Andor (Star Wars: Andor) - Disney+

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Back on... wherever the hell this is again, I neither remember nor care at this point... we're treated to a scene of a man climbing to the top of a bell tower to manually pound on a big slab-like chime with a pair of hammers to mark the time.  Automatic bell-ringers were patented in the US in 1908. 

Don’t forget, this story takes place a long long time ago in a galaxy that hasn’t come up with standards to require safety rails 

[Seto Kaiba]

... and for the hat trick, episode 3 "Reckoning".  

EPISODE 3: "RECKONING"

Spoiler

Well, I reckon this story better get off its arse and down to business soon... or they'll run out of episodes and wear out the soles of Cassian's boots before he ever actually gets to DO anything.

OH BOY WE'RE BACK IN THE JUNGLE WITH KID CASSIAN!  He's going into the wrecked ship.  Why does the wrecked ship have a massive airlock(?) space that's got to be six feet or more across with ladder rungs on one side well clear of the hatch only?  This is an access nightmare.  So now we've got low-rent Mowgli running around the inside of a spaceship being startled by the obligatory sparky bits, poking corpses with his blowgun.  

I'm guessing something horrible happened, because the crew look human and, as a rule, humans are not typically highlighter yellow.  It's like the ship is carrying refugees from The Simpsons who discovered they couldn't live in the three-dimensional world.  Cassian sees his reflection in the walls and seems a bit freaked out by it, then starts whacking it with his blowgun.

Cassian's bumming around some kind of salvage yard.  It looks like they're cutting up old starships for recycling or something.  He tells his friend he'll be back some day, then runs off.  Last episode's space bus finally lands, and we get the first shot of this series that almost looks like it belongs to Star Wars... a spaceport terminal with some droids milling about and so on.  We learn that Cassian has an Imperial prison record.  The space cops arrive and they appear to be using Clone War surplus transports to land their troops.

Back in Kid Cassian's flashback, we see Cassian's mum there to loot the crashed ship he's busy smacking with his stick.  He's clearly terrified of them.  Present day Cassian's hanging around a machine shop.  There's some back and forth with the flashback as the woman who'd become Cassian's mum tranquilizes him to get him out before the authorities arrive and presumably cull the tribe for killing a Republic officer.  The cops behave as dickishly as one would expect from Starcharse's previous behavior, making quite a mess while demanding to know where Cassian is, but otherwise don't hurt anyone or even threaten to hurt anyone.  Cassian and his buyer haggle after Cassian accidentally bows his own cover.  The buyer offers an extra thousand credits to hear how Cassian stole whatever valuable gizmo he stole, and he basically confesses to a Bavarian Fire Drill.  Cassian finds himself on the receiving end of a Rebel sales pitch just as the cops roll up.

Some actual goddamn plot progression finally happens when Cassian's Rebel contact blows up the cops outside the factory door and begins planning their escape, leading to a shootout as Cassian stupidly goes back for the box.  They end up escaping down some kind of drain.  Jealous boyfriend gets upset seeing a squad of armed cops with mechanic girl in cuffs, and despite them warning him off AND POINTING GUNS AT HIM he charges them and gets shot.  (Unusually, the unit commander even seems to be pissed off with the guy who took the shot and confiscates his weapon, removes him from the op, and sends him back.)  The cops prepare an ambush, but get ambushed themselves.  The locals even took the time to sabotage their aircraft, leading to the cops believing their under attack by a large group.  Cassian rigs a car bomb that takes most of the cops out.  Starcharse seems to be a bit shellshocked by the turn of affairs while Cassian and co. make a clean getaway.

We get treated to a montage of Cassian's escape, the various people who've been traumatized by the events thus far, and a flashback showing the ship Cassian used as a hiding place for his pricy gizmo was his mum's old ship.

Andor is pretty weak tea thus far... though episode three shows a modicum of promise once the series finally gets off the goddamn dime and gives up on its multi-episode walking tour of Irrelevant City A's grungiest edifaces in favor of actually moving the plot forward a little bit.

I do like that, once the action finally gets rolling, there's no quipping.  No smart remarks.  For both Cassian and the corporate cops, the situation is a tense life-or-death affair and they look appropriately tense and anxious during the whole thing.  No graceful acrobatics, no trick shots, just a bunch of panicky scrambling for cover and desperate fighting for survival.  I am especially fond of the scene after the episode's climax, where nobody celebrates.  The deputy inspector is so shellshocked he's left staring blankly into space and needs to be dragged away by his subordinate.  The locals who assisted in the sabotage aer traumatized by having taken a life, and of course those who saw someone die right in front of them are distraught.  This wasn't a bold moment of heroism for anyone, it was a violent traumatic event that touched EVERYONE... even the would-be jaded antagonists who thought they were above it all.

That positive node aside, three episodes in and I'd call Andor boring.  Even tedious.  Over ninety minutes of footage in the can and maybe ten minutes of actual content if you're generous about it.  The protagonist is an arsehole, and we know he's not going to get better because he's still an arsehole in Rogue One.  We're just going to see a lot more very vicious, inhumane moments as Cassian becomes the cold killer he brags about being in Rogue One.

[Duke Togo]

Andor is better written, better acted, and better looking than the other three Star Wars shows. And it's very much its own creature. It's intelligent. It's thoughtful. It's adult. Lucasfilm has hit a home run with this show and it just raises the bar for Star Wars shows. Lucasfilm producing shows of a lesser quality than this (such as Boba Fett and Obi Wan) just won't be acceptable going forward.

That Tony Gilroy has been given two 12-episode seasons to let this story breath is a major win for fans. Hopefully Andor leads to more of the same from Lucasfilm.

[sh9000]

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

Andor is better written, better acted, and better looking than the other three Star Wars shows. And it's very much its own creature. It's intelligent. It's thoughtful. It's adult. Lucasfilm has hit a home run with this show and it just raises the bar for Star Wars shows. Lucasfilm producing shows of a lesser quality than this (such as Boba Fett and Obi Wan) just won't be acceptable going forward.

That Tony Gilroy has been given two 12-episode seasons to let this story breath is a major win for fans. Hopefully Andor leads to more of the same from Lucasfilm.

Agreed.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

Andor is better written, better acted, and better looking than the other three Star Wars shows. And it's very much its own creature. It's intelligent. It's thoughtful. It's adult. Lucasfilm has hit a home run with this show and it just raises the bar for Star Wars shows. Lucasfilm producing shows of a lesser quality than this (such as Boba Fett and Obi Wan) just won't be acceptable going forward.

That Tony Gilroy has been given two 12-episode seasons to let this story breath is a major win for fans. Hopefully Andor leads to more of the same from Lucasfilm.

I’m in disagreement over most of this. The flashback stuff feels like fluff. And it’s such a slow show that I really don’t think it’s very smart either. Just good at wasting time. They easily could’ve got to the point of the third episode stuff at least by the second one. I get the feeling that the writers just didn’t have much of a story, so they just do as much fluff as possible to keep up an episode count. The main character seems like he could’ve avoided almost everything by just not being such a scetchy person. His group is supposed to be good at laying low, but somehow tell everyone that could report them their secrets. It’s definitely better than the obi show and maybe tied with the boba show, but Mando is still the best they got on d+ and that could easily go downhill as well if treated wrong in the next season.

 I do hope this show picks up story wise and maybe gets to a point where it feels intelligent, but judging by three full episodes, I can’t say it will get there

[Duke Togo]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I’m in disagreement over most of this. The flashback stuff feels like fluff. And it’s such a slow show that I really don’t think it’s very smart either. Just good at wasting time. They easily could’ve got to the point of the third episode stuff at least by the second one. I get the feeling that the writers just didn’t have much of a story, so they just do as much fluff as possible to keep up an episode count. The main character seems like he could’ve avoided almost everything by just not being such a scetchy person. His group is supposed to be good at laying low, but somehow tell everyone that could report them their secrets. It’s definitely better than the obi show and maybe tied with the boba show, but Mando is still the best they got on d+ and that could easily go downhill as well if treated wrong in the next season.

 I do hope this show picks up story wise and maybe gets to a point where it feels intelligent, but judging by three full episodes, I can’t say it will get there

Given the response to this show, I’d say you’re in the minority. That said, everyone has their own tastes, so I’m not going to tell you how you should feel about this show. I hope you find more enjoyment in it going forward.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I’m in disagreement over most of this. The flashback stuff feels like fluff.

I'd agree with your dissent... the flashbacks to Cassian's early childhood as a member of an inexplicably primitive tribe on Kenari serve no real purpose in the story.  It doesn't add anything meaningful or interesting to Cassian's character or to the story as a whole.  It's not like Cassian is a Proud Warrior Race Guy and he hasn't shown any real attachment to his birth world or its culture in the story thus far.  It could be omitted entirely without subtracting anything from the story except total runtime.  After a while, you start to wonder if it's a subtly racist thing... if Cassian Andor's dissolute lifestyle is supposed to be because he's a native who's left the reservation like that old racist stereotype of the First Nations folks.

Really, possible racist implications aside, all it really does is leave you asking why there's a primitive tribe of explicitly-human hunter-gatherers living barely a stone's throw from a massive high-tech Imperial strip mining operation.  How do you even get a half-feral human tribe like that in a setting like this?  (Not being snarky, I really want to know.)

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

And it’s such a slow show that I really don’t think it’s very smart either. Just good at wasting time. They easily could’ve got to the point of the third episode stuff at least by the second one.

Looking back at it, there is at most one 30 minute episode's worth of material spread across more than 90 minutes in the three episodes thus far.

This could have literally been one episode.

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I get the feeling that the writers just didn’t have much of a story, so they just do as much fluff as possible to keep up an episode count. The main character seems like he could’ve avoided almost everything by just not being such a scetchy person. His group is supposed to be good at laying low, but somehow tell everyone that could report them their secrets.

It definitely feels like that... they spent so much time shooting people walking purposefully down the same handful of streets for minutes at a time.  If this is starting as it means to go on, I can hardly wait for Andor Kai, when they cut out all the filler and lose 3/4 of the episode count.

It's also really stupid that for all Cassian's real planet of origin is supposed to be a secret, he's apparently blabbed to so many people he can't name them all.  Even his adoptive mother is visibly exasperated by his stupidity.

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

It’s definitely better than the obi show and maybe tied with the boba show, but Mando is still the best they got on d+ and that could easily go downhill as well if treated wrong in the next season.

Now this, I disagree with...

Andor has, thus far, lived up to its showrunner's promise to focus on storytelling and not let the show be driven by fanservice.  Even weak as it is, it stands head, shoulders, knees, toes, and several banthas above the likes of The Mandalorean, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in my opinion.  Those shows are driven almost exclusively by fanservice. My experience has been that if you're not already fully invested in the specific fanservice they're built on, they don't really bring much to the table.  For me as the filthy casual, none of those shows have really offered much in actual entertainment because they are very much "By fans, for fans".

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

 I do hope this show picks up story wise and maybe gets to a point where it feels intelligent, but judging by three full episodes, I can’t say it will get there

I too hope this series picks up, though my fear is that it will decay into a fanservice-driven affair like the other three shows once Cassian becomes involved with the founders of the Rebellion.  Saw Gerrera and the boss lady from Return of the Jedi are already confirmed to be in this one.  The more references and in-jokes they draw, the more casual viewers like me end up locked out of the loop in "Sorry, who are you again?" reactions.

Edited September 24, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[technoblue]

I’m enjoying it too. There are some unanswered questions about Cassian’s past—thing’s that don’t quite add up given how much information we’ve been allowed to see in the flashbacks. Then there’s Cassian’s own willingness to go wherever the winds of fate take him. That appears to be a character quirk at the moment. But I’m not an impatient viewer. I can wait for the story to fill in those missing pieces and give us more perspective as the plot unravels.

 

 

[Bolt]

I'm enjoying the ride, thus far. And now it's getting interesting. Clearly this is meant to be the other side of the rebellion. Morally shifting ground to accomplish the mission. I like it. It feels more realistic and gritty (But WHERE are the Destroids! Lol) ! As an aside, many of the SW stories are in reference to BBY. As it was obviously (originally) the most decided battle of the rebellion. The battle of Scarrif ,IMO , is now also quite important. But it's more like the battle that was forgotten. Unfortunately. And don't forget about those Bothan spies that died..

Edited September 25, 2022 by Bolt

[Seto Kaiba]

6 minutes ago, Bolt said:

I'm enjoying the ride, thus far. And now it's getting interesting. Clearly this is meant to be the other side of the rebellion. Morally shifting ground to accomplish the mission.

Isn't Andor kind of before the rebellion proper?

IIRC, the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One was presented as kind of the moment the rebellion became an organized thing instead of just a bunch of disparate militant dissident groups with their own separate agendas.

 

[Mog]

Can we just all agree that wanna-be Imp Officer is a knucklehead?

Spoiler

Dude could have just listened to his boss and his quite logical reasons.

But Dickhead had to be the turd in the punch bowl.  Probably pissed off all of his staff.  And he probably got at least half of those Corpo. guys killed on the planet.

Idiot.

 

[azrael]

50 minutes ago, Mog said:

Can we just all agree that wanna-be Imp Officer is a knucklehead?

  Hide contents

Dude could have just listened to his boss and his quite logical reasons.

But Dickhead had to be the turd in the punch bowl.  Probably pissed off all of his staff.  And he probably got at least half of those Corpo. guys killed on the planet.

Idiot.

As I said, moral of the 1st 3 episodes, when your boss tells you to do not waste your time on a matter, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME ON IT.

[Mog]

Especially when the points that boss makes are RIDICULOUSLY LOGICAL.

[technoblue]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Isn't Andor kind of before the rebellion proper?

IIRC, the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One was presented as kind of the moment the rebellion became an organized thing instead of just a bunch of disparate militant dissident groups with their own separate agendas.

 

I agree with @Bolt on this one for a few of reasons. First, the Battle of Yavin is a known inflection point. Second, it has been used as the date system in canon Disney-created SW fiction for a number of years now. I think the first instance in canon fiction was 2016? Third, for more invested fans, the date system harkens back to a non-canon tabletop RPG from the 1990s. So fans who played that would be familiar with it too.

All that said, the title card wasn’t a big deal for me. It took only a moment to figure out what BBY stood for when it was used in the first episode. I didn’t have to look it up.

IMO, the Battle of Scariff (aka the Action/Raid on Scariff) is one of a number of missions that show the fledgling rebels gaining ground and increasing their morale. I guess I would ground it in the real world to the US War for Independence. In both cases, a number of missions led to the formation of a new government but both the real-world and fictional world events have their high and low points. For the high points, there are key moments where the revolutionaries turn the tide if you will. At Scariff, a high-speed team secures the Death Star plans and passes them on to the Princess. The destruction of the first Death Star wasn’t the end, of course, but it was the first major victory and a serious morale boost at that given moment. To me, I guess it makes sense that this moment is framed—like Washington crossing the Delaware.

To ground it further in what we know from the original trilogy, itself, that dystopian landscape already exists. The Galactic Senate (by the time of the first movie, known as the Imperial Senate) had been dissolved by Palpatine. He was the authoritative ruler of the Empire and he was the one who let Grand Moff Tarkin build a planet killing weapon of this type. It wasn’t just a symbol. It was a tool. We got to see it used for crushing political opponents and dissidents. I’m sure if the Battle of Yavin had ended in failure, its use would have been expanded. Imagine the Emperor using it to blink out suspected Jedi sanctuary planets?

Edited September 25, 2022 by technoblue

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, Mog said:

Can we just all agree that wanna-be Imp Officer is a knucklehead?

  Reveal hidden contents

Dude could have just listened to his boss and his quite logical reasons.

But Dickhead had to be the turd in the punch bowl.  Probably pissed off all of his staff.  And he probably got at least half of those Corpo. guys killed on the planet.

Idiot.

Nah, calling the deputy inspector - who Google tells me is named "Syril Karn" - a knucklehead implies he's stupid.

He's clearly not stupid.  He's something much worse... he's clearly one of those weak and insecure people who joined law enforcement because he wanted to have some concrete form of power over other people.  His establishing character moment shows how much he fetishizes the authority his position gives him: he had his duty uniform tailored to make himself look more impressive (and, no doubt in his mind, more intimidating).  As soon as his superior is out of the picture, he takes every opportunity to demonstrate his authority over his colleagues and the populace in general.  The only one of his colleagues who is shown to actually like him is a similarly-minded junior officer who repeatedly expresses his contempt for the general populace and enthusiasm for violence.

(The political critique being made via these characters is super obvious...)

 

4 minutes ago, technoblue said:

I agree with @Bolt on this one for a few of reasons. First, the Battle of Yavin is a known inflection point.

But not one Cassian is relevant to... this is his story, after all.  His definining moment is the Battle of Scarif.

Prior to that battle, Cassian Andor is just some terrorist.

 

4 minutes ago, technoblue said:

Second, it has been used as the date system in canon Disney-created SW fiction for a number of years now. I think the first instance in canon fiction was 2016? Third, for more invested fans, the date system harkens back to a non-canon tabletop RPG from the 1990s. So fans who played that would be familiar with it too.

Understood, but for the plurality if not majority of the intended audience who do not partake of the Expanded Universe to any significant degree it's a meaningless string of letters and doesn't really connect to Cassian's story regardless.

It's a good demonstration of the way having Star Wars fans making Star Wars material can lock new or casual viewers out of the loop.  Unpoliced, it's a self-defeating spiral that can kill entire franchises as we're seeing with the slow-motion collapse of the American comics industry.

 

4 minutes ago, technoblue said:

IMO, the Battle of Scariff (aka the Action/Raid on Scariff) is one of a number of missions that show the fledgling rebels gaining ground and increasing their morale. I guess I would ground it in the real world to the US War for Independence. In both cases, a number of missions led to the formation of a new government but both the real-world and fictional world events have their high and low points. For the high points, there are key moments where the revolutionaries turn the tide if you will. At Scariff, a high-speed team secures the Death Star plans and passes them on to the Princess. The destruction of the first Death Star wasn’t the end, of course, but it was the first major victory and a serious morale boost at that given moment. To me, I guess it makes sense that this moment is framed—like Washington crossing the Delaware.

Hence my question... Rogue One presents the state of the rebellion up to the Battle of Scarif as a loose collection of anti-government militant groups with differing ideologies that were largely unwilling to agree on anything.  From A New Hope, there's the suggestion of capital emphasis on "Rebel Alliance", and they're presented as a unified force without any demonstrable infighting in the movies.  My read of it, as a casual enjoyer of the films with almost no exposure to the EU, is that that was the moment that made the Alliance gel to become the unified fighting force in the original trilogy.  

 

 

[electric indigo]

Seperated at birth?

[Bolt]

Lol. Both complete A holes that vapor lock under fire

[technoblue]

On 9/25/2022 at 11:45 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

But not one Cassian is relevant to... this is his story, after all.  His definining moment is the Battle of Scarif.

Prior to that battle, Cassian Andor is just some terrorist.

I would say it's simply a fixed point placing where this part of his story fits within the larger SW universe. I don't know that it needs to be any more relevant than that. The date itself doesn't need to be a double entendre. But maybe I misunderstood. Given the fiction we know about, I don't see the time reference taking away from Rogue One events or the sacrifice he made with Jyn Erso and their team on Scarif.

On 9/25/2022 at 11:45 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Understood, but for the plurality if not majority of the intended audience who do not partake of the Expanded Universe to any significant degree it's a meaningless string of letters and doesn't really connect to Cassian's story regardless.

It's a good demonstration of the way having Star Wars fans making Star Wars material can lock new or casual viewers out of the loop.  Unpoliced, it's a self-defeating spiral that can kill entire franchises as we're seeing with the slow-motion collapse of the American comics industry.

That's fair. I do agree that Disney has been inconsistent with how they have been using all the SW extended universe information. At first, all of it was off the table. Then, they were picking and choosing among the choice bits. Now, it seems they've employed a random number generator to pick which EU plots to reuse. It can get exhausting. All I'm going to say is that I'm glad I don't write SW fiction. I wouldn't want to walk that minefield. 

On 9/25/2022 at 11:45 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Hence my question... Rogue One presents the state of the rebellion up to the Battle of Scarif as a loose collection of anti-government militant groups with differing ideologies that were largely unwilling to agree on anything.  From A New Hope, there's the suggestion of capital emphasis on "Rebel Alliance", and they're presented as a unified force without any demonstrable infighting in the movies.  My read of it, as a casual enjoyer of the films with almost no exposure to the EU, is that that was the moment that made the Alliance gel to become the unified fighting force in the original trilogy.  

I agree. As for Cassian's personal relevancy, I think this show may be trying to fill that in. I'm waiting on some depth--maybe in the present day plot or maybe in the flashback scenes. Unfortunately, the all too important context connections have yet to be realised. With the first three episodes, I can infer two things, 1) he appears to have traced his sister even after being taken from Kenari and 2) he maybe had a thing for the leader of his tribe--what happened to her? Did she actually die? Bonus thought: If his sister is bouncing around off of Kenari in the show's present day timeline, does that mean the rest of his Lord of the Flies tribe were rescued? Did all of them find their way off planet?

Oh, and clearly finding his sister is important enough that he risks everything, including the well-being of his friends, to sell that imperial tech he stole to get off planet. There's still a ways to go, though, to see the Cassian Andor from Rogue One who was a respected rebel asset: assassin, spy, and saboteur.

Edited September 26, 2022 by technoblue

[TehPW]

On 9/25/2022 at 2:19 AM, Mog said:

Can we just all agree that wanna-be Imp Officer is a knucklehead?

  Hide contents

Dude could have just listened to his boss and his quite logical reasons.

But Dickhead had to be the turd in the punch bowl.  Probably pissed off all of his staff.  And he probably got at least half of those Corpo. guys killed on the planet.

Idiot.

 

He wants to be the next Capt Neeter (or something Imperial Officer). That's why his ambition is so wet, it drips. That's why he's such an asshat.

 

Now that Box that Seto bashes as unimportant will be important because what have we NOT seen yet in 3 episodes so far? actual IMPs. Kassa is so unimportant to the Empire (that means Safe, as far as the Empire is concerned) that they subcontract their security requirements to rent-a-cops. That box (the Macguffin for this story) is what gets actual IMP interest (that is, why the Vamp Imp chick from the promos shows up presumably in Esp 4 or later). 

Edited September 26, 2022 by TehPW

[Roy Focker]

Deputy inspector Karn is going to take the same path as the villain in Bridal Mask. That's a K-drama from several years ago.  In it the well meaning but over his head villain  slowly becomes a vicious and ruthless psychopath.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 9/25/2022 at 6:08 PM, electric indigo said:

Seperated at birth?

The Bad Luck Brothers, for sure.

At least Gorman has the excuse that he was very carefully and deliberately set up to fail by the long and highly amoral arm of the Weyland-Yutani corporation.

The chief instigator of Syril Karn's destruction was Syril Karn.  His victory condition was do nothing and he still screwed it up.

 

3 hours ago, technoblue said:

I would say it's simply a fixed point placing where this part of his story fits within the larger SW universe. I don't know that it needs to be any more relevant than that. The date itself doesn't need to be a double entendre. But maybe I misunderstood. Given the fiction we know about, I don't see the time reference taking away from Rogue One events or the sacrifice he made with Jyn Erso and their team on Scarif.

That's fair, though I wasn't arguing that it in any way diminished the events of Rogue One.

I was just saying that, for the casual audience, it would probably have been more helpful to date it relative to the events of Rogue One since that's where we all know Cassian from anyway.  I'm sure it wouldn't have been a huge dealbreaker for the die-hard fans to spell out "Five years before the Battle of Scarif" instead of "BBY5".

(Is there no established in-universe calendar?  I'd expect there to be something like "Imperial Year such-and-such" or "Year such-and-such of the Xth Republic".)

 

3 hours ago, technoblue said:

All I'm going to say is that I'm glad I don't write SW fiction. I wouldn't want to walk that minefield. 

SAAAAME.  Especially with how... easily upset... the Star Wars fanbase seems to be from the outsider's perspective.  

(Of course, I know that's a bit skewed... bad news has a much better publicist than good news.)

 

3 hours ago, technoblue said:

1) he appears to have traced his sister even after being taken from Kenari and 2) he maybe had a thing for the leader of his tribe--what happened to her? Did she actually die? Bonus thought: If his sister is bouncing around off of Kenari in the show's present day timeline, does that mean the rest of his Lord of the Flies tribe were rescued? Did all of them find their way off planet?

That's definitely a point where the flashbacks have not helped.

Spoiler

Based on the first few minutes of the series, Cassian is looking for his sister from his tribe on Kenari.

But, in Episode 3's final flashbacks, Maarva seems pretty damn certain that Cassian's tribe are going to be exterminated by the Republic/Imperial armed forces for the death of one of the crashed ship's surviving crew.  It'd be a really REALLY weird and stupid coincidence for her to have somehow survived that, somehow made her way offworld in spite of being an uneducated half-feral primitive, ended up in the same region as Cassian, and lived conspicuously enough for Cassian to halfheartedly try to track her down.

I kind of suspect Maarva just didn't have the heart to tell Cassian he was the last of his kind.

 

3 hours ago, technoblue said:

Oh, and clearly finding his sister is important enough that he risks everything, including the well-being of his friends, to sell that imperial tech he stole to get off planet. There's still a ways to go, though, to see the Cassian Andor from Rogue One who was a respected rebel asset: assassin, spy, and saboteur.

Looking back at it, I didn't get the impression those two things were connected.

Spoiler

Cassian goes to an (illegal?) brothel(?) in the corporate zone to supposedly look for his sister and ends up committing a double homicide there in the first five minutes.  He really doesn't mention her thereafter.  He spends two-and-a-half episodes running around Ferrix trying to establish an alibi and scare up the cash to arrange a no-questions-asked berth on a departing ship before the corpos can identify and arrest him as a suspect in the deaths of those two cops he killed.  He can't muster the cash through his usual means so he tries to arrange the sale of the box to someone who turns out to be a "talent scout" for the nascent Rebellion.

 

1 hour ago, TehPW said:

Now that Box that Seto bashes as unimportant will be important because what have we NOT seen yet in 3 episodes so far? actual IMPs. Kassa is so unimportant to the Empire (that means Safe, as far as the Empire is concerned) that they subcontract their security requirements to rent-a-cops. That box (the Macguffin for this story) is what gets actual IMP interest (that is, why the Vamp Imp chick from the promos shows up presumably in Esp 4 or later). 

Are we sure the Empire would see him as "safe"?  IIRC the corporate cops mention he's got an Imperial prison record for sedition or something like that.

It's not like the Imperials knew about his crime and decided to ignore it.  The corporate cops discovered the crime and their own leadership decided not to report it to the Imperial authorities because, at the time, it was the soon-to-be-covered-up deaths of two corrupt cops who'd gotten killed doing several shady things at once.

After Cassian and Luthen's... discreet... exit from Ferrix, I'd imagine the Imperials need no further incitement to take an active interest.  Box or no box, they made enough noise on their way out of town that the corporate police won't be able to keep the Imperials from noticing.

Spoiler

After all, two off-duty corrupt cops killed shortly after partaking of a controlled substance in a den of vice that isn't supposed to exist is something law enforcement seems to consider pretty trivial thanks to their dangerously genre-savvy leader identifying it as lethal stupidity at work.

A dozen or more officers killed or severely wounded by gunfire and multiple explosions after an attempt to serve an arrest warrant to a murder suspect turned into a running gunfight through a city would be enough to garner serious attention even without details like a police aircraft destroyed due to sabotage, that car bomb wiping out most of a police squad, or a squad being attacked by a civilian while detaining a suspect.

[Kanedas Bike]

Besides The Mandalorian the live action Star Wars shows have been a mixed bag (often from episode to episode), but Andor has been consistently fantastic 3 episodes in.

-b.

[Big s]

6 hours ago, Kanedas Bike said:

Besides The Mandalorian the live action Star Wars shows have been a mixed bag (often from episode to episode), but Andor has been consistently fantastic 3 episodes in.

-b.

I wasn’t bored the first two episodes or really any episodes of the Mandalorian. I also liked the main character, which is something important to me for a show. So far two out of three Andor episodes were dull and there really haven’t been any like able characters. I actually don’t like Andor as a character at all so far. I do however see potential for the show to be good. It has a really great look and there could be some things coming up that have me curious. I just hope it doesn’t end up a let down like the Obi show 

[Kanedas Bike]

11 minutes ago, Big s said:

I wasn’t bored the first two episodes or really any episodes of the Mandalorian. I also liked the main character, which is something important to me for a show. So far two out of three Andor episodes were dull and there really haven’t been any like able characters. I actually don’t like Andor as a character at all so far. I do however see potential for the show to be good. It has a really great look and there could be some things coming up that have me curious. I just hope it doesn’t end up a let down like the Obi show 

Totally get it, hopefully the show (characters especially) get better for you. I know my enjoyment of a movie or TV show is extremely dependent upon how I feel about the characters.

I absolutely didn't like Cassian when he was introduced in Rogue One, but it was okay because he wasn't the star, Jyn was, but I warmed to him by the end. So I enter the show with a slight affinity for the character and I have no issues with his motivations or how he's written.

-b.

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, Big s said:

So far two out of three Andor episodes were dull and there really haven’t been any like able characters. I actually don’t like Andor as a character at all so far.

To be honest, I kind of suspect that the lack of likeable characters is intentional and maybe even part of the point.

We know from Rogue One that Cassian Andor and Saw Gerrera both belong to rebel factions that are a lot more militant and extreme in their views.  So much so in the case of Saw Gerrera that he's at loggerheads with the mainstream Rebel Alliance.  These aren't the principled Original Trilogy freedom fighters firmly ensconced on the Light Side of Star Wars's rigid moral absolutes, embodying "The Revolution will not be Vilified".  These are the amoral but well-intentioned terrorists whose consolation is that they (believe that they) are a Lighter Shade of the Dark Side compared to the evil Empire they're working to overthrow, embodying "The Revolution will not be Civilized".  

It'd be kind of weird to make these people really likeable when Cassian is basically an antihero bordering on villain protagonist territory.

[pengbuzz]

16 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be honest, I kind of suspect that the lack of likeable characters is intentional and maybe even part of the point.

We know from Rogue One that Cassian Andor and Saw Gerrera both belong to rebel factions that are a lot more militant and extreme in their views.  So much so in the case of Saw Gerrera that he's at loggerheads with the mainstream Rebel Alliance.  These aren't the principled Original Trilogy freedom fighters firmly ensconced on the Light Side of Star Wars's rigid moral absolutes, embodying "The Revolution will not be Vilified".  These are the amoral but well-intentioned terrorists whose consolation is that they (believe that they) are a Lighter Shade of the Dark Side compared to the evil Empire they're working to overthrow, embodying "The Revolution will not be Civilized".  

It'd be kind of weird to make these people really likeable when Cassian is basically an antihero bordering on villain protagonist territory.

Basically: well-meaning jerks.

[jvmacross]

Imagine the hate that would run rampant across the internet had Cassian been depicted during his pre-rebel days as a happy-go-lucky scoundrel, like Young Solo was during his own much maligned prequel...

For the most part it seems the hate for Andor is negligible... guess that's what happens when something is viewed favorably by most of the fandom...hoping it sticks the landing...I have a good feeling about this...

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Basically: well-meaning jerks.

Closer to "villains who we share a mutual enemy with".

 

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

Imagine the hate that would run rampant across the internet had Cassian been depicted during his pre-rebel days as a happy-go-lucky scoundrel, like Young Solo was during his own much maligned prequel...

He was such a little edgelord in Rogue One, having him be happy-go-lucky would just be weird.  

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Closer to "villains who we share a mutual enemy with".

 

He was such a little edgelord in Rogue One, having him be happy-go-lucky would just be weird.  

Hmmm... an interesting Star Warts story would be what happened once their mutual enemy was dead...

[Big s]

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Hmmm... an interesting Star Warts story would be what happened once their mutual enemy was dead...

I think that was last Jedi 

[Mog]

They went fast and heavy with the name drops in the first 10 to 15 minutes:

* As a Knights of the Old Republic fanboy, it tickled my ears to hear the Rakata mentioned (with that kyber crystal).

* Ryloth was mentioned during the ISB meeting (Rebels’ Hera Syndulla’s homeworld and location of a few Clone Wars/Bad Batch eps).

* As well as the Arvala system (the location where Grogu/Baby Yoda was found. . . technically different planet but same solar system referenced).

And given how anal the Imps are about memos and paperwork, I guess Bill Burr’s character in Mando wasn’t joking about TPS reports! 😅

 

 

[Dobber]

I’m quite liking this series so far. The look the sound everything. This latest episode really made me feel the tension the fledgling rebellion was under with the Mon Mothma scenes. Something I never really got before.  As corny as this sounds it feals like Star Wars for adults. Nothing wrong with the more adventurous stories that have come before…after all as many love to point out GL has often said Star Wars is for kids….so it is nice to see a more mature story….at least thus far.

Chris

[Seto Kaiba]

All right, headed into Andor Ep4 "Aldhani"...

Spoiler

We open on Cassian fumbling around in the interior of Luthen's ship looking for medical supplies and the ship jumps to hyperspace.  Cassian apparently wasn't expecting it to do that?  Luthen's real bad at this "sales pitch" thing when it comes to recruiting Cassian.  He basically offers Cassian the option to join him or get tossed off the ship.  Once he actually offers Cassian the chance to hurt the Empire.  Apparently there are multiple groups fighting the empire?  The Rebel Alliance is obviously the one he's from, but he also lists "Sep" (the Separatists, from the prequel trilogy?), guerillas, and the "Partisan Front"?  Not familiar with that last one.  Apparently Cassian isn't picky, and sees them all as being the same.

Cassian served in an Imperial penal legion?  At least, that's how he makes it sound.  Apparently he's a deserter too?  Luthen's sales pitch is pure dark side, about Cassian's hate and using it to die for something greater.  He also admits he wasn't interested in the box at all, and came to recruit Cassian.  He's putting a team together?  Oh great, welcome to Space Ocean's 11.  The score: the quarterly payroll for an entire Imperial sector (however big that is).

Hey, Coruscant!  I actually KNOW this one. 

Why are the authorities in this series the most likeable characters?  This is the SECOND senior law enforcement official who has that incredibly dry, done-with-your-crap wit I so love.  Good on ya, Mr. Partagaz.  I'm surprised the stolen starpath unit survived that fracas, but as expected it's treated as a footnote to the carnage that Cassian and Luthen's exit inflicted on the Preox-Morlana security forces.

Aldhani is... an utterly nondescript grassy field?  Cassian chooses an atrocious alias, so welcome to the space heist advantures of our boy CLEM.  I'm going to be disappointed if one of the other would-be thieves isn't a Bubba, Cleetus, or Bobby Joe. *imitates banjo sounds*

Why does every ship seemingly emit huge amounts of smoke across the embarkation ramp for no reason?  The ramp was already down, what possible purpose could it serve.

Luthen goes to talk to the recently-arrived girl and Cassian ponders stealing his ship.  She objects to Cassian being added to the team (reasonable).  She is understandably a little bit pissed that Cassian is being paid.  Luthen's kind of a hardass about all this, and they're not getting on.

Back in the Preox-Morlana camp, Karn's boss Inspector ?, Deputy-Inspector Karn, and Karn's Scottish goon are all being read the riot act by the ISB.  Karn's boss is upset that he faces consequences for Karn's screwup, but the ISB agent is having none of it.  He offers Karn the consolation that he is not being replaced... the entire organization he serves AND the corporate government that it serves, are being disbanded because of Karn's rogue action.  He screwed up so bad it resulted in a regime change for a whole star system!  By the end of it he looks like he's headed home to eat a gun.

Cassian gets chewed out by his new boss while they walk somewhere.  The "good guys" randomly threaten each other A LOT in this, while the Imperials and Imperial-affiliated folks seem a lot more civil and reasonable.  Apparently they're going to rob a garrison near an airbase.  Cassian is understandably a bit upset that he wasn't told that the plan was to rob a military base with just seven people.  They narrowly avoid being seen by a patrol of fighters.

Wow, apparently almost everyone actually survived that shootout in episode 3.  The death toll for that shootout and multiple bombings was one civilian (Timm) and just four Preox-Morlana security troopers.  Jeez... Imperial stormtroopers die if you break wind in their presence and they're supposed to be elite troops.  These corporate goons clearly are a hardier breed.  Amusing that the Imperial security nicpick brigade are complaining about typographical errors in the reports.  Ma'am, that is not how you pronounce the word "Ensign".  It's "En-sin" not "En-SIGHN".  Apparently the recovery of the box Cassian stole lets a different branch of the ISB get jurasdiction for the case.

Luthen's ship is back at Coruscant, and he has an incredibly overcomplicated vanity in the john.  We watch him put on a wig and some jewelry and pose.

The Imperials are having some jurasdiction friction.  If this were any other series, I'd suspect these two end up dating later.

DRAMATIC WAAAALKING!  

Two more members of Vel's team, one gets chewed out by the other for napping on sentry duty.  A third guy is brandishing what looks like an almost totally unmodified AK with a drum magazine?  Isn't everyone supposed to be using laser guns or something?

Hey! Hosnian Prime! I know that one... that's the planet Han's whiny kid and his ginger gofer blow up for yuks in The Force Awakens, right?  I hate to say it, this airport/spaceport thing here doesn't look very alien at all.  Kinda reminds me of the MacNamera terminal at Detroit Metro.  Hovercars aside, even the dropoff/pickup looks similar.  Oh hey, Karn's the guy shuffling aimlessly around in a big baggy coat.  It's weird seeing him without the stick up his arse having a stick up its arse.  Oh god, he went home to live with his mum and her first reaction is to hit him.  She seems nice.

Vel's getting the third degree from her boys about Cassian.  

Luthen's cover is... an art gallery owner?  Antique store owner.  And a shockingly affable one at that.  He's meeting with Mon Mothma, who IIRC is the rebel leader from Return of the Jedi.  They have an argument about money to fund their operations under cover of him making a sale of an artifact.

More complaining from Vel's colleagues about "Clem".

Mon Mothma and her husband(?) argue about a dinner party and the guests being people who don't get on with her politically.  Her husband(?) seems like kind of a douchebag.

No unspoken plan guarantee for this heist.  Cassian immediately starts pointing out the problems like the airbase being only minutes from the garrison and how suicidal it all is... even if the base has a defense compliment of just forty men.  Wait, this is a sector payroll vault and it's got just forty guards?  Apparently their entire plan hinges on there being a garrison force stupid enough to think nobody'd ever try it and an astronomic phenomenon that will conveniently make it impossible to track their escape.

The two ISB agents are glaring at each other from across their huge spaceous conference room.  I, meanwhile, am now actively shipping it and there is nothing you can do to stop me.  Major Partagaz unfortuantely rains on my parade by not ordering them to kiss and make up.

Oh boy, a sullen fireside meal with the other rebels to end the episode.

 

So, let's start with a list of all the obvious Proper Nouns this episode drops that I, as a casual fan, have no idea what the hell they mean:

• Fondor (a placename?)
• Aldhani (presumably to be revealed)
• Mimban (Cassian fought in there?  A town?)
• Ryloth sector
• Arvala-six
• Abrion sector
• Kuati
• Rakatan (a species?)
• Alarian (a language/species)
• Myo (a language/species)
• Nari (a language/species)
• Chandrilan (ethnicity?)
• Utapaun
• Sev Tok

Fortunately, none of these seem to be terribly important to the plot except Aldhani, so it's not a case of being locked out of the loop like I'd feared.  However, it is a lot of random gibberish for a series trying to remain accessible to the everyman to throw at its audience.

All in all, a much better episode than the previous few.  There is finally a sense of direction to the plot, and a feeling that things are beginning to move.

I really hope that the next one offers more than a few minutes of actual action.  This episode was mostly exposition.

[jvmacross]

Sees new post from Seto..."reveals hidden contents"

[Seto Kaiba]

26 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Sees new post from Seto..."reveals hidden contents"

Yeah, I'm a wordy so-and-so... 😅

Stream of consciousness rambling aside, I'm enjoying Andor enough to not only give it my full attention but to start getting invested in the fate of the characters and thinking about the setting and the bits of context I'm missing.  If the goal was to get non-fans invested in the series, it's mission accomplished in my case.   

(Admittedly not always the characters we're supposed to be getting invested in... I'm shipping Blevin and Dedra even though it's totally the wrong genre for an ending like that.)