Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

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For those who liked the music from the wedding

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Trump tariffs put pressure on Harris Tweed makers and luxury supply chain

Wont somebody think of the spiders!?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Instead there's tons of rage posting because everything isn't aimed directly at them. I guess that's just the narcissism enhanced by social media.

Whilst I would say Acolyte was aimed more at 18-30 year-olds than "kids", I'd agree this is a major issue, perhaps the major issue, with all SW criticism/discussion. It's particularly bad if a show isn't popular with the Gen X audience, because a small-but-incredibly-loud subsection of that audience gets very, very astonishingly angry if any SW exists that isn't aimed at them, and is at best churlish and dismissive, if not openly hateful and wishing ill on it. Luckily for Andor, its "Premium TV" approach to SW was popular with that age range among others.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Whilst I would say Acolyte was aimed more at 18-30 year-olds than "kids"

I would say it was aimed at people with an obsessive knowledge of Jedi lore, but are not locked into a”Jedi are always right” mentality. Two sets with a very small overlap. My partner couldn’t follow it because she wasn’t sufficiently well versed in the Jedi religion.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I would say it was aimed at people with an obsessive knowledge of Jedi lore, but are not locked into a”Jedi are always right” mentality. Two sets with a very small overlap. My partner couldn’t follow it because she wasn’t sufficiently well versed in the Jedi religion.

I think you're confusing a failure of storytelling with where it was aimed.

I don't they intentionally failed to explain the Jedi religion properly, but I think the fragmented way they told the story (which was intentional as a stylistic element) meant that you didn't get what was going on until incredibly late unless you were indeed, a Jedi religion "expert" (in which case you saw this coming miles out), and even when you did potentially get it, they'd fragmented things enough that it could still have been confusing.

There are definitely legitimate criticisms of The Acolyte and I think the most cutting ones revolve around the approach it took to storytelling. The same story told in a more straightforward way I think would have been significant more popular and accessible (and raised less ire from the Gen X crowd). What's particularly sad/funny it probably has the best lightsaber and Force combat that Star Wars has ever done outside a videogame (and even a lot of haters acknowledge that, oddly enough). Unfortunately many of the actual criticisms tended to involve the word "woke" (either literally or by implication) or were just rather silly (like calling out "bad acting" or "bad writing" as if that didn't also apply to The Mandalorian and Ahsoka to a perhaps greater extent, but many of the same people praised on those points).

I don't know if I agree that the overlap is "very small" though - but I do feel like there's a generational divide. People who were absolutely locked in on the OT and thought it was amazing do somewhat tend to have a "Jedi == good guy" viewpoint, which Lucas didn't even really have back then, but is the obvious reading on those movies, and was reflected in the first EU. Whereas people raised more on the PT tend to be like "Jedi == questionable".

(Of course we might not have seen the last of The Acolyte's story threads and characters - I'd be unsurprised to see some of them turn up in future decades, especially in animated shows.)

 

[chuckdee]

I would say it was aimed at people with an obsessive knowledge of Jedi lore, but are not locked into a”Jedi are always right” mentality. Two sets with a very small overlap. My partner couldn’t follow it because she wasn’t sufficiently well versed in the Jedi religion.

I think it might read that way because it was about a different era. This was their first video medium story for The High Republic Era. They were trying to build that Era, and have had several of the characters referenced during those novels and comics, including the incident that cut the planet off that they referred to.

I actually liked the way it was told, just not the way it was chopped up and edited. That, I think, was the major failure here- not that it was told Rashomon like.

 

[Older Beholder]

Just while we're on this tangent, Acolyte always felt like a YA show to me.

Anyway, now back to the Andor memes...

 

[Stalker0]

Just finished it up myself. Overall, pretty happy with Andor overall and season 2, but it had its flows my quick take.

The Good

1) We saw a "real" rebellion that was complex and interesting and messy. Just like in real rebellions, there are divergent factions that often fight with each other, people not following the chain of command, and people that have to do really dirty things....the kinds of people that in a normal circumstance would be criminals...but in a rebellion you take what you can get. I saw earlier people discussing if Luthen was a fallen hero or a dispicial villain, and that is PRECISELY the point. Luthen wasn't a good man....but he was what the rebellion needed.

2) Andor still spends the most time on its actual characters, giving them a chance to breath and life and feel like actual people rather than caricatures. One of the best things that elevates this show over other Star Wars products.

3) The ending felt solid, a good enough summary that got us right into Rogue One.

4) I think the work with Ghorman and Bix's personal tragedies really help to sell the evil of Tyranny. The empire has always been "evil" in a more cartoonish kind of way (we just blew up a whole planet!), but now we get to see the subtle personal evil that really resonates.

The Bad

1) The season spends way too much time on plotlines that ultimately have no benefit to the story. Cassian's time being held by the other rebel faction...that's a solid scene to show splinters and divisions between rebellion factions. It did NOT need to be run across two episodes.

Same with the wedding...again a nice way to showcase how Mothma navigates her day job and the rebellion, and the tension with her friend was a nice touch. But again...way too long.

I don't mind that Andor has scenes whose sole job is to set up characterization and background...that is one of the reason that Andor is good, it actually gives itself time to breathe. But again we need scenes not entire episodes dedicated to some of these topics.

2) The season also feels a bit disjointed and scattered, between the divergent plotlines and the time skips I found it hard to keep track of at times.

3) I don't mind that Syril's characters dies the way he does (again showcasing that in war people just sometimes die).... but then did we need to invest so much time in his character this season? Again a lot of time for little payoff. Having him is fine, but we don't need to invest that much just to kill him off like that.

 

[chuckdee]

3) I don't mind that Syril's characters dies the way he does (again showcasing that in war people just sometimes die).... but then did we need to invest so much time in his character this season? Again a lot of time for little payoff. Having him is fine, but we don't need to invest that much just to kill him off like that.

Personally, I liked it. I thought that it and the inanity of it should have affected Dedra more. It seemed to at the time, but then after the time jump, there seemed to be no development. That was the only thing that it missed in the payoff. And Syril's character development also helped to develop Dedra which I thought wasn't wasted time.