I've not yet seen "Andor," though am planning to see it, and am only marginally invested in the Star Wars universe, so I forwarded this discussion to my 30-yr-old son, who has some thoughts:
"Okay I shouldn't have listened to this right before I was about to go to bed but I listened to this all and came away annoyed at several points they…
I've not yet seen "Andor," though am planning to see it, and am only marginally invested in the Star Wars universe, so I forwarded this discussion to my 30-yr-old son, who has some thoughts:
"Okay I shouldn't have listened to this right before I was about to go to bed but I listened to this all and came away annoyed at several points they made.
1. The whole opening conversation on music being all boring and uninteresting mush just made me frustrated because they gave several examples that were all pop-related or genres that were popular pre-90's and I'm just sitting here like "the metal scene now is by far the most interesting it has ever been and these people have no idea." And like, they don't need to know that. But then don't declare something broadly to be true. Also the followup conversation where they were like baffled that if there is any form of popular media it's Youtube just struck me as "older people don't understand what the kids are into" despite the fact these people don't exactly sound super old.
2. They kept saying Andor is political but not "directly tied into things happening now." What?? The first arc of season 2 directly has the empire going through a farming planet looking for people who are there illegally to remove them. How in any possible interpretation can you not say that's obvious current events commentary? And they are all thinking it's "funny" that one planet is just France and like....yeah. That whole plotline is a pretty obvious nod to the French Resistance against the Nazis. Did they not know that?
3. Most annoyingly of all, they said multiple times that previous Disney Star Wars media never had any nuance like this and Disney treated it as a dumb kids thing. That is just not true, but I can see why some people would say that if A. they didn't really know the wider context of certain shows, and B. that they didn't watch any of the animated shows. The animated show The Bad Batch is about a group of clones trying to survive after Palpatine takes over and, yes, it's animated but it's not some dumb kiddy thing. There are multiple episodes focusing on one character who goes back to serve the empire because he's a soldier so that's what he's supposed to do and how he mentally struggles with that and dealing with his own identity. There's a moment where a rebel cell (you know, the "good guys") end up fucking up a plan so bad that one of the main characters has to sacrifice himself so the others don't also die, and these guys are praising Andor for "showing how the rebellion is not just full of heroes" and yeah, it is a cool thing Andor does. Why are you pretending that every other Star Wars property doesn't do this? It's because they didn't watch the animated thing because "durr hurr animated stuff is for kids" which is a mentality that needs to die. One of the single best examples of character writing I have ever seen was for a show about princesses who use the power of friendship.
There's probably way more I can say but I'm tired and now grumpy."
I've not yet seen "Andor," though am planning to see it, and am only marginally invested in the Star Wars universe, so I forwarded this discussion to my 30-yr-old son, who has some thoughts:
"Okay I shouldn't have listened to this right before I was about to go to bed but I listened to this all and came away annoyed at several points they made.
1. The whole opening conversation on music being all boring and uninteresting mush just made me frustrated because they gave several examples that were all pop-related or genres that were popular pre-90's and I'm just sitting here like "the metal scene now is by far the most interesting it has ever been and these people have no idea." And like, they don't need to know that. But then don't declare something broadly to be true. Also the followup conversation where they were like baffled that if there is any form of popular media it's Youtube just struck me as "older people don't understand what the kids are into" despite the fact these people don't exactly sound super old.
2. They kept saying Andor is political but not "directly tied into things happening now." What?? The first arc of season 2 directly has the empire going through a farming planet looking for people who are there illegally to remove them. How in any possible interpretation can you not say that's obvious current events commentary? And they are all thinking it's "funny" that one planet is just France and like....yeah. That whole plotline is a pretty obvious nod to the French Resistance against the Nazis. Did they not know that?
3. Most annoyingly of all, they said multiple times that previous Disney Star Wars media never had any nuance like this and Disney treated it as a dumb kids thing. That is just not true, but I can see why some people would say that if A. they didn't really know the wider context of certain shows, and B. that they didn't watch any of the animated shows. The animated show The Bad Batch is about a group of clones trying to survive after Palpatine takes over and, yes, it's animated but it's not some dumb kiddy thing. There are multiple episodes focusing on one character who goes back to serve the empire because he's a soldier so that's what he's supposed to do and how he mentally struggles with that and dealing with his own identity. There's a moment where a rebel cell (you know, the "good guys") end up fucking up a plan so bad that one of the main characters has to sacrifice himself so the others don't also die, and these guys are praising Andor for "showing how the rebellion is not just full of heroes" and yeah, it is a cool thing Andor does. Why are you pretending that every other Star Wars property doesn't do this? It's because they didn't watch the animated thing because "durr hurr animated stuff is for kids" which is a mentality that needs to die. One of the single best examples of character writing I have ever seen was for a show about princesses who use the power of friendship.
There's probably way more I can say but I'm tired and now grumpy."