pukunui
Legend
The issue with the Clone Wars is that the animation style changed (I would say improved) over the course of its 7 seasons.
Rebels had a much more consistent animation style.
Ahsoka - SPOILERS
Rebels had a much more consistent animation style.
Myrdin Potter
Hero
It is worse than that. I did not like Andor and posted about it in my Facebook page. Quickly my feed became more and more full of complaining about Star Wars messages from different groups.
To all appearances, my opinion is the common and mainstream one. Of course, it is not. Quite a few people share your opinion of how good it is. Viewership numbers are mixed, poor in the beginning but they did grow via word of mouth.
I did like the building up of the oppression of the bureaucrats coupled with the terror of the mundane and excessive security apparatus. Otherwise I really do think there is 1/2 an episode of plot in each 3 episode arc.
pukunui
Legend
Yeah, the echo chamber aspect of social media (and the wider internet in general) is not good.
Zardnaar
Legend
Yup I think BoBF is tge worst of tge Disney shows. It's not absolutely terrible. Started off ok with Tuskans then turned into Mandalorian season 2.5 and Fett as crime boss didn't work.
Only thing puzzling for me would be saying you don't like the pacing in Ahsoka while loving Andor which I thought was even slower.
Slow rolling the Thrawn reveal was fine for me but I understand if it didn't work for someone else.
Older Beholder
Hero
I'm not sure if anyone else mentioned it here, but one thing I enjoyed about the show was the Game of Thrones vibes. Maybe it was just Ray Stevenson and the closing theme music, but I think there was noticeable influence which I thought worked surprisingly well.
Zardnaar
Legend
Think it was the 5-10 minute scenes switch to different character.
Apparently Ray Stevenson got paid less than Shin Hati's actor. Only the actor playing Morgan got paid less out of the bigger cast members.
Rosario got the most (fair enough she's the lead/bigger star etc).
pukunui
Legend
Yeah, that show could have been so much better than it was. The best parts were the flashbacks of him escaping from the sarlacc and living with the Tuskens and also the Mando-only episode. You're right that the whole crime boss part didn't work out well, and while it was cool to see Cad Bane in live action, he was criminally underused. I still hold out some hope that the flashing light on his chest was a signal that he's not actually dead and will show up again sometime in the future. (His intro was hella cool, though.)
I think it's because Andor is a different kind of show. The slower pacing worked for me in that show because it fit the style. The issue I have with Ahsoka being slow is because it was touted as a sequel to Rebels, which was much faster paced. Even the episode of The Mandalorian that introduced live action Ahsoka and Morgan Elsbeth was faster paced. That episode was chef's kiss. I wanted more of that.
Zardnaar
Legend
Heh you can kind of get away with that though. That Mando episode made me make out.
I'm fine with things but they could easily balls it up season 2.
Eg they just give Thrawn super weapons or another conveniently huge fleet.
Not giving the ghost crew a reunion.
Having Thrawn lose before he does anything significant.
Things like that.
Clint_L
Hero
Andor's slower pacing was essential - it is a character and theme driven show. That said, because it was so story driven, when big action did occur, it was outstanding because the stakes were real - none of it felt gratuitous.
Here's the kind of action I hate: Sabine bails on the big ceremony (total jerk move, BTW) and then races her speeder bike against the security ships sent to find her, culminating in an Akira slide under one. After which the security ship pilots hand-wave it all and the show moves on as if she hadn't just almost killed herself and at least one of the cops for no good reason. This just felt like action for the sake of action because it's an action show and it had been x minutes since we had some action, setting aside that it was pointless, extremely unbelievable, and made a protagonist look like a reckless idiot.
Andor's action sequences had so much build that I was completely invested, they were part of character arcs that had meaning, and they were consequential, not just to the plot but to our understanding of the characters and their relationships.
Take the final riot, where the empire confronts the seeds of the rising rebellion. By this point, we understand how these people have been pushed so far that they are finally willing to put their lives on the line, and we also understand why it matters in the greater scheme of things, even though it seems like a relatively minor event on an obscure mining world. But not only that, we see our protagonist finally accepting that he has a responsibility to take a side once and for all, through the example of his dead surrogate mother and her janky, heroic little droid. And not only that, we also see why, from the point of view of the Empire, the rebels are a scourge that must be stamped out, because we also see the riot from the point of view of control freak Dedra Meero, as her worst nightmares are almost confirmed by the lawless rebels, leaving her emotionally shattered and more convinced than ever that these terrorists must be stopped.
That is great writing: the action is totally justified by everything that has led up to it in the story, it makes sense for all of the characters to be there and react as they do, and we are emotionally invested in each of them. It shows that you don't need to blow up a planet for a scene to have powerful stakes, you just have to put in the time to invest the story with meaning.
Was there a single scene in Ahsoka that really meant anything? The plot was paint by numbers; the outcome was ordained from the first episode, and nobody really showed much character growth. Sabine begins as a character who does reckless things for selfish reasons, continues to do reckless things for selfish reasons, and the main takeaway seems to be "good job - you were right all along!" What is one thing that a character learned about themselves in the whole series? Or one theme that made you think differently about the world?
Here's the kind of action I hate: Sabine bails on the big ceremony (total jerk move, BTW) and then races her speeder bike against the security ships sent to find her, culminating in an Akira slide under one. After which the security ship pilots hand-wave it all and the show moves on as if she hadn't just almost killed herself and at least one of the cops for no good reason. This just felt like action for the sake of action because it's an action show and it had been x minutes since we had some action, setting aside that it was pointless, extremely unbelievable, and made a protagonist look like a reckless idiot.
Andor's action sequences had so much build that I was completely invested, they were part of character arcs that had meaning, and they were consequential, not just to the plot but to our understanding of the characters and their relationships.
Take the final riot, where the empire confronts the seeds of the rising rebellion. By this point, we understand how these people have been pushed so far that they are finally willing to put their lives on the line, and we also understand why it matters in the greater scheme of things, even though it seems like a relatively minor event on an obscure mining world. But not only that, we see our protagonist finally accepting that he has a responsibility to take a side once and for all, through the example of his dead surrogate mother and her janky, heroic little droid. And not only that, we also see why, from the point of view of the Empire, the rebels are a scourge that must be stamped out, because we also see the riot from the point of view of control freak Dedra Meero, as her worst nightmares are almost confirmed by the lawless rebels, leaving her emotionally shattered and more convinced than ever that these terrorists must be stopped.
That is great writing: the action is totally justified by everything that has led up to it in the story, it makes sense for all of the characters to be there and react as they do, and we are emotionally invested in each of them. It shows that you don't need to blow up a planet for a scene to have powerful stakes, you just have to put in the time to invest the story with meaning.
Was there a single scene in Ahsoka that really meant anything? The plot was paint by numbers; the outcome was ordained from the first episode, and nobody really showed much character growth. Sabine begins as a character who does reckless things for selfish reasons, continues to do reckless things for selfish reasons, and the main takeaway seems to be "good job - you were right all along!" What is one thing that a character learned about themselves in the whole series? Or one theme that made you think differently about the world?
Older Beholder
Hero
I never watched the cartoons, and yet I cared about Ezra the minute we were introduced to him for a simple reason...
Those blue eyes!
