Paul Farquhar
Legend
Yes. They are very ordinary people who do what needs to be done, just as many real world people have done in similar situations. Driving a truck is not a superpower.
“It’s lazy” is a lazy excuse for not getting something.
Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2
- Thread starter pukunui
- Start date
Celebrim
Legend
I now know you've never driven a big rig. Just because something is ordinary doesn't mean it isn't heroic. That they are "doing what needs to be done" is a heck an endorsement, especially when it's something dangerous.
Saying someone is "not getting something" is a really lazy way to say you think your preferences are better than mine. And who knows, maybe I should like Rebels. But I do know this. I know how to write. When writing is wrong, I'm not saying "It wasn't to my my taste". I'm saying that it's objectively failing tests of nuance, subtlety, clarity, and consistency. I know why it is wrong, and I can suggest ways to fix it (since there are many ways to fix a piece of writing, my particular way would be an opinion). In a children's show like Rebels, you can afford to be one dimensional and do lots of telling rather than showing and disrespect your audience's ability to understand things, because you are writing for kids. And so you can have monologues where people just say the most obvious things and talk about adult issues like they were asking a 5th grader to be their friend on the playground, and it's OK. Although, I will say that "Avatar the Last Airbender" managed to write for children while still maintaining an impressive level of writing quality, so it's not a necessity that a children's show dumb down things.
Anyway, my point is that "not getting something" isn't really a thing in this case, because if there really was something I wasn't getting on the level of not getting the punch line to a joke or the clues to a murder mystery, you could explain it to me and I'd go, "Yeah I should have seen that", but you can't do that in this case because my lack of understanding isn't the issue.
Last edited:
Paul Farquhar
Legend
I don’t think my preferences are “better” than yours. They are just different. Our difference is I don’t say something is “bad” or “lazy” when it is not to my preference. I didn’t much care for Andor season 1, but I’m not going to call it bad because lots of people did like it and I don’t demand that the universe revolves around my preferences.
Kaodi
Legend
I thought Mon Mothma's speech was pretty good. I mean she was a little pressed for time with that whole "I have to denounce the Emperor in the heart of the Empire and then not die immediately," dimension.
I was going to ask though: was Lonnie Jung a hero? He did not always seem super thrilled with being put in his position but in the end he spent more time in the belly of the beast than anyone. Or was he a more neutral character that just happened to do extraordinary good?
I was going to ask though: was Lonnie Jung a hero? He did not always seem super thrilled with being put in his position but in the end he spent more time in the belly of the beast than anyone. Or was he a more neutral character that just happened to do extraordinary good?
sevenbastard
Legend
Eityer way he got the short end of the stick. Or I guess the pointy end of it.
And we never learned why he turned traitor in the first place. I guess that would answer your question; was it greed, did he have a grudge, did he see the evil and try to fight back? We will never know
Celebrim
Legend
I think Lonnie Jung might possibly be more of a hero than Luthen at least the way that they concluded each man's story arc (which, I admit I didn't like since I wanted Luthen to end up an unsung hero and not a failed man). Lonnie Jung seems to be a Cyril like character who really believed in the mission of the New Order only to find out that it wasn't living up to the high standards of its propaganda. Unlike Cyril who just fell apart, Lonnie appears to kept his cool and worked inside the system to undermine it, and he did so repeatedly in a lot of subtle ways, showing himself probably as the smoothest operator in the Rebel alliance, expertly manipulating his colleagues (even his boss!) while keeping his own hands clean and not raising suspicions about his motives. He's the master spy in the bunch, excelling Luthen in ability to maintain deep cover and manipulate people.
His big flaw is trusting a scum bag like Luthen implicitly, imagining Luthen to be a man like himself when Luthen really just was motivated by hatred and a desire for vengeance. Lonnie was a good character. Luthen was a more neutral character (maybe evil by the end of his arc) that just happened to do extraordinary good.
What's most ironic and hateful to me about how they scripted Luthen (which don't get me wrong isn't objective failure but just preference here) is it means that Luthen's big monologue to Lonnie was really just an act, a carefully presented presentation to keep Lonnie on board and convince Lonnie to trust him. Luthen was largely lying about his own feelings and motivations, or at least casting them in a very positive light that made him seem more noble than he was. And I guess, I hate that, because I was sold on Luthen by that speech as well, and I hate that I was also manipulated.
MarkB
Legend
Really? I never saw Luthen's speech as casting him in any kind of positive or noble light, but as acknowledging his own sins and why they drive him to do what he does. Certainly nothing in there contradicted him throwing Lonnie under the bus to serve his goals.
Celebrim
Legend
Luthen casts himself as a high idealist who is knowingly adopting the methods of his enemy in order to fight them from the shadows. His backstory however doesn't present him as such, but rather as a weak failed soldier who couldn't take it anymore and who latched on to saving a girl as a means of redemption, but who ultimately was never motivated by any more than vengeance for what the Empire had already taken from him. He didn't start in a place of nobility and gradually burn away his good, at least not in the story we are ultimately given (and when telling a story, you always show the most significant events, so if there is something that should change our perception it should have been told instead). He was left a ruined empty shell of a man with no more morals and with nothing left to give before he even started to fight.
If Lonnie had known that, he would have never trusted Luthen to do what is right. He would have planned his own escape route and his own way out and not assumed the man could be trusted with the lives of himself and his family. So Luthen gave himself to Lonnie a backstory Lonnie himself could relate to, as an idealist fighting against a corrupt system in the only way possible, but it really was mostly BS. The only sense that Luthen actually meant it was he hoped Kleya would survive to see the new dawn. That was his only attempt at redemption, and nothing else seems to have mattered to him.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
Gotta take issue with that. What couldn't he take anymore? It wasn't soldiering - not a career NCO like himself. You heard what was going on in the background. He couldn't take the atrocities anymore. That's not a weak, failed soldier - that's a succeeding human being.
That said, Luthen is still what modern insurgencies would call a hard man. The only real ideal he has is taking down something far worse and doing whatever needs to be done to do it.