Is Andor Actually THAT Good? (Yes, and here's why)

[Music] I think I'm not alone in saying that in the past few years Star Wars has felt weird at this point it's like I have a borderline abusive relationship with his franchise because every time I tell my friends that I'm done with this series that I'm gonna watch other things that I don't care anymore it lures me back with Nostalgia for my favorite characters convincing me that maybe they've learned from their mistakes only to turn around and backhand me with some of the most subpar big budget filmmaking I've ever seen [Music] and maybe this is a result of the universe beginning to feel oversaturated overstuffed and just over the top but I'm not going to pretend like Star Wars under Disney has been all bad Fallen order the last four episodes of Clone Wars and Rogue one were all fantastic but for every home run this franchise seems to hit there's at least two more face plants soon after we never knew Star Wars projects were announced I used to be excited eager to see what new stories were going to be brought to the table but now they just kind of depress me like who even asked for half of this acolyte a Droid story and or who the [ __ ] cares about Andor doesn't he literally die in that one movie God that's so stupid oh and look there's a trailer for it right now let's let's react to this right now oh God this is gonna be embarrassing oh okay yeah all right well the cinematography is decent at least what do you expect for a hundred million dollars yeah okay okay well that was kind of cool actually but whatever okay all right so maybe this doesn't look that bad there's actually this actually looks pretty good it's actually it actually looks really good what it what is happening right now are you are you telling me the Andor show the [ __ ] Andor show looks better than Kenobi so Andor is amazing and easily the best Star Wars project released during Disney's bumpy rain or the franchise I'd even go a step further and say it's the best Star Wars I've seen since Empire Strikes Back and the worst part is that it feels like no one is talking about it at least not nearly as many people were buzzing over Kenobi the Mandalorian or even the book of Boba Fett's and while this is a bit of a letdown can you really blame people for letting the show fly under the radar the past few Disney plus series have been pretty disappointing at least for me they felt rushed poorly paced oddly cheap at times and they really seem like they were originally written as movies that were later inflated to try and match the six to seven episode run time of a TV series and sure the Mandalorian was pretty solid filled with great action and characters but even Nat had its share of stale and uninspired episodes some ranging from harmless and entertaining to others being Bland and heavily reliant on cameos but then somehow Andor comes out of nowhere a show no one asked for about a character and no one really cares about and it somehow is a better production value a tighter knit story better written characters a phenomenal soundtrack and near perfect pacing and nearly everyone I see online shares my sentiment they all think Andor is a phenomenal show in sing high praise for its writing and ambitious storytelling but does everyone on the internet think the same way and if not what are their criticisms and what do they think of Andor do they even care well when it comes to the Andor series I'm not gonna cover this show I love Rogue one and it has one of the best endings to a Star Wars movie but Cassie and Andor just isn't a character that I would watch a show about this series doesn't really interest me and I'm not excited to make content about it I'm glad most people are loving this show but it's just not for me and that's okay articles that are saying this is what Star Wars needs to be Pandora's everything Star Wars needs to be this is the best Star Wars we've had what the [ __ ] are you guys smoking dude right why what there's a lot of stuff that's like individually Mad Decent in Andor right like the acting the set pieces you know some of the sound design you know the performances I think are really good the people are handing in a really good performance um but it's all put together in such a way that I just think is so completely boring um I think if lucasfilm wants to go forwards and and create more shows I think it would be really beneficial if they created a General Grievous show I think they were two absolutely amazing they could make it animated if they wanted to but I think even live action would hit you know honestly even Grievous in sort of like the style of Andor being like just more gritty and really like focusing on his like career and like what brought him to that like I could absolutely see that you know there's like a built-in draw to that I think absolutely yeah but I I would like for them to create stories that kind of build upon the characters that we already know or cover the characters we already know but just like do it better couldn't do it better be the balancing of fan service Nostalgia and new you know what I mean like I just feel like there needs to be a better balance right all these people that are saying it's such a great show the show itself is great but is it a great Star Wars show yeah I don't think so not really no yeah I mean I actually I think it's actually hurting the brand which [Music] so I just want to take a bit of a detour from the main video to discuss those clips that I just played and explain how I think they represent a larger problem within our fandom in regards to the first clip I think it makes sense that Matthew Ramos was commonly known as soups wouldn't really want to review and or because it doesn't really fall into the category of content that his channel and Persona revolves around rather soup's content focuses on covering whatever the new Big flashy and exciting thing in top culture is so this usually means his center of attention is on whatever new big comic book movie or show is set to come out in theorizing what kind of cameos or crossovers it will include and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this type of content I think he knows that following popular Trends will get him more views and so that's what he delivers to his audience however I worry that his dismissiveness of Andor is going to push away a lot of those fans who are on the fence about watching the show who would have otherwise maybe enjoyed it had they given it a chance I guess soups would rather spend his time uh recording himself screaming in a movie theater during an after credit scene or something let's go I think that that's where his true passion lies that's what he that's what he wants to do I'm kind of an [ __ ] but it was really the second clip of Star Wars Theory and his friend Josh discussing Andor that really kind of frustrated me in these clips Star Wars Theory and Josh discuss how despite the fact that they liked Andor they still think that it struggled to find that balance between fan service and original uh storytelling which only really makes me think well haven't we already gotten enough of that the past three shows and I don't know how many movies were filled with fan service get that didn't make the shows better some might even argue that they're over Reliance on that made them worse in some ways and it's not like Andor has a lack of fan service the show constantly refers to people or things that we're already familiar with that talks about the emperor and it repeatedly shows us characters and planets that we've seen before and I personally think that this take on Andor is especially bizarre given what Star Wars theory has said in the past about the Disney star Star Wars Trilogy and how he thinks the lacked coherent storytelling good character arcs and just acceptable writing in general so much so that he decided to take the power into his own hands and crowdfund his own Darth Vader short film which was filled with fan service and was badass and I just loved it so it's especially frustrating to see him and his friend turn their back on a series and dismiss it as boring or slow or inaccessible to fans just because it doesn't center around characters or story lines that we've already seen countless times before and then to further insinuate that the show would somehow be made better if it instead focused on a character we were familiar with like General Grievous makes me really think that they just missed the point now I want to make it clear that I don't have any problems with Star Wars Theory personally he seems like a cool guy and he makes pretty good content however I think his General attitude and dismissiveness towards Andor is emblematic of a greater problem Star Wars fans have of being unable to experiment and step out of their comfort zone and in a certain sense I can't really blame them a lot of the time when Star Wars tries to do something experimental it doesn't work but the times that it does work I think we get some of the best Star Wars content in the entire franchise and that sort of brings me to the points of this video why I'm making it I wanted to take the time to tell you why I love Andor what I think it does really well and why I think you should spend the time to sit down and watch it I think this is the level of content and effort that we should be rewarding and that we should be getting more of so with that let's jump into part one character writing and plot I know it's weird to lump these two things into one category but just hear me out for a second a major issue I've had with all the streaming original shows recently is that it feels like the writers have a certain story point they want to reach a big epic climax or reveal that they want to get to but they don't have a road map of how they're gonna leave the story there as a result the characters hardly feel like they have any real agency or purpose rather functioning as vessels to drive the plot forward the best example of this that I can think of is the Infamous final season of Game of Thrones the showrunner is commonly known as the DND Brothers knew how they wanted the show to end apparently or at least it seems like they had a rough idea of where their characters would end up but then they didn't put in the work and time to make that conclusion coherent or plausible with nearly every character's writing suffering as a result each being warped and changed in order to fabricate drama and reach a specific story beat even if it contradicted everything we knew about those characters commanded you to kill your own father and stand by one of thousands of men and children parental life would you have done it for every one of the million people in that City innocent or otherwise to be honest I never really cared much for them innocent or otherwise either Daenerys Stormborn made every effort to avoid Bloodshed I am not here to be Queen of the ashes which is it Danny do you care about the Innocents or not never mind I guess she uh I guess she made her stance on that pretty clear didn't she examples because it's a similar issue that's been plaguing the majority of the Disney Plus shows releasing the past few years and while none of them have been quite as offensively bad as the last season of Game of Thrones they do share similar problems as I previously mentioned the Disney plus series from both Marvel and Star Wars really read like they were originally written as movies that were later converted into television series as content for Disney plus forcing the writers and showrunners to try and create storylines and drama to occupy a six to seven hour run time as opposed to two to three hours that's why I think so often these series have underdeveloped villains plot lines that suddenly just end and finalities that are underwhelming and just disappointing but that's where Andor comes in Andor solves this problem with a really straightforward solution instead of having one overworking plot line that drives the entirety of the series and instead tells its story in three episode chunks doing so allows the story to be more refined and concentrated rather than attempting to stretch a plot that could be told in two hours over the span of six episodes by making the show into these different chapters as I like to call them we're giving more time to focus and develop each storyline rather than trying to cram everything into one all-encompassing plot however I do think Disney really should have released this series three episodes at a time as opposed to one week to week while I do think the three episode chapters are immensely satisfying when completed because they act as individual acts within one storyline they can feel a bit awkward to watch individually but regardless this three episode format improves the storytelling and I wish more Disney plus series would adopt this style of pacing as it gives the show more time to breathe and to slow down to develop our characters and let's talk about those characters for a second those beautiful three-dimensional morally gray real characters the dialogue in this show is so brilliant and how it can deliver Exposition explain character motivations and create compelling drama all without you really realizing it when two characters are talking on screen it feels like well just two people having the conversation and that's like yes finally holy [ __ ] a lot of shows out there right now have somehow forgotten how to write human beings say for a few exceptions and we finally get a Disney Plus show that knows how to write mature developed characters with complex ideas and backgrounds and from Star Wars no less a franchise that doesn't really have the best track record with writing so hard a lot of times it's a true story Harrison Ford who plays the space pirate in the film at one point threatened to tie George up and and make him say his own lines at gunpoint I mean the dialogue was a little bit difficult I don't like sound don't do it to me I beg you no what I really love about Andor is that every character has a story no one is outright evil yet no one is also inherently good and the first scene of the show we see our protagonist accidentally kill a man then proceed to kill his friend so there would be no Witnesses we see that he scams people and abuses the trust of those closest to him in order to get what he wants Cassian Andor is kind of a piece of [ __ ] yet you still find yourself rooting for him because he is so complicated because despite the things he's done we don't just see a criminal rather a man trying to survive in a galaxy that chews people up and spits them out this also goes for our antagonists take the Imperial officer of aldani jehold bihas who has a whole monologue about how easily manipulated the natives of the planet are now the Empire plans to wipe them all out the second they outlive their usefulness but even this evil Imperial Hound is shown to have a family who he cares about and is actively working towards getting them transferred to a better planet and the show didn't need to include this they could have easily just made him into a mustache twirling villain but they don't instead they make that effort to show that his stakes in this story go beyond just selfishness thus making a more interesting and engaging villain even though Star Wars has historically been about the fight of good versus evil the light versus the dark I personally prefer it when it challenges this notion of Duality presenting us with complex characters like Anakin Skywalker Luke Ahsoka or Maul Andor is almost too good at writing his characters because when you look at how intricate and multi-layered they are here then compare it to other Star Wars projects it seriously feels like you're watching an alternate reality and this brilliant writing doesn't just apply to the individual characters of Andor rather it also challenges the very premise of Star Wars the factions that perpetuate the war part two Empire and Rebellion foreign but for at least 60 of the time it's shown in Star Wars media the Empire doesn't feel nearly as threatening as it should I think the most menacing the Empire has ever been was in episode 5 and Rogue one in both of these films the Empire isn't represented as just an antagonistic faction but rather a force of nature the scale and organization of their military in policing looks like a galactic-wide authoritarian Empire in episode 5 the Empire is a never-ending nightmare not giving our protagonists a moment to breathe or think constantly on their tail until the end of the movie and in Rogue one you get to see the sheer scale of the Empire first hand and the horrors they're capable of unleashing upon the Galaxy in both of these films the Empire is competent always present and all powerful compare this to Return of the Jedi Rebels or solo and the Empire doesn't look nearly as imposing rather they come off as clumsy disjointed incompetent and not at all like the galactic dictatorship that has the universe under its thumb yet in Andor you feel the presence of the Empire everywhere it's this hulking Beast that casts a shadow over the entire universe constricting everyone and everything within it the show dies into the inner workings and mechanisms of the empire in a way that no other show or film has really attempted to before we see the politics and infighting of the Imperial Security Bureau we watch how Senators struggle to operate and help their people and we see how hellish and demoralizing Imperial labor camps are this show has such intricate and Brilliant World building in that you can actually understand why the people of the universe would want to rebel and topple the current status quo this is something the sequel Trilogy really fails to do the resistance in the first order are barely developed rather acting as spiritual successors to the two warring factions of the original trilogy and it leaves you with questions like who funds the first order where do they get their vast and highly advanced technology from and who is in charge of all this they never really try to answer these questions yet and or does the opposite it does everything it can to make the Empire feel as real and tangible as possible the corruption and Injustice of the Empire is shown to us first hand through the lens of well-written and intriguing political drama while the actions of the Empire are unarguably terrible and tyrannical there are still some bureaucrats who try and fight to improve the lives of those within it Senator Mon mothma tries to push legislation in programs that could help people suffering under the tyranny of the Empire but she finds herself undermined and belittled by other senators and the Imperial institution itself the show does an excellent job visualizing how she's suffocated by a system that's ruled by the Iron Fist of a power hungry despot and when the system that was originally made to Serve and Protect its people no longer does that when it actually works towards removing them of their freedoms and rights well that's how rebellions are born but this isn't the Rebellion at least not yet rather it's just a hodgepodge of individuals sick of the mistreatment and nepotism they've suffered for the past decade and or shows us that rebellions are costly dangerous and messy in order to try and topple Galactic power sacrifices need to be made and this show never forgets to remind us of the seven members of The odani Heist only three survive and the heist Arc was such a brilliant way to showcase the various kinds of people that make up the Rebellion ranging from radical liberationists like nemic to ex-storm Trooper Tamarin or sintra whose family was killed by the Empire they're extremely different people coming from all kinds of walks of life United by their shared anger and desire for change they recognize that if they don't stand up now then the Empire may become too powerful to ever truly oppose it was upon hearing dialogue like this that made me realize Andor is actually trying to say something it's presenting us with complex looks ideas and themes about imperialism Liberation rebellion and what it means to fight and die for a cause you believe in and how poetic is it that the guy who was writing an anti-imperial Manifesto is quite literally crushed to death by the weights of Imperial credits [ __ ] this show is so good or shows us that the Rebellion wasn't born because a bunch of people just got up one day and decided to start doing the right thing fighting the good fight but rather in response to the injustices and cruelties of a corrupt Emperor a corrupt system that acts forgets what the tree remembers now I don't want to pretend Star Wars Andor is the first piece of media to tackle these themes it's been done before many different times and probably better However the fact that it makes an honest effort to challenge these ideas to treat his audience like adults and strive to give them something Beyond Baseline entertainment is such a breath of fresh air as it feels like the majority of this franchise can be reduced to cushy Bland toy advertisements that have been audience tested into the ground Andor shows us that Star Wars is and can be so much more than that and that brings me to my last point part three why Andor is important I've said this before and I'll probably never stop saying it but as consumers we have to start having higher standards for ourselves in the media we consume I am so sick of these entertainment conglomerates like Disney Warner and Paramount giving us subpar in lazy products under the veil of them being turn your brain off fun for the whole family Blockbuster schlock and I'm not saying there's no Artistry or craftsmanship in shows or movies like these many of them have incredible actions cinematography CGI and soundtracks hundreds upon thousands of artists work tirelessly to bring us these larger than life stories however it's hard to fully appreciate those things if the writing and storytelling at its core are uninspired and just lifeless it's especially frustrating when Disney pumps out subpar Star Wars stories not because they're incapable of making good Star Wars content but rather because I know they can and Andor proves that high quality stories in this universe can exist in this day and age it's honestly kind of baffling that something so Anti-Imperialist and anti-capitalist could be produced under Disney of all companies Waltz films Mulan in the same region as a wager concentration camp Disney my personal Theory as to why this show turned out so good is that Andor is such a minor character compared to Obi-Wan or Boba Fett so there was far less corporate oversight and strict deadlines in the development of the series it seems the writers and directors had much more creative freedom and time to write thoughtful and interesting stories that's probably why it's so good it looks feels and sounds like it was made by artists who were excited by the art they were creating and proud of it too so maybe Andor is a sign that Disney needs to take more risks on developing lesser-known characters or even better inventing new ones Andor is easily the least washed Star Wars show to come out of Disney plus and that's a damn shame because in my opinion it's quite easily the best one out there so my final message to you all the viewer the fellow consumer is to support this series or at least give it a chance because this level of effort passion and Care should be celebrated otherwise Disney will have learned nothing from Andor and continue pumping out uninspired nostalgia-filled nonsense that will be buried under a thousand more Skywalker spin-offs and live-action remakes they'll keep making money and people will still go watch them not because they're stupid but because they won't know what they could have gotten instead [Music]

Channel: A.M. Cinematics

Views: 432,212

Keywords: Andor, Star Wars, Kenobi, Death Star, Fight Scene

Id: im0rqLhSPEE

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 28 2022