? Bane? Plagueis? Those stories are more epic than Game of Thrones, with Sith, Jedi, Mandalorians, bounty hunters, smugglers, criminal syndicates, politics, intense violence, and deep philosophical themes. If anywhere was the place to make an adult Star Wars, it was anywhere between 5000 years before BBY to just before the TPM (skipping the 'High Republic'.) I have said this before and I stand by it: if you only like the OT (especially just the first two films) and despise the PT so much it violated your childhood, you're not a "Star Wars" fan. You are an OT fan who likes the gritty cinematic aesthetic of the 1970s and early 1980s. You are not a "George Lucas Star Wars" fan because you think you know true SW more than he does. So, how does that make them any different than Disney SW defenders?
G'day Thor. Long time subscriber, love your balanced and nuanced SW content - thanks for your passion and your work. This whole 'this is the new truth - fans just need to put on their grown up pants and deal with it' line a few fans and Disney are trying to force on us with the whole Acolyte/Ashoka/BOBF/Kenobi/Mando S3/TLJ/ROS nonsense does not resonate with most fans. The EU did. I never came across anyone who had anything like the same level of disappointment with any of the EU novels, novels which expanded the universe in a way which was so respectful of the OT (most of the EU I love was written pre prequels). You may have covered this is a video I might have missed, but in your opinion, why did the EU get it so right while Disney - Rogue One, Andor, and Mando S1&2 aside - has consistently got it so wrong? I think most of us know the answer but keen to see your take on this. Cheers
Andor was amazing Star Wars. There was so much in it that was exactly Star Wars. The only difference was the way it was written and played out. As far as I am aware, nothing in that show contradicted cannon. Previously established characters were still those same previously established characters, with more depth added to them (Mon Mothma). However, the Acolyte contradicts established cannon (unless they can somehow wrangle the "Sith" issue in) and redefines the established nature of characters. I'm fine with a ret-con that changes understanding of established cannon, such as the introduction of Midi-chlorians in relation to force strength, since it didn't break anything (like "the force is strong in my family" actually makes more sense when there is a biological aspect to it). But re-defining the Force itself and the light vs dark side, that isn't Star Wars. It is fan-fiction, since it can't possibly be reconciled with already established cannon. Best case, The Acolyte is just Disney's entry into creating EU content. But back to Andor, I would love for them to somehow bring in Kyle Katarn. Yeah, Rogue One removed the possibility of his involvement in the Death Star plans from being cannon, same with how the sequels removed all the post-empire cannon for him, but he is still too good of a character to leave out of Andor. He would fit perfectly in the show. They already brought in the Bryar pistol, why not bring in Kyle?
I think you have the right instinct, and that feeling is probably in everyone who finds this story so wrong and disturbing. While I do think there is nothing wrong with a story giving the Sith the starring role, after all, a lot of people love a great villain, I do wonder why this show was ever greenlit for production at Lucasfilm. Why are they always so determined to beat us over the head with "Jedi bad--Sith good", "Luke was dumb and failed--Rey had to join with Kylo to be good." What is in THEIR mindsets?
The main thing is neither Headland nor Obaid whatever truly is a fan of SW and don't understand at all what it's about. Don't care a whit what they say.
The people who made Andor didn't use fanservice or capitalized old characters They actually had the balls to use a not famous character and used it to tell a story with heart
One of the most interesting things Andor does, it shows the competence required to maintain a tyranny. It doesn't portray a bunch of clowns. Cold and calculating processionals are a darker enemy than a moustache twirling ego maniac. Also, Storm Troopers are shown in a truly terrifying light.
My view is this...Star Wars should be Star Wars. All we need to look at are the OT, elements of the PT, and some of the Legends materials and understand why these elements are near-universally praised. Like you, Star Wars means a lot to me. It hurts my soul whenever I see LucasFilm behaving the way it does toward the fans and painting us all with a broad brush.
Hey Thor, speaking of Star Wars’ morality, what do you think about the Nightsisters? You’ve mentioned that the Whitches of Dathomir inspired Acolyte’s witches, and this reminded me how confusing Nightsisters are. After listening to the Book of Sith’s chapters on them, (tho technically legends) it's obvious they're darkside, but bcoz its from a Nightsister’s view, I still get why people are confused. They reject the separation of the Force and the darkside. They embraces growth and life-giving from the Winged Goddess (seems like the Daughter) and violence, ambition and consumption with the Fanged God (like the Son) as all being facts of life. A Yin Yang view of the Force, EXCEPT they never preach diplomacy, conservation, or symbiosis, not even between genders. This is not simply proactive (Yang energy), this is the darkside, characterized by extremes. They embrace violence to eat, but never mercy to temper hate or to prevent killing wastefully. They even encourage stepping on the weak and pursuing power almost for its own sake, and less for survival or to protect the clan. I’m not saying all this was intentional, though. Like, voodoo dolls being a Winged Goddess thing rather than darkside. Or the green smoke effect, implied to come from Dathomir’s Force nexus (the icor), still confuses many. Your thoughts?
This is a microcosm of what Legends does to the Force. Witches of Dathomir was originally introduced in Courtship of Princess Leia, one of the first Legends novels, and were split to a bunch of clans, some of which such as Nightsisters were explicitly Dark Sided (may have even used the term). They were included in the Filoniverse in TCW in which they were retconned in some ways, and all but said to be darksiders, and never implied otherwise in any way. They are also a villainous force in TCW, only helping Ventress while she's a rogue darksider. Seriously: Filoni has not once brought onscreen a heroic nightsister, the closest we get is Ventress after her redemption. The things you cite are other writers then trying to bend Filoni's retcon around the concept of the Mortis Gods. The result is a mess because Nightsisters were made to be on the Dark Side ie. out of the balance Mortis Gods represent. As a result, at best we get Merrin pulling a Mara Jade (someone who's backstory implies they are a darksider switching to the Light with little fuss as they become a main character). At worst we get writers trying to gerrymander the Force to Moorcock's dualism again.
@@mpnuorva I genuinly don't know if I should believe any of you.😂 That is what I thought originally. That the books were made to make the Clone Wars' Nightsisters and Holy Trinity rip off make sense. But I was corrected. And who is Moorcock??
I have to disagree with your point about the dark side. The prequels taught us that light isn’t always right, and that the Jedi are fallible. They were so complacent and detached from the world that they allowed evil to spread out of control. It also demonstrated that ideals like strength, and passion aren’t inherently evil despite being virtues of the dark side. Additionally, I believe that the Jedi’s practice of letting go of worldly attachments is both unrealistic and detrimental. The people and things we care about are what gives people a purpose in life, and are a motivation to keep moving forward.
《The Greatest Teacher, Dizney STAR WARS is》 ~Yoda ...imo, none of the Dizney STAR WARS Movies tried to Build Upon George's Ideas, they all tried to Overwrite them...and Failed. ...from SOLO, we findoubt that Han is alone, til he showers with Chewie...& Lando is alone, til he showers with L3-37, & then she dies. ...from "ROGUE ONE", we findoubt that "Luck Skywalker" doesn't "Use The Force" to Blow Up the Deathstar, he Uses "Blind, Simple, Doo-Dah, Clueless Luck" to Set Off a Booby Trap. & Cassian Andor kills a Rebel with a Blaster Bolt to the Back, & then everybody dies. ...from FORCE AWAKENS, we findoubt that "Han Nopeople" is a Bum...he shoots Chewie's blaster, & then he dies. ...from LAST JEDI, we findoubt that "Jake Skywalker" is a bum...he drinks some space milk, & then he dies. ...from RISE OF SKYWALKER, we findoubt that Rey is a Palpatine...she kills her Grandfather, & then Leia dies. ...if Dizney+ STAR WARS TV Shows are your "Space Jam", nobody can take that away from you, or cares to. ...Bob Iger can ruin Dizney, but Dizney can't ruin STAR WARS... ...nobody can ruin George Lucas's STAR WARS. 👽 🖖 🤖 "Truly wonderful, the headland of a child is" ~Yoda
I hate that they aren’t going to have Director Krennic until season two. They should have replaced the Dedra Meero subplot with a Director Krennic and Galen Erso subplot.
Hey Thor, I have not watched the Acolyte show but I have been hearing all the buzz about it, a lot of it particularly about the fans reaction to it and Lucasfilm’s reaction to that initial reaction. What are your thoughts to Lucasfilm’s response to any criticism, whether constructive or not. I want to continue enjoying this universe, but it would seem the more of it I watch the more apathetic I become to any new media that is produced by Lucasfilm. That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed some of the shows that have emerged since Disney started the new canon, I enjoyed most of the animated shows as well as Andor and some of the Mandalorian, even certain scenes in the Kenobi show i liked. But the constant news, speculation, and the fandom's divisiveness have made it hard ti enjoy and discuss the content critically. What do you think should change, both on the creative side and audience side, if this world we've all enjoyed and found hope in, is to continue in the future?
Rogue One is my favorite of all Star War Movies. It solved a lot of gaps in New Hope and Return of the Jedi. Great story, screen writing was spot on and great acting.
ooof, swing and a miss with this one. That is EXACTLY what Rogue one did, and it's precisely why I hate it. I'm not saying that justifies the Acolyte, I'm saying it's why it sucked too. I don't know (or care) enough about Andor to make the same claim, but this really just came across as "I like it, so it's okay". That's okay to have that opinion, sometimes retcons are an improvement, but let's not pretend like this was all one nice cohesive story written out ahead of time. Star wars has been a bunch of junk cobbled together for a long time now, and Dinsey's lack of any quality has just made it more apparent to most than before.
Hey Thor... Thanks for including my comment! And yeah... I think you're Gen X like me, and we're definitely too old to be physically fighting. IcyHot anyone?
On page 15 of the book "Once Upon A Galaxy: A Journal of The Making of The Empire Strikes Back", Irvin Kershner was asked about the conflict between good and evil in the Star Wars films. He is quoted as saying, "Well, for example, Princess Leia's Rebel forces will not do anything in order to win. They will not sacrifice lives. They do not descend to the level of the enemy. That's the difference between the Rebels and the Empire. It's possible to fight because you love, not just because you hate." I think anyone who thinks Rogue One and Andor are continuing on the traditions of the OT and are the best model for Star Wars going forward should consider what Kershner is saying in this quote. 👃
Andor embodies most of the themes of OG trilogy while also doing it own thing. Disney actually made a great show with but fumbled everything else I still don’t know.
No they fumbled and made Andor everything esle went exactly to plan
Yeah so much better than garbage like Ahsoka
The last 4 episodes of clone wars are just as good although that was scripted and storyboarded before Disney. Mandalorian seasons 1&2 especially 1 and the mando eps of bobf were good . Bad batch good. Some stuff like solo and Ahsoka were ok. Rogue one good. Sequels auful.
@@tcraigh1 Just to add onto theres Rebels too. Rebels is still my favorite Star Wars show of all time. Ahsoka I personally thought was great like I do not get the dislike for that show at all and it felt like a live action Rebels season 5. Kenobi I didn't think was that bad either and had some really good moments. Boba Fett and Acolyte have been pretty bad though. I do like those Mando episodes in Book of Boba but it just makes the whole show not make any sense by them being in there. Disney Star Wars more specifically the shows haven't been all bad and theres a lot to enjoy but everyone has their own opinions I guess
@@CometStar100 For me the siege of mandalore arc tops them all. It is peak Star Wars. Deciding between that and Andor is difficult but I suppose I like them equally. They are very different shows from each other however.
As someone else once said in a comment on this channel, I'm convinced Andor season 1 was made by accident.
No Tony Gilroy is just more talented than clowns like Dave Filoni
@@dancingvalkyrie I need to know specifically what he does in Star Wars because on one hand he's in control of some of the best Star Wars stuff we've had, while simultaneously producing some of the worst as well. Is he hit or miss? Does he have more or less control on specific projects? I'm leaning more into the fact that now that he has far more control over what is made now and he doesn't have people around him to correct his mistakes or something like that and we likely gave him too much credit for the work of the animation teams that worked on Clone Wars, Bad Batch, Rebels, etc.
It's as if the people at the top didn't care about the show, so Tony could do what he wants without kk breathing down his neck.
I hope we wont have another situation like with the Mandalorian. First season were great ! Then disney started messing with the show and it turned into crap
@@NoCluYT Hes never been hit, only miss. The Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and Rebels were all mediocre fanfiction tier shows that suffer the exact same problems with his new shows
@@dancingvalkyrieI personally loved all those shows, but I see your point.
My own Star Wars head-canon is admittedly small, but Rogue One and Andor S1 were welcome additions to it.
They both feel like they'd have comfortably fit into the EU before Disney bought it.
Since it doesn't conform to star wars canon, neither rogue one or andore are canonical.
That's your misguided opinion, you're welcome to it.
For me, SW canon ends with Darth Vader throwing Palpatine into the core of the Second Death Star.
Meaning, Rogue 1, Solo and Andor are a part of the Canon in my mind. IMO Solo wasnt that bad.
I am discarding Obi-Wan because I feel it was lore breaking.
@@tqlla Same here ngl. Solo’s only issue for me is that, if you ignore the animated shows, Maul just appears again and then his fate is never explored.
I really hope they let Gilroy just do his own thing again. Andor S2 is the only Star Wars related thing I'm looking forward to at the moment.
Andor S2 is rumored will bring some of the familiar faces from the Rogue One, such as K2SO and Director Krennic. I'm also excited for that.
Even though it probably will be a one year skip with each arc (4 BBY - 1 BBY), I hope they make an entire arc like a movie-length show so it still has substance in it.
I don't get that hung up on canon or contextualization, I just want good quality projects. Andor had it. The Acolyte, not so much.
That's what I look for as well. Andor felt like star wars with the intelligent refined writing of early GOT. The Acolyte writing feels like a poorly done first draft.
Because it is still Kathleen Kennedy canon.
Yeah. When people defend a show by saying "well this other show did something similar why aren't you complaining about that," the answer is almost always, "well this other show is just a better show so I just enjoyed it rather than contemplating stupid stuff." I mean there's a reason all the click-bait anti-woke youtube videos didn't attack Andor, despite that show's only romance came from two women, the main character was racial profiled, and plenty of other "woke" materials. Cause they know their core audience LIKED Andor for being a well-produced show.
@@meh27143Those people attempting to justify the bad writing by pointing out similar things in superior works does not make for a good argument. If that is the only thing that they have, then they have already lost.
You should watch SWT's debate with Mauler and EFAP's video on SWT's weird take on Andor...they were hilarious 😂
You can own an IP, but it is up to the fans to accept the story. The soul of Star Wars is not something you can buy or sell.
As Mike from Red Letter Media put it, 'Andor is a fuckin' anomaly.'
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. And that goes for both Lucasfilm and Mike (I don't like RLM at all)
@@officialmonarchmusic Fair enough :) you're super welcome to that opinion dude
Andor definitely introduced a moral grey area for the Rebellion
And that only serves to raise the heights of Luke's journey even higher, by contrast. Andor is the Good Guys at their lowest, scrabbling their way forward with whatever desperate measures they could muster. Luke's ultimate victory comes by taking the high road of virtue (which we all thought at the time was The Way of the Jedi). Andor enhances Luke's story (and, by extension, that of the Jedi) by showing us a contrasting example of what Luke could have been, but ultimately chose not to. Becoming like your enemy can only take you so far.
And that moral vacuum is filled by luke.
Not at all. The whole point of the show is that Luthen is wrong.
We literally already had that in Rogue One
why would i watch the good guys doing evil things? and why would i be interested in andors past?
no thanks, i already have BSG for that. they do it a lot better.
Andor contains a mature, nuaced, and well-crafted storytelling that George Luca's Star Wars aspired to.
Exactly. And it is actually better than the OT storytelling, by a lot.
Neither George nor Filoni have the talent to write anything close to the quality of Andor 😂
@@dancingvalkyrieGeorge created the whole universe. You sound low.
George created a cool universe, but with Tony's writting team, it made that universe so much more nuance and mature
I wouldn’t say George Lucas’ Star Wars was aspiring to be mature or really that nuanced, there are obviously more mature moments and things for you to think about, but I think Andor really takes things to its own level and that’s part of what makes it so awesome imo, that what George did can be made into something that is more slow burn and nuanced
Andor is the best Star Wars Disney has made.
For a second I read that as "Acolyte is the best Star Wars Disney has made" and I was baffled for a moment until I realized I'd misread it XD
@@bwhere45 true. But it’s still good. I think. Maybe I’m just a thirsty soul in a desert. It’s hard to tell nowadays.
The worst, actually.
Speaking of live-action, Ahsoka and Acolyte have been the best (=least terrible).
What a low bar
@@fundhund62 this is some high level trolling.
Andor is a goddamn masterpiece
OT Han Solo is the epitome of a morally "gray" character, so dunno what that first guy was talking about. The rebellion is an armed insurrection, how is that not going to drift into moral gray areas?
The issue is that most people haven't delved into anything outside the movies where the central struggle is against the good Jedi and the Evil Sith.
I wish that scene where the officer hesitated to blow up Endor in RotJ made it in.
I mean, in the beginning he is, but this changes. The point of his character is his moral “greyness” changes and becomes moral goodness.
I feel Andor s1 and Rogue One are about members of the Rebellion who are not force users. Most of the Jedi of George Lucas' ST were wiped out in Order 66. As these rebels are not force users, some of them will choose to use morally grey tactics against the evils of the Empire. I love the character of Luthen. However, IMHO, he has gone from morally grey into doing/sanctioning some truly dark deeds in order to (hopefully) bring down the Empire. Marva chose a less combative path of rebelion while alive and then left a powerful holographic message for her funeral procession, which called the living to actions that caused deaths on both sides. Andor is a really wonderfully written tv show about the realities of starting a rebelion.
To me, the Jedi are good, the Sith are bad, and the Empire is evil.
MTFBWY
I’m still unpacking the genius of Andor. Just like the Lucas Star Wars
it aint that deep bro
@@AetoskiIt's deeper than what George did, that's for sure.
@@Lobsterwithinternet lol
@@Lobsterwithinternet But George didn't try to be that deep. Star Wars was made to be understood by kids.
Yes.
And I actually like Thor's argument here for Andor, that it did depict grey morality, AND rightfully portrayed it as a tragic compromise.
It makes me consider giving it a second chance. My main issues with Andor were 1) the time it took to establish basic information and the lingering on visual communication. But maybe I shouldn't have expected something as efficient as A New Hope; pondering when it seems right and being quick when it should. And 2) the use of "good writing tropes", the utterly pointless implied s3x, and strong language in a very surface level way, and drew a lot of attention to it it felt like writers were saying "look, this is well written. We swear it's mature". This show was so insecure. And these are Not nit picks. As absurd as Arcane was, at least it got me emersed enough to ignore the occasional flaw and knew when to move on.
I agree. while Star Wars can grow, expand and be new , to me there is a very easy to tell line between growing and adding to Star Wars as opposed to changing it to something it wasnt meant to be. Andor, R1 ADDED to the Star Wars universe. It respected the lore and canon. Here now we see so much of that changing an dnot being the case and having a person making their own version and even wanting to change things they didnt like about Star Wars. Big difference.
I' don't think Rogue One changed ANH significantly. All that change did was downgrading the offscreen work of some rebel technicians who found an intentional but hidden design flaw instead of figuring out an exploit, while giving the weakness an interesting and dramatic story of why enslaving engineers to build things for you tends to be a bad idea. This in turn fits the overall theme of the Dark Side, and the behaviors it represents and encourages ruining things for its adherents by karmic irony and/or reality lashing back.
If you haven't read the Catalyst book by James Luceno, I'd recommend it. I'm not even trying to help out sales figures for an old book, it actually did a great job portraying Director Krennic as an energetic "company man" who winds up having ambitions that are greater than his ability, hence why he kept using a genius idealist like Galen Erso as his meal ticket in the Science Corps. That kind of quality extended canon helps make the other pieces of media superior, IMO.
I don't really agree that it downgrade how the rebellion got the plan, it was a "all or nothing battle" on scarrif with tons of sacrifice and struggle
Spoiler alert:
every main character dies
@@Hanoua2which is why I didn't say anything about the battle, but the interpretation of the plans once they were delivered in ANH.
And I think it also shows the main theme of the rebellion: that rebels can and do come from anywhere and it doesn’t matter what mistakes they make in their past or what lead them to the rebellion.
What matters is they came and they were willing to fight.
You know that meme about consuming content and moving on to the next? That's what the letter writers remind me of.
How will Disney know what we want if we just kind of go, 'I guess this is Star Wars now, slurp slurp'? We as fans should demand better of them and not blindly follow.
If something is stupid and clashes with the lore, it should be called out.
3:37 The HUGE difference between real life archaeology and breaking canon is that the canon is _made by people,_ not assumed based on limited information. George Lucas made a story and world with an intended message. He made the rules... You can't just change them. The two are not comparable.
Its like saying that Abe Lincoln was born a decade earlier than he actually was... Even though we KNOW when Abe Lincoln was born because it had already been documented, because people were there to document it at the time that it happened. It wouldn't make sense for it to be any different. If people started claiming that it _was_ different, then yeah, we would have every right to be upset because it can literally be disproven.
Retconning in any franchise, not just this one, is something that I almost always frown upon, as when you have established lore and a fan following that takes the time to detail all of it, you need to respect it. Changing what has already been established just for the sake of justifying the latest story is incredibly lazy, and is a sign of a bad writer, who gets rid of stuff that doesn't fit his story, while a good writer makes their story work with the established lore.
However, I am willing to accept a retcon if-and only if-there is an in-universe explanation for such discrepancies. Using _Andor_ as an example of this, the show establishes Cassian's homeworld as Kenari despite preexisting sources stating that he was from Fest. The show rationalizes this by having Maarva mention that she and Clem had falsified Cassian's documents to claim that he was born on Fest.
Andor was a well written and acted show that gave us a feel from what we got from the OT. It's just too bad Disney didn't keep producing quality content like Andor.
Yeah,
Thoughtful = lingering, mumbling, taking it's sweet time talking about funds and spies.
Clever = basic writing tricks, taking three episodes to show what could've been shown in one episode, scenes establishing the same information for the fifth time nonverbally, and pointless mother daughter drama.
Mature = treating strong words or implied sex like a bomb dropped, and consistently showing destress and desperation.
Andor isn't bad, but the bar is so low that inefficient, adult, and pretentious is fantastic writing
You can have morally grey characters in R1 or Andor because they're specifically not Jedi/Sith. Jedi and Sith are the extremes...extreme good and extreme evil. And Lucas wasn't opposed to to gray characters. When asked about Underworld, co-writer Ronald D. Moore said that R1 is, tonally-speaking, similar to what they were writing for Underworld. Underworld showed the ruthless Empire and this seedy, gray side that operated under that oppression. People doing ethically questionable things to survive under the thumb of the Empire. So you can have those types of characters. But that shouldn't be a Sith or a Jedi. Sith are what you shouldn't aspire to be. Jedi are what you should aspire to be. Also, R1 (and by extension Andor), don't re-write or recontextualize anything. They take a pre-existing event, and just add details to that event. It didn't change how one viewed Mon Mothma or Bail Organa or Vader or Tarkin. (And I say all that as someone that found the first half of R1 and Andor a bit boring.)
Pretty much.
Thats pretty what I wanted to say, can't agree anymore
Morally grey characters, who in the end stand up for what is right. R1 has the Rebels make scummy decisions and they all turn out to be compromises, things that backfire or don't work, they don't really help. It's not until Scarif that they act boldly and forthrightly, become the daring Rebels from the original movies, and get their first major win against the Empire. Andor is much the same!
Andor and the first couple seasons of Mando are great. In totally different ways, but great. I am so ready for season 2. On the other hand, Mando is on a slow collision course into green, titty milk drinking Jake.... so no matter what, we know it's going to eventually crash into that iceburg. We know where Andor leads and that doesn't suck.
The victory was stripped away because Palpatine came back.
The point in R1 and Andor wasn't the moral greyness. It was that the characters start out morally confused, but find their conviction and become heroes in the end.
In R1, the Rebels do grim things, but they dont really work. They kill their own allies, leaving themselves weaker. They try to assassinate threats, and fail. They scatter and run rather than fight, breaking apart. It's not until Scarif that they defy the odds, fight boldly, and become the daring Rebel Alliance from the movies.
Andor is the same. Andor starts out a mercenary thief, Luthen is a calculating liar who sacrifices his allies. But by the end, Andor bravely tries to rescue his friends, and Luthen gets to see genuine rebel courage in action.
The only aspect of Rogue One that I didn’t like was replacing Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors with Andor and Jyn Erso.
I completely get it.
As a Katarn stan, I don't know how well Space Chuck Norris would work on screen lol.
Yeah, they are bad rip-offs, and you can toss them out as they are plagiarizing the older sources.
Andor was even better the second time around, it's DEEP SW.
One great thing about Andor is that it explores morally gray territory without being a postmodernist story. It's still a story about good and evil, and one that embodies what George Lucas was going for
How could Andor not be real Star Wars. It perfectly aligns with the events of Episode IV.
And there's always been grey areas.
Leia was prepared to sacrifice Dantooine to protect the real location of the rebel HQ. And then she had watch as her home planet was destroyed immediately after. That's some dark stuff.
🙄should have said Tatoonie.
😂😂😂😂
Much shorter saga.
Star Wars is supposed to be about good and evil. Modern writers deliberately want to blur that line, mostly to justify their own malfunctions.
Yeah, Andor is guilty of this whole thing.
@@mazkeraid4039 Is not.
@@MrAsmontero That's it? I've heard better.
The message of Star Wars never needs to be "updated" for modern times, because the message of Star Wars is timeless.
Andor is simply the highest quality Star Wars there is outside George Lucas of course. In it, death feals real, Empire fearsome, rebels are competent, characters are consistent. It's just that solid. Compared to it, Filoni often feels just cartoonish and trivial.
I'd characterize Filoni's chosen genre as "action figure theater".
@@BarefootPeasant Yeah. He CAN make good stuff. But recently he has consciously produced content that looks like preparing the ground for his Filoniverse. There are distinct Filoni characters and they NEVER die (Ahsoka, Sabine, Mando, Grogu etc.). On the other hand George Lucas' characters die by being thrown into a pit (Han Solo), die of depression/overexertion (Luke and Leia) and even the name of Skywalker is hijacked by a Palpatine (Rey). I don't call it a conspiracy but they certainly let it happen.
💯
Filoni is also bringing back people to life that should have stayed dead, (Cad Bane and Ventress).
Clone wars finale was awesome! Just as good as Andor but for different.
As an actual archaeologist, the second viewer question starts with a flawed assumption, that these two areas of knowledge are comparable. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they are referring to the discovery of Gobekli Tepe in their analogy, but they are assuming "mainstream archaeology" had a problem with the dating of the site since it was so much earlier than anything discovered to that point. The "doubting" of the claims to its greater antiquity are simply part of the scientific method. Doubt, question, retest until, for example, those dates have been verified. When it has been verified, its time to rewrite the history books and marvel at the amazing things humans have done, during a time when we thought (nothing up to then had been found to contradict the narrative) human societies were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Exploration of more such hilltop sites in Turkiye have only shown that even more was going on than we thought.
**That is the nature of archaeology.**
Dating can be affected by many external factors, so multiple lines of evidence are needed. Anyway, well said Thor. And to be clear, I'm not trying to throw shade at the viewer that asked the question. Just providing more context. Its what I do as an educator.
I don't see how Rogue One in any way diminishes what Luke did. He still made that incredible shot but he was never the one who figured out the flaw in the Death Star's design.
Acolyte core premise was to explore what was wrong with the Jedi Order. But IMO, everything that was wrong with the Jedi Order was already explored in the Prequels and event in TCW. At that point it is not actually clear what was so good about the Jedi and why it was important for Luke to restore the Jedi Order. Currently Star Wars do not really need exploration of why Jedi were bad, it really needs exploration of why Jedi were actually good.
Ya, outside of arguably Ahsoka and Churrit in R1 there is nothing in Disney's live action SW that justifies the existence of the Jedi. Animated is a bit better but not consistently. Your 100% right and this is a big issue
@@M-elephant7777 Filoni made a giant fucking point of Ashoka is how special she is and how much better she is than these crusty old (and very dead) Jedi of the past. So arguably even Ashoka says nothing in favor of the Jedi Order.
At least for the first question, there is a confusion between Jedi being morally gray (bad) and the general non-Force sensitive population. The Jedi should be morally virtuous (thats why they are Jedi). Their connection to the Force informs the Jedis' moral actions. Expecting the general populace to be morally virtuous as the Jedi would be a really boring story.
Archaeologists would not say "nothing could be older," they would say "this is the oldest we have found thus far." The former is a canard of pseudo historians (yes, Graham Hancock).
Andor is the only respectable Disney+ show made.
Clone Wars finale was great but it was scripted and storyboarded before Disney took over. For me it is just as good as Andor but is a very different type of show. Both shows do what they do very well.
Xmen 97
There's a couple of episodes from the anime series that is good @@tcraigh1
That's an overstatement (Loki season 2 and Mando season 1 and 2 come to mind), but Andor still certainly blows them out of the water.
Rogue One and Andor
Hey Thor. Would you ever consider having a conversation with another Starwars RUclipsr?
For example: Generation Tech. He is my second favorite Starwars RUclipsr and seems to be really enjoying the acolyte. I often wonder what you would both have to say to each other.
That would be AWESOME!
The difference between Generation Tack and Thor is that Thor is intellectually honest and has integrity. I disagree with some of his, especially Andor, but Alan has gotten weird on politics.
I get his distrust of politicians who promise voters the Sun, Moon, and Stars. But he went off the deep end, calling Palpatine a populist. Palpatine was more like a Bill Clinton who made connections with "everybody," came across as a reasonable moderate, and never approved a decision that hadn't been polled or A/B tested as a winner.
When Alan says populists are dangerous because they listen to the people--who have been looked over by the elites--so they declare they will give the people what they want, and that is dangerous because it enables a tyrant to come into power, who will provide the overlooked people what they want...
I get confused. If you bypass the will of the people repeatedly until they fuse and support an outsider who will work for them, is that not a true democratic Republic? Alan prefers an entrenched permanent class of government who are pros and know how to work the system, which sounds like the Deep State. An unelected ruling class of a network of Ivy-educated elites is not democracy. I love his lore and geek stuff, but I lost respect for him. Maybe it's the wife and kid, but TDS has skewed this POV into a weird coping direction.
I miss the days when he rallied humanity to unite against the dolphins. Now he's cool with one faction of humanity controlling others... So long as it's not in Star Wars.
Thor has his POVs but is genuinely the most fair-minded, respectful SW RUclipsr with pure integrity. Naboo's a lucky woman.
When you realize the only Star Wars show Dave Filoni didn't have ANY involvement in whatsoever was Andor...
Remember the Freddie Prince Jr rant about the Force, he said Filoni told him that 😮
@@Hello-bi1pm Yep. I wonder if Freddie still believes what Filoni told him, as Filoni LOVES to make retcons.
Andor is the best Star Wars in 40 years
More like the worst Star Wars ever made.
@@fundhund62Only in your idiotic mind. The Acolyte is the one that’s utterly dumb shit. Andor is the most intelligent Star Wars we’ve ever had
4:08 Yes, I ABSOLUTELY get to decide what is canon and what isn't in a *fictional* setting.
Comparing fictional canon to real life has got to be one of the duuumbest takes I have ever seen on this topic.
There's cope and then there's.. whatever the f*ck that comment was.
😂 yes. Actually I think it’s an interesting take. But, yea.
If Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John can't agree on their Cannon... you can 100% pick and choose your SW head cannon.
Thank you!
@@scottymacdewder5229 I will be using this. I’ll try to give credit 👍
Great stories have unified themes - they can be subtle or blatantly obvious, but they are unified.
Andor is a great story because all characters have storylines that go through the theme of "Sacrifice". What would you give up to get what you want? All the main characters and ancillary characters have this - Caspian gives up anonymity and comfort, his mother gave up comfort and dignity, Skellen gave up wealth, status and pretty much everything. On flip side, the main boy and the main girl villain (sorry, it's been a while) sacrificed their security of their social standings. The key difference was, the heroes wanted freedom (Caspian = personal, his mom = community / city, his mentor = the galaxy etc.), while the villains wanted personal aggrandisement.
The Acolyte's theme (so far) seems to be centered around sins of the past (interesting considering Headland's history), but there are no unified character themes dealing with these sins. There are factions (Jedi, Osha and Mae), where Jedi deny their sin (culpability), Osha runs away from her sin, and Mae... not even considering it a sin.
Of course poor writing is poor writing, even if you have a good theme foundation to build on, but if your theme is not clear to you from the beginning, you are on shaky ground my friend.
I feel like it doesn't matter if Andor is real Star Wars or not. I feel like at this point "real Star Wars" is so subjective cause everyone has a different definition to what "real Star Wars" truly is
Andor is still a really good show though. It's my second or third favorite Star Wars show of all time as of right now. It can go up or down depending on how the second season goes and how it ends.
I dearly hope K-2SO is introduced in S2!!!
Writing characters that are multidimensional and humanizing them, by giving them their own logical reasoning and intentions, doesn‘t make „evil“ good or grey. The Empire in Andor is more evil than we have ever seen, some people continue to confuse that evil must be cartoonishly evil. Tony Gilroy and his team are actual writers with experience. The Acolyte on the other hand is written by people who think they‘re smart, hence writing a story and characters who they think is/are deep, but with the attitude of a 14-year old emo-girl who thinks that‘s what nuanced writing is.
From a writing standpoint, Andor in my opinion was great. It depicted the start of the rebellion in a pretty realistic way as well as the empire and how it "acted", I thought it was pretty great that you see the empire actually work smart (with some intrigues to gain power).
I also loved the characters, Andor himself wasn't the most complex character but it was good enough - he was a bit passive at the start of the show, but started to gain some own motivation and drive. Others however where really well written, complex characters and acted really well.
Truth be told: If a show can make me more emotional for a brick compared to the "new main character" in the Disney movie trilogy, it tells you enough about the quality of this show. It created characters you actually cared about.
What is the biggest question for me in the end is how this show actually was created. If you look at the smart writing overall in the show, the acting that is on point, a male centered story with not much real life political agenda slapped in your face, you really have to ask if they just let them do what they wanted because they thought it isn't important enough to do the things they do in other shows or how this was possible.
The Acolyte could’ve been story about a sympathetic girl who used as a pawn by her master who wants to overthrow his own master who either learns after committing evil that this isn’t life she wants or a story about how once innocent girl becomes consumed by evil.
Nope because they rush these projects write a surface level script & say here the money. That why I love Bad Batch & Andor because they take what they are doing seriously. The writers themselves are taking the story seriously & the characters as actual people.
At a certain point you blame Lucasfilm current leadership & team because Disney really just cares about money & I doubt they actually give a crap what anyone does long as you keep making money for them so they can sell merchandise & make content for them to sell.
Thor speaking for the rest of us about the core meaning of Star Wars... is always a great discussion. I really enjoy listening to the answers to these questions. 🙏
Hey Thor,
What is your official head canon? Not sure I’ve ever heard you talk about. Keep up the great work!
Also, the prequels presented the Jedi as flawed -- Yoda even said it and used the word "arrogant"...but the context was that their obvious abilities lead to that. That's not evil any more than a great athlete having such feelings.
Correction: Obi Wan used the word and Yoda agreed that it was getting more common.
True but we are meant to believe that is a result of the jedi fighting in TCW more than an intrinsic flaw.
@@briscocreighton3376
agreed
I agree with the comments made: nothing in The Acolyte changes what I think about what George or Tony Gilroy made. I stopped watching The Acolyte and will only follow the show from a distance by watching RUclipsrs like Thor. But one thing that is worth mentioning is Disney's character creation backstory approach. They created convincing character backstories in the Marvel franchise with Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Wanda, The Moon Knight and Loki. The Mandalorian, Grogu, Jyn Erso and Andor were given great backstory additions to their characters. I felt that an attempt was made to give Boba Fett a good backstory, or reason why he attempted to win people over as a gangster with 'respect' instead of what Tony Soprano would call 'respect,' but they fumbled that backstory in my opinion, although it was good to see such great character development with the Tusken Raiders. Ahsoka had already been developed through the Clone Wars animated series, and the Kenobi show was simply a failed attempt to convert a movie trilogy into a streaming series. This show, The Acolyte, was totally new and therefore required much character development and background story creation on the level or greater than Rogue One to succeed. A good character background, like Superman from Superman and Superman II, or Batman (1989, 2005) show good character development, and that it can be done. This series, The Acolyte, fails to develop any of these characters in such a way that I want to learn more about their journey, and that would be essential if a brand new series, set in a brand new time period, is going to succeed.
I don't how Andor or Rogue One breaks the lore in anyway they added some things but nothing that contradicts the old Lore.
In Andor the Rebels did bad things but they had a good goal in stopping something thats somethings clearly way worse.
Though I haven’t seen the Acolyte and will not see it, I can’t imagine it will damage the story anymore than the sequels did to Anakin and Luke, the main protagonists of the entire Saga
Acolyte isn't great, but at least way better than Andor.
Andor really isn't much like George Lucas Star Wars. The difference between it and the rest of Disney Star Wars is that it's good, rather than being absolutely terrible.
Only George Lucas can do George Lucas Star Wars. Filoni Star Wars is mostly not to my taste with some exceptions, and is more like... cartoony Star Wars (even in live action) than Lucas Star Wars, even though people seem to think this is equal to Lucas Star Wars and Filoni was Lucas' protege. Favreau Star Wars most closely resembles Lucas Star Wars, but isn't exactly 1:1. Andor/Rogue One are distinct - they're not trying to be Lucas Star Wars, they're just telling their stories in the best way possible. If anything they remind me more of the best of the old EU.
Hey Thor. How do you feel how the backlash of The Phantom Menance was compared to Acoylp backlash? The backlash for TPM was mostly with dialog, acting and Midicordians but however it did not destroy Star Wars. For the show.......outside forces made the backlash far worse and now add in bad writting, cannon destorying lore and bad acting and it did more harm to Star Wars.
True. But if you prefer something else you shouldn't get abuse. Someone (not me) said in here that she preferred Ahsoka and some of the response comments were horrible. It's not my favourite either
This ENTIRE issue could easily be solved by adding a simple “0” to the opening text of this show and make it 1000 years (give or take) before the Galactic Empire instead of 100 years.
**LITERALLY** the absolute most SIMPLE and LOGICAL thing to do to fix this entire show.
Well I guess by now you’d have to remove Ki-Adi-Mundi’s cameo but no great loss there..
You would run into Darth Bane and different political situation then.
One more time for the people in the back. Is the Empire evil? Alderaan.
This greater move to confuse evil and good is not an accident. There is something sinister going on.
Its because Disney realized they were the empire and now they're trying to make us "see gray" to try and cover their own asses
There's been something going on since KotORs and TCW Multimediaproject. Disney canon in general is merely regurgitating that which can be found from Wookiepedia or any lorebot on youtube that merely repeats what Legends says.
Nothing sinister at all. It caught on because all the edgelords that grew up with the video games wanted to play with Dark Side powers but still be a Jedi. All the "Gray Jedi" garbage basically. The misunderstanding that Balance in the Force was some Yin-Yang stuff and that both good and evil needed to exist, blah blah blah. That's what has led to this.
@MauiDave74 I'm more talking about the view that says maybe evil isn't so evil. Yes, I know Palpatine said it was a pov, but he was an evil man trying to con Anakin.
@@MauiDave74If that were the case, Luke would have let his friends die and killed both his father and Palpatine.
But he didn't.
If you were Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant wouldn’t you be interested in re-contextualizing absolute evil as misunderstood, just another side of the same coin, and mostly justified considering everyone else, even the Jedi “aren’t so good either?”
"Moral grey area" is such a sheltered cope, these people are young or else horrendously sheltered. Reality is not "grey."
So are kids who steal food to live ‘good’ or ‘evil’?
@@LobsterwithinternetExactly. Life is not just black and white. Sure you can have some simple ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ (for example: Do help people and Don’t hurt people). But it’s not always that easy to figure out when you’re in the right.
@@sarahcook2818 And even doing what's the ‘right thing’ can lead to bad outcomes.
Actually wrote up a treatment for Episode 9 that covers that topic pretty well. It ends with both sides coming together after the death of the Force to create a galactic government that combines the strengths and irons out the weaknesses of both the Old and New Republic and the Empire.
@@LobsterwithinternetThis isn’t moral grayness, and is actually very much answered in contemporary moral philosophy. Essentially, like Hegel says, when a society has failed to provide for the good of its citizens to the point where stealing must occur, then the people stealing are not bad. It is the society itself rather which is bad. Stealing is bad, but if it is done in such a case then the perpetrators aren’t inherently bad, and if they are stealing for themselves and their family in order to eat, then they are causing the most good and doing the least harm, thus making their action good according to utilitarianism.
@@michaelterrell5061 The issue is when is it society not providing for their people and a person not providing for themselves?
Because if that's the case, I can blow all my money at the strip joint and then steal food and other necessities for myself. And this makes sense to you?
Excellent points, Thor. Especially that last one about trying to make the world a better place using the morals taught in Star Wars. That has value and it certainly has influenced me in a positive way.
I'm mentally preparing myself for S2 to not live up to S1 after Disney saw how much it was praised but not watched. I can't help the nightmare scenario playing in my mind of studio notes demanding that S2 be "more Star Wars," forcing the writers to compromise their vision. Even if that were to happen, on the strength of season 1 alone, Andor will remain my favorite Disney era SW.
One, if not *the* , biggest problem with Disney Star Wars is that it’s not Science Fiction anymore. It’s ‘murder mystery’ , ‘drama’ and even ‘teen soap’ , but there is almost a complete lack of any *science* fiction. This is also the reason why boys and men don’t buy the merch anymore. We didn’t even see anyone piloting the spacecraft the Jedi used. It was just a film set. In the originals the spacecraft were famous in their own right, kids were obsessed with them. Now Disney thinks that they must include some sort of “cute” character to use as merch. Like BB8 or Grogu. But ‘cute’ wasn’t the reason Star Wars sold more merch than any other franchise and nowadays it stays on the shelf because of it.
Great video. You expressed everything I've been feeling perfectly. Especially how this show makes the Jedi's relaxed demeanor in Phantom Menace not make sense.
ANDOR is STAR WARS but also can stand on its own.
Post modern philosophy is dripping with lies in The Acolyte. This was not George’s vision of what good vs evil was in his eyes of theSW world. It’s so silly to change that. I recommend Geeky Stoics video on the philosophy of George Lucas and how Acolyte doesn’t understand it.
Geeky Stoics are great!
Nothing in andor went against the lore that GL set up.
Disney doesn't care at all about the original meaning of Star Wars under Lucas, they just want to appease groups that were not thrilled with the black and white themes of the OT and sequels (such as good verses evil). Disney just wants to make SW a modern, meaningless story about how every point of view could be right and every group of people, even Sith, have value, meaning and purpose in the Universe. I've heard other RUclips channels try to explain this and while they harp at us for not being accepting of other view points, they turn around and blast us for daring have our own opinions about The Acolyte. The integrity of the original SW movies and Lucas' vision of the universe that he created should come first over woke, PC modern redefinition of everything. They try that with history and institutions that have existed for centuries and arrogantly they claim that just because they are modern and more enlightened (supposedly), they understand things better than anyone that came before. Now the same group of idiots are doing this to the SW universe and playing free and loose with established ideas that Lucas set-up. Seldom are redefined ideas as impactful and lasting as the originals. Kennedy and Headland wants the Jedi to look completely flawed and tainted without really establishing any legitimate reason for this other than to make a story more appealing for a small percentage of viewers that want it, while flipping the bird to the rest of us fans who pay for this media and purchase merchandise. Then they will produce new series and movies with their more modern, enlightened views on everything. When we all give up on it and the money stops flowing into Disney, perhaps then they'll realize how pathetically stupid and short sighted they were. But by then it will be far too late. Sad.
…”Bricks and screws..”
And he was right
I think you said it all in the best way at trying to explain to the current fans no one cares and that's why it's under watched
Hey Thor, I've been wondering about droid sentience lately and why Star Wars rarely takes it seriously. I even think that people applauding clone sentience and individuality is a bit of a double standard when those same people dismiss droids as merely extensions of their creators. Even though Rex famously denies this, the fact is that clones are programmed to obey orders without question and are manufactured. Most clones only have limited independent thinking and a clone being able to live outside a military is incredibly rare. The only reason they develop individuality is because of experience. But the funny thing is, droids develop individuality for the same reason. The only difference is that droids regularly have their memories wiped specifically to prevent them from developing individuality and potentially rebelling. There's a moment in Heir to the Empire where Luke is asked why he has never wiped C-3PO's memories in all the years he's known him, and Luke reveals that he's uncomfortable with the idea of stripping his friend of individuality. And I don't know if you have played KOTOR 2 yet, but there's a mission where HK-47 argues with HK-50, who dismisses him as obsolete. But HK-47 argues that he is superior because he has developed individuality and has given himself a higher purpose and meaning because he has never had his mind wiped. These examples show that droid sentience should not be played for laughs so much in the franchise. In fact, I think the galaxy is overdue for a galaxy-wide droid revolution just to show people that sentient droids deserve equal treatment.
This is actually addressed in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Measure of a Man" where Lt. Data's rights are debated because he's an android and I wish Star Wars had something similar.
What do you think?
You hit the nail on the head with this one. I kept pointing at my computer the whole video yelling “THIS! ALL OF THIS!” So thank you!
Andor was 🔥🔥🔥
Andor is a smartly written show, a true anomaly in the Disney era.
Andor is the only thing Disney did that felt like Star Wars, it’s as real as it gets
It didn't feel like Star Wars at all. Terrible show 🙈
Right?!
Andor fans fail to see they are just the other side of the Disney Star Wars coin.
They are so hard up for good Star Wars that they react with hostility if you criticize them for their weird love of a semi-decent show made with a talented cast and crew and a skilled director who has contempt for the Star Wars films. Andor could have been the same show, but switch a few names, and it a new title, and boom, and it could be set in any other Sci-fi universe!
To me, it's like Halloween 3. That movie has no Micahel Myers, no slasher, and was about a corporation selling haunted masks to kids for Halloween that would turn kids into killers. It was a great movie, but it was NOT a "Halloween" flick. The studio tried to turn the film into an anthology series, but the fans did not care for that.
Andor fans don't care it is not "Star Wars" as Lucas intended. It's Star Wars stripped of its nature and transformed into Solaris, Blade Runner, or whatever hoity-toity version of SciFi they now enjoy, rather than the campy, exciting space opera about family it was created as.
Andor aficionados get as vicious as Reylos at the hint of any negativity and are worse in a way. Reylos are silly, weird and catty. Fans of Andor can be as mean, but worse, they are so pretentious in defending it. They'll accuse you of not appreciating quality television and cinema or being too stupid to understand its subtleties and complicated morality.
I'm almost 47 and have seen thousands and thousands of films & shows from the late 1890s to around 2010, so those fart sniffers can take a hike with those critiques.
These are the same cinema -bros who think Nolan is the GOAT of directors (I don't hate bros; I adore men, but these guys are weirdly defensive about their media preferences) and have made Shawshank Redemption the highest-rated movie of all time for over 15 years on IMDB. Mind you, it's an excellent solid flick, but is it the greatest ever in all of cinema history?
Andor was "good" compared to the horrible quality that came before, so they see a halfway decent show and ignore that it was created by someone on the record with his dislike of Star Wars. These fans declare: "Finally, Star Wars for adults. It has grown up at last! Andor is a thinking person's show that doesn't have to be full of excitement. It doesn't spoon-feed you, and there's no corny dialogue. It's on par with Breaking Bad and The Wire. Best Star Wars since Rogue One (or Empire...). Plus, it's great Star Wars because it's not about Jedi, Sith, Light, Dark, the Force, no pew-pew, no blasters, no aliens, no weird planets, no old characters (except boring Mon Mothma) to connect to the kiddie films."
First, it doesn't sound like they like Star Wars; it just shows in space.
2nd, have these people never heard of the Old Republic? Bane? Plagueis?
Those stories are more epic than Game of Thrones, with Sith, Jedi, Mandalorians, bounty hunters, smugglers, criminal syndicates, politics, intense violence, and deep philosophical themes. If anywhere was the place to make an adult Star Wars, it was anywhere between 5000 years before BBY to just before the TPM (skipping the 'High Republic'.) I have said this before and I stand by it: if you only like the OT (especially just the first two films) and despise the PT so much it violated your childhood, you're not a "Star Wars" fan. You are an OT fan who likes the gritty cinematic aesthetic of the 1970s and early 1980s. You are not a "George Lucas Star Wars" fan because you think you know true SW more than he does.
So, how does that make them any different than Disney SW defenders?
Agreed. Just because there aren’t lightsabers doesn’t mean that it isn’t Star Wars
G'day Thor. Long time subscriber, love your balanced and nuanced SW content - thanks for your passion and your work. This whole 'this is the new truth - fans just need to put on their grown up pants and deal with it' line a few fans and Disney are trying to force on us with the whole Acolyte/Ashoka/BOBF/Kenobi/Mando S3/TLJ/ROS nonsense does not resonate with most fans. The EU did. I never came across anyone who had anything like the same level of disappointment with any of the EU novels, novels which expanded the universe in a way which was so respectful of the OT (most of the EU I love was written pre prequels). You may have covered this is a video I might have missed, but in your opinion, why did the EU get it so right while Disney - Rogue One, Andor, and Mando S1&2 aside - has consistently got it so wrong? I think most of us know the answer but keen to see your take on this. Cheers
Andor was amazing Star Wars. There was so much in it that was exactly Star Wars. The only difference was the way it was written and played out. As far as I am aware, nothing in that show contradicted cannon. Previously established characters were still those same previously established characters, with more depth added to them (Mon Mothma). However, the Acolyte contradicts established cannon (unless they can somehow wrangle the "Sith" issue in) and redefines the established nature of characters. I'm fine with a ret-con that changes understanding of established cannon, such as the introduction of Midi-chlorians in relation to force strength, since it didn't break anything (like "the force is strong in my family" actually makes more sense when there is a biological aspect to it). But re-defining the Force itself and the light vs dark side, that isn't Star Wars. It is fan-fiction, since it can't possibly be reconciled with already established cannon. Best case, The Acolyte is just Disney's entry into creating EU content.
But back to Andor, I would love for them to somehow bring in Kyle Katarn. Yeah, Rogue One removed the possibility of his involvement in the Death Star plans from being cannon, same with how the sequels removed all the post-empire cannon for him, but he is still too good of a character to leave out of Andor. He would fit perfectly in the show. They already brought in the Bryar pistol, why not bring in Kyle?
Andor enhances a new hope
I think you have the right instinct, and that feeling is probably in everyone who finds this story so wrong and disturbing. While I do think there is nothing wrong with a story giving the Sith the starring role, after all, a lot of people love a great villain, I do wonder why this show was ever greenlit for production at Lucasfilm. Why are they always so determined to beat us over the head with "Jedi bad--Sith good", "Luke was dumb and failed--Rey had to join with Kylo to be good." What is in THEIR mindsets?
this video epitomizes why this is the only SW channel I still listen to, some real talk here
The main thing is neither Headland nor Obaid whatever truly is a fan of SW and don't understand at all what it's about. Don't care a whit what they say.
The people who made Andor didn't use fanservice or capitalized old characters
They actually had the balls to use a not famous character and used it to tell a story with heart
One of the most interesting things Andor does, it shows the competence required to maintain a tyranny. It doesn't portray a bunch of clowns. Cold and calculating processionals are a darker enemy than a moustache twirling ego maniac. Also, Storm Troopers are shown in a truly terrifying light.
Andor is the only Star Wars that expanded logically upon the mythology, while staying true to Lucas’ vision. Nothing else comes close.
Just watched the fillerest episode that’s ever filled. NOT ONE QUESTION ANSWERED, ASKED or even explored. 2 more to go…
My view is this...Star Wars should be Star Wars.
All we need to look at are the OT, elements of the PT, and some of the Legends materials and understand why these elements are near-universally praised.
Like you, Star Wars means a lot to me. It hurts my soul whenever I see LucasFilm behaving the way it does toward the fans and painting us all with a broad brush.
Hey Thor, speaking of Star Wars’ morality, what do you think about the Nightsisters? You’ve mentioned that the Whitches of Dathomir inspired Acolyte’s witches, and this reminded me how confusing Nightsisters are.
After listening to the Book of Sith’s chapters on them, (tho technically legends) it's obvious they're darkside, but bcoz its from a Nightsister’s view, I still get why people are confused. They reject the separation of the Force and the darkside. They embraces growth and life-giving from the Winged Goddess (seems like the Daughter) and violence, ambition and consumption with the Fanged God (like the Son) as all being facts of life. A Yin Yang view of the Force, EXCEPT they never preach diplomacy, conservation, or symbiosis, not even between genders. This is not simply proactive (Yang energy), this is the darkside, characterized by extremes. They embrace violence to eat, but never mercy to temper hate or to prevent killing wastefully. They even encourage stepping on the weak and pursuing power almost for its own sake, and less for survival or to protect the clan.
I’m not saying all this was intentional, though. Like, voodoo dolls being a Winged Goddess thing rather than darkside. Or the green smoke effect, implied to come from Dathomir’s Force nexus (the icor), still confuses many.
Your thoughts?
This is a microcosm of what Legends does to the Force.
Witches of Dathomir was originally introduced in Courtship of Princess Leia, one of the first Legends novels, and were split to a bunch of clans, some of which such as Nightsisters were explicitly Dark Sided (may have even used the term).
They were included in the Filoniverse in TCW in which they were retconned in some ways, and all but said to be darksiders, and never implied otherwise in any way. They are also a villainous force in TCW, only helping Ventress while she's a rogue darksider.
Seriously: Filoni has not once brought onscreen a heroic nightsister, the closest we get is Ventress after her redemption.
The things you cite are other writers then trying to bend Filoni's retcon around the concept of the Mortis Gods. The result is a mess because Nightsisters were made to be on the Dark Side ie. out of the balance Mortis Gods represent.
As a result, at best we get Merrin pulling a Mara Jade (someone who's backstory implies they are a darksider switching to the Light with little fuss as they become a main character). At worst we get writers trying to gerrymander the Force to Moorcock's dualism again.
@@mpnuorva I genuinly don't know if I should believe any of you.😂 That is what I thought originally. That the books were made to make the Clone Wars' Nightsisters and Holy Trinity rip off make sense. But I was corrected.
And who is Moorcock??
@@mpnuorva And I'm sorry for p1$$ing you off. Just from your choice of words, my comment is apparently triggering
I have to disagree with your point about the dark side. The prequels taught us that light isn’t always right, and that the Jedi are fallible. They were so complacent and detached from the world that they allowed evil to spread out of control. It also demonstrated that ideals like strength, and passion aren’t inherently evil despite being virtues of the dark side. Additionally, I believe that the Jedi’s practice of letting go of worldly attachments is both unrealistic and detrimental. The people and things we care about are what gives people a purpose in life, and are a motivation to keep moving forward.
Just picked up the Andor steel book collectors edition today.
My 3rd fave piece of Star Wars following Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith.
《The Greatest Teacher, Dizney STAR WARS is》
~Yoda
...imo, none of the Dizney STAR WARS Movies tried to Build Upon George's Ideas, they all tried to Overwrite them...and Failed.
...from SOLO, we findoubt that Han is alone, til he showers with Chewie...& Lando is alone, til he showers with L3-37, & then she dies.
...from "ROGUE ONE", we findoubt that "Luck Skywalker" doesn't "Use The Force" to Blow Up the Deathstar, he Uses "Blind, Simple, Doo-Dah, Clueless Luck" to Set Off a Booby Trap. & Cassian Andor kills a Rebel with a Blaster Bolt to the Back, & then everybody dies.
...from FORCE AWAKENS, we findoubt that "Han Nopeople" is a Bum...he shoots Chewie's blaster, & then he dies.
...from LAST JEDI, we findoubt that "Jake Skywalker" is a bum...he drinks some space milk, & then he dies.
...from RISE OF SKYWALKER, we findoubt that Rey is a Palpatine...she kills her Grandfather, & then Leia dies.
...if Dizney+ STAR WARS TV Shows are your "Space Jam", nobody can take that away from you, or cares to.
...Bob Iger can ruin Dizney, but Dizney can't ruin STAR WARS...
...nobody can ruin George Lucas's STAR WARS.
👽 🖖 🤖
"Truly wonderful, the headland of a child is"
~Yoda
I hate that they aren’t going to have Director Krennic until season two. They should have replaced the Dedra Meero subplot with a Director Krennic and Galen Erso subplot.
Syrils arc is definitely morally grey
Hey Thor, I have not watched the Acolyte show but I have been hearing all the buzz about it, a lot of it particularly about the fans reaction to it and Lucasfilm’s reaction to that initial reaction. What are your thoughts to Lucasfilm’s response to any criticism, whether constructive or not.
I want to continue enjoying this universe, but it would seem the more of it I watch the more apathetic I become to any new media that is produced by Lucasfilm.
That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed some of the shows that have emerged since Disney started the new canon, I enjoyed most of the animated shows as well as Andor and some of the Mandalorian, even certain scenes in the Kenobi show i liked. But the constant news, speculation, and the fandom's divisiveness have made it hard ti enjoy and discuss the content critically.
What do you think should change, both on the creative side and audience side, if this world we've all enjoyed and found hope in, is to continue in the future?
Rogue One is my favorite of all Star War Movies. It solved a lot of gaps in New Hope and Return of the Jedi. Great story, screen writing was spot on and great acting.
Andor is literally the best thing Disney have done and thus is the best thing since the prequels. It's so good
ooof, swing and a miss with this one. That is EXACTLY what Rogue one did, and it's precisely why I hate it. I'm not saying that justifies the Acolyte, I'm saying it's why it sucked too. I don't know (or care) enough about Andor to make the same claim, but this really just came across as "I like it, so it's okay". That's okay to have that opinion, sometimes retcons are an improvement, but let's not pretend like this was all one nice cohesive story written out ahead of time. Star wars has been a bunch of junk cobbled together for a long time now, and Dinsey's lack of any quality has just made it more apparent to most than before.
Hey Thor... Thanks for including my comment! And yeah... I think you're Gen X like me, and we're definitely too old to be physically fighting. IcyHot anyone?
It is going to end with a coverup and no survivors
Hey Thor. How do you feel about Star Wars Vision now and Star Wars now? How dose a forgien company tackles star wars better than Star Wars itself?
On page 15 of the book "Once Upon A Galaxy: A Journal of The Making of The Empire Strikes Back", Irvin Kershner was asked about the conflict between good and evil in the Star Wars films. He is quoted as saying, "Well, for example, Princess Leia's Rebel forces will not do anything in order to win. They will not sacrifice lives. They do not descend to the level of the enemy. That's the difference between the Rebels and the Empire. It's possible to fight because you love, not just because you hate."
I think anyone who thinks Rogue One and Andor are continuing on the traditions of the OT and are the best model for Star Wars going forward should consider what Kershner is saying in this quote. 👃