Andor is a Breath of Fresh Air

foreign guys it's finally here the long-awaited and or video that's like a month and a half late like what do you want from me I was feeling pretty burned out after that second Kenobi video it took me months to make it and it was a grueling painstaking process and that's before getting into the like 15 [ __ ] times that Disney tried to keep me from even getting that out there it was exhausting so I decided to take a little break I sat back I relaxed got caught up on all the [ __ ] that I've been putting off watching and reading for the past six months and spent some quality time with my family for Christmas I had a lot of you guys asking for a review of this show and I promised I would deliver but for just a couple weeks there I gave myself some much needed rest so if you're wondering why it took me so long to get this video out that's why also please go watch the Kenobi videos if you haven't like I said I worked really hard on them and I would definitely appreciate the views and now here we are new year new beginnings and a [ __ ] ton of new Star Wars shows on the horizon that I couldn't be less interested in if I I tried I'm probably not going to make any videos about Mando season 3 or bad batch season 2 when they come out because I've already reviewed previous seasons of those shows and don't intend to repeat myself but there's plenty of other upcoming sludge for all of us to look forward to and if you're feeling suffocated by all of it trust me you're not alone which is why Andor is as refreshing as it is it came out right after many huge misses by Disney and while that was definitely not smart of them from a marketing and logistical standpoint and ended up being a really nice palette cleanser as the title and thumbnail of this video already state it was a breath of fresh air it was exactly what the doctor ordered but like I said this show really wasn't released at a good marketable time the numbers of this show make it pretty clear that fan interest for this franchise is at an all-time low and I don't really think anyone can blame them it probably doesn't help the show's case any that the main character is a guy who was in one other movie was a pretty one note and generic morally gray caricature and then he [ __ ] died so not a lot of people were as interested in Cassie and Andor as they might have been Obi-Wan or both Boba Fett he's definitely not a household name but it's undeniable that the reason this show really isn't doing so hot financially is because it had to follow up to absolute [ __ ] piles in the same year it's the exact same reason solo lost money having released just five months after the Last Jedi people speak with their wallets and the fans have spoken which is something I find increasingly frustrating because of how good this show actually is but again I get it I really do as a matter of fact I almost didn't watch this show Kenobi was so bad that I was actually planning on just never watching any new Star Wars ever again the only reason that I sat my ass down on Premiere night and watched the first three episodes of this series was because my friend wanted me to watch it with him and we had a pretty good time with it I just remember sitting there in complete shock at the fact that we just watched something that was actually good the following day I did a stream giving my initial thoughts on the first three episodes which I recently re-watched before starting on this video just to see how much my opinions of the show have changed and just how well my arguments have held up and let me just be the first to say holy crap did I underestimate this show I initially gave it like a 6 out of 10 for just the first three episodes which by my metric is what I'd consider good but nothing more than that it's definitely a lot better than a six a lot of people who watch that stream said I was approaching those episodes in bad faith and I kind of started to believe that for myself after a while but after re-watching it I think I was honestly pretty fair All Things Considered now granted I won't pretend I wasn't still cynical toward the General State of Disney Star Wars because I was and still am but I think for the most part I was just as reasonable as I always try to be with these things most of my criticisms weren't even really criticisms they were just me stating things I wasn't really sure about or things that just hadn't been explained yet but I was sure they would and I made sure to preface all of that in the Stream So anyway long story short Andor ended up being a lot better than I was expecting it to be it's easily the best thing to come out of Disney Star Wars and I'm honestly considering touting it as some of if not the best content in all of Star Wars I know some of you will hear that and instantly not believe me but if you're someone out there doubting my words who hasn't actually seen the show uh shut the [ __ ] up like actually seriously how could you possibly know that of course was a joke and or is extremely rich in its World building grounded in its take on the Galaxy and mature in its themes and note when I say that I don't mean it's Star Wars for grown-ups because two characters have sex and that guy said a No-No word [ __ ] I mean it's mature in the way it handles its characters none of the good guys are strictly morally good through and through and none of the bad guys are mustache twirling Dr Evil types it makes it pretty clear that the Empire is bad and that what they're doing is horrible but it also shows the nuances of a regime that manages to span an entire galaxy and which employs billions of people to carry out its will not all of them are going to be evil these are just people who are trying to do their jobs and who actually believe the Empire is what the Galaxy needs and this is what I've been craving for years now you guys remember in my Kenobi video how I complain that all of Disney Star Wars treats it very cut and dry if you support the empire in any capacity that automatically makes you a bad person now finally we have a show that tries to paint it in a much more realistic light and it's nice to see and like I said earlier the good guys get the same treatment all of the rebels we meet in the show have their fair share of skeletons even [ __ ] mon mothma who's never really been much more than a OneNote caricature meant to symbolize the goodness of the Rebellion arguably some of the most morally dubious characters on this show are people doing the wrong things for the right reasons the best character on this show is Luth and rail played by Stellan Skarsgard who does a lot of pretty [ __ ] up [ __ ] like there's a scene where he's arguing with saw Guerrera about the merits of letting a fellow Rebel leader walk right into a trap in order to protect a mole within the Empire and even saw Guerrera a known Rebel extremist is like this dude is [ __ ] scary it is just so nice to see that these characters have their own sets of values that lead them to the positions they've taken in this fight and they aren't just good or bad for the sake of it I will forever love this show for making mon mothma one of my favorite Star Wars characters speaking of which this show also delves a lot deeper into the political and bureaucratic aspects of this world than any other Disney Star Wars property has even tried to I've been saying for years now how important World building is and finally we're getting to see glimpses of just how this Empire functions as a standing government we get to see Senate meetings mon mothma carefully maneuvering through shark infested waters as seemingly everyone is out to get her we see her making allies Keeping Up Appearances having financial hardship while trying to support an entire rebellion in secret we also get to see how the Imperial Security Bureau functions how the officers interact with and undercut each other for their own promotional gains we see jurisdictional arguments and petty squabbles over which territory belongs to who it's also incredibly interesting and if that sounds boring to you then well I'm sorry I guess this isn't for everyone but for yours truly I prefer shows that take care to craft the setting in which the big explosions and lightsaber battles unfold rather than just being spoon fed meaningless spectacle with no sufficient context and yes a lot of people like to say that this show is boring or that it's too slow and again it's certainly not for everyone to that I can really only say that I wasn't bored but you know to each their own I still recommend you decide for yourself after actually giving it a fair Shake rather than just trusting the word of someone else because and I'm definitely throwing some shade with this one but a lot of the same people who complain about this show being boring are the types of people who would absolutely cream themselves over Obi-Wan beating the [ __ ] out of Vader by launching a bunch of rocks at him so you know my opinions of those people Star Wars opinions really aren't all that high no offense I'm gonna move on before I dig that hole any deeper for myself now you guys might be wondering why I haven't really talked that much about the main character yet the show is called Andor after all so what is there to say about the man himself well I will say he's definitely a lot more 3D dimensional here than he was in Rogue one and I'm surprised but happy to say that I'm actually invested in his story going forward but that's kind of the key phrase here going forward and don't get me wrong they do a lot of cool stuff with his character this season but most of what I'm interested in is his as of yet vague past they set up a lot of mystery around his backstory and the show even starts off with him looking for his sister who he was separated from after being taken off of his Homeworld by his adoptive parents and given a new name the search for his sister is what literally kick-starts the entire plot of the show and it kind of gets dropped after the first handful of episodes we also learned that something happened to his Homeworld caused by the Empire which leaves it up in the air if the sister is even still alive but we don't really know for sure one way or the other I'm just saying I'm still hazy on a lot of the details of cassian's past and the exact timeline of how everything played out apparently he served on mimban as a cook and he was seemingly fighting for the Empire I'm just not really sure he also definitely looks old older than six here despite him having apparently been in this fight since he was six years old and here's the thing I'm not necessarily leveling any of this as a criticism what a lot of people complaining about this show don't seem to realize is that the story is not finished it was never intended to be the writers planned this whole narrative out as a two-season story arc so I'm okay with certain threads being left open with plenty of avenues to explore I'm sure all of that's going to make for a pretty neat second season but all I'm saying is if they don't clear up at least some of this confusion next season I'm not gonna be a very happy camper but like I said I like the character now and that's more than I was ever expecting to say I'm invested in learning more of his past and I'm invested in seeing his future even though I already know how his story ends I'd say that's a mark of great storytelling one of the reasons why the writing in this show is Top Notch is because you can just tell how deliberate it all is there's actual subtext within the dialogue typically with these shows characters pretty much just say exactly what they mean and there's really not much you can draw from it beyond that but here almost every single line seems to have a double meaning there's depth to the characters that unfold more as the story plays out and having gone back to re-watch a lot of the show for this video I've picked up on so many new things that previously went entirely over my head and yeah this show is extremely rewatchable I can sit down and revisit any episode of this show and still find myself enjoying it which is why I really don't understand how anyone can say it's boring going into an episode knowing what's gonna happen doesn't take away any of the excitement or tension and more often than not you notice bits of foreshadowing and symbolism that you couldn't possibly have picked up on first watch this is what I mean when I say the writing is deliberate you can tell this is a very carefully crafted narrative the one thing I will say though is that while pretty much every other aspect of the show is excellent the characters the acting the music the emotional beats definitely the weakest aspect of this production is the plot itself for the most part it's pretty good but there are some contrivances here and there and parts that are are just otherwise kind of lame in order to get the characters from point A to point B so for example the way this show is set up is that it's separated into a few different arcs episodes one through three are the pharynx Arc where Cassian meets Lutheran gets off world Cyril becomes motivated to find Andor and the Empire becomes involved in ferric's dealings as a consequence of what happens in these episodes then episodes four through six are the aldani heist where as you might have guessed from what I just said is where Cassian and a team of rebels Rob an imperial Garrison on the planet aldani then episode 7 is kind of a middle point that deals with the aftermath of that Arc while setting up the next one and then 8 through 10 are a prison escape Arc and episodes 11 and 12 serve as sort of a two-part finale and for the most part the arcs themselves are great but I think the trouble Tony Gilroy had when writing this story was figuring out how to connect them all together in a way that felt natural after the aldani heist Cassian kind of just [ __ ] off to Space Miami and gets arrested by a Shore Trooper for existing I guess he's just kind of minding his own business and then the trooper is like hey I don't like you and that gets him sent to prison so that he can meet Andy Circus and do the prison escape Arc and once he does escape the prison he gets caught by these cool looking alien dudes for trying to steal their ship and then they're just kind of like yeah we don't like the Empire either and the blood Cassian go and give him a ride back to Space Miami so that he can be where he needs to be for the finale to happen it's just a little weird these weird moments and contrivances aren't nearly prominent enough for the show to be ruined or anything but I do hope that the next season does a better job making the narrative a little tighter though from what I understand each Arc is going to be taking place a year apart from one another which can either mean that this problem will no longer exist at all or it might even be a whole lot worse depending on how it's handled so we'll see and of course I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the visuals because man oh man does this show have some good ass visuals once again it feels like it was crafted by people who actually care about the story they're telling and when you have good writing and good cinematography those two things can complement each other so well as it does here and I think this is the best example of this show learning from the mistakes of Rogue one while there's no denying that Rogue one is a cinematic Masterpiece in terms of visual spectacle it's definitely a case of style over substance I know I'll get a lot of hate for saying that because a lot of people like Rogue one but everything people told me Rogue one was back in 2016 is what Andor actually is once again everything in this show is deliberate not only does it look really nice but the visuals often tell a story all on their own because they're working in tandem with the script it definitely helps the visuals in this show that they filmed in actual locations for pretty much like every Scene It could literally be the setting of a three-episode Arc or a five second shot of one of the characters walking home and every single thing on screen just feels so real because it is they went out of their way to find locations that fit the environments of the worlds they were crafted thing and it's all that much better for it now of course if you're a weirdo you might see [ __ ] like bricks and screws and think it looks a little too Earth-like to be Star Wars but that only applies to those of you who've never actually seen Star Wars so really there's no reason to get into that and listen I'm not knocking the volume it's a revolutionary piece of technology that has the potential to make fake settings seem so real if used properly I've seen what can be done with the volume when it's used correctly but the problem once again comes down to sheer laziness pretty much every Disney project since the Mandalorian has been using this [ __ ] and if they don't give enough of a [ __ ] to write stories that stay true to the source material and honor the legacy of lucasfilm then do you really think they're gonna put in effort to make their sets look real of course not but all that is to say Andor looks really [ __ ] good the cinematography is the icing on top of a nearly perfectly crafted cake and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more like I said at the beginning of this video I don't give a [ __ ] about pretty much anything Star Wars is releasing in the coming year and I'm probably not going to do videos on most of them assuming that I even watch them but as long as Andor gets to finish its story in a meaningful and satisfying way without any intervention from the higher-ups then I'll be content with that and or season one is gonna get a 10 out of 10 from me I absolutely adore this show and any of you out there who refuse to give it a chance again I understand but I promise you will adore it too otherwise though thanks for watching and if you enjoyed this video why

Channel: Sheev Talks

Views: 50,145

Keywords:

Id: WNQIetv5aHA

Length: 15min 59sec (959 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 02 2023