[HN Gopher] Cinematography of "Andor"
___________________________________________________________________
Cinematography of "Andor"
Author : rcarmo
Score : 289 points
Date : 2025-06-01 09:44 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pushing-pixels.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pushing-pixels.org)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> But at the same time, I'm so happy that the digital revolution
| happened. It's a bigger toolbox for your creativity, especially
| for night scenes. It's much easier to light something natural,
| and to do something with less.
|
| No. This is why everything is so dark. With film,
| cinematographers had to hedge their bets. They could not risk a
| scene being too dark, something they would not be sure of until
| the film was developed. Today, digital tech means they can see
| the results live on monitor screens. So they can cut the lights
| and make everything super dark without worry. Forget "natural".
| There is nothing natural about watching a screen in the dark
| where your eyes cannot properly adjust as they would in the real
| world. Also, I want to watch TV in my kitchen without having to
| douse every light in the house.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I definitely have this problem a lot with modern TV. Full
| screen brightness and it's still hard to make out the details.
| Perhaps they're targeting HDR screens that have more dynamic
| range?
| xnx wrote:
| > Full screen brightness and it's still hard to make out the
| details
|
| LCD screens can't do true black. Film, CRT, and OLED can.
| mkesper wrote:
| Had this when playing streams from PC to TV. Had to increase
| gamma a whole lot, just increasing brightness does not really
| help.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of stuff is dark and a lot of sound is muddled. My
| hearing isn't the very best but I've sort of surrendered and
| just use close captioned for everything.
| meowface wrote:
| My hearing is pretty good and I am a native English speaker
| and it is shocking how often I need to turn on subtitles
| every few minutes in some new show I'm watching because I
| have no clue what was said even after rewinding three times.
| At the same time, I am extremely distracted by subtitles so I
| can't leave them on permanently.
|
| The darkness problem is also quite annoying, though varies a
| lot by show. I just started watching Silo, and while I
| understand most scenes are supposed to take place in a pretty
| dark environment (inside of a silo), everything is just _so_
| dark in almost all scenes.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I respect the idea that all dialog need not be decipherable
| (any more than it tends to be in real life). Incidental
| sounds/comments are okay as long as a key plot-point does not
| suffer (and you'd like to think they would make sure that was
| not the case of the more important lines).
| lupire wrote:
| If the most accessible surface content is already better
| than a normal show, then adding extra hard to access
| content, for world building and rewatch enhancements, is
| more than fair. Andor passes that bar.
| kenhwang wrote:
| I echo the sound/dialog complaint for Andor as well. I think
| it's one of the few high production budget shows in recent
| memory that sounded like it was mixed for 2.0 audio.
|
| Watching on my 7.1 setup was actually more annoying than
| watching on my computer with 2.0. There's a very obvious
| bass-boost as if they assumed there isn't subwoofer in the
| setup, and dialog didn't get any clearer with a dedicated
| center, it was still kinda floaty across the front. Surround
| channels just sounded like they echo'd the L/R channels.
| cwillu wrote:
| Andor didn't really have any issues with that, IMO.
| LilBytes wrote:
| Depends on your TV, watching it on an LED TV was difficult,
| darks bled into each other. On OLED (and I assume Micro-LED)
| though it was just _phenominal_.
| cwillu wrote:
| I watched it on an old lcd in a bright room, and personally
| had no issues.
| atoav wrote:
| As someone who grew up on the countryside: many people don't
| really know _how_ dark it can get outside, as you mentioned
| your eyes _do_ adjust, but that will only take you so far. I
| remember walking home on a cloudy new moon night through the
| woods with both eyes fully opened and adjusted and I couldn 't
| even make out the contour of the sky.
|
| So yeah, not seeing shit can be natural. Whether it is good for
| the narration or 100% of your viewers like it is a different
| can of worms. Let's only say that the cinematographers thought
| making the viewer have to concentrate on what is going on at
| that point was benefitial.
|
| The "natural" part about shooting digitally is that you can go
| outside and use a camera in dusk and the picture isn't all
| black or incredibly grainy as it was back when you shot at
| film. And that's about it. In digital you can shoot with
| available light only in more situations than before. In the end
| cameras perceive light situations different than the human eye
| so it is still the task of the cinematographer to do that
| translation.
| meowface wrote:
| The cinematography, editing, writing, and overall feel of this
| show far exceed any Star Wars movie I've seen. I had long since
| written off the Star Wars franchise as a shameless cash grab
| since the original movies but they proved they could do something
| cool with it.
|
| I'd definitely watch a new movie if it were handled by the same
| team that made Andor. Prequel, sequel, side story, or re-telling
| of the originals.
| ghaff wrote:
| For quite a while, the further the films/series are separated
| from the original trilogy, the better they seem to be.
| meowface wrote:
| The first sequel just mirroring the original movie was so
| lame. Reference-baiting.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's probably hard for the producers not to do fan service.
| But they can go overboard.
| lucideer wrote:
| Ironically Andor is one of the closest to A New Hope
| narratively.
| ghaff wrote:
| It ties in but isn't really part of the main storyline
| except incidentally. You could say the same thing about
| Rogue One though the tie-in is even stronger in that case.
| The Mandalorian is pretty separate other than baby yoda.
| lucideer wrote:
| It's not part of the main storyline of Luke's journey as
| an individual & the Jedi order but it is a very big part
| of _one_ of the main storylines of a ragtag bunch of
| rebels sticking it to the empire.
|
| A storyline which I'd argue was strongest in A New Hope &
| the initial trilogy & was weakened by the increased focus
| on individual storylines in the anakin & rey trilogies.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I'd say this is giving the Anakin trilogy an unfair
| shake: While I don't enjoy watching the prequels much for
| being clumsy films, you have to hand it to Lucas for
| trying to significantly expand his space opera by adding
| in galactical politics, etc. Any thrust to make _Star
| Wars_ about ideology and governance (and specifically
| parliamentary democracy vs. facism) really came from the
| prequels, and arguably you couldn 't have _Andor_ without
| their template just as much as _A New Hope_ delivers the
| plot hooks for its premise. In retrospect, while its
| flowering may be _Andor_ , it's the prequels that gave
| the franchise a bigger signature and message than just
| being a family drama. Taken together they now make _Star
| Wars_ about something, which I think it never really had
| before. "What's that star war about?" is something you
| can answer now.
| toyg wrote:
| Yes, the overall narrative of the prequels was good and
| very promising. It's so unfortunate that they turned out
| to simply be shockingly bad as movies - "clumsly" really
| doesn't describe how stodgy and badly put-together they
| were.
|
| I honestly hope Disney will eventually remake them from
| scratch, with the excuse that FX have progressed
| dramatically since then. They could even reuse McEwan,
| considering he's supposed to be an older character
| already.
| twoodfin wrote:
| My main (mild) criticism of the now-complete Andor->Rogue
| One arc is that it only put its toe into the waters of
| the Death Star.
|
| Giving that concept a thematic heft well beyond its
| Flash-Gordon-supervillain origins appeared "fully armed
| and operational" in the story, but in the end it barely
| rises to subtext.
| toyg wrote:
| But there is no conflict, no interest, in exploring a
| building site. What are you going to talk about,
| contractors installing pipes? How they get the best
| canteen food?
|
| It's actually better for the Death Star to be unseen, so
| that its full horror can only be imagined - and hence,
| becoming greater - in our minds.
| ghaff wrote:
| And as has been explored the economics don't really make
| sense.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You could have the exact same story on a completely
| different universe, without using any of the Star Wars IP
| by doing only superficial adjustments.
|
| But also yes, it's the closest thing to the original theme
| since the second movie.
| colordrops wrote:
| The second season is heavily tied to in-universe events
| that lead to Rogue One and A New Hope.
| e3bc54b2 wrote:
| It is one of the reasons I love Andor so much. Rogue One
| was so good that it elevated a A New Hope and Andor in turn
| (especially after S2) elevates Rogue One in similar
| fashion. The movie/show on their own are some of the
| greatest, but they don't limit their achievements to
| themselves and like a rising tide lift whoever they connect
| to. It is really really hard to pull that off, and people
| in Andor somehow managed that twice.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I maintain that the Jedi are the most boring thing about Star
| Wars, and the less about them we hear in a story, the better.
| Andor managed to go the whole series run without a single
| lightsaber going brrr, and it's the best Star Wars outside of
| the original trilogy.
|
| The empire is a compelling thing to make stories about, and
| what Andor does well is actually make the whole thing
| believable. It's not a bunch of cackling supervillains aiming
| to be maximally evil, like it is in so many of the movies...
| it's an actually-believable thing, filled with characters
| with their own motivations, none of whom are explicitly evil
| by themselves, but through all of them evil is done. The
| episodes of season 1 when Andor is arrested and sent to
| prison are the most compelling and actually-scary depictions
| of the empire ever put to film. It's just that good.
| cwillu wrote:
| You're aware of Rogue One, right?
| meowface wrote:
| I watched it for the first time immediately after finishing
| Andor. Definitely better than the other Star Wars films but
| definitely not as good as Andor. (I'm aware the showrunner of
| Andor co-wrote Rogue One, but Andor really seems like a
| different tier.)
| mcv wrote:
| Andor is by far the best Star Wars. Rogue One is very good,
| and the only movie that's in the same league as the
| originals, but Andor is so much better.
|
| I don't think we'll see anything on the same level as Andor
| again; they already cut the original plans from 5 seasons
| to 2; it's simply too expensive and costs too much time to
| do it this well. But I do hope that future Star Wars shows
| will try to follow at least some aspects of its example:
| better writing, more human stories, focus on core themes,
| not on fan service or milking established characters.
|
| Of course production values will be lower, but I can live
| with that if they get the other stuff right.
| meowface wrote:
| >they already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2
|
| Wow that's a shame. I had no idea. Assuming they could've
| kept up the quality, that would've been amazing for their
| reputation and retention.
| carrychains wrote:
| That "cut" happened before they even started working on
| the show. Despite the original thought of 5 seasons, it
| was essentially planned for 2 seasons right from the
| start.
| boppo1 wrote:
| >5 seasons
|
| Thank god. There's not enough meat on the bone, the
| writing would never have been good enough to support
| this.
|
| We need more excellent, tightly spun stories.
| colordrops wrote:
| 3 seasons would have been perfect. Season 2 was too
| packed.
| manmal wrote:
| Really? I was a bit annoyed about the multiple ,,1 year
| later" jumps. There's plenty that happened in that time
| that we haven't seen.
| LaGrange wrote:
| It built tension by itself. Time skips reinforce the idea
| that things are _moving fast_.
|
| If we didn't have them, it would turn it into a drag. A
| dramatic year looks much more impressive when you compare
| it to what was a year before, than when you look at it
| day by day.
| mcv wrote:
| I was actually hoping for 4 seasons. Considering how they
| put 4 different, excellent stories in season 1. Season
| basically told a single story (the Ghorman massacre)
| spread out over 4 years. There were many moments where
| I'd hoped they'd dive a bit deeper into some other
| aspects, like what would become of the Maya Pei Brigade,
| the stolen TIE Avenger, other missions where we see Andor
| grow into the expert spy that he's clearly become. And of
| course more about how they bring the various parts of the
| rebellion together, the move to Yavin, etc.
|
| I think there was more than enough room to fill at least
| another season. Maybe two.
|
| But hey, I'm more than happy we got this much.
| andrepd wrote:
| The originals are also very mid-tier, especially the last
| one. It survives on nostalgia mostly.
| mcv wrote:
| Return of the Jedi does have the most important scene in
| all of Star Wars: the confrontation between Luke and the
| Emperor. The rest of the movie has plenty of
| shortcomings, but that scene more than redeems it.
| techpineapple wrote:
| This explains one of my criticisms of the show, which is
| I would have really like to see more of the development
| of the rebellion on Yavin, as it stands they sort of hint
| at it, but I was somewhat unsatisfied by the explanation
| or fabric of that evolution. Lots of core plot
| progression are showed through images, when the whole
| point of a tv show is that you should be able to show it
| more gradually.
|
| These I think were 12 episode seasons, maybe five 8
| episode seasons would have been better.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| > hey already cut the original plans from 5 seasons to 2;
| it's simply too expensive and costs too much time to do
| it this well.
|
| From some of the interviews I saw it seemed like the time
| aspect was the big driver. One in particular Diego Luna
| was talking about a conversation he had with Gilroy and
| Gilroy was like "God it'd take us 10 years to make this".
| I get that logistically that can be a tough thing to do
| with actors, and also it'd be a bit odd to have Diego
| Luna be very noticeably older in Season 5 than he is in
| Rogue One.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| You guys are excluding the George Lucas movies from
| discussion right?
|
| In my opinion nothing ever came even close and I gave up on
| SW after the second Kylo Ren movie. Rouge one was cool
| though, also first episodes of Mandalorian..
|
| Should I really try Andor after all the bad stuff Disney
| made?
|
| A few days ago I watched the new LILO and Stitch and that
| was great, so maybe good people still work at Disney ...
| sylens wrote:
| Andor is the best Star Wars that Disney has made
| drunkonvinyl wrote:
| To your second question, yes. Andor would be exactly the
| wrong one to bail on if you've made it through those
| others.
| lupire wrote:
| Andor bailed on a Bail, ended up having Bail on twice.
| baq wrote:
| The only Star Wars worth watching as an adult is Andor.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _Should I really try Andor after all the bad stuff
| Disney made?_
|
| It's difficult to articulate Andor's quality to someone
| who hasn't seen it & is framing it in the context of
| things like Mandalorian. I can't stress enough that it's
| absolutely not just a "better" tv show than Mandalorian,
| &c. Not only is that an understatement, but it's also a
| fundamentally different beast to those shows. It's in a
| different category of quality.
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| It's the first "prestige" Star Wars TV show.
| guilamu wrote:
| "You guys are excluding the George Lucas movies from
| discussion right?"
|
| We are not. Andor is the best Star Wars ever made, full
| stop. IMHO, it surpasses, by far, anything Lucas ever
| did.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| Yes, it's easy to view Lucas' films with a rose-tinted
| lens, but try and watch them now and you see: poor
| acting, poor writing, one-dimensional characters and plot
| points.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| And by far the coolest looking spaceships ever seen in
| any medium. The production design was incredible.
|
| At least X-Wings, TIE Fighters, Corellian Corvettes,
| Imperial Shuttles and Star Destroyers. Not a fan of the
| Millennium Falcon tbh.
| wslh wrote:
| The TIE Avenger starship [1] in the series seems
| incredible. I cannot find the official toy.
|
| [1] https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/TIE_Avenger
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Yes indeed, looks really damn cool.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I didn't think we loved it for the acting, but the
| production and world building which Lucas excels at IMO.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's a different beast. For me, there's too many things
| in Andor that don't fit conceptually, logically or
| tonally with the original trilogy. So if you like the
| world building the OT did and/or hinted at, Andor might
| not come through on that. Of course, the prequel trilogy
| (again quite a different beast) had similar issues.
| babyshake wrote:
| The prequels are trying to do what Andor does well,
| including a more political focus. But Andor just blows it
| out of the Naboo water.
| boppo1 wrote:
| It's barely star wars. It's a competent spy thriller with
| star wars paint.
|
| Turns out that makes for pretty good adult oriented star
| wars.
| Joeboy wrote:
| Tony Gilroy's mentioned a lot of influences on Andor, few
| if any of which had anything to do with Star Wars. Off
| the top of my head:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Shadows
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Berlin
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_village_fran%C3%A7ais
| ahns wrote:
| To add to this, non-exhaustively, from various other
| places including reddit:
|
| Krennic's meeting on kalkite:
|
| * structured like the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference
|
| * takes place at the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehlsteinhaus
|
| the Aldhani heist:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Tiflis_bank_robbery
|
| Ferrix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
|
| Vel Sartha:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Dugdale
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolours_Price
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
|
| Kleya Marki:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan
|
| the Dhanis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi_peopl
| e#Discriminatio...
|
| escape from Narkina 5:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_Prison_escape
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauthausen_concentration_
| camp
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobibor_uprising
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrba%E2%80%93Wetzler_report
|
| Rix Road:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporals_killings
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh#Funeral
|
| Mon Mothma's speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_W
| els#Speech_in_opposition
|
| Ghormans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance
|
| Ghorman massacre:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabaa_massacre
|
| * and perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_weav
| ers%27_uprising
|
| Obviously the comparisons aren't exact, but it's clear
| the show had a great many sources of inspiration (or
| maybe history rhymes as it always has).
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Star Wars is barely Star Wars: it's just Flash Gordon and
| Dam Busters with Star Wars paint.
|
| You can't escape your influences, and you don't need to.
| rendall wrote:
| I felt like The Mandalorian was a step above its nearest
| best of Star Wars TV. Andor is a step above that.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I'm on both sides of the fence with early Mandalorian. I
| need to watch it again until it jumps the shark because I
| don't know how early it did that.
|
| The latter episodes were incredibly laboured, with the
| narrative being spelt out, as if to a child, by various
| characters. I think it may have always been like that,
| but the look and feel overwhelmed the ridiculous dialogue
| for a while.
|
| If they were more clever with the body language of the
| main character, then the others wouldn't have had to
| carry the direction of the storyline so heavily verbally.
| Again, I think this was done well early, but kinda lost
| in the desperation for grogu storyline and screen time
| cuteness.
|
| I'd have to watch it again, and right now it ain't worth
| the time.
|
| Haven't seen Andor, but now it's "on the list".
| colordrops wrote:
| Mandalorian started out strong and got progressively
| worse with each episode. Don't even bother with season 3.
| fernandopj wrote:
| Agreed. First couple of episodes are so good, when I was
| watching it really felt like the magic from watching EpIV
| again, as everything felt like being introduced to a new
| culture far away.
|
| It really nails the feeling of watching an old Western
| movie where a cowboy bonds with an innocent person who
| needs protection against all odds.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| I watched two or three episodes of The Mandalorian and
| was very underwhelmed. Childishly simplistic plot, but
| much too violent to be a kid's show. (Although now I say
| that, I guess the original movies are both childish and
| violent.)
|
| There's a bit where the main character very obviously
| levels up and gets to choose a power-up. Then he sees
| somebody else with a different power-up and goes "wow, I
| should get one of those". That confirmed to me that it
| wanted to be a videogame rather than a serious drama.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Word of warning, because there is just so much praise
| online about it, it is a very slow burn. I gave up on
| first season half way through. I picked it up again after
| first season was fully out because of all the good
| reviews and was happy that I finished.
|
| I recently rewatched season one in preparation for season
| two with my partner who hadn't watched it, and she wanted
| to give up around the same point I did previously and
| only powered through for the same reason. She was also
| happy that she finished
| fettel wrote:
| I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan, fell in love as a young
| kid. I remember being in 8th grade and being so excited
| for the prequels, and then walking out of the theater
| after Ep. 1 and feeling like something was just... wrong.
| I knew that it was junk, and not the Star Wars I fell in
| love with.
|
| And from there it was pretty much further and further
| downhill, with occasional glimpses of hope that were
| quickly dashed. I tried to watch a couple more entries
| after the prequels, but I finally gave up and wrote it
| off. I've missed almost the entire last 10 years of
| content.
|
| A buddy at work finally convinced me to watch Andor, and
| I'm so grateful he did. It is superb. I read a reddit
| comment that said, "This is the show that made me feel ok
| to be a Star Wars fan again," and I can't agree more. In
| a lot of ways it still feels different from Star Wars.
| It's hard to explain because it's in the same universe,
| and has similar themes (which is why it doesn't feel
| totally out of place), but the tone is different. It's
| not about Jedi knights on a mission from destiny. It's
| about ordinary people making decisions, and choosing
| hope, in the face of the oppressive might of the Empire.
| But god is it good. Excellent writing, great acting,
| suspense, intrigue, nuance, and powerful emotional scenes
| (that are earned by proper story buildup).
|
| So all of that is to say, it might not be exactly what
| you expect, and it won't simply be "Star Wars, again,"
| but yes you should absolutely watch it. It's a fine work
| of art.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| As someone who's starting reading non-jedi Star Wars
| books, I realized that Jedis are just a splash in the
| ocean. There's Thrawn universe, Battlefront, Rebel era,
| X-wings, Bad Batch, too many to mention.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I actually greatly prefer the prequels to the original
| trilogy. I suspect it has to do with the fact that I was
| a child when episode 1 came out and I was still a child
| when the prequels concluded.
|
| A big part of the problem is that these movies were
| written, basically, for 12-year old boys. You're not
| going to be able to get that spark back as an adult, and
| it's not easy to make a movie that appeals so strongly to
| both demographics. And much like wu-tang, star wars (and
| other fun stories) is for the children. Andor is at least
| more adult-oriented, I think.
|
| So, do I like the new movies? No, I literally slept
| through the last two they were so boring, and I found the
| lack of coherent plot baffling. And yes, it does make me
| a little sad. But seeing little girls dressed up like
| Rey, I'm reminded that there are better things for me to
| care about.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think it's probably even truer of TV series than films
| that you can't really go home again. But then I'm
| probably forgetting various Disney and other films that I
| probably loved as a kid that I'd find it torture to sit
| through today.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Some stuff this is true with, but other stuff can age
| better. I loved MASH as a kid (huge props to the writers
| for pulling that off), but it's side-splitting as an
| adult.
| ghaff wrote:
| Certainly one of the great series. I think a lot of 60s
| sitcoms probably age less well.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| IDK, I feel like good kids movies tend to stay good into
| adulthood. Presumably you wouldn't feel like it's torture
| to sit through something like the Lion King (the original
| of course) as an adult? Like I'm not saying they're
| amazing movies, but I feel like good kids movies aren't
| painful for adults to watch. You can still have good
| writing, it just has to be something a kid can follow.
| ghaff wrote:
| Sophisticated animation can play at multiple levels.
| Certainly a lot of Disney and Pixar (OK now Disney).
| Warner Brothers cartoons.
| emblo wrote:
| I agree with most of what you're saying--that much of it
| is driven by nostalgia, and it's not worth getting super
| worked up about these things, and it's fine for people to
| like whatever they like--but if you do want to get into a
| discussion about art and the relative merits of these
| shows, there are good arguments that the originals
| executed on things like character and plot that the
| prequels just didn't. Red Letter Media did the best
| review series on why exactly the prequels felt so
| unsatisfying to so many people, and it's more than just
| preference and has to do with blunders in fundamental
| aspects of storytelling. All of that said it's totally
| fine for people to like them, and you're right that there
| are better things to fret over.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Oh yea, critiquing movies is fun as hell, and with a
| franchise like star wars there's basically endless
| opportunity for it. I basically think Phantom Menace gets
| way too much critique, Clone Wars/A New Hope/Return of
| the Jedi don't get enough. Empire Strikes Back is really
| good, and whatever the third movie is was just kind of
| bland and depressing(it has some of the best action
| sequences of the series, but Padme should have featured
| more strongly before dying offscreen.)
|
| But there's a reason why the star wars fandom has such a
| stank reputation, and it's 100% because adult men care
| way too much about something meant for children to a
| quite creepy extent. Two things immediately come to mind:
| 1) the explicit and physical sexualization of Leia, which
| I understand but definitely don't think was necessary in
| retrospect (at least not so ham-handedly), and 2) the
| abuse of the guy who did the Jar Jar Binks voice acting.
| It's not his fault Lucas wrote the character as a moronic
| alien speaking patois. I wasn't aware of the abuse until
| long after it was over, but I _adored_ jar jar binks as
| an eight year old boy and didn 't understand why he was
| thereafter sidelined. This makes me also question whether
| criticisms by adults of the new content is a reflection
| of what _we_ actually loved growing up. Could a character
| as weird as Yoda make it into a film now without catering
| much stronger to people eager to deconstruct him into eg
| orientalist stereotypes? Would Luke really be allowed to
| kiss his sister? Would Han Solo be allowed to shoot
| first, really?
|
| Even the sexualization of Leia--look I'm into pulp
| fiction, I understand what shallow sexual stereotypes can
| deliver in terms of entertainment, it wasn't and still
| isn't crazy. You can see the same phenomenon in the
| current explosion of mass-published erotica ("romance").
| But the stories I've heard about what Fisher was
| subjected to make me look at the _fandom_ with pretty
| severe prejudice. It makes nerds look bad, and I also
| think the success of Indiana Jones shows that this wasn
| 't necessary. It's also not the easiest thing to explain
| to a child or teenager who grasps something of the power
| dynamic between Jabba the Hutt and Leia but doesn't have
| the social knowledge or, frankly, cynicism to make the
| sense of it we do as adults.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > the abuse of the guy who did the Jar Jar Binks voice
| acting. It's not his fault Lucas wrote the character as a
| moronic alien speaking patois.
|
| Season 2 of the ILM documentary on D+ goes into this,
| it's a really fascinating documentary for folks into
| special effects and/or star wars.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I enjoyed the Red Letter Media series but felt it was
| unfair on the Prequels (which is fine, RLM is still a
| great series.) I ended up watching the OT a bit after
| Episode 2 and found them to be just as campy and flaw
| filled as the Prequels just in different places. But this
| has been litigated to death on the net since Usenet days
| so I'm not sure if we're gonna break new ground here (:
| mopenstein wrote:
| This can't be true. I'm reading all these positive
| accolades for Andor in this thread and there's no way I'm
| watching it.
|
| Star Wars after Jedi is garbage. Lucas got me with those
| awful prequels and Disney got me with the first 2 new
| movies. I will never watch another Star Wars anything
| outside of the original 3 movies.
|
| Either you never really abandon your Star Wars fandom or
| you're lying. There can be no other choice.
|
| One cannot be shat upon by corporate hucksters that much
| and still think, "okay. I'll give 'em one more chance to
| shit in my eyes and ears"
|
| Is just not possible.
| dbalatero wrote:
| Lol ok calm down. I agree with your quality assessment
| broadly, but I just finished Andor and it's excellent.
| ghaff wrote:
| Andor is good and you can almost ignore that it's Star
| Wars universe.
| troupo wrote:
| > Should I really try Andor after all the bad stuff
| Disney made?
|
| Andor (at least Season 1) is very slow, boring, suffers
| from "static heads talking at each other" cinematography
| of modern movies [1], main character is just not a great
| actor.
|
| All that said, it's _definitely_ worth a watch:
|
| - most, if not all, major characters (apart from the
| protagonist) are very compelling, chew through every
| scene they are in, and are great matches for their parts
|
| - Empire is finally shown as a proper huge, relentless,
| uncaring bureaucratic machine it must have been. Run
| mostly by efficient ruthless bureaucrats.
|
| - Rebels are not angels, are not a single conformist mass
| of do-gooders
|
| - The dialog is mostly great
|
| It's a much better show than Mandalorian. It's arguably
| the best Star Wars after the original trilogy.
|
| [1] Most modern productions are incapable of shooting
| "walking and talking at the same time". Most modern
| movies and TV shows have actors placed against each other
| rigidly, with not a hint of motion, as they say their
| lines at each other
| dbalatero wrote:
| I thought Mandalorian was trash, every episode a video
| game fetch quest. In general I hate modern Star Wars.
| Andor is in a different category and totally worth it.
| AngryData wrote:
| I didn't really think Rogue One was anything special and
| thought sequel movies were trash, but I still watched
| every Andor episode as it came out, it is really good.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I think for older fans we don't get it. My son is 15 and
| grew up with the animated series, for him that's peak Star
| Wars and I think he's right. His buddies really loved Rogue
| One. The magic is its simplicity.
|
| I think like the Asimov books, Star Wars is best as fantasy
| history. The forward looking ones (that horrific "final"
| trilogy) are just awkward stories.
| ghaff wrote:
| While you can't dismiss New Hope as it was just
| breathtaking at the time of its release, Empire Strikes
| Back was arguably peak, and you needed to wrap it up with
| the third movie, there's a good argument that Rogue One
| was the second best film after Empire. And probably Andor
| as a series after that. Unlike a lot of people I don't
| mind series wrapping up after a season or two. Even in
| the best cases I'm starting to lose interest by season
| five in a lot of cases.
|
| (I think the prequels were worse than the sequels but
| they're collectively pretty unmemorable.)
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I agree with you 100%. I found it interesting that in
| this particular circle of kids, they rate the attack of
| the clones much higher, as the animated series is kind of
| a "Star Wars home" to them.
|
| Any way you cut it, it's really cool how people consume
| them in different ways, and there's enough material that
| over time we can just discard garbage like 8 hours of
| walking through the desert.
| ghaff wrote:
| Attack of the Clones is IMO not bad. Had Phantom Menace
| (and Jar Jar) not poisoned the well so to speak, I'm not
| sure the prequel trilogy would be as vilified as it is.
| Have never watched the animated series.
| fernandopj wrote:
| Personally, I rate the midichlorians much higher as
| poison than Jar Jar, who could be safely ignored in
| subsequent movies anyway.
| peeters wrote:
| They did a really good job tying Andor into Rogue One, but
| yeah Andor is just far better in terms of pacing, etc. And
| because they have to rush the plot in R1 (meet Jyn, she
| doesn't care about the rebellion, oops never mind now she's
| leading the rebellion) it ends up seeming much shallower
| emotionally. They also seemed to have to have a bit of fan
| service.
|
| Rogue One was my favourite Star Wars production before
| Andor, now I wish they could throw it away and remake it as
| Andor Season 3. It deserves to be told in full.
| modeless wrote:
| If by fan service you mean the scene where Darth Vader is
| at his most terrifying in the whole franchise, I think it
| was handled perfectly.
| czottmann wrote:
| Here's a few instances of fan service in that movie:
|
| - Andor running into Pigperson and Grover on Yedha
|
| - That entirely random 20-sec scene with C-3PO and R2-D2
|
| - "Red Leader, standing by" was archive footage from A
| New Hope (and arguably a tribute to the late actor)
| toyg wrote:
| Rogue One was the first standalone movie in the Star Wars
| universe. There was a lot of uncertainty about how it
| would be received. I don't blame them for ham-fistedly
| shoving in there some extra linkage to the main canon...
| and even with that, it made much less than the "regular"
| sequel trilogy.
| troupo wrote:
| Everyone gushing over Rogue One... but it was _at best_
| barely competent.
|
| 10-20 minutes of static talking heads, 5 minutes of mediocre
| action. Repeat until the end. Meaningless side-quests. The
| final is a thousand cliches one after another culminating in
| a "main computer at the end of a rickety walkway" and "a kiss
| at the sunset".
|
| The only reason it's hailed as the greatest movie ever is
| because so much of the Star Wars is just objectively shit.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > a kiss at the sunset
|
| They don't kiss.
|
| And that's not a sunset.
| troupo wrote:
| You know exactly what I mean. It couldn't have been more
| predictable, cheezy and cliched if it _was_ and actual
| kiss at the sunset
| hackyhacky wrote:
| I know what you mean and I completely disagree. It's a
| subversion a standard trope. Moreover, the _fraternal_
| relationship between the two leads is a reference to
| Andor 's arc in _Andor_. It 's an ending about sacrifice
| that wouldn't make sense in any other context.
| troupo wrote:
| > It's a subversion a standard trope.
|
| There's nothing subversive.
|
| > It's an ending about sacrifice that wouldn't make sense
| in any other context.
|
| There are a million ways to make an ending about
| sacrifice. Rogue One chose the worst one, after a lot of
| other ridiculous choices
| iainmerrick wrote:
| Yeah, it's honestly hard to find a weak element. The actors are
| all great, the music is great (with an interesting progression
| from electronic to orchestral), the set design is incredible.
| It's both timeless and topical.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| > I had long since written off the Star Wars franchise as a
| shameless cash grab since the original movies but they proved
| they could do something cool with it.
|
| I'd argue they already proved this with Rogue One. Too bad we
| had the Abrams/Johnson dumpster fire.
| mtillman wrote:
| Loved Andor. Unlikely Gilroy would do more Star Wars and if he
| did, he probably wouldn't be given another $650M for a side
| character. Season 2 was $290 and that was after their budget
| was capped by Iger, they tried to spend more.
|
| Source: https://screenrant.com/andor-budget-confirmed/
| meowface wrote:
| On one hand I want to say "fuck it, let them have whatever
| the fuck they want", given they should've known how well-
| received the show is by critics and viewers alike and how
| they should consider it basically the savior of the Star Wars
| brand. On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at
| the end of the day.
| fernandopj wrote:
| Andor S2 was around $350M and most likely paid for itself
| and some. [1]
|
| > On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the
| end of the day.
|
| You're right, in the sense that Andor was an exception
| regarding every other SW show on Disney+ for the past 4
| years. All had high production costs and seems like Andor
| is the only one which recouped itself. Acolyte was a
| spectacular viewship failure.
|
| So the business logic would be to cap costs, most likely in
| half for now on. I don't have high expectations of Disney
| learning the right lessons from Andor & Tony.
|
| [1] https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-andor-revenue-disney-
| plus/
| toyg wrote:
| _> the savior of the Star Wars brand_
|
| I think Rogue One is the best Star Wars ever and Andor is
| in the same vein. But.
|
| The savior of the Star Wars brand is always going to be the
| latest lightsaber-fest for 10-year-olds. That creates
| customer loyalty that will survive forever. Those kids then
| grow up and get to bitch about the new lightsaber-fest, and
| to fawn over the artsy drama.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| I would recommend Skeleton Crew. Its def aimed at younger crows
| but if you have nieces/nephews or kids of your own its a
| delight.
|
| Basically treasure Island/ goonies in space, it is campier than
| Andor but does what it aims for amazingly. Cause andor can get
| quite heavy on the fighting fascism and sometimes finding a
| treasure map is more the vibe than seeing holocaust planning
| meetings
|
| I didnt watch anything mandalorian past season 2, never watched
| boba fet, obiwan or ahsoka because I thought it would be Dave
| Filoni getting action figures and bumping them together, and
| friends who watched them agree with my intuition. But yeah of
| the new star wars stuff Andor and Skeleton Crew are both
| amazing in very different ways
| duxup wrote:
| Skeleton Creis basically the movie Goonies .. but Star Wars,
| and it's tons of fun.
|
| They should make a new Skeleton Crew show every year with a
| whole new cast.
|
| It really hits the lighthearted adventure button that to me
| is the core of Star Wars.
| manmal wrote:
| The prison episode is a masterpiece and would have been an
| amazing movie on its own. It's weird how zany the other SW
| shows and even movies look now in comparison. I'm really sad
| there can't be another season.
| sbarre wrote:
| I am hoping that they follow this up with stories set between
| the original trilogy movies, with some of the characters that
| were expanded on in the Andor show (and new ones too).
|
| It feels like there's plenty of room in the timeline between
| those movies to keep telling stories about the rebellion
| against the Empire, in the same tone as Andor.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| I've made peace with the fact that "Star Wars" basically means
| nothing w.r.t. what kind of story I can expect, both in terms
| of quality and variety of story. Gotta look for talented people
| in charge of the project and make guesses at quality that way
| now. I'm hopeful that with Donald Glover running the Lando
| movie that it'll be good, but otherwise IDK of anything else in
| Star Wars that I'm really looking forward to...
| sgt wrote:
| Andor is a masterpiece. I recommend everyone to see it. Season 1
| is probably the best, but season 2 just continues the brilliance.
| Unfortunately there won't be a season 3 though - they're making a
| final movie.
| cwillu wrote:
| Beyond rogue one?
| sgt wrote:
| Yes, a Rogue One sequel movie. So it'll be a continuation of
| the Andor series.
|
| They really take their time filming this kinda stuff so don't
| hold your breath.
| reimertz wrote:
| Sorry but I would flag this as AI-generated unless you can
| provide a reference.
| meowface wrote:
| The user definitely is not AI but I think they may've
| misread something or fell for a meme/joke they saw.
|
| There indeed is absolutely no planned sequel to or
| continuation of Andor, nor currently any known plans for
| the creator of it to create anything else in this
| franchise. I'd sure like it if he did, though.
| sgt wrote:
| I might indeed have fallen for something. I trusted an
| untrustworthy source. Sorry
| bdangubic wrote:
| it can only be a prequel unless they want to make a
| season out of Rogue One movie
| fcatalan wrote:
| But Rogue One ends literally setting the opening chase at
| the beginning of A New Hope, so no space for a straight
| sequel there. Maybe some Kleya "John Wick in Space"
| sidequest?
| mcv wrote:
| I would love a series of movies that run parallel to the
| original trilogy, but in the style of Andor, following the
| dirty ground work of the rebellion, rather than its handful
| of shining heroes.
| hotsauceror wrote:
| I think there's some room for stories of the seamy
| underbelly of the Rebellion, like Cara Dune and the
| droppers. But I think it would be easy to go to this well
| too many times.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > they're making a final movie.
|
| They're not making a movie; the entire series is a prequel to
| the 2016 movie _Rogue One_.
| entropie wrote:
| Well, in almost 40 years, the entire timeline has been shaken
| up several times and films and series have been inserted
| again and again
|
| In any case, i would be careful with such absolute statements
| hotsauceror wrote:
| Perhaps your cautionary admonishments are unwarranted in
| this specific scenario.
|
| It is logical enough to conclude that a story ending in two
| intelligence agents flying off for a time-sensitive meeting
| with a confidential informant, is an immediate prequel to
| the story that begins with the same two intelligence agents
| landing and meeting that confidential informant.
|
| This is not quite the same situation as the end of Rogue
| One and A New Hope, where some people make the argument
| that Rogue One ends just a few minutes before ANH begins; I
| am not convinced by that argument, although the
| cinematography certain seems to be leading us there.
| mentalpiracy wrote:
| >>> This is not quite the same situation as the end of
| Rogue One and A New Hope, where some people make the
| argument that Rogue One ends just a few minutes before
| ANH begins; I am not convinced by that argument, although
| the cinematography certain seems to be leading us there.
|
| The ending scene of RO is the data handoff and narrow
| escape of the Tantive IV with Leia, R2-D2, and C-3PO on
| it.
|
| How is that not a direct continuity into the opening
| scene of A New Hope?
| hotsauceror wrote:
| Unless there was some sort of tractor beam, the Tantive
| IV did, in fact, escape, and may have been able to jump
| to light speed. In such an event, any eventual recapture
| by the Star Destroyer and battle with Vader's boarding
| team would have looked exactly the same as the escape
| sequence. There's nothing definitively saying "and they
| were recaptured within a few minutes of their initial
| escape."
| worldsayshi wrote:
| > they're making a final movie.
|
| I think you might've fallen for some of the jokes about it
| being a prequel.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Andor is a masterpiece.
|
| No. A masterpiece would not have any fluff. There are all
| number of scenes/characters that could be cut from Andor
| without any real impact. Entire scenes and characters could be
| dropped without impacting the narrative. (The entire forest
| planet sequence imho.)
|
| Andor is a product of the "for your consideration" form of
| review made popular by the Academy (oscars). Each scene is
| excellent. Each scene is a cinematic tour de force. But they
| are all independent scenes. Rearrange the order, shuffle the
| scene deck, and little changes as the scenes are not dependent
| on each other. The overall narrative is thin. That may make for
| good/popular television but it is not deserving of
| "masterpiece".
| dalanmiller wrote:
| What films could be categorised in this way?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Jaws. The Shawshank Redemption. Alien. The first Jurassic
| Park. My Cousin Vinney.
|
| I would say that there is not a single scene that can be
| removed from these movies without negatively impacting the
| story/theme/narrative.
|
| Some say that Star Wars IV and V fit this definition but I
| would say there is some eyecandy fluff that could be cut.
| spankibalt wrote:
| > I would say that there is not a single scene that can
| be removed from these movies without negatively impacting
| the story/theme/narrative.
|
| Appropriating Saint Exuperyian (et al.) notions regarding
| the unattainable ( _perfection_ ) to judge an artwork is
| a sucker's bet to me.
|
| And in the cited works I rate as cinematic masterpieces
| scene editing (e. g. removal) is most certainly possible
| without having a negative impact on your criteria, but
| that is a completely moot point anyways.
|
| With regards to Andor's forest arc: It is, amongst other
| things that are most certainly more appreciated by a
| specific set of people, a very interesting mediation on
| time and the notion "where there's competence, there's
| always also incompetence", often manifesting in very
| comical and surreal ways.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| Your pedantry probably requires a rewatch.
|
| I also think "masterpiece" is a heavy term to throw around
| but the emotional impact of the this series and the
| complexity of its narrative as it catalogs a hero's journey
| from reluctant participant to true believer with an epic
| story arc can be held up next to most film and historical
| epics like Laurence of Arabia, Ben Hur, The Matrix, the
| Original Star Wars trilogy, Dune, Kingdom of Heaven,
| Gladiator, The Handmaid's Tale (series), The Odyssey (epic
| poem). His personal journey which leads to his persecution
| and enslavement, his role in leading a slave uprising,
| rescuing his friends from the aftermath of a rebel uprising,
| building the foundations of a rebel army, risking his life
| countless times and ultimately sacrificing himself to prevent
| his enemy from having an insurmountable edge.
|
| The series makes the very popular "Avengers" film series look
| like trite dogshit and does the same for most of the "Star
| Wars" sequels and prequels so I don't fault people for using
| the term "masterpiece".
| sandworm101 wrote:
| A masterpiece does not require an enormous story, theme or
| anything else "epic". That is a characteristic of
| blockbusters.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| My point was to make that distinction between an
| masterpiece and an epic while still showing that Andor
| holds up against some of the most celebrated epics ever
| created. Comparing it to My Cousin Vinny is ridiculous.
| You should be comparing it to other works in the same
| form, other epic hero's journeys.
|
| Was your gripe about superfluous scenes, where you
| mentioned the forest planet, a reference to the first few
| episodes of season 2? That forest plant is Yavin IV, the
| plant where the rebels eventually build their first base,
| and those rebels are some of the first recruits to the
| rebel army. I believe those scenes were intended to show
| how the rebellion lacked leadership and how Andor and
| others had to step up to provide that leadership.
| nicoburns wrote:
| If you haven't watched Andor and you are at all open to sci-fi
| then I would urge you to consider giving a go. The writing,
| acting, and cinematography are all excellent, and IMO it is a
| very strong contender for the best TV show released in the last
| few years.
| meowface wrote:
| It makes me wish it were the actual start of the franchise and
| then they made Rogue One and the trilogy de novo. In that
| counterfactual I think there's a good shot it'd be far better
| than the originals, and the Star Wars story would be considered
| not just a classic but a masterpiece. (I don't think the
| original trilogy is bad exactly, but the trilogy with the Andor
| look/feel/style/writing/acting could've been some of the best
| films ever.)
| iainmerrick wrote:
| I don't know, I still really value the original trilogy. It's
| just very, very different in some crucial ways.
|
| One aspect that's really striking when you see _Andor_ is how
| little the Jedi and the Force have to do with it; which
| highlights how central they are to the original trilogy. (
| _Rogue One_ does a pretty deft job of bridging those worlds,
| eg with Donnie Yen's character.)
|
| And the Force was a big part of the charm of the original
| movies, right? All the scenes with Luke and Yoda are
| wonderful, for example. I wouldn't want to take that away,
| any more than I'd want to shoehorn the Jedi into _Andor_.
|
| I think the real problem with the original movies starts with
| the prequels, which doubled down on all the Jedi business but
| managed to make it feel very pedestrian, rather than
| mystical.
|
| The sequel movies could have been great if they had really
| tried to explore the collapse of the Empire and what the
| reconstruction would look like, rather than shamelessly
| retreading everything beat-for-beat. _The Last Jedi_ did at
| least try to be different, but its ideas were completely
| scattershot and (I think) not very fruitful.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| "The Force" never sat well with me. It was the one weird
| _supernatural_ thing in the Star Wars universe that pushed
| the whole franchise into "magic" territory.
|
| The less Force, the better in my opinion. Save super-powers
| for comic-book movies.
| meowface wrote:
| A bit of it is interesting. When they're just flinging
| objects/debris/rocks at each other for 10 minutes it's
| pretty silly, but the force-choking scenes are some of
| the most iconic Star Wars moments. Adds something to the
| world.
| WD-42 wrote:
| I thought it worked in the original trilogy because it
| was much more subtle, but still powerful. You watch Luke
| struggle to harness it over the span of 3 movies.
|
| In the recent Disney movies (Andor being the exception)
| it's like they gave everyone the force, everyone is a
| super hero, it's bombastic and annoying.
| atoav wrote:
| This is btw. what I hate with so many modern RPGs, you
| are a nobody but within 5 minutes of playing you are
| already extremely awesome and look like a shiny knight on
| a white horse.
|
| Let me run around with a rock and a stick for the first
| hour. Then give me a sword that looks cheap but I will
| cherish it. Then take it away. Let _me_ earn it when I am
| awesome in the end.
|
| To many games treat you like a toddler that wants shiny
| things. Yeah I want shiny things, but I want them when I
| deserved them. Similarily, yeah, I want powerful heros,
| but they have to earn it as well.
| gmueckl wrote:
| Star Wars was never science fiction. It has always been
| treated as fantasy with space ships by its creators. The
| nature of its setting is really much closer to Harry
| Potter than e.g. the Expanse.
| atoav wrote:
| The force was okay for me when it was treated seriously
| and not as a plot vehicle that could suddenly do things
| that are not plausible within the rules of the universe
| so far.
| jajko wrote:
| Its like being raised from earliest age with some religion
| (any, really, they are all equal in good and bad ways) vs
| somebody who wasn't. The thickness of rose-tinted glasses
| is something that's hard to argue about rationally.
|
| I wasn't in both cases, communists considered it a
| capitalist propaganda about US might and banned it (maybe
| just heard about Star wars being US space program, took
| just first result on soviet gugel so to speak, but fight
| for freedom at all costs is generally not something you
| want to encourage in dictatorship).
|
| They are an interesting flick (original trilogy), but
| nothing really magical for me in them. As mentioned by
| others they feel like 80s pop sci fi movie, nothing more,
| characters and acting are... mediocre and it all feels
| aimed at kids/teens. A _lot_ of creativity with sets, but
| that 's not primary reason for me to watch a movie.
|
| Since I refuse (can't even) to be swayed emotionally of
| some good ol' memories from growing up, prequels felt even
| more childish (maybe apart from ep3), and this trend
| continued with last 3 movies. Rogue one was by far the best
| experience in whole SW universe, so if this goes even
| further happy to experience it.
| lupire wrote:
| As a matter of language, "classic" is far higher status than
| "masterpiece".
| jaybrendansmith wrote:
| It's again amazing A New Hope was as good as it was, given
| the budget, inexperience, and writing. But the ideas were
| brilliant, and Lucas' vision was unparalleled. And Andor is
| great because it had the budget and the writing to actually
| live up to that original vision. Empire is so good precisely
| because Lucas had the money to live up to it and really fill
| out the world. And the vision just exploded from there with
| the Expanded Universe. It's now a science fiction franchise
| that is much larger than the original Foundation novels it
| was based upon, and much larger than pretty much anything
| excepting Star Trek and maybe Marvel, at least in TV and
| film. There are quite literally hundreds of stories they
| could tell if the fans are still there.
| manmal wrote:
| If they can reboot Harry Potter as a series, I guess Star
| Wars should be an option, too. Disney will run out of
| storylines/timelines that are compatible with nostalgia,
| soon.
| mmplxx wrote:
| Also the music, it has an impressive original soundtrack, I
| love how they play with opening variations.
| peeters wrote:
| > you are at all open to sci-fi
|
| That is to say, a sci-fi _setting_. Andor would not be
| correctly put in the sci-fi genre, rather in the political
| thriller genre.
| atq2119 wrote:
| That's the thing about sci-fi: almost all good sci-fi stories
| are really sci-fi + X, where X is some other genre. Often
| adventure or mystery, sometimes horror, and in this case
| political thriller / spy story.
| ragazzina wrote:
| Isn't that true for every genre?
| lolinder wrote:
| I'm trying to figure out what sci-fi not crossed with
| something else even means. Even most of the great works of
| classic sci-fi of the 20th century draw tropes and plot
| points from other genres.
| fsloth wrote:
| I'm not sure why some plots would be off-limits in sci-fi
| genre? Isn't setting limits antithesis to the whole idea of
| sci-fi?
| whatnow37373 wrote:
| It's not sci-fi though. If Star Wars is sci-fi then Jurassic
| Park is a biology documentary.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| ...or Westworld (1973) a western
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I especially like all the retro control panels! I wish I could
| find a montage of all the instrument, button and control panels
| of Andor.
| sedatk wrote:
| https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJP11cruD0p/
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Perfect! I probably had this one at the back of my head.
|
| I suppose there's more good examples that could be mined from
| the show.
| chiph wrote:
| What has impressed me is that in all the Imperial scenes - they
| have a lot of polished surfaces (floor, control panels, etc) and
| you never see a reflection of crew or film equipment. I'm sure
| most of this is the result of good planning before filming but
| also the amount of effort put in post-production to remove any
| it.
|
| As a physical media guy, I'm happy that Disney decided to release
| season 1 on 4k UHD. And I hope to buy season 2 when it hits the
| shelves.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| That reminds of Arthur C Clarke writing about the process of
| making _2001_ with Stanley Kubrick. Clarke visited the set one
| day, and was absolutely blown away, but jokingly pointed out
| that somebody had left some fingerprints on the Monolith.
| Kubrick was _furious_ and Clarke was seriously worried he was
| going to fire somebody on the spot.
|
| (I think that's in _Lost Worlds of 2001_ , which is a fun read)
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| I love how there are a lot of reflections in windows, makes it
| look more real.
| morkalork wrote:
| All the interior sets of imperial ships, especially the crashed
| one in S1 were absolutely gorgeous. The shiny black glass
| surfaces, analogue controls, blinking lights and fixtures
| everywhere were just wow. I can't remember the last time I saw
| such a well done rendition of "sleek retro-futuristic"
| aesthetic.
| buyucu wrote:
| Andor is absolutely amazing. After the shameless cash-grab
| attempt that was the Sequel Trilogy, Andor feels like a breath of
| fresh air.
|
| Denise Gough and Elizabeth Dulau are particularly good.
| lucideer wrote:
| If Denise Gough isn't drowning in awards on the back of this it
| isn't a just world.
|
| (albeit every single other performance in the massive ensemble
| cast was also excellent)
| xnx wrote:
| Elizabeth Dulau first significant role!
| IshKebab wrote:
| I thought it was great except for that one scene where they're
| eating in the wheat fields... It's just so weirdly obvious that
| it's a set and you can really clearly see where the set ends and
| the green screens start. Dunno why.
| kennyadam wrote:
| Did you read the article? That specfific scene is discussed.
| MattyRad wrote:
| I thought it was great except for the final episode of season
| 1.
|
| Spoilers:
|
| People seem to gush over Maarva's hologram speech, I thought it
| was pretty weak (it started good then it was fumbled).
|
| Maarva's act of rebellion should have been killing herself to
| deliver her speech at the right time. She's old and sickly, so
| it'd add gravitas and cost effectively nothing. Then she should
| have said that she'd resisted all her life, but killing herself
| was her first act of rebellion. Then the bomb that gets thrown
| into the Empire ranks should have been baked into her brick,
| giving her the chance to fight posthumously.
|
| They had nearly all the plot points set up so nicely for the
| slam dunk, I was perplexed when it ended so dryly.
| captainbland wrote:
| The main thing that impressed me about Andor is how they managed
| to make the Stormtroopers seem like a genuinely intimidating
| force rather than just a rabble of goons in costumes. It goes to
| show how much they elevated the believability of Star Wars in
| Andor.
| twodave wrote:
| I agree. Especially in the originals, everything just sort of
| "works out" for the protagonist(s). The bad guys don't aim
| well, fly well or really do anything great. And that's fine
| because that is era of cinema Star Wars came from. In Andor the
| empire is smart, calculated, deadly and just plain scary--
| nearly to a visceral degree, if you allow yourself to be
| absorbed into the story.
|
| And despite how good Andor (and Rogue One fits here as well)
| was, I think there's some merit to wanting to go see a film
| that makes you feel good. There are certain films and books I
| won't put myself through (especially fiction) more than once
| because I don't want something ultimately meaningless adding
| stress to my life. It's supposed to be an enjoyable escape. So
| Andor/Rogue One come pretty close to that point for me.
| hammock wrote:
| Plus the Deathtroopers, the navy seals of storm troopers
| manmal wrote:
| The security droids were also quite something. I found them
| super scary, with their eyes that seemed to understand, in a
| calculating way. And with a posture like giant primates, and
| the ability to easily tear people apart. Definitely not the
| watered down versions of ,,battle droids" we've seen so far,
| who were easily tricked and fell apart when you kicked them.
| tecoholic wrote:
| Everyone seem like to be discussing the show and none the
| article.
|
| For someone who hadn't watched the show, the article is a pain to
| read. The images are thrown in randomly, there is no relationship
| between the text and the images. Every images is pointlessly
| labelled "Cinematography of "Andor" by Christophe Nuyens". The
| interview seems to have covered things in detail, like going into
| specific scenes and sets, and lens.. etc., but the accompanying
| images are utterly useless in showing any of that to the reader.
|
| I gave up after a while.
| acomjean wrote:
| To be fair, the photos were just ones provided by Disney.
|
| Most likely promotional shots. They used them as examples of
| the work, and as stills they hold up. I thought the article
| cromulent.
| lucideer wrote:
| I didn't find the images relevant to the article - they seemed
| to just be filler to avoid it seeming like a mundane wall of
| text - but I just ignored them & didn't find it hard to read as
| a result?
|
| I can understand it might be difficult to understand the
| context of some set descriptions without having seen the show
| but I think that would also be true with relevant still images
| as you'd still lack character & narrative context.
|
| Honestly can't see how they could've formatted the article any
| better than they did. Seems fine.
| kriro wrote:
| I think Andor is a bit over hyped in this threat. I absolutely
| love it (especially the Imperial side of things) but saying it is
| better than the original movies is a bit too much. If you take
| into account the time and technical possibilities it's not even
| close. And the original movies have more memorable things
| overall. I mean the two villains alone are all time greats. The
| music is also better (imo).
|
| But most importantly, I think Andor is less strong without the
| original movies. The looming threat and the Mothma high-society
| scenes become a lot less powerful. Same for the insights into the
| Imperial machine. And even the meaning of the Rebellion itself.
| I'd argue while technically great, well written etc. without the
| SW backdrop the storytelling suffers quite a bit.
| meowface wrote:
| I think with nostalgia goggles and appreciation for what it was
| at the time, the originals are great, but in retrospect I don't
| think the original movies are that great. The story is very
| compelling and fun but across basically all other dimensions
| Andor is just higher-quality.
| Joeboy wrote:
| Andor is a very good TV show, but it's obviously getting extra
| appreciation because it's part of a beloved but increasingly
| exhausted franchise.
| belval wrote:
| It's the opposite for me. I could not be more burnt out on
| StarWars, when they introduced the force in season 2 I rolled
| my eyes and it somewhat took me out of it. The main downside
| of watching Andor is that you have your brain nagging you
| about eposide 7 making everything that you are watching
| pointless (the new republic is obliterated after 20-30
| years).
|
| I have friends that I can't convince to watch it because they
| are just too done with that universe in general.
|
| But that's the thing, Andor could be outside of StarWars and
| just its own thing because the world building that it does on
| its own is excellent, the premise (empire vs
| rebellion/revolutionaries) is mostly intemporal.
| lupire wrote:
| Someone who appreciates Andor should find it easy to forget
| Ep7 entirely or understand that it was just a reboot remake
| alternate history, not "canon".
|
| The Force part was hamfisted. It was clear that they were
| trying to avoid "midochlorians" but didn't know how it
| handle it, and didn't spend any time to develop it
| organically. It felt more like highbrow fanservice
| connecting Cassian to Luke. It's similar to the Kleya
| hospital/flashback episode, which could well have been its
| own 3 episode arc and gotten time to breathe like the S1
| prison arc. Since they cut the project down to be 4
| 3-episode mini seasons after S1, instead of 6+ episodes
| each, they rushed some story arcs and sublots that end up
| just being presented as bullet points.
| kriro wrote:
| And this is exactly where I disagree. Andor does not stand
| very well on its own outside of SW (and that takes it from
| great tier to very good for me with the other minor
| squibbles that I have). If you don't know the lore, things
| will be less clear and the writing will feel strange at
| times. FWIW, I have recommended this show to many friends
| who never watched anything SW, they mostly liked it but
| found some things odd.
|
| WARNING, SPOILERS
|
| The story is not properly resolved. If you have no SW
| knowledge, the threat isn't even very clear. Some galaxy
| government lead by an emperor is building a weapon, shown
| once. If S2 is the end it's pretty unsatisfying in general.
| The politics are kind of unclear.
|
| The sacrifice of Mothma is very unclear without a SW
| background. A senator said something and had to flee to a
| planet (oversimplified).
|
| Without knowledge of R1, the killing machine super droid is
| down right comical/a sloppy resolve for things.
|
| Without SW knowledge the (imo) best part of the Imperial
| machinery, bureaucracy, power hunger also becomes awkward
| at times and frankly less interesting. Syril is my favorite
| character and Dedra probably second. I found their arcs
| great, every single non-SW viewer I talked to found them
| "boring", "that guy with the annoying mother was strange"
| and "why did they have to be a couple, that's pretty
| unimaginative writing" etc.
|
| END SPOILERS
|
| My personal quibbles are that the crashed tie episode was
| pretty bad filler. I have not heard anyone say anything
| good about it.
|
| Someone else already mentioned minor technical problems
| (field scene).
|
| I found Diego Luna's acting ok but not great. It felt
| wooden at times. To some extend that's subjective but it
| doesn't compare to the lead acting I have in my personal
| top tier (Breaking Bad for example)
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| The crashed tie episode was part of the larger theme in
| the series to show the progression/evolution of the
| Rebellion over the years (and why there was the reveal
| that it took place on Yavin). That said I agree the
| execution could've been better.
| Joeboy wrote:
| > crashed tie episode was pretty bad filler
|
| I get that it felt like a bit of a diversion from the
| main story, but thematically the show is largely about
| the less palatable realities of being part of a
| resistance movement. That episode is about the reality
| that you'll probably end up getting waylaid by squabbling
| idiots along the way. I think it earns its place in the
| show.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I watched Andor having not watched much other Star Wars,
| and with vague memories of A New Hope.
|
| I absolutely _loved it_. So much that I 'm now watching
| the entirety of Star Wars film and TV in chronological
| order (I'm in the Clone Wars series now, before the
| timeline overlaps Revenge of the Sith, and I went out of
| sequence to watch Rogue One to see the conclusion of the
| cast from Andor). The full chronology can be found
| here[1], though I used a bit of JS to extract just the
| films, tv shows, and video specials as a markdown table
| to put in Obsidian
|
| So as someone who can say I pretty much didn't have the
| context you claim is necessary to appreciate Andor, I can
| tell you that it 100% stands out as a masterpiece to
| people who are unfamiliar with the rest of the Star Wars
| lore.
|
| [1]:
| https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_canon_media
| jccalhoun wrote:
| I don't get what people love about Andor. The prison break
| episode was good but the flashbacks to the kids in the jungle
| were horrible and the funeral with instruments straight out of
| Fat Albert's junkyard band were laughable.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| Things to love about andor.
|
| 1) the themes it explores. Things like fighting fascism has
| been done to death by this point, half of YA is "goverment
| military and bad, young girl gets a love triangle and defats
| them". Andor shows the slowing, encroching effect of military
| rule. What a prision industrial complex looks like (from fake
| incarcerations to unescapable sentences). What colonialism
| looks like (bleak pragmatic bureocracy about mineral
| extraction while discussing genocide over hors d'oeuvres).
| How political silencing happens (mothma cannot find allies
| because they all understand they have very limited political
| capital and have to be very careful were they spend it).
| Those are serious topics, and you basically do not see them
| outside of shows which care on systems like Wire on the drug
| police system, or House of card with the political congress
| system. Certainly not on star wars
|
| 2) Cinematography. The show is shot like a spy thriller from
| the get go. It makes sense with Gilroy previous Bourne
| experience but for a disney property opening up with killing
| 2 cops outside a brothel sets a tone not seen previously.
| Thats carried with every arc having instantly recognisable
| look and feel, from the cold harsh lights of Narkina 5, to
| the warm beach vibes of Niamos (space miami), the future vibe
| of corusant or the jungle vibe of Yanvin 4.
|
| 3) Monologues. Most shows cant pull off one monologue without
| it looking awful, this show manages plenty of them, sometimes
| in the same episode.
|
| 4) The topics its willing to address. I mentioned themes
| before, but those themes can be explored in many ways.
| Prequels dealt with growing fascism in the republic then
| turned empire, but it wouldnt say genocide or have a isb
| officer talk about how annoying it is the army wants their
| interrogation techniques because their torture works so well.
| Or show insignificant middle managers so untouchable they
| attempt to rap* a main character. Saying the empire is very
| powerful and scary is one thing, showing how they behave with
| that power is way more chilling.
|
| 5) The carnival of interesting people explored. Most shows
| have a few main characters and then supporting characters
| whose mission is to not have a personality and be a plot
| device of some kind. Here outside of the incredible inner
| life of even minor characters you get to see the journey of
| peopel as varied as Andor, a colonial genocide survivor who
| was a petty thief and became a high ranking member of the
| rebellion. Luthen, an ex empire soldier who after crumbling
| on a mission rescues Kleya and becomes one of the leaders of
| the rebellion from within Corusant, sort of batman/bruce
| wayne. Vel, a nepo baby from Chandrilla who joins the
| rebellion. Syril, a dadless little shit who is obssesed with
| following the rules thinking he would get far inside the
| empire system. Dedra, an orphan that cares so much about
| results she might be actually responsible for the fall of the
| empire. Kleya, another genocide survivor, taken in by Luthen
| and basically nightwing to his batman. Like whether you like
| womanly women, or tomboy super killers and whether you like
| manly rebels who dont follow the rules to super organised
| overachiever you can find a character with an entire arc in
| andor for you.
|
| I could keep going but honestly its just a great show. From
| ideas like making 3 episode arcs, to how well it ties into
| Rogue one I think there is so much to praise there
| greatgib wrote:
| There were some good sequence and episodes, but mostly I
| agree with you. I found it slow and boring. The bottom plot
| is nice but but there a some episodes where almost nothing
| happens.
|
| I'm quite sure that they were empty on ideas in terms of
| scenario, so they tried to spread the longest possible what
| would have fitted in a single movie of 2 hours.
|
| I think that also explains why they didn't manage to do more
| than 2 seasons when their original goal was 5.
| themgt wrote:
| There's a lot to love, but e.g. the whole S2 arc where the
| Empire is provoking and covertly encouraging a rebellion on
| the planet they want to gut for resources - our protagonist
| gets a bad feeling about helping the amateur hour rebels but
| the amoral leader actually wants to encourage them knowing
| they'll likely fail.
|
| "Think about a planet like Ghorman in rebellion. A planet of
| wealth and status."
|
| "And if it goes up in flames?"
|
| "It will burn... very brightly."
|
| There's barely any recent popular TV or movies I can think of
| with the level of subtle, complex, morally grey themes Andor
| explored.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAJ3dUm_r2A
| jccalhoun wrote:
| I found season 1 so underwhelming that I haven't gotten to
| season 2 yet.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| First session really impressed me. After all Disney Star Wars
| casual garbage shows, this one get my attention. Creators finally
| do not consider audience as dumb consumers.
|
| Second season is great, but I still appreciate first more. S01E09
| has one of the best space battles I ever saw in sci-fi. Ever.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| To address this interview specifically, rather than just gushing
| about how great Andor is--
|
| One point Nuyens makes in a few different ways is that they used
| a variety of tools and techniques at every stage. People often
| have simplistic, extreme viewpoints like "modern CGI can do
| anything" or "CGI looks fake and weightless, practical effects
| are better". But here's somebody with a big part in making a
| fantastic-looking show, who very explicitly embraces multiple
| approaches. Massive real sets with CGI enhancements; sometimes
| green screens, sometimes old-fashioned backdrop paintings,
| sometimes LED screens. It sounds like close collaboration between
| teams in different areas was key, like the VFX team working with
| the production designer from the start. "Some shots started VFX
| and then became sets."
|
| It sounds like a big success for an artisanal approach, where
| every element is a bespoke construction by cross-functional
| experts, versus a modular approach where each team has a position
| in the workflow with well-defined inputs and outputs.
|
| But maybe it's not worth the time and money, and the "worse is
| better" approach wins out? I hope not, or least I hope we get
| more shows aspiring to be as good as this.
|
| On a smaller scale, interesting to hear how much equipment on a
| high-end film set is now wireless. That must be a massive change
| from just a few years ago, where you'd have had massive cables
| snaking everywhere.
| andrepd wrote:
| > Massive real sets with CGI enhancements; sometimes green
| screens
|
| This is the definition of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy,
| and they're still some of the best-looking films I've ever
| seen, far surpassing the modern UE slop.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| UE?
| Filligree wrote:
| Unreal Engine is used quite a lot in animation.
| Darthbuddha wrote:
| Unreal Engine
| monocularvision wrote:
| We watched the original trilogy a couple months back with our
| kids and we were all so impressed by how they looked. And it
| wasn't an "impressive for their age" but legitimately looked
| better than modern day films.
| jfengel wrote:
| The sets are jaw dropping. An awful lot of them seem to be
| practical, and that must be very expensive.
|
| They didn't have to. It's cinema quality. They could have spent
| less and gotten a goodly fraction of the quality. But I'm
| really glad they did.
| manmal wrote:
| I have zero knowledge about lenses and optics in general, but
| found it interesting that the outer edges of the frame are
| often blurred in a peculiar way. Was that a stylistic choice?
| prhn wrote:
| Any odd blurring, distortion, or vignetting you might find
| around the edges could be caused by anamorphic lenses.
| Vignetting is often also added in post.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| It's the anamorphic lenses. It's become something of a look
| recently so I think of it partly as a deliberate stylistic
| choice. But also an accident of a particular lens geometry.
| They just don't mind it.
|
| Shogun did this too, I think also The Witcher.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsAndor/comments/15rjjcg/why_.
| ..
| lucideer wrote:
| One of the things I've heard about the practical sets in
| multiple interviews is how they made an intentional effort to
| put a lot of real, functional, working props throughout the
| sets explicitly so that extras & folk appearing in scene
| backgrounds would have something to engage with & feel more
| immersed in their smaller roles. Most of these props would
| never be in frame - many were inside of cabinets or containers.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Andor is a huge middle finger for everything that came after the
| original trilogy. It manages to be menacing and showing a
| convincing rebellion against realistic fascism - relying heavily
| on the tones of the old films - without any of the dumb Jedi
| magic, light sabers andd mystic blabble.
| aeve890 wrote:
| > without any of the dumb Jedi magic, light sabers andd mystic
| blabble
|
| They have some of it too. But it's a very well crafted scene
| showing how normal people would react to the force weirdos.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| What's wrong with light sabers? It's just a weapon with some
| useful properties (like bouncing back blaster shots). Finn used
| it fine for a sec, so it's proven that the user doesn't need to
| be trained at all in anything really.
|
| The Force though... yeah, as much as I'm a big fan of SW, the
| whole concept leans way too hard into soft magic territory, at
| least to my taste.
| poisonborz wrote:
| For one the technology for such a saber far surpasses and
| stands out from anything else in the Empire. But more
| importantly it requires the same superhuman Jedi magic to be
| useful (swinging to bounce blaster shots). It works as a
| ritual weapon / in climatic battles, but modern SW overuses
| it (as the Jedis in general).
| Kon5ole wrote:
| Andor + Rogue one are my favourites from the franchise. It tells
| a story that the 50 year olds that grew up with SW can appreciate
| for its depth and intrigue as well as connection to the original
| films, but leaving the hallowed originals mostly alone.
|
| I wish the crew behind it would be allowed to continue the story
| until the fall of the emperor, so we could get the whole "rise
| and fall of the empire" story told with the same quality, depth
| and overall "tone" for lack of a better word.
|
| Three more seasons taking place during the same time as the
| original trilogy would be nice, but of course keeping the
| Skywalker and Jedi stuff mostly in the background.
|
| A similar show as Andor with storylines taking place on Alderaan
| and the construction site of the death star, say.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Hmmm, rise of the empire you say? So a long hard look at a
| faltering parliamentary system, gradually usurped by an
| authoritarian and his team of goons...
|
| Doesn't sound very relatable for today's audiences.
| hammock wrote:
| It doesn't? Imagine the Senate as the UN/NATO and the emperor
| as George Soros. Palpatine even looks like him
| jajko wrote:
| Must this old russian propaganda permeat also thread
| about... Star Wars?
| ksynwa wrote:
| Don't have much to add as a rube but Andor is the best TV I have
| ever watched. Not just in the Star Wars universe.
| ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 wrote:
| Just for calibration what's your second favorite TV show of all
| time?
| ksynwa wrote:
| That would be It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Nathan
| For You but I don't appreciate them nearly as much as I do
| Andor.
| el_nahual wrote:
| Not OP but Andor is definitely "up there" for me.
|
| My two favorite shows ever are Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (w/
| Alec Guinness), The Wire, The Simpsons seasons 1-8.
| 7bit wrote:
| I found Andor incredibly boring. The characters were unlikeable.
| Dialog was bland. I have nothing against a slow burn, but that
| show didn't even light a fire in the first place.
| cjcenizal wrote:
| George Boole would have loved a show called "Andor".
| globalnode wrote:
| Nandxor
| colordrops wrote:
| Had to scroll down far too long to find this on an HN thread
| about and/or
| imetatroll wrote:
| Andor is OK. I didn't manage to finish the first season though
| and there are a few scenes - like the "training to blend in" -
| that are just totally corny and just seem "cheap".
|
| I disagree with the sentiment that Andor goes beyond the original
| trilogy. The world building in the originals is incredible.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| The first season seriously builds up. The prison arc and the
| last episodes on Ferrix are absolutely top notch.
| wishfish wrote:
| For those people who loved Andor and its approach to the Empire
| and fascism, I have a book recommendation: The Rise and Fall of
| the Galactic Empire by Chris Kempshall. It's written as history
| (not a novel) with the author being an in-universe scholar who
| originally focused on Jedi antiquities but decided to write a
| general history of the Empire.
|
| Ties in well with Andor as the book discusses, realistically, how
| the rot set in with the Republic. How it could be transformed
| into the Empire with little initial protest. How the Empire
| sustained itself via a mix of military control, propaganda, and
| moving towards making the population feel helpless and thus
| apolitical. And how the blind sides of a rigid, fascist system
| led to the Rebellion winning despite the huge power disparity.
|
| It's the perfect companion book for the series. And is a good
| introductory book on how authoritarianism takes hold, how the
| insurgents can exploit weaknesses, and what should be done, post-
| rebellion, to keep the fascists from returning. I think many
| people, who otherwise would not be obsessive about Star Wars
| lore, would find it interesting.
|
| On a side note: the book does address the events of Abrams sequel
| trilogy with an interesting angle. That the New Republic
| essentially didn't do enough de-Nazification and that led to
| their downfall. This approach to those terrible movies doesn't
| entirely succeed, but does make them a little more interesting.
| And matches what we've seen in real life reconstructions after
| the downfall of various regimes.
| robterrell wrote:
| My immediate headcannon was: Dedra goes to prison for sedition
| and builds parts of the second Death Star; is liberated after
| the death of the emperor; as a (purportedly) rebel-aligned
| political prisoner is held in esteem (that Loni should have
| gotten!) She works for the New Republic and rebuilds the police
| state machinery that ultimately leads to the first order.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| Andor is shot beautifully but it has a major issue that has
| plagued an increasing amount of shows recently. It is way too
| dark. The creators knew it was going straight to streaming and
| was never shown in theaters. I can't watch the show in the
| daytime because even with my blinds down and curtains drawn the
| window in my living room washes out half of the scenes. Some very
| important things happened in the dark (it being a spy/espionage
| show), and I felt like I was blind. The script was not written to
| be an audio drama, it relies on visuals that I literally couldn't
| see half the time.
|
| Directors shooting something for streaming: please watch your
| show on a laptop or cheaper TV in a realistic bedroom or living
| room setting (with daylight leaking in or with some lights turned
| on). We don't all have reference grade monitors and a pitch black
| studio. In fact, most consumers don't have those things. If you
| really want to keep the cinematic purity, could you at least make
| a "normie edit" that pumps up the brightness?
| piyuv wrote:
| Agreed. Real PITA with OLED tv's. Musicians listen to their
| tracks in car stereos, directors should do what you suggest
| jfengel wrote:
| Netflix has a brightness setting that you can easily get to
| while watching. I really wish the Disney app had one.
| vachina wrote:
| Turn on dynamic tone mapping on your tv, or reduce contrast
| your TV settings.
|
| I'd rather they preserve the dynamic range than succumb to the
| loudness war.
| hammock wrote:
| I finished season 2 yesterday and was actually thinking how
| refreshing it was that andor WASNT too dark. It has some dark
| scenes sure but I really it's not nearly as bad as most shows
| these days
| fsloth wrote:
| I think it depends. For me on a fairly recent OLED, watching
| from the Disney app in AppleTV it looked pretty spectacular
| during day and night. I do know _some_ shows are terrible but
| Andor was totally legible to me. I'm not saying you did not
| have this problem, just that it's not as bad as in some other
| shows and personally I could not notice it.
| ruined wrote:
| you might have misconfigured HDR in your viewing setup, even if
| you don't have an HDR display.
|
| a lot of video players don't get it right consistently codec-
| to-codec, even the gold standard FOSS classics (VLC, MPV) and
| wrappers like iina on mac.
|
| i typically use iina and vlc as fallback, but wasn't able to
| get either to play correctly, even though they're fine players
| for some other examples. i wound up subbing to disney plus for
| a month to watch it properly.
|
| if you're viewing MKVs of unknown provenance, use an HDR
| version to ensure it's not a bad encode. if you're not viewing
| on an HDR display, double-check that tone mapping is enabled
| and configured correctly.
| kenhwang wrote:
| I had the opposite opinion of Andor's cinematography. On a nice
| OLED, everything looked so gray and flat because most scenes
| were devoid of true dark blacks or bright whites or vivid
| colors; like every detail on every scene had to be softly
| uniformly lit so it could be seen. All the beautiful shot
| composition was defeated by the color grading and lighting that
| just screamed that it was targeted towards lower common
| denominator streaming quality screens and not theaters.
|
| Whole time I thought there was really no point watching on an
| OLED or in HDR cause it's not taking advantage of either.
|
| You can even see it on the photos in the article. The BTS
| photographs have contrast and blacks while the stills from the
| show are muted and gray.
|
| The whole series basically looked like it was trying to
| recreate the "Shot on Google Pixel" look and completely
| opposite of HBO's black on black on black.
| praveen9920 wrote:
| >> Right now everything is going wireless. Video is wireless.
| Lights are wireless. Sound is wireless. It's all good, but
| there's a lot of congestion on sets with all those things
| combined. Sometimes those nice tools don't work because there's
| too much technology on set
|
| I've been there. Too much tech and compatibility among them is a
| major source of frustration. For a movie tech guys I see that as
| opportunity to come up with an OS where everything can be
| integrated where all stakeholders being users and multiple
| technologies working together with cohesion
| xorcist wrote:
| What I don't understand is how film crews can work together when
| they are larger than two pizza teams? And when they want to
| change something, it's almost like they just do it? Surely they
| have to file a ticket with the Product Owner first? And why don't
| they wait until the current sprint is done before doing things
| that clearly belongs to the next one? Why do the producer run
| around speaking in precise terms when he is clearly in the
| position of Business Owner and should stick to user stories? It's
| a wonder that the result is even watchable!
|
| Sarcasm aside, there is something to be said about industries
| that let professionals do their work, and everyone is doing their
| bit towards a clearly defined shared goal. Considering the IT
| industry has taken so much ideas from industrial production, it
| wouldn't hurt to take some from artistic production too. After
| all, both are work concerned with refining blueprints where the
| final draft ends up being the product.
| api wrote:
| This is the joy of physical reality as opposed to software.
| Atoms vs bits.
|
| Software is different because digital systems are messes of
| rigid causality. If reality were like software moving a table
| could trigger the elevator to stop working and birds to fly
| upside down by breaking DNS by way of a change in server load
| triggering Kubernetes to get into a weird state where it kills
| and restarts DNS too fast to allow it to properly initialize
| and serve requests, but only when it is raining in Bangalore,
| India on a Tuesday.
|
| The other nice thing about reality is reusability. A table used
| in one movie set could be used in a different movie without
| rebuilding the table.
|
| There has been a ton of work on good system design to avoid
| this, like well done (not enterprise Java) OOP, and we were
| getting there until the web and cloud hit and we decided to
| trash all that and go back to piles of slop on Unix servers.
| Still wouldn't have been as inherently causally ordered as
| physics but it might have been nicer.
| gsich wrote:
| >two pizza teams
|
| 1 person teams?
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Enough to feed with two pizzas[1].
|
| [1] https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoPizzaTeam.html
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| How many slices does each person get to eat?
| majkinetor wrote:
| The less, the better. Its junk food after all and humans
| think better when hungry. :)
| arccy wrote:
| found the american
| gsich wrote:
| No, even a standard 30-33cm pizza is barely enough for 1
| person depending on hungry state.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| Perhaps Costco pizzas - 18 inches, or about 45 cm!
| margalabargala wrote:
| Only if the team is American.
|
| This is one reason why offshoring has been such a big
| phenomenon, two pizzas go a lot further.
| munificent wrote:
| A big part of the difference is the timelines and scale.
|
| When you ship a piece of software, it's often expected to be
| usable by a million people reliably for years.
|
| In film and video production, you're duct taping shit together
| to get it to stay in one piece just long enough to get the shot
| and get the film out the door. You're fixing shit in post
| because you were in a hurry on set. It's a sort of barely
| controlled chaos.
|
| Game development is somewhere between the two.
| goalieca wrote:
| The shot, once made, is forever unless you do an expensive
| reshoot. Software bugs happen and people have low
| expectations for bugs even in highly scaling software like
| YouTube.
| esafak wrote:
| Haven't you heard of "We'll fix it in post"?
|
| Given the way things are, whole movies are going to be made
| in post...
| ozim wrote:
| When someone is fixing it in postprod most of complexity
| of the initial shot is gone never to be seen again. It is
| not like they fix some colors on the scene and then last
| scene of the movie suddenly changes to something
| different :D
| cluckindan wrote:
| Have you seen the amount of changes George Lucas did when
| editing the prequel trilogy of Star Wars? They were
| digitally composing individual actor performances within
| a shot.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Isn't Lucas known for being an outlier in the industry in
| his devotion to post-production editing? I honestly don't
| know. But I am unsure that other production teams are
| capable of pulling this off and shipping on schedule with
| the same aptitude.
| monocasa wrote:
| He pioneered that modern post production heavy flow for
| blockbusters, and everything listed is pretty common in
| that niche.
|
| Honestly it's almost more notable these days when that
| kind of stuff doesn't happen.
|
| You're basically paying more money to decouple and delay
| decisions as much as possible.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I've also heard this practice blamed for enabling a
| decade of "bad cgi"--visuals are reworked and reworked
| until time runs out, and in a rush they ship visuals that
| are worse than in movies 20 years ago. Explicitly: it's
| not the artist, it's a production pipeline failure. And
| indeed, it's easy finding marvel movies whose CGI looks
| closer to that of a video game than Lucas's prequels.
| Heck, even the sequel movies fall into this category.
| esafak wrote:
| Tech debt!
| ozim wrote:
| Greedo shooting first didn't make empire good guys just
| Han less of a bad boy. ;)
| troupo wrote:
| Yes, and movies are noticeably worse for it
| HillRat wrote:
| One thing about Andor is that Gilroy specifically
| encouraged the directors not to shoot a lot of coverage
| and focus instead on very intentional shot lists, which
| both sped up shooting (critical given the cost of the
| production, COVID requirements, and the Hollywood
| strikes) and resulted in a much more crafted look, though
| it required a lot of detailed up-front planning. It's
| really quite striking how different that approach is from
| the usual way things are shot, edited, and cleaned these
| days.
| bsder wrote:
| Which is ironic given how much of the original Star Wars
| was fixed in post:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMyMxMYDNk
| plemer wrote:
| But that's where "we'll get it post" comes in. The shot is
| just the starting point.
|
| That said, directors shoot v differently - some will do
| literal hundreds of takes and still do plenty of post,
| others will shoot max three takes and send to edit.
| lolinder wrote:
| Aside from what others have pointed out about fixability in
| post: People have pretty low expectations for most shots in
| most films. Every film has many mistakes in it that film
| buffs have fun cataloguing and no one else ever notices.
| Part of the art of filmmaking is knowing what must be fixed
| and what can be ignored, which is awfully similar to the
| job of a product manager.
| imbnwa wrote:
| >When you ship a piece of software, it's often expected to be
| usable by a million people reliably for years.
|
| And what specifically, comparatively, has modern corporate
| software production organization contributed to to this
| point?
| k__ wrote:
| This.
|
| Music, film, and text are static. Software is dynamic.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Yea a movie is basically the most expensive demo imaginable
| in software engineering terms. It's a feat that you only need
| to get right a single time.
|
| Curiously I think this shares a lot with other types of
| engineering. If you're putting men on the moon, you have to
| get everything right _a single time_.
| geeunits wrote:
| But we do 'right a single time' every time. It's groundhog
| day.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > When you ship a piece of software, it's often expected to
| be usable by a million people reliably for years.
|
| Is this really true anymore? I feel like people release
| software now expecting to continue to patch it repeatedly, so
| there isn't a push to get it perfect the first time.
| amarshall wrote:
| Even so folks are still maintaining it. Once a film is
| done, it's done and no one looks back.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Except George ;)
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| For one, there is lots of planning happening behind the scenes
| to make sure everything is on schedule -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_board
| mhh__ wrote:
| Software projects don't usually have the luxury of a violent
| but intuitive dictator running the thing. Obviously a mega
| budget tv show is going to be run from afar most of the time.
|
| Software can be like this, e.g. if you were building a small
| team to do something you cared about it would probably be more
| like a 3* kitchen than support team inside IBM or something.
| bombcar wrote:
| Another thing is that the jobs are very defined and regimented
| - not that the person doing A1 couldn't do a bunch of the other
| things, but he knows exactly what he is doing and not what
| others may be doing.
| techpineapple wrote:
| I imagine this to greatly idealize the film industry, I mean,
| Tony Gilroy did have to "file a ticket with the product owner"
| to put the word "fuck" in one of the episodes and was denied.
| If you have a lot of cred you can get Final Cut and creative
| freedom, but I imagine most film productions are as bad if not
| worse than your average scrum experience.
|
| Not the least of which, if you screw up a release in your
| software engineering career, you'll probably get many chances
| to correct and have a fine if not better career later in. Fuck
| up a release almost any time in your film career and you may
| never work again.
| atonse wrote:
| My guess is that adding "fuck" would've changed the show's
| potential returns and content ratings, which is a pretty big
| change when projecting revenue, ad sales, etc.
|
| Rather than "hey I just wanted to add one word and they
| pushed back"
| triceratops wrote:
| I've never watched _Andor_ but I can 't imagine any _Star
| Wars_ content with profanity. There 's nothing wrong with
| profanity. Many of my favorite movies and TV shows have it in
| spades. I just don't see it fitting in with _Star Wars_.
| atemerev wrote:
| Though a single "fuck" at this Jedi children scene in
| Revenge of Sith wouldn't be out of place.
| QuiEgo wrote:
| > two pizza teams
|
| Found the Amazonian. It's amazing how the corporate jargon
| seeps in, no matter how hard you try :). In some ways, deciding
| to work there is definitely a one way door.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| Or just someone who's familiar with the terminology. I've
| never worked at Amazon, but I've heard the term for years as
| an Amazon thing.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| Do people really unironically talk about the importance of
| pizza teams at Amazon?
| yread wrote:
| These processes were designed so that software can be made by
| dumb interchangeable cogwheels that change jobs once per year.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| You are comparing a poorly managed software project with a well
| managed movie production. The conclusion of such is obvious.
|
| Have you ever watched a "bad" movie? There is your answer :)
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's a creative energy that comes when something that has
| been planned for days/weeks/months suddenly can't be done but
| the expense of the equipment, cast/crew, location is going to
| be owed anyways is one of my favorite things about working in
| production. Only the largest of box office budget productions
| can actually shut down, but even they have the "behind
| schedule, over budget" issues too. Everyone works within their
| teams to solve the issue in ways that someone not on set would
| probably never know about, but ends up "saving the day" or
| whatever. There's a lot of hurry up and wait on set, but
| sometimes those hurry up moments are a lot of fun.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Film sets can seem enigmatic, the pacing, the language, the
| decorum. Film has over a hundred years of cultural development
| that manifests on set as set etiquette. Combined with mature
| unions that actively and heavily defend their trades. It can
| seem ridiculous and wasteful to the uninitiated... and indy
| productions split off constantly to try and reinvent the wheel
| only for individuals later in their career to converge back to
| established industry practices. In software there seems to be
| an overwhelming and toxic opinion that tech can solve all
| problems and that disruption at all cost is good. While not to
| dismiss these opinions wholeheartedly the wake of their
| destruction is not to be ignored. In film the human element is
| not only never ignored, it is the soul reason for being. As a
| creative endeavor whose output ideally is art, the working
| relationships, delegation of duties and decision making power
| is well established and enforced in the interest of efficient
| collaboration. Software on the other hand seems to be fully
| staffed with individuals who rarely get past tier four on the
| Maslow hierarchy, are entirely individualistic, highly
| competitive to a fault and in a never ending combative
| relationship with management that seems to be highly
| antithetical to the act of creation. For lack of deeper
| insights I chock it up to different financial incentives in the
| respective industries writ large. One is making cultural
| artistic or purely entertainment artifacts for humans, the
| other arguably creating solutions maybe for humans maybe not
| with the only goal of always more money no matter what.
| majkinetor wrote:
| Entertainment is not critical.
| atemerev wrote:
| Neither is most of software.
| geeunits wrote:
| It's incredible, everyone has pride and position. And are
| unique in stature and glue. No one person is unnecessary. All
| rely on each other to succeed. It's more army than office
| crazygringo wrote:
| Perhaps you're confusing planning with execution.
|
| All the things you're describing -- in the spirit of tickets,
| sprints, etc. -- _do_ happen. They 're called pre-production.
| It takes _years_ (months if you 're lucky) to set up how
| everything _will_ run on set. Producers have a huge list of
| actionables (tickets), and there is constant iteration
| (sprints) of parts of the script, of what the film 's visual
| look will be, the tone, figuring out the budget, the crew, etc.
| And there are _huge_ differences in responsibility between
| producer and director. A producer _doesn 't_ "run around
| speaking in precise terms" when that would step on the feet of
| the director, the cinematographer, etc. That would be
| micromanaging and unprofessional. The producer _does_ very much
| stick to "user stories". When film crews want to change
| something, they _don 't_ "just do it". They very much _do_
| check in with the director or showrunner.
|
| I suspect you're talking about _execution_ , where everyone
| _does_ "just do" things. When filming, every minute counts and
| shit needs to get done. Yes, every single person is
| tremendously empowered to do what's right. But that only works
| because preproduction already worked out most of the kinks, and
| they should all basically be on the same page. But even then,
| things constantly go south. Shots take hours to set up and then
| turn out to be wrong for an infinite number of reasons. There
| are endless compromises. And during that process, only _one_
| person is in charge -- the director -- because they have to
| make a _ton_ of decisions to compensate for all the things
| going wrong. So it 's teamwork... but it's also a dictatorship
| and once the director makes a decision after collecting the
| input they want you _do not argue_.
|
| You seem to be under the impression that film production is
| somehow more individually empowering or trusting than software
| development for the teams involved. It's not.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| In film, they say "we'll fix it in post" as a joke. In software
| development, they treat it as a reality, except they never get
| around to it.
|
| This is how software development compares to other fields:
| https://xkcd.com/2030/
|
| Software development really has gone off the deep end. In any
| other field, people actually document what they do, and verify
| that it works, before releasing anything. Restaurants have
| recipes and food handling requirements, manufacturers have
| tolerances and verification, architects have building code,
| warehouses have inventory management, and so on and so forth.
| Because non-software development relies on products that
| actually work, and are not built around the meta game of
| abusing arbitrary metrics, workers can rely on other
| departments to make sensible choices.
|
| Fun fact: Waterfall development never existed; it's a straw man
| argument against the common sense idea of finishing what your
| working on, before starting something new.
|
| AI is going to pop the bubble of software development, not
| because it's good at it, but because because the entire field
| is too broken to compete against it.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Even the set photos are color graded teal and orange.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'm astonished at the sets. Some of them seem impossible even for
| The Volume.
|
| I'm sure it's a combination of techniques (locations, Volume,
| CGI, green screen, etc), because that's what keeps your eye
| guessing. But I'm continually blown away by how expansive it is
| in both the foreground and background (and moving between the
| two).
| lucideer wrote:
| Afaik they didn't make any use of The Volume for this, but
| otherwise it's a nuanced combination of all 3 of CGI, locations
| & built practical sets.
| replete wrote:
| The sets are beautiful, but in this season some of the lens
| choices have resulted in so much CA/distortion outside the focus
| that you miss out on seeing them properly - to point of
| frustration. Possibly not noticeable at HD, but glaring in 4K.
| jajko wrote:
| There are certain things that simply look better at lower
| resolutions (and vice versa)
| kevinsync wrote:
| Just conjecture, but this might also be what Apple does with a
| lot of their TV+ series that are filmed for Immersive / Spatial
| Video (shot stereoscopically and end up in MV-HEVC format). On
| a regular screen it ends up looking like a super weird bokeh
| towards the edges of the image.
| My_kent_NURBEK wrote:
| An interview with the movie operator Christoph Nuyens about his
| work on the second season of the series "Andor" is a deep and
| inspiring immersion in the world of modern cinematography. Nyuens
| shares his unique experience, starting from the transition from
| analog film to digital technologies, and emphasizes how this
| expanded his creative arsenal. His story about the use of RGBW
| LED lighting is especially impressive, which allows you to
| literally "draw" the scene in real time, creating an atmosphere
| and mood with the incredible accuracy. [pushing-pixels.org]
| (https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/05/20/cinema Tography-Ondor-
| interView-with-Christophe-nuyens.html? Utm_Source = Chatgpt.com)
|
| He also describes in detail how modern technologies, such as LED
| screens and painted backgrounds, allow you to achieve more
| natural light and visual depths, especially in scenes with
| restrictions related to the use of a green screen. His approach
| to creating a unique visual style for each block of episodes
| inspired by various geographical and cultural references
| demonstrates a high level of artistic skill and attention to
| details.
|
| His thoughts on the importance of human interaction on the set
| and about how the pandemic Covid-19 influenced these aspects of
| the work sound especially touching. His desire for constant
| training, adaptation and cooperation with various cultures and
| teams emphasizes his devotion to the art of cinematography.
|
| In general, an interview with Nuins is not only a story about the
| technical aspects of filming, but also an inspiring story about
| passion, perseverance and love for their work. His experience and
| approach are an excellent example for everyone who strives for
| perfection in the field of visual narrative.
| nwlotz wrote:
| "Made with love" is a concept that's subjective but real. You can
| tell Andor was made with love, while the sequel trilogy looks
| like it was made with a set of release criteria designed by
| consultants.
|
| Not to mention I don't even put Andor in the category of a
| typical Star Wars story. It's just great geopolitical writing.
| The boardroom scenes were some of my favorites of any show I've
| ever watched.
| beloch wrote:
| The only thing I can say against Andor is that it made Rogue One
| seem a little bit inadequate as a capstone film.
| briian wrote:
| Unoriginal opinion: Andor is the best Star Wars TV Show/Film
| since Disney took over.
|
| But, the reason it probably did so well was they let people like
| Christophe just make something cool instead of overly commercial.
|
| I'd love to see VCs start funding film production like they fund
| video games. Maybe then we'd have a genuinely new film the
| quality of Andor, that was as popular as the original Star Wars
| instead of another thing inside of Star Wars.
|
| Something genuinely new, there's only been remakes recently.
|
| I just want a new universe to geek out on.
| everyone wrote:
| My friend was telling me Andor S2 is insanely good. So I'm
| seriously considering watching it.
|
| However, I had previously watched a few eps of S1, and everything
| was fine and very well made.. but I just didnt care about
| anything that was going on, so I stopped.
|
| Just wondering did anyone else feel the same about S1 and then
| get blown away by S2?
| udkl wrote:
| Yes, I am the same. I enjoyed the entire S2 even though I left
| S1 after 1 or 2 episodes.
|
| S2 has great, great acting and characters along-with good
| pacing since they apparently jammed in at-least 2 seasons into
| a single season. It starts out strong too.
|
| S2 shows the larger republic and it's politics and factions.
| This gives you a broader galactic context of what's going on.
| This enamored me and got me to go back and re-watch the first 6
| movies. I originally watched them as a teen and was lost at the
| time. Really started to appreciate the setting and story now.
|
| I need to go back and watch the remainder of S1 though since
| they say it gets better later.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| > cinematography
|
| "How do I light and shoot this green screen?"
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