Skip to main content

TV Series Review: Star Wars Andor (2022, Disney+) *No Spoilers*

Star Wars Andor One Sheet

I'm a huge fan of most of the live action Star Wars, Disney+ TV series. Though I do think The Book of Boba Fett and Obi Wan both dropped the ball a little with fan expectations. 

Star Wars Andor, on the other hand, is a series no one was really asking for but quite a lot of us who tuned in are hugely thankful that it was made. Many have commented that this is the best Star Wars we've seen in quite a while.

Personally I think it's the best Star Wars since The Empire Strikes Back.

Having said that, I will concede, for fans that feel this series is slow and boring (of which there clearly are a lot of you), I did feel the episodes leading up to the heist really started to drag a bit.

Which is not to say the earlier episodes weren't good, they just seemed to keep promising the heist episode sooner than it actually happened.

Andor covers the start of the Rebellion in the Star Wars universe. It's basically the other side of the story to the prequel trilogy which show the rise of the Empire and Darth Vader.

The show begins with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), one of the key heroes from Rogue One, several years prior to the events of that film. He is pretty much a thief/mercenary for hire, who is also looking for his sister. His skills become highly sought after for an upcoming heist being planned to help fund the resistance.

As the episodes progress the show expands into an ensemble piece documenting the early days, and key players of the Rebellion.

What makes this show for me is the mundaneness of it all, in the sense that the show really gives you time to live in the day to day of the Star Wars universe. There's no real big defining thing that that the story is leading us toward, other than the formation of the Rebellion and the events of Rogue One (which the creators of this series have said this is the time period of the show).

We get to see the inner workings of the Empire as a bloated, over reaching organization, suffering from internal politics at management level, as well as how their oppression of worlds is growing.

More interestingly we get to see a side of the Rebellion that hasn't really been explored in live action Star Wars. That is the darker side of what it takes to push everyday people into action against their oppressors. Not every decision made is heroic, and some are borderline as bad as the Empire themselves.

If this was a movie it would be placed somewhere not long after the third prequel (or perhaps some of it is concurrent with the prequels since we do get to see the Imperial Senate but it's not clear if Senator Palpatine has yet become a defining voice). 

Andor kind of tells the other side of the story to the prequels, which are about how the Empire formed and Anakin's path to Vader. In many ways I feel the show does what George Lucas was trying to do if he hadn't gotten quite so focused on all the top tier characters - basically the leadership of both sides. 

The prequels could of used a bit more of the every day people like Luke and Han from the original movie (before they found their feet in the Rebellion). Same goes for the sequel trilogy, which started out well but then narrowed onto all the leadership in the two later films.

Anyway, before this review becomes everything I think was wrong with the prequels (too many Jedi's for one... "you get a lightsaber, and you get a lightsaber...") Andor does have its action moments. They are a bit few and far between but they do have stakes. People on both sides die, some who you may not expect.

If you're not into a lot of dialogue and prefer your Star Wars to be more action based, I can see how this show may come across as slow and boring. However, if you're into character development and well written exchanges that actually mean something (no emo Anakin "I hate sand" intellectual observations here) Andor is a real treat.

The first three episodes are a little bit of a push through, waiting for something to happen, but it does pay off, and the pace picks up with some of the best Star Wars you'll see anywhere.

I'm really looking forward to season two.



TET Life Topics:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Whimsical Cat Art Prints by TET (Redbubble Store)

Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!
Relax and Challenge Yourself with a Fun, Whimsical Cat Art Jigsaw - 30-1000 pieces. Click Image for More.

Popular posts from this blog

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

The Dukes of Hazard Movie - My Thoughts

The Dukes of Hazard is a movie that I wanted to see when it was released in 2005 but didn't because, well, I just didn't get around to it. Not only that but when I heard Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson were in it my expectations were immediately lowered to "it's probably not going to be what I hoped it could be." Which is why I've never been pro-active about hiring the movie on DVD. Last night I saw it was being shown on free to air TV. I happened to have the time to watch, so I did. To sum up my experience... I didn't get fired up by the movie until I watched the 'bloopers' in the end credits. The Dukes of Hazard signature is the car. The General Lee flying through the air in some flat out impossible jumps. We know they're impossible jumps but they're just so cool you kind of want to believe the General Lee can do them. The point is, in the TV series, you never (or rarely) saw the General Lee not land safely and undamaged. Thus, seei...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Embarrassing Yourself with Doof Doof Music

Ever since Spinal Tap popularized the notion of turning an amp up to eleven audio systems have been rising to the challenge of louder, more awesome sound. In particular, car audio systems have embraced the notion of the bigger the noise the better the sound must surely be. What I'd like to know is, if these sound systems are so good, why do they make all music sound the same... Doof, Doof, Doof? You've all heard them. Pimped up cars, with audio systems seemingly worth more than gold, volume blasting way past eleven. Sound waves booming long before you make a positive visual on the car... Doof, Doof, Doof. It has to be the audio system right? Surely all these people can't be playing the same tune? Doof, Doof, Doof. Could it be that the more money spent on a car sound system the less musical range it will actually play? Maybe these people can't afford to buy music after purchasing the audio system so they all play the same demo track? Doof, doof, doof. In my own car I hav...
14 comments
Continue Reading »

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...
16 comments
Continue Reading »

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Making the Ukulele Cool Again By Inventing One That Transforms Into a Guitar Mid-Performance

Mattias playing the Ukulele that turns into a guitar in ukulele mode. Y ouTuber,  Mattias Krantz , set out to solve one of the biggest problems with ukuleles, and that is, they are ukuleles. As he points out in his video they're one of the only instruments that people respect you less for the better you get at playing them. As someone who bought a ukulele because I wanted to learn an instrument, and I couldn't really afford a guitar (plus I found a ukulele that I think is pretty cool, but only in comparison to other ukuleles) you can imagine my interest would be really piqued by a ukulele that transforms into a guitar. Anyway, there is not much that needs to be said other than, a ukulele that transforms into a guitar isn't a thing you can just buy off the shelf, which is why Mattias set out to invent one. Nothing I say will be more interesting than just sitting back and watching his video below. It's a fascinating journey that I wanted to share and, maybe one day, eith...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Movie Review: Tomb Raider (2018) *Spoiler Free*

B ack in the 1990s I was a big fan of the Tomb Raider computer games. Aside from the obvious drawcard of the games female lead, Lara Croft, it was the only game back in the day that was a true 3D, third person shooter/adventure game. I wasn't a fan of first person shooters (though I played Dark Forces a lot at the time), I've always preferred computer games where you control a character on screen. Sadly I haven't kept up with the rebooted Tomb Raider games with more realistic graphics and game engine. While I did like Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider movies, she did make the character lean a little too much like a female James Bond, with her own tech guru who gave her wonderful toys. Recently I renewed my HBOMax subscription, and saw that the 2018 Tomb Raider movie, with Alicia Vikander in the title role, was soon to be leaving the platform, so I decided to watch it before it did. Obviously intended to reboot the franchise, in this film Lara goes on her first quest to dete...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »