ANDOR aka Glum Village : its own thread

Wait until you find out about the space wizards xp

Well there aren't any droids there in the prison. Not a one! Which is different for Star Wars, definitely.

and once again, everyone is humanoid

surely there should be some Bothans and Mon Calamari in lockdown too

They really haven't featured any AI-type stuff, have they? I feel like the whole SW universe is unrelentingly human, the good and the bad. Even the droids are basically "people" with peculiarities. It's not really about the robots, is it, it's about humanity. What strikes me about the prison is, it's so industrialized that they've almost erased the need for human control, it's almost fully automated, but that also ends up being it's weakness.

they probably just killed the non-humans or sent them to an even heavier labor camp

we know Bothans are always the first to be sacrificed for the cause

iirc lucasfilm has an internal reference doc that states all star wars tech should tie to the 1950s. in other words, it's retrofuturism. one quibble about andor is the presence of ipads and bluetooth earpieces (comlinks are the preferred way to communicate, and should be assembled out of a gilette venus razor.)

...still thinking...the Empire is so fucking tightfisted and capitalist that they reduced their extremely important (in production capacity terms) labor prison to an absolute skeleton staff (good job whoever was wondering why that first scene was in there about the guard being late--was it tracer? you have such a good ear for these things) presumably to put their human capital elsewhere while employing as few people as possible. Whoops! Turns out that was a bad idea, who could possibly have seen it coming etc

Also thinking about how Riker's Island has 9000+ prison guards and only 5500 people imprisoned there...mostly due to the guards having a union, which they mutate into a weapon to hurt & kill inmates (often enough just from neglect despite their overwhelming numbers). The specific evil of the Empire is that it's anti-human, clinical, ruthlessly "efficient," but there are plenty of other kinds of evil.

The stretcher for the dead guy was a droid, btw

Was the stretcher per se a droid or just a floating tray? (I'm sure there's something out there somewhere definitive about this and I refuse to acknowledge it.)

this is entirely self-invented, but i wondered why serkis/kino agreed to go along with the plan if he knew he couldn't swim? but then you start to think how kino's probably been in there for years and years, and has probably forgotten what the planet looks like outside the prison. he probably only got the one glimpse when he was first brought there, and that memory may have been shocked out of him (literally).

Also I think a lesser theme of the show is how *inefficient* repression is, you need so much resourcing and labour in the form of police. Far better to get the people themselves to do it for you a la late capitalism.

xxp it had a wee head with an eye looking around at the front, it was a surprise in the droid free environment.

I really admire whosever call it was during the production to say OK, we’re not gonna have aliens all over. I’ve heard a fair few complaints but it would constantly distract from the intensity of the drama (hey it’s that species from the diner in episode III) and means their budget went on settings and practical effects, which has been thrillingly convincing and immersive. And so imaginative - the terror of the prison is achieved with a few dozen red LEDs, some elaborate sneakers and hands-on-heads.

absolutely best set design

So good. I love the simplicity/neutrality of the cells without bars or furniture, with nothing that can be used for anything, not even blankets! Just all function.

The workroom bits are not really...believable. They don't throw those parts around or wrench on things with any of the smoothness or physical confidence that comes from repetition. And nothing visibly changes any time they say "We have to speed up! Work faster!" and then go just as slowly & clumsily as before. But you can't have everything.

Yes, everyone is surprisingly fully limbed and digited for a place where speed is so highly prized. I'd have pictured a lot of minor crush injuries and amputations. But it's not a big deal.

and once again, everyone is humanoid

I assumed that was to do with the machinery, the feeding, the overall makeup of the prison. Easier to just have a single species in it, I'd imagine?

good use of aliens as lonni makes his way further and further underground into the coruscant underbelly

These are the prequels I wanted, not six hours of “well the Jedi had a COUNCIL and a TEMPLE” and other tedium we already knew.

has it ever been mentioned explicitly that the Empire are human supremacists? Makes sense they would have segregated prisons too, I suppose

that's been a part of star wars lore for as long as I remember

the first couple films imply that other species are relegated to the outskirts of the galaxy

later films not so much

Oh shit I just realized Felicity Jones (in Rogue One) ISN'T the same person as Amiee Lou Wood (from Sex Education, among other things).

did the anti droid sentiment expressed in the original film ever get explored further?

in orbit otm about the unconvincingness of the work on the factory floor. we’ve all seen enough oil rigger tiktoks by now to know what it looks like when somebody can do a highly demanding physically repetitive job in their sleep. trishyb also otm - the whole thing about “hands away!” clearly instituted after one too many dismemberments but i was sure we’d see at least one

has it ever been mentioned explicitly that the Empire are human supremacists? Makes sense they would have segregated prisons too, I suppose

― Roz, Thursday, November 10, 2022 12:10 PM (eighteen minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

that's been a part of star wars lore for as long as I remember

― 龜, Thursday, November 10, 2022 12:11 PM (eighteen minutes ago)

oh right, duh, thrawn - critical to his backstory that he is the lone non-human grand admiral in the imperial fleet.

although i dunno if thrawn is now just a 'legend' or if he's been incorporated into the canon.

ah thanks. i figured there was prob something like that but Ive never read any of the novels

Diego Luna doesn’t get the big monologues but I’ve really appreciated his performance throughout - especially in the prev couple of episodes, where he’s not doing much other than observing, listening, planning, nudging.

It’s kind of fascinating to have as a lead character someone who isn’t shown to be a leader as such, and who wants to avoid doing anything really, but he can’t seem to help himself from inspiring others to lead and to act. Shit gets done when Andor’s around.

These are the prequels I wanted, not six hours of “well the Jedi had a COUNCIL and a TEMPLE” and other tedium we already knew.

Definitely. I can't believe I've been suckered back into this stupid universe and all it took was a commitment to compelling storytelling in place of tediously backfilling every second of every original character's life.

who wants to avoid doing anything really, but he can’t seem to help himself from inspiring others to lead and to act. Shit gets done when Andor’s around.

I love how annoyed he always is about it. "Oh ffs give me that revolution if you can't start it yourself. Why do I always...stop doing that, it won't work. Give it here."

although i dunno if thrawn is now just a 'legend' or if he's been incorporated into the canon.

Oh he's been in for years; Rebels was always explicitly canon and he was a running character over a good chunk of that, and Ahsoka specifically namedrops him at the end of her debut appearance in The Mandalorian. Timothy Zahn was the surprising factor: having introduced Thrawn in novels that were then made 'legends' he went right ahead and wrote a whole new trilogy of them now in canon.

Side note but I love Timothy Zahn and I find his brief series about elite "Blackcollar" warriors waging a violent rebellion on Earth against an occupying alien force to be very instructive in thinking about how Jedis are hunted/in hiding.

i'm well past my star wars expanded universe reading years but maybe i'll pick up some of these new thrawn novels! xp

Worth a read

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/andor-explained-season-1-finale-season-2-preview-1234626573/

Which, among other things, has this immediately relevant passage for this thread:

One of the directors said that you had a mandate, which isn’t surprising to anyone who’s been watching this show to keep the droids and aliens at the margins, in the background. Tell me about that.

I’ve heard that. I think We’ll be addressing some of that as we go along a little bit more. Sometimes it’s problematic in storytelling, where you can’t just introduce a character. You have to introduce, all their plumbing and all their health issues. People said, Why didn’t you have aliens in Narcina Five [where Andor is imprisoned]? You see the the five facilities that are in that lake there, so it’s easy for me to imagine that there’s another one that’s all aliens. But what are the mechanics of what you can do and build and hat would the bathroom be like on the factory floor? I don’t even really know. You get into a bunch of other issues that become just a little bit too complicated sometimes to go into. But we will be doing more of that as we go along.

And I understand that there’s some people that feel that’s been shaded slightly, but that’s probably the primary reason. It adds a level of complexity and it adds a level of political complexity, but we will be going there. Look, we’re going all the way to Rogue One. There’s a lot of that coming up.

I'm so excited for next week now, I'm practically HUMMING.

Ned--you of all people I wouldn't be surprised to learn had read Zahn's Blackcollar books--have you? I was obsessed w them as a younger person. It was such an interesting world that it felt like he never got to build out with the alien invasion. Maybe he did it with the SW books instead?

Sadly I did not read them; I knew the name when he first fired up for SW writing but that was about it. But I'm intrigued a bit now.

I assumed the lack of aliens could be explained as differences in circadian rhythms or some species being immune to electricity and the empire not having to build toilets that accomodate both wookies and ewoks. But it's also probably a lot cheaper to hire 50 humans than to CGI 50 different species in the backgrounds.

Also everyone in the galaxy to live in rustic outpost villages or brutalist apartments or hovels in the desert or clean industrial places or oppulent mansions; I really want to some characters who live in a suburban split level on coruscant

Hilarious that Gilroy mentions that Clerks scene

did the anti droid sentiment expressed in the original film ever get explored further?

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, November 10, 2022 12:13 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I always just assumed (after the fact of the prequels) that it was because of the droid armies used in the Clone Wars, but contemporaneously with the original films they didn't really get into it.

Diego Luna doesn’t get the big monologues but I’ve really appreciated his performance throughout - especially in the prev couple of episodes, where he’s not doing much other than observing, listening, planning, nudging.

It’s kind of fascinating to have as a lead character someone who isn’t shown to be a leader as such, and who wants to avoid doing anything really, but he can’t seem to help himself from inspiring others to lead and to act. Shit gets done when Andor’s around.

much thx for that Rolling Stone interview link, Ned

yeah that RS gilroy interview was great

Strongly suggest reading this one from him as well

https://scriptmag.com/interviews-features/tony-gilroy-checks-in-after-10-episodes-of-andor

Plus this from the producer and one of the key writers:

https://gizmodo.com/star-wars-andor-interviews-writer-producer-disney-1849763876

I love that he gives Babylon Berlin a shout, not enough people have watched that show

babylon berlin fucking rules fyi

It's amazing, although I found it amusing he pointed to how they managed the budget. I'm pretty sure BB was the most expensive European TV series ever made at the time.