Andor (Star Wars: Andor) - Disney+

[Dynaman]

25 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

Well, they gotta make it interesting with conflict. No one wants the C-SPAN version of a peacetime Galactic Senate... or do they?? lol

Well, Phantom Menace gave us that and based on that the answer is NO!

I admit to watching CSpan coverage of the House and Senate from time to time.

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, Big s said:

I kinda meant between rebel factions since that’s what the alliance was made up of rather than just bringing back the same enemy again 

That's a bit too complex and mature for Star Wars, which tends to favor very simple, straightforward, and kid-friendly Good vs. Evil storylines.

Andor is very much the exception in that regard.

 

7 hours ago, Dynaman said:

Historically some of the nastiest fighting in a war against a dictator or any revolution happens after the dictator falls.  The victors very often only have one thing in common - wanting the dictator out.

That probably would've happened in Star Wars too.

I'd assume the reason it didn't (or that it happened quietly and offscreen) is because the more extreme rebel factions that refused to join the Rebel Alliance (e.g. Saw Gerrera's) got wiped out during the war like we saw in Andor, Rogue One, and Rebels.  Saw would absolutely have declared war on the Republic too just to spite Mon Mothma.  In Rebels, he made his low opinion of her extremely clear... and the hilarious irony is he was completely correct about her.

 

6 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Well, they gotta make it interesting with conflict. No one wants the C-SPAN version of a peacetime Galactic Senate... or do they?? lol

Technically, that happened in The Phantom Menace... we see a couple sessions of a peacetime Galactic Senate and the whole movie's plot was kicked off by a tax policy issue.

[sh9000]

Dedra is having a panic attack.

[Roy Focker]

On 3/26/2025 at 5:43 AM, Dynaman said:

Well, Phantom Menace gave us that and based on that the answer is NO!

I admit to watching CSpan coverage of the House and Senate from time to time.

Prequels also tried to be very kid friendly. You can't mix serious cerebral political discussions with a kid racing goofy looking cgi critters. They are too far apart. 

[TangledThorns]

1 hour ago, Roy Focker said:

Prequels also tried to be very kid friendly. You can't mix serious cerebral political discussions with a kid racing goofy looking cgi critters. They are too far apart. 

How about a show based on pod racing?!! It'll be like Speed Racer but in Star Wars form!!

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Prequels also tried to be very kid friendly. You can't mix serious cerebral political discussions with a kid racing goofy looking cgi critters. They are too far apart. 

The space politics is best left to the Expanded Universe novels and whatnot.

I learned the other day there is apparently a novel released specifically as a tie-in for Andor last month - Reign of the Empire: the Mask of Fear - which gets into the political side of the early rebellion.

It does, I am reliably informed, continue the rather unflattering depiction of Mon Mothma as a naively idealistic to the point of being ineffective. 

Spoiler

She spends much of the story putting together a bill in the Senate to curtail Palpatine's executive power, only for Palpatine to then use his executive veto power to veto the line items that curtailed his authority while letting the various unrelated riders on the bill pass into law so that she'd lose all her negotiating power.  She is very surprised the self-proclaimed Emperor won't just meekly allow the senate to strip him of his autocratic power.

 

[pengbuzz]

27 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The space politics is best left to the Expanded Universe novels and whatnot.

I learned the other day there is apparently a novel released specifically as a tie-in for Andor last month - Reign of the Empire: the Mask of Fear - which gets into the political side of the early rebellion.

It does, I am reliably informed, continue the rather unflattering depiction of Mon Mothma as a naively idealistic to the point of being ineffective. 

  Hide contents

She spends much of the story putting together a bill in the Senate to curtail Palpatine's executive power, only for Palpatine to then use his executive veto power to veto the line items that curtailed his authority while letting the various unrelated riders on the bill pass into law so that she'd lose all her negotiating power.  She is very surprised the self-proclaimed Emperor won't just meekly allow the senate to strip him of his autocratic power.

 

And she's supposed to be one of the leaders of the Rebellion?

Are we sure she isn't related to a stormtrooper or something (she can't seem to hit her targets either)?

[Dynaman]

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

How about a show based on pod racing?!! It'll be like Speed Racer but in Star Wars form!!

We had a Speed Racer movie, the world pretty much agrees that was bad...

[Seto Kaiba]

36 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

And she's supposed to be one of the leaders of the Rebellion?

Are we sure she isn't related to a stormtrooper or something (she can't seem to hit her targets either)?

Yeah... despite everything, she is still supposed to be one of the leaders of the Rebellion.

Her role seems to be more political than anything, maintaining a Republic government-in-exile claim to legitimize the Rebel cause.  

I'm hoping they either scale her role in Andor's second season way back or that they actually give her something meaningful to do to advance the Rebel cause.

[Duke Togo]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Her role seems to be more political than anything,

Are we watching the same show? Her entire plot in the first season is centered around her trying to hide all of the credits she's been funneling from her family fortune to the Rebel Alliance. She's financing them. Whatever she's doing in the senate is performative.

Edited yesterday at 12:31 AM by Duke Togo

[Big s]

7 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Prequels also tried to be very kid friendly. You can't mix serious cerebral political discussions with a kid racing goofy looking cgi critters. They are too far apart. 

Tell that to Jar Jar. He was the ultimate politician 

 

6 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

How about a show based on pod racing?!! It'll be like Speed Racer but in Star Wars form!!

I’d watch it

 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Are we sure she isn't related to a stormtrooper or something (she can't seem to hit her targets either)?

That whole bad shooting storm troopers thing has been totally debunked. They just got too cocky and were attempting to shoot left handed and over estimated their abilities. If they just fired right handed, Luke would’ve been toast

[Seto Kaiba]

On 3/27/2025 at 4:54 PM, Duke Togo said:

Are we watching the same show? Her entire plot in the first season is centered around her trying to hide all of the credits she's been funneling from her family fortune to the Rebel Alliance. She's financing them. Whatever she's doing in the senate is performative.

Pretty sure we are.

Like you say, her whole plot in the first season of Andor is centered around her trying to cover her own arse because she did an inadequate job of laundering the money when she gave 400,000 credits to the Rebellion from her own accounts.  She's not trying to cover up continuing contributions, just the one she's already made.  Her only other involvement with the story is to complain about Luthen's team actually advancing the Rebel agenda.  It doesn't present her as leading anything, really.  The people actually leading the various rebel cells seem to consider her annoying.

Her role, respective to Luthen, seems to be very similar to her role in other Star Wars media.  That of the figurehead who is mostly just in the way or underfoot while the Rebellion's actual leaders are trying to get things done.

 

Incidentally, I decided to pick up a copy of The Mask of Fear since it's supposed to be a tie-in to Andor and such.  By the end of the first Mon Mothma section, it definitely feels like it's continuing the trend in other post-reboot Star Wars media.

Spoiler

Partway in, The Mask of Fear makes note that Mon Mothma is a widely and increasingly unpopular senator both galaxy-wide and among her own constituents.   So much so that members of her staff are quitting without notice.  She's also depicted as being very judgemental in a holier-than-thou sort of way.  Her interactions with other senators always seem to involve her mentally complaining about her colleagues at length and branding them hypocrites for one reason or another.

There's a second in her second part where she goes almost directly from looking down her nose at people who are willing to compromise to reach a solution that doesn't strictly align with their values to musing about how her position is so unpopular she'll have to rely on the returning Separatist senators to have any hopes of passing a bill which curtails Palpatine's authority because their views already align with hers.

It offers another dimension to her relationship with her husband Perrin, though.  His ability to get along with anyone that so irritated her in Andor is depicted as an essential feature of her office.  He's the one who does the schmoozing at social functions because she's too stiff to be likable.  

 

The book definitely seems to be leaning hard into the idea that the real Senator leading the Rebellion was Bail Organa... though even he is the less popular replacement for the late Padme Amidala.

 

 

On 3/27/2025 at 7:26 PM, Big s said:

Tell that to Jar Jar. He was the ultimate politician 

I don't think anyone saw that twist coming.

Jar-Jar Binks, acting Republic Senator for Naboo and unwitting instigator of Palpatine's master plan to overthrow the Republic.

 

On 3/27/2025 at 7:26 PM, Big s said:

I’d watch it

Just cast Vin Diesel as the lead and have him talk about family like it's a Fast and the Furious sequel... nobody will notice the difference.

[Duke Togo]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

400,000 credits to the Rebellion from her own accounts

It's actually more than that. The 400k is what she hasn't been able to cover for.