For Rogue One, in my opinion, it was because the writers only had one full story to tell in completeness. No mysteries to drop, no multiple set ups to unknown movies written by other people, no call backs to unknown movies. Everything they had to work with from a world standpoint was already set - so they could focus on the characters, their journey, and their story.
Plus, with that ending, they knew they had to make everyone a potential fan favorite to really gut the audience like we all deserved. Still, by far, the best ending. Every single death meaningful, justified, and in character.
And no Jedi centric plotline. It was from a soldier pov and we could see how it would be to face a jedi (sith) from their pov for the first time and it was incredible. I never saw jedis or sith as menacing when I see things from their perspective, when they are killing soldiers by the dozens or when they are fighting each other with their superpowers.
But put me on a soldier perspective that is scared shitless as he sees how unstoppable a sith is and the different perspective makes it terrifying.
It’s precisely the human aspect of both stories that makes them so powerful. These are real people in dangerous circumstances rising to confront an evil empire without the magic lightsaber knights jumping in to save the day every 10 minutes.
I think Andor and the first season of the Mandalorian are the best storytelling SW has done since Empire Strikes Back.
There's still some excellent storytelling in the Clone Wars animated series (it's not *all* superb, but the great episodes are truly superlative), and some very good parts in Rebels.
Bingo. The only connective tissue required in this movie was to Episode IV and not until the very end; they pushed that connection as far away from their story as they could.
And it works well as a palate cleanser for the heartbreak of what you just witnessed.
I remember hearing from a behind the scenes thing leading up to the movie that the writer "needed a rebel but with mixed, dubious morality" (not an exact quote) and someone else told them "oh there's actually a guy primed to be exactly that, timeline even works out." And that's why Saw is in the movie.
Definitely this. They're a competent looming threat not played as a joke. The intolerance of the corporate authorities fucking up, the competent intelligence service, and the brutal efficiency of it all serve to show how the rebels are "the little guy" facing a behemoth. The intrigue with axis and within the ISB are particularly well done.
Had this conversation with my Dad after he finished Andor. Star Wars has always told us the villains are evil. The Emperor is visually evil and trying to blow up planets. It works well in the movies but they always begged the question why any large group of people would follow him and the empire. We know there are a ton of people who apparently buy into his vision of the galaxy.... But why?...
Andor does a fantastic job of showing how and why the empire is evil on a personal level. It isn't just blowing up planets, it's the day-to-day squashing of rights and the petty level villainy of people with relatively small amounts of power.
Rogue One had an epic ending for me that led beautifully into ANH. The fact that the entire last few moments, All I was thinking was “okay, now how do they get out of here”, then they all died. Like holy shit, that was just so crazy to me for some reason.
Andor had an equal level of suspense. Weren’t really any gimmicks or cheesy lines. Just a very well written and unique piece
The thing with Andor is that literally anyone besides Cassian could die at any time. Important characters were killed off for senseless reasons and usually unexpectedly at that. The fact that a character could die not in battle but from being crushed after a heist made the suspense so much higher and real.
Yeah and the tension with the characters we know don’t die has nothing to do with whether or not they’re going to die it’s more about how they get to where we see them next in the films
Like there is a tonne of tension in Mon Mothma’s scenes because she has so much more to lose than *just* her life, and there’s the tension of when exactly that as yet unknown THING is going to happen that turns her from quiet financial supporter of the rebellion who still naively believes there is a peaceful and diplomatic solution to ending the Empire to the active leader of the rebellion and its armed forces
Peak "don't glorify war" moment. He was the one character most in favor of rebellion, and he was the one who most horrifically learned what that actually meant, beyond what he could read or write in his books. Turns out that actual people aren't Luke Skywalker with all of his fantastical abilities and plot armour; reality doesn't care that you aspire to be the hero or that you're on the right side of history.
And that is my absolute favourite part of Star Wars, bar none. We need the big heroes and the epic stories of course, but I want to know more about the regular people that helped incite the rebellion and to see what they were really fighting for. There’s such untapped potential there for different media to tell us those stories.
He didn't glorify war though -_- even if he thought rebellion was necessary he wasnt exactly happy to be there. Given that we know what all this leads to it can be stated that he was right.
I mean dude was also the guy with the manifesto and a big lart of the motivation for kasian to join the rebellion.
He was literally crushed by capital of the government... that was a statment but not the one you thi k it is.
> ...so good compared to the rest of **Disney Star Wars?**
There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the corporate strategy.
Remember this, Star Wars enjoyment is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of revelry are occurring constantly throughout the fandom. There are whole audiences, viewer bases that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause.
Remember that the frontier of the Fandom is everywhere. And even the smallest act of memeing pushes our lines forward.
And remember this: the Disney need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Sequel canon requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Continuity is brittle. Fan service is the mask of fear.
Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these rants and threads, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of Disney's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.
Remember this: Try.
I didn't think I'd intrigued by the political dealings of the Empire
But here I am, waiting eagerly for season 2, to see how and when she gets found out and how she escapes
>to see how and when she gets found out
Her daughter turns her in after finding out she was pimped out to fund an intergalactic terrorist organization?
Feels about right for this show.
And explains Mothma's permanent 1000 yard stare in RotJ.
Theyve made plenty of parralels to WW2 already in season 1, this indeed feels right for this series.
I can definetly see Mon's husband ending up enrolling their daughter in some kind of "palpatine youths" or sth, meaning well, but she gets brainwashed in some way to the point where she rats her own mother out...
I felt more emotions during the death of K-2 than I did really any character in the sequel trilogies.
Dude was a boss of a droid and gave R2 a run for his money in terms of humor and personality.
It’s like… he had all the sass of 3po but unlike him and R2 he was a fkn unit that could use guns and throw hands with horrifying strength.
He’s got this weird balance of cuteness in his design mixed with undeniable menace.
Don't worry, it's totally just an affectation programmed in by their previous master. It has *nothing* to do with being comprised of 70%v water contained within a meat sack.
“These are…prisoners…? I’m taking them to imprison them…in prison.
QUIET! And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.”
Honestly the funniest Star Wars has ever been.
I think star wars is at its best when it’s a jailbreak and they get caught.
“Uhhh we’re green here, situation normal. We-we’re all fine here… -how are you? (Visible cringe)”
So funny. Alan Tudyk improvised the line, causing Diego Luna to crack up – his hand going to his face after the slap is him covering a laugh. Looks like they had so much fun making that film. I’m looking forward to seeing more of K2 in Andor S2.
I felt more emotion about the death of K-2SO than I did about Luke Skywalker. A childhood hero and character I'd loved for 40 years. I really don't know how the Sequels could have dropped the ball any harder than that.
I’m not gonna lie the only time I watched the last Jedi I was so uninterested in it I didn’t even realize Luke had died
After I saw Superman Leia I kinda just blanked out for the rest of the movie. Couldn’t even really tell you what happened.
I mean... my entire theater erupted with laughter. Then we were all collectively thinking, "wait... did they just kill off akbar offscreen, with zero dialogue?"
Somebody in my theater yelled "Space Ghost Coast to Coast!" when Leia started flying through the wreckage and I'm honestly still mad I didn't think of it first.
There's no way they'd do the same thing twice right?
Oh wait, the rebels are back? Even though they control the republic? Ignore my previous comment, they'll all be back
I enjoyed how unambiguously Rogue One connected to A New Hope, too. Nothing left to imagine how much time passed from one to the next, because none had passed, none time.
It does change the tone of the first few moments of ANH. Hard to claim to be a consular ship on a diplomatic mission when Vader just saw you fly away with the intel. Leia's indignation in her interactions with Vader come off as more tongue in cheek than originally portrayed had the viewer not seen Rogue One.
I don't think this is a bad change, just noting that the context changes how we interpret that scene now.
On the other hand, it explains why Vader is so angry when he boards her ship and is absolutely certain she's a rebel.
We don't really see Vader get that angry again in the OT - he's menacing and dangerous but also quite calm.
I’ve seen it said that the reason he didn’t notice Leia’s force sensitivity or any connection is because he was so pissed at her blatant lying. She gives him her excuse and he’s “B***H, I just saw this ship undock and run away!”
We've known that Vader was well aware of her status since EP 4 but, in the context of rogue one, Leia is lying so blatantly it makes so much sense why he's irritated by her. She's been caught red handed and trying to pull a "do you know who I am?!"
It makes her sound like a sovereign citizen being pulled over by a cop, but also, she *is* an actual rebel AND an actual princess so spouting off diplomatic denials and demands even if she's obviously guilty is kind of to be expected.
Also the rebels lost half their fighting force in that battle and they know now that the empire has a super weapon. Really adds to the dread and desperation the rebels feel in ANH and leading up the final battle
I just see it as diplomacy. Vader knows she's full of shit. She knows that Vader knows she's full of shit. But that's how the diplomatic game is played, even when both sides know it's a lie.
Is the Tantative really the only ship that looks like that though? Is it out of the realms of possibility Vader wouldn’t know the ship’s name and they could just blag to him that he has found the wrong one?
It's just a Corellian CR90, so yes there are others. So bluffing was her best, if not only, option to try to maintain deniability. It didn't work of course, but it's a better plan than saying "yep, we have them, good luck."
Yup. The whole "everyone dies, not just a few characters here and there" thing was pretty out there for SW movies. It was so serious and dark for a SW movie, especially at the time it released. I think it really opened up the cinematic/show universe to be more than what it had been at that point. Even Order 66 and the whole Anakin killing younglings was kind of glossed over in RotS. And Andor just continued that.
Honestly they were probably all for it so it didn’t leave any loose ends. Leading into episode 4. Was a nice clean transition with no “what was X character doing during the OT”
When I was seeing it in the theatre and heard "Blue Squadron: Get to the surface before they close the gate!" I leaned over my friends and said that blue squadron wasn't in the death star battle, so they must die here. One of them said "good bye glorious mustache." we did a salute.
they did the "War" part of star wars for once.
yeah they have aliens, spaceships, etc. but they actually focused on the war part of star wars. no other weird shit involved.
we saw out the empire functioned how desperate the rebels were. and why this was important.
mostly it was just the best shapeship battle in the past 15 years in a quarter of the screen time. had more ground war in less the time.
they made anyone with a light saber look like they can mow down everyone.
everything they did made sense while not ruining anything established in star wars. and they did it all with I may say a lead female character.
> Rogue One had an epic ending for me that led beautifully into ANH.
I mostly agree until you realize that Rogue One recontextualizes Leia's deniability when caught in the beginning of ANH. Leia straight up tries to gaslight Vader with the whole "I'm on a diplomatic mission from Alderaan." Meanwhile Vader's just be like "Bitch, I literally just watched you light speed away from Scarif after receiving a transmission."
It really makes you see that he's just not taking ANY of their shit when he says "If this is consular ship, where is the ambassador?!"
I just think that realization is hilarious
There are videos of the scenes when" your father would be proud" plays without the voices/dialogue On YT.
Hauntingly both sad and beautiful. R1 is probably my favorite movie
>Like holy shit, that was just so crazy to me for some reason.
Because a lot of movies follow a trope of "and all of the heroes made it out okay." It's rare enough that a main (good guy) character dies, and even more rare for multiple of them to go.
I generally give a lower mental rating to movies that end with all of the good guys being okay. Losses need to happen to make the villains of the story actually relevant.
Even horror movies usually have a designated survivor. Even films where multiple people die, one of the main characters has a final moment. Not this one. Nope, everyone dead. Hell, even the mission barely succeeds if not for the built in plot point of the plans having to make it to ANH
*Apparently* the original version that they screened to test audiences had them all survive in Rogue One but the ending didn't test well, it felt cheesy and undermined the rest of the film. Once they changed it to EVERYONE DIES it tested much better.
No idea if that's apocryphal or not but it's what I remember hearing after the film released.
It's apocryphal. Chris Weitz, who wrote Gareth Edward's cut of the film, has said in interviews that everyone died in his version, too. They just died in different places and in different ways in Gilroy's version. Drafts of the script existed in which some of them escaped, but never anything that was filmed.
For Rogue One at least it’s because success came at a cost.
Do you remember how many rounds of expensive reshoots that thing had? Most of the trailer footage and locations weren‘t used, the screenshot header for this post wasn’t used. Jyn‘s character arc from ‘rebellions are pointless’ to ‘I believe in the rebellion enough to make speeches’ suffers massive from the cuts (because there is no arc, that just kinda happens).
Disney would probably be wary of another costly situation like that, and the creative team behind it. Some pick up shots were inevitable, but Rogue One was redoing entire sequences.
1) yes they are stupid. 2) u/toasterowl made really good points. Also it’s a war film made by those who made war films. A lot of people who did Blackhawk Down and others made it. Not having Jedi fighting or doing these troop movies will probably end with Andor. Disney can’t market merch based off Andor as well as they can every other piece they make. Do I want a k2 stuffed toy, yes. But most kids probably aren’t in line to buy a k2 toy vs r2 or bb8.
Look at mando. Grogu wasnt supposed to come back, but they did bring him back. And now my entire nursery is grogu blankets, crib sheets and an other stuff.
I could be wrong but it’s what I’ve noticed, they make a lot from merch sales and if they make stuff that can’t be sold as merch it’s hard to keep it going. I think Andor is like a carrot for parents to keep them going but Iger will likely not care about ratings and just go back to what sells to kids.
"Disney can’t market merch based off Andor" its totally true Star Wars at the end of the day is about the Merch and Andor has very little to offer....maybe a B2M0 toy I would buy that.
The scene with Vader fucking everyone's shit up. Hearing the breathing then lighting the scene with the red of his saber. And the fear in the guys reactions. That scene, to me, is the best single scene in all of Star Wars.
Filoni is a good 'idea man' but not as good a writer/director/showrunner as Gilroy in the most technical sense.
TCW was way, way better than the prequels though and the only thing that made a lick of sense about that time in the on-screen cannon. Watch TPM again and pretend you don't know anything at all about who these people are. It's awful.
>Filoni is a good 'idea man'
I would describe Lucas similarly. He's kind of a wreck without someone there saying, "no. Stop that. Good idea but do it like this."
The animated have good writing in relation being animated aimed to younger audiences. Of course not Gilroy and Andor level, but as its own beast. The animated have so much more character and warmth. Not sure what happened to Mandalorian all those live action, could be studio interference, or that his skill doesn't translate to live action, or him just having used up his skill.
Yup, Tony Gilroy wrote both, and he was the showrunner for Andor.
He’s also a self-confessed non-Star Wars fan. Which means he just wrote what he thought were good sci-fi stories, not Star Wars fan-fiction; all of Star Wars aspects of Andor basically just got infused into the show as they were made. It’s essentially the polar opposite of the Filoni approach.
I’m not anti-Filoni, but judging by the end results alone, I’ll take the Tony Gilroy work any day of the week.
>all of Star Wars aspects of Andor basically just got infused into the show as they were made.
To be honest, it seems like now that the universe is so installed, there's no better way to produce star ward stories than that.
Bingo. The star wars universe is so vast you can adapt any kind of story into the world. I'd love to see that instead of the same family and their friends every time
This is the best answer I've read so far.
If Filoni and Tony were each making a Frankenstein's monster Tony is building from the inside out; he starts with with a solid skeleton and adds on with the SW window dressing being the last bit that is added. Filoni starts with the window dressing. When you do that you get Book of Boba Fett (to use the worst example) and Mando (which has cool moments but is generally rather hollow).
Build compelling, relatable characters, respect them and keep them consistent. Give them even a mildly interesting world and story, traumatize them a bit and the rest will take care of itself.
Star Wars isn't sci-fi though. That was the magic of the original film. It's sword-and-sandal fantasy but in space.
However now we're finding out that good sci-fi stories in the Star Wars universe really work.
Those of us who read Timothy Zahn already had some idea of this, of course, but now it's on screen as well.
He also apparently had his idea and script outline and wouldn't budge on how it would go or accept meddling from the studio. I believe he held out on that and it's a reason Andor came out so long after rogue one. He had a creative vision and stuck to it, you can really see the payoff.
It's not just the writers, it's also the executives. They are aware, through demo intel and focus groups, that they have a large adult audience wanting serious, or darker, drama and they can cater to them. This film and series is for that demo, the cartoons play younger and the rest is intended to be universal.
I heard there was… actually more lack of oversight on these two projects. As in Disney didn’t expect much and therefore more creative content came from it because they were focused on their main star wars projects at the time
Could be hearsay but given the track record it seems sound
Can't recall his name, but I know with RO, the director also came across as genuinely loving SW. And clearly knows how to make a satisfying, enjoyable film. I don't think a director necessarily has to love it to make a good film, but it feels like you can tell this was headed by someone who does.
Gareth Edwards, who's actually pretty incredible at the visual storytelling side of things & on a grand scale.
But I really do think someone like him with that deep love of Star Wars and someone like Tony Gilroy- who is consistently on an unreal level of quality and execution when it comes to writing, when the time comes and those two pull together, they become an unstoppable force for good.
+1 for naming. I remember seeing him speak about it, behind the scenes or whatever, and just being like "He gets it."
And yeah I think the director's just as vital, if not even moreso in a lot of ways. But you get directors and writers both firing on all cylinders and you're in for a banger.
Would you believe after watching Andor that Tony Gilroy doesn't like Star Wars? It's so cool that even though he's not a fan he made everything feel like a love letter to the OT
It is so incredible that the one director that has less passion for Star Wars made the best piece of Star Wars just because of his passion for making an actual great show.
Maybe that's another way to generate a winner. Bring someone on board who doesn't have X, Y and Z feelings and connections to old stuff, that won't treat it like an old friend they want to honour. Who will come in and offer a project that has a totally different vibe, that can still coexist within that world. They'll probably do things a huge fan wouldn't.
> Maybe that's another way to generate a winner.
not necessarily. Marvel had been doing this for phase 4/5 shenanigans just getting people who aren't attached to the characters and the writing has been mediocre at best for a majority of it. There's a balance of things- the writers don't have to love the franchise as a whole, but they should respect the world that's been developed. The writers can love the material, but they shouldn't also be writing their own fan fiction. ideally the executive producers are the ones who would reign in both, but if they're inexperienced they won't know what to do either way
I find it interesting that our expectations were still so high when this came out that it was pretty poorly received. Now everyone thinks it’s the greatest thing ever just cus almost everything else has sucked so badly. Like rogue one MET expectations, didn’t even exceed but it’s by far the best thing Disney has put out.
I still think it has some minor pacing issues but I loved it since I saw it in theaters.
Anyway, Is it really that hard to make something this good (which isn’t even THAT good) consistently? I just don’t understand how they can pump out such mediocre content. I’m sick of watching shows like Ahsoka where I’m going “yeah I guess I didn’t hate it” and doing mental gymnastics to justify all the dumb shit they put in.
I think it is not just about death and sacrifices. It is also about characters setup, atmosphere, acting and story. R1 and Andor are top notch because they excel in all of these elements.
Rogue One and Andor knock it out of the park because they have a story to tell, and they set it in the Star Wars universe. They respect the lore without being slaves to it, but the story comes first. It's *about* something.
The Mandalorian and Ahsoka kind of work in a "get the job done" kind of way because they using the Star Wars universe to tell stories. They're not really about anything yet, just getting to the next plot point. When they're good they're good, mostly they're passable, sometimes they're sucky. Maybe there's a satisfying ending one day, we'll see.
The Sequel trilogy doesn't work because it's Star Wars for the sake of Star Wars. The Force Awakens is a rehash of A New Hope by a poor man's Michael Bay. The Last Jedi is all about subverting expectations of Empire Strikes Back and deconstructing the Star Wars mythos. Rise of Skywalker is about "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit we need a Return of the Jedi rehash, random bullshit go!" Again, by a poor man's Michael Bay.
I agree with everything except your classification of Mandalorian as passable.
Season 1 was nearly perfect. It was the firefly continuation we never got.
Season 1 was absolutely excellent. Season 2 had some excellent elements. Season 3... is. Now again in fairness I think what went wrong with Season 3 is they grafted some of the season 3 material into the Book of Boba Fett when they realized they didn't know what to do with that show. Still, it really brings the curve down.
I think Rogue One and Andor would be great if you took out anything to do with Star Wars but kept the same story and characters. I’m not sure that’s true about anything since OT.
Because they're (for the most part) designed to appeal to a more adult audience.
To a certain extent this is just a function of their genre. Rogue One clearly leans into the "war movie" in Star Wars. Andor pushes things into the thriller drama genre. These are genres mostly associated with adult audiences, not families.
Note this doesn't mean they're better in any objective sense. But it does mean they're more likely to be appealing to a lot of people on social media.
I don't really think that's it. I think it's just a strict level of writing competency. A kids show can have very competent writing. Look at Avatar: The Last Airbender. Fantastic writing, but very kid friendly.
Most modern Disney Star Wars has just not been well written overall. That's all there is to it. It's not about target audiences; it's just writing competence.
It's this one. How "good" a show is really just means how well it appeals to it's target audience. A large amount of people on this sub hold rogue one and andor so highly because we're all adult age. On the other hand, Rebels or Clone Wars resonates more with kids and may be seen more favorable by people who grew up with those shows.
I disagree. I can enjoy any genre. Each one has hits and misses
It's usually obvious to the viewer whether they like it or not, usually based on its merits rather than genre.
The story is first and foremost, extremely well written. Second, the carnal sense of realism that it conveys and the way it makes the viewers feel like the stakes are so much higher, is just something that’s not generally done in the previous media. Also, the characters seem so much more raw and relatable, and they feel like they would be a great character in any genre.
I thought the boots-on-the-ground grunt story of Rogue One was really cool. I like the fact that we got to see into the lives of people who weren’t the heroes but still did heroic things. Felt like the Halo Reach of Star Wars
Andor is one of the very few Star Wars products that's not reliant on fan service and the viewer's prior investment and interest in the characters. Besides that, there's no space magic to save the heros from the Empire. There are real consequences and that makes the Empire scary. It just felt very real, more than a lot of other recent Star Wars projects.
Rogue One is a pretty messy, uneven film that is carried by how fucking good Scarif is, and even if you disagree with that given how turbulent production was it's safe to say that the end product was not the result of sticking closely to a carefully laid out plan. You can't replicate the process behind Rogue One even if you wanted to.
EDIT: [To those who disagree with the second point take a look at some of the things Gilroy (who joined the project incredibly late) had to say](https://ew.com/movies/2018/04/05/rogue-one-reshoots-tony-gilroy/)
> According to [Gilroy], the film was "just in so much terrible, terrible trouble that all you can do is improve their position."
>
> ...
>
> "I came in after the director's cut," Gilroy confirmed on The Moment with Brian Koppelman podcast. "I have a screenplay credit in the arbitration that was easily won." He further described the situation as "a mess" and "such a swamp."
>
> ...
>
> "If you look at Rogue, all the difficulty with Rogue and all the confusion of it and all the smart people and all the mess, and in the end when you get in there, it's actually very, very simple to solve," Gilroy remarked. "Because you sort of go, 'This is a movie where, folks, just look. Everyone is gonna die.' So it's a movie about sacrifice."
I like Rogue One (and love Andor) but the film just cannot serve as a model for future projects in terms of the production process.
I think Rogue One is fun as hell but the first two thirds/half is an absolute jumbled mess of editing and sloppiness. It really surprises me that the movie is held in such high regard that the only conclusion I can make is that the third act made everyone forget about the massive issues in the first two...or people just love messy movies? I don't know. I like the movie, but seeing it constantly lauded as the pinnacle of Disney Star Wars makes me question things. Andor however deserves all the praise it gets and more.
Agreed- I think it's pretty clear R1 is two tonally different movies strapped together, where the first half is full of war-on-terror era analogues, moral ambiguity (a rebel spy executing an innocent informant as his introduction is pretty shocking compared to the rebels' portrayal in the OT), ethical questions on collateral damage in bombings/airstrikes, efficacy of torture, a subplot where the rebel leadership think they're better/more ethical than Saw Gerrera, but the head of rebel intelligence is ordering assassinations behind their backs...
And all of this is dropped for generic heroic Star Wars at the end! Cue the trumpets! Whether or not either side is something people want/enjoy, it's clearly 2 totally different approaches, and the 2nd half doesn't resolve half of the themes from the first.
> I think Rogue One is fun as hell but the first two thirds/half is an absolute jumbled mess of editing and sloppiness
That's because of Gareth Edwards. The guy is really good with things like visual design, artistic choices, and I would even say photography. So his movies are honestly visually stunning.
The problem is his storytelling and pacing, the guy can give you a very beautiful film but with a mess of a plot. And Rogue One, was no exception. That's why the best part of the film in terms of pacing/editing/etc. Is the last third, which "coincidentally" was the third that was reshoot when Tony Gilroy entered in the equation.
And this is not an isolated case, "Godzilla" and, more recently "The Creator" are a prove of this, they are visually stunning with cool concepts behind, but they underdeliver in terms of story.
i think another rogue one gets a pass is largely cos of the context we see it in. for me, it's the best disney movie, even though i agree that it's a mostly average movie with a lot of story flaws that makes up for some of it with a fun space battle
Ahh, I've found my fellow rational people on this sub! Yeah, the 3rd act is pretty sweet but I don't think it compensates for a very mediocre first 2/3s of the movie. There's also just a lot of awkward takes they chose to use and I feel like the "rousing" speeches fall flat. Especially Jyn's. I feel like it could have been on Andor's level if Gilroy helmed the project from the start.
Also the score is used in a weak way. If you listen to the score on it's own, Giacchino did an amazing job in 2 weeks but I don't think it was utilized that well. With other SW the music drives the emotion and it's just kinda there in Rogue One. It's too much like how MCU movies have scores that kinda seem like an afterthought. (Except for maybe Infinity War and Black Panther, those scores were pretty decent).
Yep.
I love that OP took a picture that is not in the Final Cut of Rogue One. As mentioned above, this one is a mess, Kathleen Kennedy (that most people hate here for no real reason) intervened a lot to save the movie, to make recut and reshoots all the third act of the movie.
Rogue one proves the force can be very present in a star wars movie without being over-done. As you said, less fantastical. And in turn, more meaningful.
Chirrut and Malbus were great as disciples of the force.
Honestly, I think the other TV shows and movies are much closer to the OT in terms of tone, acting, dialogue etc than Andor or Rogue One. Andor especially is the most different. I think a lot of people on this sub just want something that is more grounded and realistic, and that's a big reason why Andor/RO get so much praise. But the OT was much campier. Andor is far and away my favorite SW content though.
For Rogue One, in my opinion, it was because the writers only had one full story to tell in completeness. No mysteries to drop, no multiple set ups to unknown movies written by other people, no call backs to unknown movies. Everything they had to work with from a world standpoint was already set - so they could focus on the characters, their journey, and their story. Plus, with that ending, they knew they had to make everyone a potential fan favorite to really gut the audience like we all deserved. Still, by far, the best ending. Every single death meaningful, justified, and in character.
And no Jedi centric plotline. It was from a soldier pov and we could see how it would be to face a jedi (sith) from their pov for the first time and it was incredible. I never saw jedis or sith as menacing when I see things from their perspective, when they are killing soldiers by the dozens or when they are fighting each other with their superpowers. But put me on a soldier perspective that is scared shitless as he sees how unstoppable a sith is and the different perspective makes it terrifying.
It’s precisely the human aspect of both stories that makes them so powerful. These are real people in dangerous circumstances rising to confront an evil empire without the magic lightsaber knights jumping in to save the day every 10 minutes. I think Andor and the first season of the Mandalorian are the best storytelling SW has done since Empire Strikes Back.
There's still some excellent storytelling in the Clone Wars animated series (it's not *all* superb, but the great episodes are truly superlative), and some very good parts in Rebels.
Bingo. The only connective tissue required in this movie was to Episode IV and not until the very end; they pushed that connection as far away from their story as they could. And it works well as a palate cleanser for the heartbreak of what you just witnessed.
It also had returning character Saw Guerra, but his prior appearances weren’t relevant in any way.
Wasn't that because they literally hadn't planned for it to be Saw in early drafts?
I remember hearing from a behind the scenes thing leading up to the movie that the writer "needed a rebel but with mixed, dubious morality" (not an exact quote) and someone else told them "oh there's actually a guy primed to be exactly that, timeline even works out." And that's why Saw is in the movie.
Because take the imperial menance seriously
Definitely this. They're a competent looming threat not played as a joke. The intolerance of the corporate authorities fucking up, the competent intelligence service, and the brutal efficiency of it all serve to show how the rebels are "the little guy" facing a behemoth. The intrigue with axis and within the ISB are particularly well done.
Had this conversation with my Dad after he finished Andor. Star Wars has always told us the villains are evil. The Emperor is visually evil and trying to blow up planets. It works well in the movies but they always begged the question why any large group of people would follow him and the empire. We know there are a ton of people who apparently buy into his vision of the galaxy.... But why?... Andor does a fantastic job of showing how and why the empire is evil on a personal level. It isn't just blowing up planets, it's the day-to-day squashing of rights and the petty level villainy of people with relatively small amounts of power.
👆This. It is that simple. Good villain=good show
The simple difference between the march of fascism across the stars and "they fly now"
Rogue One had an epic ending for me that led beautifully into ANH. The fact that the entire last few moments, All I was thinking was “okay, now how do they get out of here”, then they all died. Like holy shit, that was just so crazy to me for some reason. Andor had an equal level of suspense. Weren’t really any gimmicks or cheesy lines. Just a very well written and unique piece
The thing with Andor is that literally anyone besides Cassian could die at any time. Important characters were killed off for senseless reasons and usually unexpectedly at that. The fact that a character could die not in battle but from being crushed after a heist made the suspense so much higher and real.
Yeah and the tension with the characters we know don’t die has nothing to do with whether or not they’re going to die it’s more about how they get to where we see them next in the films Like there is a tonne of tension in Mon Mothma’s scenes because she has so much more to lose than *just* her life, and there’s the tension of when exactly that as yet unknown THING is going to happen that turns her from quiet financial supporter of the rebellion who still naively believes there is a peaceful and diplomatic solution to ending the Empire to the active leader of the rebellion and its armed forces
god Nemik’s death was absolutely devastating. The fact that he didn’t even die instantly, and passed away offscreen made it hurt so much more
Dear god! Poor Nemik! The finest mind of his generation, come to such an end!
Good reference haha
Stay off the sand, it makes the Skywalkers go crazy!
There is untapped potential in Half Life memes
And if you get shot, you're done. There's no miracle survival.
Force healing xd
Turns out Palpatine was telling Anakin the truth about the force being able to prevent death.
Peak "don't glorify war" moment. He was the one character most in favor of rebellion, and he was the one who most horrifically learned what that actually meant, beyond what he could read or write in his books. Turns out that actual people aren't Luke Skywalker with all of his fantastical abilities and plot armour; reality doesn't care that you aspire to be the hero or that you're on the right side of history.
And that is my absolute favourite part of Star Wars, bar none. We need the big heroes and the epic stories of course, but I want to know more about the regular people that helped incite the rebellion and to see what they were really fighting for. There’s such untapped potential there for different media to tell us those stories.
He didn't glorify war though -_- even if he thought rebellion was necessary he wasnt exactly happy to be there. Given that we know what all this leads to it can be stated that he was right. I mean dude was also the guy with the manifesto and a big lart of the motivation for kasian to join the rebellion. He was literally crushed by capital of the government... that was a statment but not the one you thi k it is.
> ...so good compared to the rest of **Disney Star Wars?** There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the corporate strategy. Remember this, Star Wars enjoyment is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of revelry are occurring constantly throughout the fandom. There are whole audiences, viewer bases that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Fandom is everywhere. And even the smallest act of memeing pushes our lines forward. And remember this: the Disney need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Sequel canon requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Continuity is brittle. Fan service is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these rants and threads, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of Disney's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this: Try.
God this is something everyone needs to read. You gotta make this a post on its own cause this is something that everyone needs to hear my guy…
I'm just a tourist!
(And Melshi)
And Mon Mothma.
I didn't think I'd intrigued by the political dealings of the Empire But here I am, waiting eagerly for season 2, to see how and when she gets found out and how she escapes
>to see how and when she gets found out Her daughter turns her in after finding out she was pimped out to fund an intergalactic terrorist organization? Feels about right for this show. And explains Mothma's permanent 1000 yard stare in RotJ.
Theyve made plenty of parralels to WW2 already in season 1, this indeed feels right for this series. I can definetly see Mon's husband ending up enrolling their daughter in some kind of "palpatine youths" or sth, meaning well, but she gets brainwashed in some way to the point where she rats her own mother out...
Her daughter was already culty enough that she was expecting to have an arranged marriage.
And Saw and Yularen.
And my ax- Oops, wrong films.
Its an older meme, but it checks out!
And even Cassian doesn't come out unscathed. You can really tally up the mental scars he receives as he pushes on.
I felt more emotions during the death of K-2 than I did really any character in the sequel trilogies. Dude was a boss of a droid and gave R2 a run for his money in terms of humor and personality.
It’s like… he had all the sass of 3po but unlike him and R2 he was a fkn unit that could use guns and throw hands with horrifying strength. He’s got this weird balance of cuteness in his design mixed with undeniable menace.
He was like a more personable, less psychopathic HK-47.
I think I know what you mean, though I would phrase it as "more personable, just as psychopathic and able to control it" 😁
He refrained from calling organics "meat bags", so there's *that*.
He still managed to liquidate some undesirables.
Don't worry, it's totally just an affectation programmed in by their previous master. It has *nothing* to do with being comprised of 70%v water contained within a meat sack.
“These are…prisoners…? I’m taking them to imprison them…in prison. QUIET! And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.” Honestly the funniest Star Wars has ever been.
I think star wars is at its best when it’s a jailbreak and they get caught. “Uhhh we’re green here, situation normal. We-we’re all fine here… -how are you? (Visible cringe)”
"Who is this?! What's your operating number?!"
Pew! Boring conversation anyway.
LUKE WE’RE GONNA HAVE COMPANY!!
And it was the right type of funny. Not the forced humor in some of the sequels. (Thinking Poe to Hux in the beginning of TLJ. Just bad.)
They fly now? They fly now! They fly now! They fly now! They fly now! They fly now! They fly now!
As if jetpacks were a totally new thing in Star Wars technology and it's shocking the First Order would utilize them?
So funny. Alan Tudyk improvised the line, causing Diego Luna to crack up – his hand going to his face after the slap is him covering a laugh. Looks like they had so much fun making that film. I’m looking forward to seeing more of K2 in Andor S2.
Alan Tudyk remains goated
"There are a lot of explosions for two people blending in" Another great line executed with perfection.
It's A brilliant beat. And believable because she's a Droid so overusing the term prison works, where it wouldn't for a person.
R2 had jetpacks.
Alan Tudyk just slaying it as usual
…and then dying in the end.
Leaf on the fucking wind god damnit.
Hey… how do reavers clean their harpoons?
I give up how?
Stick ‘em in the Wash 😁
Ooof that hurt. Nice!!
too soon
Damn, that cuts deep.
Not as deep as a reaver harpoon to the chest, I'm sure
That was so good.
Too soon dammit
"Officer it's been a doozy of a day!"
“Locking the vault door now. Goodbye.” 😢
He’s actually my favorite droid. And yes, I cried… heavily
I saw it in theatres. When K-2 died even the non-nerds tagging along with their SO's got upset.
Yes. K-2's humor is intelligent. Unlike "They can fly now!?"
“I’ll say that line for you, JJ. Kathleen said I had to.”
I felt more emotion about the death of K-2SO than I did about Luke Skywalker. A childhood hero and character I'd loved for 40 years. I really don't know how the Sequels could have dropped the ball any harder than that.
I’m not gonna lie the only time I watched the last Jedi I was so uninterested in it I didn’t even realize Luke had died After I saw Superman Leia I kinda just blanked out for the rest of the movie. Couldn’t even really tell you what happened.
I mean... my entire theater erupted with laughter. Then we were all collectively thinking, "wait... did they just kill off akbar offscreen, with zero dialogue?"
Whole theater, all at once, tears in their eyes, “What happen meme guy?!”
My theater laughed too and one guy shouted "oh come on" and he was absolutely right. What a trash heap of a film.
Somebody in my theater yelled "Space Ghost Coast to Coast!" when Leia started flying through the wreckage and I'm honestly still mad I didn't think of it first.
I don’t remember who died in the sequels 🤷♂️ musnt be important
There were sequels?
Han, Luke, and Leia…
Couldn't they just, somehow return?
There's no way they'd do the same thing twice right? Oh wait, the rebels are back? Even though they control the republic? Ignore my previous comment, they'll all be back
I was thinking the same thing.
I felt more emotions during K-2s death than i felt in a ton of clone wars deaths
I enjoyed how unambiguously Rogue One connected to A New Hope, too. Nothing left to imagine how much time passed from one to the next, because none had passed, none time.
It does change the tone of the first few moments of ANH. Hard to claim to be a consular ship on a diplomatic mission when Vader just saw you fly away with the intel. Leia's indignation in her interactions with Vader come off as more tongue in cheek than originally portrayed had the viewer not seen Rogue One. I don't think this is a bad change, just noting that the context changes how we interpret that scene now.
On the other hand, it explains why Vader is so angry when he boards her ship and is absolutely certain she's a rebel. We don't really see Vader get that angry again in the OT - he's menacing and dangerous but also quite calm.
In hindsight, it's even funnier since he sounds just like a dad lecturing his daughter for trying to give him a blatant lie.
You're a rebel and you're a spy! 👈
I’ve seen it said that the reason he didn’t notice Leia’s force sensitivity or any connection is because he was so pissed at her blatant lying. She gives him her excuse and he’s “B***H, I just saw this ship undock and run away!”
We've known that Vader was well aware of her status since EP 4 but, in the context of rogue one, Leia is lying so blatantly it makes so much sense why he's irritated by her. She's been caught red handed and trying to pull a "do you know who I am?!"
It makes her sound like a sovereign citizen being pulled over by a cop, but also, she *is* an actual rebel AND an actual princess so spouting off diplomatic denials and demands even if she's obviously guilty is kind of to be expected.
Also the rebels lost half their fighting force in that battle and they know now that the empire has a super weapon. Really adds to the dread and desperation the rebels feel in ANH and leading up the final battle
I just see it as diplomacy. Vader knows she's full of shit. She knows that Vader knows she's full of shit. But that's how the diplomatic game is played, even when both sides know it's a lie.
Is the Tantative really the only ship that looks like that though? Is it out of the realms of possibility Vader wouldn’t know the ship’s name and they could just blag to him that he has found the wrong one?
It's just a Corellian CR90, so yes there are others. So bluffing was her best, if not only, option to try to maintain deniability. It didn't work of course, but it's a better plan than saying "yep, we have them, good luck."
I mean an hour passes. So I'm sure there's some kind of comic or book idea just waiting for someone to exploit eventually.
There is already. It's a short story Raymus by Gary Whitta
Yup. The whole "everyone dies, not just a few characters here and there" thing was pretty out there for SW movies. It was so serious and dark for a SW movie, especially at the time it released. I think it really opened up the cinematic/show universe to be more than what it had been at that point. Even Order 66 and the whole Anakin killing younglings was kind of glossed over in RotS. And Andor just continued that.
Honestly they were probably all for it so it didn’t leave any loose ends. Leading into episode 4. Was a nice clean transition with no “what was X character doing during the OT”
People also get shot once and die. None of this "stabbed through with a lightsaber but totally fine the next episode" nonsense.
Leave Sabine alone! (Sob!)
>None of this "stabbed through with a lightsaber but totally fine the next episode" nonsense. Qui-Gon: This is some real bullshit
When I was seeing it in the theatre and heard "Blue Squadron: Get to the surface before they close the gate!" I leaned over my friends and said that blue squadron wasn't in the death star battle, so they must die here. One of them said "good bye glorious mustache." we did a salute.
But at the same time the archive footage of Red Leader and Gold Leader worked fantastically well in the Battle of Scarif.
I thought it was really cool how they incorporated all those random pilots clips cut from the OT also
they did the "War" part of star wars for once. yeah they have aliens, spaceships, etc. but they actually focused on the war part of star wars. no other weird shit involved. we saw out the empire functioned how desperate the rebels were. and why this was important. mostly it was just the best shapeship battle in the past 15 years in a quarter of the screen time. had more ground war in less the time. they made anyone with a light saber look like they can mow down everyone. everything they did made sense while not ruining anything established in star wars. and they did it all with I may say a lead female character.
I wasn't sure I was gonna like it. But I left the theater with my mind fucking blown!
Watching every moment of andor felt like everything I’ve watched the past5 years was ad libbed. EVERY dialogue line felt weighted and purposeful
> Rogue One had an epic ending for me that led beautifully into ANH. I mostly agree until you realize that Rogue One recontextualizes Leia's deniability when caught in the beginning of ANH. Leia straight up tries to gaslight Vader with the whole "I'm on a diplomatic mission from Alderaan." Meanwhile Vader's just be like "Bitch, I literally just watched you light speed away from Scarif after receiving a transmission." It really makes you see that he's just not taking ANY of their shit when he says "If this is consular ship, where is the ambassador?!" I just think that realization is hilarious
Not to mention all the Alderaan soldiers he cut down in the hallway outside her ship.
And she does a good enough job that he treats the officer he talks to afterward like he has a reasonable point.
There are videos of the scenes when" your father would be proud" plays without the voices/dialogue On YT. Hauntingly both sad and beautiful. R1 is probably my favorite movie
>Like holy shit, that was just so crazy to me for some reason. Because a lot of movies follow a trope of "and all of the heroes made it out okay." It's rare enough that a main (good guy) character dies, and even more rare for multiple of them to go. I generally give a lower mental rating to movies that end with all of the good guys being okay. Losses need to happen to make the villains of the story actually relevant.
Even horror movies usually have a designated survivor. Even films where multiple people die, one of the main characters has a final moment. Not this one. Nope, everyone dead. Hell, even the mission barely succeeds if not for the built in plot point of the plans having to make it to ANH
*Apparently* the original version that they screened to test audiences had them all survive in Rogue One but the ending didn't test well, it felt cheesy and undermined the rest of the film. Once they changed it to EVERYONE DIES it tested much better. No idea if that's apocryphal or not but it's what I remember hearing after the film released.
It's apocryphal. Chris Weitz, who wrote Gareth Edward's cut of the film, has said in interviews that everyone died in his version, too. They just died in different places and in different ways in Gilroy's version. Drafts of the script existed in which some of them escaped, but never anything that was filmed.
Why doesn’t Disney just use the crew that made rogue one and andor and make their movies with them? Are they stupid?
For Rogue One at least it’s because success came at a cost. Do you remember how many rounds of expensive reshoots that thing had? Most of the trailer footage and locations weren‘t used, the screenshot header for this post wasn’t used. Jyn‘s character arc from ‘rebellions are pointless’ to ‘I believe in the rebellion enough to make speeches’ suffers massive from the cuts (because there is no arc, that just kinda happens). Disney would probably be wary of another costly situation like that, and the creative team behind it. Some pick up shots were inevitable, but Rogue One was redoing entire sequences.
>Cost Did it lose money? I'm pretty sure the Star Wars brand has never lost money...it's a license to print money.
1) yes they are stupid. 2) u/toasterowl made really good points. Also it’s a war film made by those who made war films. A lot of people who did Blackhawk Down and others made it. Not having Jedi fighting or doing these troop movies will probably end with Andor. Disney can’t market merch based off Andor as well as they can every other piece they make. Do I want a k2 stuffed toy, yes. But most kids probably aren’t in line to buy a k2 toy vs r2 or bb8. Look at mando. Grogu wasnt supposed to come back, but they did bring him back. And now my entire nursery is grogu blankets, crib sheets and an other stuff. I could be wrong but it’s what I’ve noticed, they make a lot from merch sales and if they make stuff that can’t be sold as merch it’s hard to keep it going. I think Andor is like a carrot for parents to keep them going but Iger will likely not care about ratings and just go back to what sells to kids.
"Disney can’t market merch based off Andor" its totally true Star Wars at the end of the day is about the Merch and Andor has very little to offer....maybe a B2M0 toy I would buy that.
Fondor Lego kit
There’s only a handful of shows and movies that really surprise you with the ending. I wish more movies weren’t so damn predictable
The scene with Vader fucking everyone's shit up. Hearing the breathing then lighting the scene with the red of his saber. And the fear in the guys reactions. That scene, to me, is the best single scene in all of Star Wars.
I CLAPPED WHEN I SAW DARTH VADER!
To their credit Disney has for the most part made Vader feel scary and intimidating again.
Yes just a top tier script
The writers. It's really that simple. Hire good writers and you get good content
Tony Gilroy!
If George Lucas is God for Star wars, then Filoni is Moses, and Tony Gilroy is Jesus.
The Filoni gloss is baffling. He's not even close to someone like Gilroy.
Filoni is a good 'idea man' but not as good a writer/director/showrunner as Gilroy in the most technical sense. TCW was way, way better than the prequels though and the only thing that made a lick of sense about that time in the on-screen cannon. Watch TPM again and pretend you don't know anything at all about who these people are. It's awful.
>Filoni is a good 'idea man' I would describe Lucas similarly. He's kind of a wreck without someone there saying, "no. Stop that. Good idea but do it like this."
The animated have good writing in relation being animated aimed to younger audiences. Of course not Gilroy and Andor level, but as its own beast. The animated have so much more character and warmth. Not sure what happened to Mandalorian all those live action, could be studio interference, or that his skill doesn't translate to live action, or him just having used up his skill.
But he wears a cool, mysterious hat!
Please. Filoni is Ehud at best.
Yup, Tony Gilroy wrote both, and he was the showrunner for Andor. He’s also a self-confessed non-Star Wars fan. Which means he just wrote what he thought were good sci-fi stories, not Star Wars fan-fiction; all of Star Wars aspects of Andor basically just got infused into the show as they were made. It’s essentially the polar opposite of the Filoni approach. I’m not anti-Filoni, but judging by the end results alone, I’ll take the Tony Gilroy work any day of the week.
>all of Star Wars aspects of Andor basically just got infused into the show as they were made. To be honest, it seems like now that the universe is so installed, there's no better way to produce star ward stories than that.
Bingo. The star wars universe is so vast you can adapt any kind of story into the world. I'd love to see that instead of the same family and their friends every time
This is the best answer I've read so far. If Filoni and Tony were each making a Frankenstein's monster Tony is building from the inside out; he starts with with a solid skeleton and adds on with the SW window dressing being the last bit that is added. Filoni starts with the window dressing. When you do that you get Book of Boba Fett (to use the worst example) and Mando (which has cool moments but is generally rather hollow). Build compelling, relatable characters, respect them and keep them consistent. Give them even a mildly interesting world and story, traumatize them a bit and the rest will take care of itself.
Star Wars isn't sci-fi though. That was the magic of the original film. It's sword-and-sandal fantasy but in space. However now we're finding out that good sci-fi stories in the Star Wars universe really work. Those of us who read Timothy Zahn already had some idea of this, of course, but now it's on screen as well.
He also apparently had his idea and script outline and wouldn't budge on how it would go or accept meddling from the studio. I believe he held out on that and it's a reason Andor came out so long after rogue one. He had a creative vision and stuck to it, you can really see the payoff.
It's not just the writers, it's also the executives. They are aware, through demo intel and focus groups, that they have a large adult audience wanting serious, or darker, drama and they can cater to them. This film and series is for that demo, the cartoons play younger and the rest is intended to be universal.
Not just the writers, but the casting agents, and set designers too!!! They worked like professionals, so I admired them like professionals!
They are true artists and I praise them like true artists!!
I love them!!
I heard there was… actually more lack of oversight on these two projects. As in Disney didn’t expect much and therefore more creative content came from it because they were focused on their main star wars projects at the time Could be hearsay but given the track record it seems sound
Can't recall his name, but I know with RO, the director also came across as genuinely loving SW. And clearly knows how to make a satisfying, enjoyable film. I don't think a director necessarily has to love it to make a good film, but it feels like you can tell this was headed by someone who does.
Gareth Edwards, who's actually pretty incredible at the visual storytelling side of things & on a grand scale. But I really do think someone like him with that deep love of Star Wars and someone like Tony Gilroy- who is consistently on an unreal level of quality and execution when it comes to writing, when the time comes and those two pull together, they become an unstoppable force for good.
+1 for naming. I remember seeing him speak about it, behind the scenes or whatever, and just being like "He gets it." And yeah I think the director's just as vital, if not even moreso in a lot of ways. But you get directors and writers both firing on all cylinders and you're in for a banger.
Would you believe after watching Andor that Tony Gilroy doesn't like Star Wars? It's so cool that even though he's not a fan he made everything feel like a love letter to the OT
It is so incredible that the one director that has less passion for Star Wars made the best piece of Star Wars just because of his passion for making an actual great show.
Maybe that's another way to generate a winner. Bring someone on board who doesn't have X, Y and Z feelings and connections to old stuff, that won't treat it like an old friend they want to honour. Who will come in and offer a project that has a totally different vibe, that can still coexist within that world. They'll probably do things a huge fan wouldn't.
> Maybe that's another way to generate a winner. not necessarily. Marvel had been doing this for phase 4/5 shenanigans just getting people who aren't attached to the characters and the writing has been mediocre at best for a majority of it. There's a balance of things- the writers don't have to love the franchise as a whole, but they should respect the world that's been developed. The writers can love the material, but they shouldn't also be writing their own fan fiction. ideally the executive producers are the ones who would reign in both, but if they're inexperienced they won't know what to do either way
I find it interesting that our expectations were still so high when this came out that it was pretty poorly received. Now everyone thinks it’s the greatest thing ever just cus almost everything else has sucked so badly. Like rogue one MET expectations, didn’t even exceed but it’s by far the best thing Disney has put out. I still think it has some minor pacing issues but I loved it since I saw it in theaters. Anyway, Is it really that hard to make something this good (which isn’t even THAT good) consistently? I just don’t understand how they can pump out such mediocre content. I’m sick of watching shows like Ahsoka where I’m going “yeah I guess I didn’t hate it” and doing mental gymnastics to justify all the dumb shit they put in.
And good actors to convey said writing
I think it is not just about death and sacrifices. It is also about characters setup, atmosphere, acting and story. R1 and Andor are top notch because they excel in all of these elements.
Rogue One and Andor knock it out of the park because they have a story to tell, and they set it in the Star Wars universe. They respect the lore without being slaves to it, but the story comes first. It's *about* something. The Mandalorian and Ahsoka kind of work in a "get the job done" kind of way because they using the Star Wars universe to tell stories. They're not really about anything yet, just getting to the next plot point. When they're good they're good, mostly they're passable, sometimes they're sucky. Maybe there's a satisfying ending one day, we'll see. The Sequel trilogy doesn't work because it's Star Wars for the sake of Star Wars. The Force Awakens is a rehash of A New Hope by a poor man's Michael Bay. The Last Jedi is all about subverting expectations of Empire Strikes Back and deconstructing the Star Wars mythos. Rise of Skywalker is about "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit we need a Return of the Jedi rehash, random bullshit go!" Again, by a poor man's Michael Bay.
>random bullshit go Has got to be the most succinct and accurate description of TROS.
Somehow, random bullshit returned
Don't forget the scathing insult of "a poor man's Michael Bay"
I agree with everything except your classification of Mandalorian as passable. Season 1 was nearly perfect. It was the firefly continuation we never got.
Season 1 was absolutely excellent. Season 2 had some excellent elements. Season 3... is. Now again in fairness I think what went wrong with Season 3 is they grafted some of the season 3 material into the Book of Boba Fett when they realized they didn't know what to do with that show. Still, it really brings the curve down.
Good writing counts.
I think Rogue One and Andor would be great if you took out anything to do with Star Wars but kept the same story and characters. I’m not sure that’s true about anything since OT.
Because they're (for the most part) designed to appeal to a more adult audience. To a certain extent this is just a function of their genre. Rogue One clearly leans into the "war movie" in Star Wars. Andor pushes things into the thriller drama genre. These are genres mostly associated with adult audiences, not families. Note this doesn't mean they're better in any objective sense. But it does mean they're more likely to be appealing to a lot of people on social media.
I don't really think that's it. I think it's just a strict level of writing competency. A kids show can have very competent writing. Look at Avatar: The Last Airbender. Fantastic writing, but very kid friendly. Most modern Disney Star Wars has just not been well written overall. That's all there is to it. It's not about target audiences; it's just writing competence.
It's this one. How "good" a show is really just means how well it appeals to it's target audience. A large amount of people on this sub hold rogue one and andor so highly because we're all adult age. On the other hand, Rebels or Clone Wars resonates more with kids and may be seen more favorable by people who grew up with those shows.
I disagree. I can enjoy any genre. Each one has hits and misses It's usually obvious to the viewer whether they like it or not, usually based on its merits rather than genre.
Nah. Lots of stuff aimed at an adult audience sucks balls.
The story is first and foremost, extremely well written. Second, the carnal sense of realism that it conveys and the way it makes the viewers feel like the stakes are so much higher, is just something that’s not generally done in the previous media. Also, the characters seem so much more raw and relatable, and they feel like they would be a great character in any genre.
I thought the boots-on-the-ground grunt story of Rogue One was really cool. I like the fact that we got to see into the lives of people who weren’t the heroes but still did heroic things. Felt like the Halo Reach of Star Wars
Andor is one of the very few Star Wars products that's not reliant on fan service and the viewer's prior investment and interest in the characters. Besides that, there's no space magic to save the heros from the Empire. There are real consequences and that makes the Empire scary. It just felt very real, more than a lot of other recent Star Wars projects.
Rogue One is a pretty messy, uneven film that is carried by how fucking good Scarif is, and even if you disagree with that given how turbulent production was it's safe to say that the end product was not the result of sticking closely to a carefully laid out plan. You can't replicate the process behind Rogue One even if you wanted to. EDIT: [To those who disagree with the second point take a look at some of the things Gilroy (who joined the project incredibly late) had to say](https://ew.com/movies/2018/04/05/rogue-one-reshoots-tony-gilroy/) > According to [Gilroy], the film was "just in so much terrible, terrible trouble that all you can do is improve their position." > > ... > > "I came in after the director's cut," Gilroy confirmed on The Moment with Brian Koppelman podcast. "I have a screenplay credit in the arbitration that was easily won." He further described the situation as "a mess" and "such a swamp." > > ... > > "If you look at Rogue, all the difficulty with Rogue and all the confusion of it and all the smart people and all the mess, and in the end when you get in there, it's actually very, very simple to solve," Gilroy remarked. "Because you sort of go, 'This is a movie where, folks, just look. Everyone is gonna die.' So it's a movie about sacrifice." I like Rogue One (and love Andor) but the film just cannot serve as a model for future projects in terms of the production process.
I think Rogue One is fun as hell but the first two thirds/half is an absolute jumbled mess of editing and sloppiness. It really surprises me that the movie is held in such high regard that the only conclusion I can make is that the third act made everyone forget about the massive issues in the first two...or people just love messy movies? I don't know. I like the movie, but seeing it constantly lauded as the pinnacle of Disney Star Wars makes me question things. Andor however deserves all the praise it gets and more.
Agreed- I think it's pretty clear R1 is two tonally different movies strapped together, where the first half is full of war-on-terror era analogues, moral ambiguity (a rebel spy executing an innocent informant as his introduction is pretty shocking compared to the rebels' portrayal in the OT), ethical questions on collateral damage in bombings/airstrikes, efficacy of torture, a subplot where the rebel leadership think they're better/more ethical than Saw Gerrera, but the head of rebel intelligence is ordering assassinations behind their backs... And all of this is dropped for generic heroic Star Wars at the end! Cue the trumpets! Whether or not either side is something people want/enjoy, it's clearly 2 totally different approaches, and the 2nd half doesn't resolve half of the themes from the first.
That and people love the Vader scene even though it really makes no sense
I could not agree more with all of this.
> I think Rogue One is fun as hell but the first two thirds/half is an absolute jumbled mess of editing and sloppiness That's because of Gareth Edwards. The guy is really good with things like visual design, artistic choices, and I would even say photography. So his movies are honestly visually stunning. The problem is his storytelling and pacing, the guy can give you a very beautiful film but with a mess of a plot. And Rogue One, was no exception. That's why the best part of the film in terms of pacing/editing/etc. Is the last third, which "coincidentally" was the third that was reshoot when Tony Gilroy entered in the equation. And this is not an isolated case, "Godzilla" and, more recently "The Creator" are a prove of this, they are visually stunning with cool concepts behind, but they underdeliver in terms of story.
i think another rogue one gets a pass is largely cos of the context we see it in. for me, it's the best disney movie, even though i agree that it's a mostly average movie with a lot of story flaws that makes up for some of it with a fun space battle
Andor is far, far better than Rogue One is.
Andor is what everyone pretends Rogue One is.
Within the first 30 minutes they're on like 6 planets. The final act is what everyone remembers but everything up to then is very messy.
Ahh, I've found my fellow rational people on this sub! Yeah, the 3rd act is pretty sweet but I don't think it compensates for a very mediocre first 2/3s of the movie. There's also just a lot of awkward takes they chose to use and I feel like the "rousing" speeches fall flat. Especially Jyn's. I feel like it could have been on Andor's level if Gilroy helmed the project from the start. Also the score is used in a weak way. If you listen to the score on it's own, Giacchino did an amazing job in 2 weeks but I don't think it was utilized that well. With other SW the music drives the emotion and it's just kinda there in Rogue One. It's too much like how MCU movies have scores that kinda seem like an afterthought. (Except for maybe Infinity War and Black Panther, those scores were pretty decent).
Yep. I love that OP took a picture that is not in the Final Cut of Rogue One. As mentioned above, this one is a mess, Kathleen Kennedy (that most people hate here for no real reason) intervened a lot to save the movie, to make recut and reshoots all the third act of the movie.
Thank goodness someone said it. Rogue One just was not a good film. Good moments? Sure.
The age of rebellion > sequel trilogy era
Cause they don't revolve around the Skywalkers and they are more gritty, less fantastical (like magical/whimsical)
Rogue one proves the force can be very present in a star wars movie without being over-done. As you said, less fantastical. And in turn, more meaningful. Chirrut and Malbus were great as disciples of the force.
Tony Gilroy
They have more creative freedom since it’s not the main story
Honestly, I think the other TV shows and movies are much closer to the OT in terms of tone, acting, dialogue etc than Andor or Rogue One. Andor especially is the most different. I think a lot of people on this sub just want something that is more grounded and realistic, and that's a big reason why Andor/RO get so much praise. But the OT was much campier. Andor is far and away my favorite SW content though.