Star Wars: Andor

[RangerWickett]

The one from the extended trailer? *OTT nonsense

I'm two episodes in and aside from the zealot corporate Sgt I'm not finding anyone interesting.

* Maybe in the context of ep3 it will be better.

EDIT. Now watched all of ep3. Last ten minutes are good though my whole empathy is with the Corporate guys. I would play a game where you are those.

I don't think the show wants you to root for the fascism-adjacent corporate paramilitary 'police.' Certainly not with the leader of the op being pro-Imperial tyranny.

Cassian is presented as a victim of an exploitative power, who has to operate outside the borders of legality because the 'law' is unjust. The majority of people in his community agree. He's just one of the first to be actively rebelling rather than keeping his head down and hoping the villains find someone else to torment.

He is also, thankfully, a Star Wars protagonist with a motivation. We haven't had enough of those. Too many lead characters have been swept up in events (Jyn is forced to help the rebellion; Rey is just trying to survive; Mando is initially just a detached soldier of fortune), rather than driving the plot.

 

[Morrus]

What is unusual is that nobody on that planet has an American accent. Typically (with Obi Wan and a couple of others excepted) Star Wars gives good guys American accents and bad guys English accents. It’s refreshing!

 

[John R Davis]

Didn't the Republic kill his tribal chum and wreck the planet?
The corporates look poorly trained, not well disciplined and utterly out their depths, trying to maintain law and order in a place that seems impossible to do so.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Didn't the Republic kill his tribal chum and wreck the planet?

Yes, it was a Republic ship that crashed on Kenari. We don't know yet if it was pre-Clone Wars or during. If this new history for Cassian does not adjust his age, though, it would be post-Clone Wars, but pre-Empire declaration. The planet had also been abandoned for an unknown number of years because of a mining accident, which probably contaminated the air, but the edict to stay away from Kenari is an Imperial one, so the time line feels really jumbled for now.

 

[MarkB]

Yes, it was a Republic ship that crashed on Kenari. We don't know yet if it was pre-Clone Wars or during. If this new history for Cassian does not adjust his age, though, it would be post-Clone Wars, but pre-Empire declaration.

Isn't that a pretty narrow timeframe? Seems like it was only hours, possibly days, between Anakin slaughtering the Separatist leaders and deactivating the droid armies, and Palpatine announcing the formation of the Galactic Empire.

The planet had also been abandoned for an unknown number of years because of a mining accident, which probably contaminated the air, but the edict to stay away from Kenari is an Imperial one, so the time line feels really jumbled for now.

I feel like what happened to Kenari is going to turn out to be a one-two punch. Whatever it was that caused the mining operations to shut down and left an entire community of kids orphaned has already happened as we join the flashbacks, but whatever happens that leads to Cassian trying to find his sister offworld is something that's going to happen in a future flashback - and I don't think it's going to leave anyone else on Kenari still standing.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Isn't that a pretty narrow timeframe? Seems like it was only hours, possibly days, between Anakin slaughtering the Separatist leaders and deactivating the droid armies, and Palpatine announcing the formation of the Galactic Empire.

I was talking about the time between when little Anakin blew up the ships at the end of the first movie and when Palpatine went all Evil Emperor on everyone. Plus, the Clone Wars lasted 3 years.

 

[MarkB]

I was talking about the time between when little Anakin blew up the ships at the end of the first movie and when Palpatine went all Evil Emperor on everyone. Plus, the Clone Wars lasted 3 years.

Thanks for the clarification. Generally, when someone talks about "post-war" they mean after the war, not during it.

 

[Rabulias]

If this new history for Cassian does not adjust his age, though, it would be post-Clone Wars, but pre-Empire declaration.

That would be a very small window of time, a day or two at most. They will have to adjust his age for all the details to fit. Taking the official canon that Andor is 26 in Rogue One we get this:

Andor Age	Event	BBY
N/A	The Phantom Menace - Palpatine becomes Chancellor	32
0	Andor born	26
4	Clone Wars begin	22
6	Andor "begins fighting"	20
7	Clone Wars end - Empire declared	19
21	Andor season 1	5
26	Rogue One	0

He would start his fight during the Clone Wars, so this fits, but the flashback sequences we see in Andor do not. The Separatist insignia on the crashed crew's uniforms and the references to a Republic ship indicate that flashback takes place during the Clone Wars, but it is hard to believe Kassa is 7 years old there. You could handwave it to be "alien physiology" physically maturing faster, but whatever.

Andor's age is not mentioned in Rogue One, that has come from secondary (albeit official) sources. If they adjust his age to be 30 in Rogue One (making him born in 30BBY), then the timeline lines up better to what we see in Andor, IMO. He would be 11 at the end of the Clone Wars.

But "wait a minute," I hear you say. What about him having "been in this fight" since he was 6? On this adjusted timeline, that would be two years before the Clone Wars begin. Who was he fighting? I would say that in the lead-up to the Clone Wars, the Republic was not always a good place. Palpatine as Chancellor was working to secretly stir up trouble, and would turn a blind eye to atrocities on minor worlds that never became widely known. Most (all?) of the systems that would eventually join the Separatists would be part of the Republic at this point. I think we may see this in Andor -- showing that the mining disaster took place about 5 years prior, when Kassa was 6, and was the result of an unscrupulous/corrupt Republic system taking advantage of the Kenari world. It certainly looks like the equipment in the jungle has been left to the elements for a few years.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Thanks for the clarification. Generally, when someone talks about "post-war" they mean after the war, not during it.

I guess I see it as two different wars. One ended at the end of the first movie, then 10 years pass, then the 2nd and 3rd movie cover 3 years and the real war, or second part of a war that had a quiet stage of 10 years.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Andor's age is not mentioned in Rogue One, that has come from secondary (albeit official) sources. If they adjust his age to be 30 in Rogue One (making him born in 30BBY), then the timeline lines up better to what we see in Andor, IMO. He would be 11 at the end of the Clone Wars.

They have retconned his planet of origin, so I would expect/hope the age thing will be dealt with too.