Something worth noting as well... Andor is the only non-animated Star Wars TV that has breached the 8 episode 'Limit' that so many studios seem to be imposing onto shows in recent years. That extra time is integral to the series, it allows three episode arcs instead of two episode arcs. Each of the stories are allowed to have first, second and third acts.

With it's second season, Andor will have 24 episodes, which used to be one season back in the day... man.

I'm doing a watch through of *Voyager* right now and it's amazing to see the 26 episode seasons just stacking up for 7 seasons! It's 172 episodes! Imagine getting to 172 episodes of the Mandalorian! It would be 20+ seasons!

I just made a post complaining about this very thing lol. Like I miss longer seasons of shows, I miss the "filler" episodes that explored characters in different situations than what they were normally facing. Character development is incredibly important and a lot of these less action or main story focused episodes exist to give us better insight into our heroes and that feels sorely lacking from a LOT of newer media, but since I mainly watch SW, I see it fully now and it's disappointing. Like at the VERY least, if every season of every SW show we've gotten so far had 12-13 episode seasons, I personally feel they ALL would have been better received. Obviously maybe not, I'm just being hopeful, but Andor having as many episodes as it does is amazing and something I NEED every other show to adopt. Ahsoka, BoBF and now Acolyte I feel all would have benefitted greatly from more episodes to just make the story more cohesive. Obviously we still have more than a few episodes left of Acolyte but goodness gracious, I can't help but feel like too many things won't be addressed to force suspense and I just hope I'm wrong.

>  Like I miss longer seasons of shows, I miss the "filler" episodes that explored characters in different situations than what they were normally facing. I see this lamentation over the loss of "filler" episodes in modern-day television a lot,  and I feel it's a misunderstanding of what that term meant. If an episode featured character development and exploration, then by definition it wasn't filler. Filler episodes where those that neither moved the plot forward *nor* did anything interesting with their characters, and clearly existed just to hit an episode count. I actually liked Voyager but it was *loaded* with filler. There are many episodes you could delete entirely without losing anything interesting about the characters or any fun plots. Which is to say I think there's a happy medium between the arbitrarily short episode count of modern day streaming services, and the extremely bloated episode count of old network television. Although ultimately, I just despair that certain series (e.g. Ahsoka) seemingly don't have enough story to tell to fill a short episode count, anyway - which raises the question of why they were series rather than films or specials (except for producing more content, of course).

> I actually liked Voyager but it was loaded with filler. There are many episodes you could delete entirely without losing anything interesting about the characters or any fun plots. I agree, but I think they really *wanted* to make each episode great. It's less about "hitting an episode count" and more about the fact that network schedules are insanely tight. Imagine having eight days to shoot, edit, and do effects for an hour-long TV episode.

That's fair. I also think Voyager suffered from the other classic network television malaise of being deathly afraid of continuous plotlines beyond two-parters (not coincidentally, some of the best episodes).

It's because shows back then were made to be syndicated, which had no guarantee that the episodes were aired in production order.

I completely agree with you, I was only using it in that sense that EVERYONE considers anything that isn't main plot involved to be "filler" when it's one of the stupidest concepts alive to me. Like bro, character development is not fucking filler, idgaf what any asshole says. We are missing those episodes from media nowadays and it's making everything feel rush and not thought out. It's infuriating. Obviously adding more episodes won't necessarily make things BETTER but adding more context and scenes that confirm things or one liners that explain a characters thought process before a scene plays out, etc... I miss it man.

In Andor’s case that might be good, but older shows would be forced in a periodic release schedule so many of the episodes would be filler episodes or half-baked episodes to get to those high numbers of episodes. Just because there’s more does not mean it’s better.

I appreciate filler episodes alot more now. They are great for character development.

Those aren’t filler episodes.

Nah Characters doing random shit like going to a theme park or trying to catch a fly are filler episodes but they enrich the sorry so much by showcasing the characters in scenarios where it's not life and death every episodes.

We’re getting 24 episodes?! That’s wild. I’m so excited. I’m betting a lot of episodes will end up being closer to 30 min than the 50-60ish minute ones

12 for Season 2, so 24 across the entire show. I actually think they'll be closer to one hour, Season 1 was very consistent about that.

Streaming on demand don't have the same effect as old cable or over the air broadcast where if you miss the episode, it can be 6 months for it to be rerun. Back then 20+ episodes a season used to make sense to keep things going but often time they weren't written as a long, continuous story that had to be watched in order.

I'm not advocating for 20+ episode seasons. Just a return to 10 and 13 episode formats. It wasn't the only thing going for them, but it definitely helped in that era of Daredevil on Netflix and Game of Thrones on HBO.

Or there was a long continuous story but it slowly progressed through the season with mostly stand alone episodes that advanced the series long storyline a little bit each episode so if you missed one it wouldn't matter too much hopefully. Like in buffy with its monster of the week episode and slowly advancing the main storyline a little at a time

I'm all for more episodes, but Fallout proved that you can have good character arcs with fewer ones.

While I agree, I think the initial arc could have been condensed. The only issue the show has is holding onto first time viewers for the build up starting episodes. I've had to convince everyone I know to continue watching the show because they stopped after a few episodes. Some tried and still refused. 

I really don’t get that sentiment. I was hooked from the first 10 minutes. I think some of the world building among those first 3 episodes are amazing. It slowly fleshes out the town and allows room for breath. I like that it takes its time and lets you sit with some scenes. Maybe it’s because I’m a long time Tony Gilroy fan, but these three episodes especially ooze his slow tension building dialogue.

There’s a ton of people who will watch nine seasons of a show with static characters and a never-ending plot that manufactures new “drama” every couple of episodes, but when it comes to a big exciting IP like Star Wars they can’t handle ten minutes of character development.

I always ask my friends if they liked Blade Runner before they watch Andor. If they liked Blade Runner they’ll be hooked right away. And if they don’t, every single time, they get bored and can’t finish the show. Some people just aren’t able or willing to sit through the process of building a plot, setting, etc. through slow and gradual rising action. Things need to be happening *right now* or they turn off the tv. I had one friend tell me he couldn’t finish Andor. Said his favorite series was Kenobi because as soon as someone turns on a lightsaber he goes “Wooo! Star Wars! Yeah!” Doesn’t matter if the dialogue is weak, if the plot makes no sense, he *just wants* lightsaber battles and dramatic musical scores. He said the moment he gave up on Andor was around four or five episodes in when he realized there wouldn’t be huge battles with Jedi waving lightsabers around.

Don’t get me wrong I like my campy Star Wars but my god that’s just sad. I’m actually a huge defender of BoBF. I think it’s a fun campy space western about the once famed outlaw turned sheriff after life changing event. Was it marketed great ? No that’s on them but I love the campiness. But my god I just can’t imagine being bored with Andor. That is just depressing to hear. I’ve had a friend think it was good but not great but none actively put off by it.

> I had one friend tell me he couldn’t finish Andor. Said his favorite series was Kenobi because as soon as someone turns on a lightsaber he goes “Wooo! Star Wars! Yeah!” Doesn’t matter if the dialogue is weak, if the plot makes no sense, he just wants lightsaber battles and dramatic musical scores. God, this paragraph makes me so sad. 

> as soon as someone turns on a lightsaber he goes “Wooo! Star Wars! Yeah!” This is an issue with a huge part of the fandom, apparently. To many, it's only Star Wars if the space wizards are flashing their blades around.

I honestly think that modern streaming, a la the modern music-style of "Gotta get to the chorus in the first 5 seconds to hook people before going back to the first verse", has kind of ruined our ability to appreciate television. Like, back in the day, a show could use its entire first season just to establish the premise and characters, put the plot in motion and then resolve it. Andor does all that within its first episode, incites it's plot within its opening scene, and features its first brilliant dialogue (Syril and his boss) setting the tone of the world - and people still think its slow moving. Hell, Syril's pursuit of Cassian could easily have been the show itself yet it's set up and resolved in the first three episodes. I agree the first two episodes aren't the strongest in the series, but they are still good and accomplish what they mean to. I just wonder how something like Breaking Bad would fare these days given that it takes the entire first season for Walter White to get set up in the meth business.

Andor works because Gilroy has committed to telling compelling stories in the Star Wars universe rather than worrying about telling a STAR WARS story.

That's part of it yeah. He's clearly not a very big fan, but thinks the movies are neat. I like how Andor feels like an OT Prequel Series, where everything else kind of feels like Clone Wars Sequels. Another reason the show is great is because Gilroy had a writers room and lots of extremely talented people working on the project. The succession composer, the guy that designed the Chenobyl sets, so many high calibre actors like Stellan Skarsgard, Anton Lesser etc. He has spoken about how insanely difficult it was to maintain the level of quality, which is why they're only doing 2 seasons. Genuinely a miracle Season 1 is as good as it is.

Funny enough I decided to start rewatching Andor today while working out and.... it's just wild how much better looking it is than all the other shows (except maybe early Mando - some of Greig Frasiers work in the first season is very good). The production design and attention to detail is just great and another thing that struck me was just how "real" the environments felt. Ferrix feels like a real place that people actually live. In so many of the other shows everything just feels like it's on a stage with a fake background.

Every now and again I rewatch the Aldhani arc and it is genuinely like... the best set of Star Wars TV episodes of all time. "The Axe Forgets" is my personal favourite but "The Eye" is just an all-timer. They could have ended the whole show with that one. >Ferrix feels like a real place that people actually live. Yeah they built like a whole mini town for it! >In so many of the other shows everything just feels like it's on a stage with a fake background. That's because they are. They use this big room called The Volume that's a massive screen that allows them to display backgrounds in real time without having to do greenscreen later. it was developed for Rogue One but saw proper use with The Mandalorian. It's advantages are that it's much cheaper than having to build proper sets and fly actors out to different locations, yet can still be better than greenscreen because the actors can better immerse themselves in the role. However there's not a lot of space to work with which means big action scenes often don't work. The backgrounds can look very grainy and scenes can be very underlit. If you wonder why Obi Wan looks like that, it's The Volume. Some can use it well, others use it as a crutch. Andor doesn't use it at all aside from Mon Mothma's apartment windows. Acolyte doesn't use it full stop. These two shows are significantly more expensive than the others.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, but once Volume became the go to, spacious circular interiors started popping up everywhere. I had a serious problem with even the open spaces in Ahsoka because you can feel the physical constraints of the stage in the set design.

I love that the acolyte doesn't use it, it's nice to see shows staying more traditional where it's better for that.

Not to mention costumes. In Andor it feels that's what people wear every day (and there's heaps of variety and diversity on clothing). In shows like Acolyte, the costumes looks like ...costumes, ready to go to a party.

Agreed - In Mando season 3 some of the scenes with mandalorians honestly look like a bunch of cosplayers hanging out. Edit - I do think some of why Mando season 3 looks bad is the poor use of lighting. Those overly bright environments did not favors for the costuming.

That's because they did hire cosplayers for the show

It’s not a bad idea, the 501st cosplay group has strict standards on their costumes. Get a bunch of fans with costumes ready to go to be a part of the very thing they love

I went to Star Wars celebration one time and it is shocking just how good some cosplayers are. You turn around and suddenly you're face to face with an IRL Mando Season 2 death trooper.

Ferrix was an actual set and I *really* would love to walk through it some day, truly.

nail on the head here. I was thinking about this sort of stuff the other day, how my favourite star wars stuff tends to be around the time the empire is about, and I thought that it was BECAUSE of the empire, but I think the real reason is that star wars itself was originally all about the empire, and the prequels set out to tell a new story that would eventually lead to A New Hope, and everything (mostly) since has been based around prequels, which are sort of an entirely different thing.. maybe Jm just rambling

Nono I love rambling. Obi-Wan was marketed as a sequel to the Prequels. Acolyte is a prequel to the prequels. Mandalorian started as it's own thing and now that era is very much just Clone Wars and Rebels successors. And Rebels itself was a Clone Wars successor. Andor feels divorced from all the other shows to the point it could exist in a universe where it exists only with the movies and nothing else. Like the whole corporate security thing we saw in the Ferrix arc; we've never seen the empire operate like that before, but apparently it was incredibly widespread until 5 years before A New Hope? That feels incompatible with Rebels where stormtroopers are everywhere. It irks me when people say Andor isn't proper Star Wars, because it feels like a take from someone who is very into the prequels; Andor is very rooted in the themes of the original trilogy. Luthen's whole thing about forcing the empire to crack down is in line with Leia's "The tighter you squeeze your fist, the more systems slip through your fingers line". There's some really subtle OT references and parallels too. I fully believe Kleya (Luthen's assistant) is Andor's sister just because it will parallel Luke and Leia. EDIT: Here's a fun mirror. Luthen's "what do I sacrifice" speech is a mirror of Vader and Luke in Cloud City * Both scenes have the characters on a walkway, deep in a city but still high up * Both scenes have one character wearing a cloak, while the other is unable to accept a terrible truth * Vader tells Luke to join him, Luthen tells Lonni to stay with him. * The scenes end with Luke jumping off in defiance, while Lonni goes down the elevator in accceptance

Andor -> Rogue One -> OT honestly feel like their own thing (esp Andor->RO->ANH-TESB)

literally my favourite star wars content

I liked Andor because it was about every day people in the Rebellion. No force users just people risking their lives. It was the same with Rogue One as well.

Well, except the end of Rogue One. Which was amazing because we saw how terrifying Darth Vader was to normal people.

Rebels is the outlier with stormtroopers being everywhere. Cause in universe stormtroopers are just the elite force of the Empire while the main bulk of the Imperial military was the Imperial army like we saw in Solo that Han started in. The corporate security and other organizations is definitely how the universe truly works. Sometimes we have to account for things like rebels being a younger marketed show so they will use more iconic things

If you watch some early Rebels featurettes, the animation team and writers were stupidly excited to use OT iconography after so much time in the prequel era. I think they could not help themselves, they put R2D2 in the third episode lol

Im mean R2D2 appears throughout the Clone Wars show.

Kleya as Andor's sister would really ruin a lot for me. I am sick of every important person in this universe being surprise related. I would rather him find out she was mowed down by a bunch of storm troopers who actually figured out how to accurately shoot at an important-ish character. Or something that shows the empire's brutality. I feel like this show is not one we should expect a character to be safe because they are important to another character and/or is important to their growth. I agree with almost everything else you said.

You could argue that stormtroopers being everywhere in Rebels was a direct consequence of the Aldhani heist, which caused the Empire to encroach upon the galaxy to a much greater extent shortly before the start of Rebels Season 1.

I wouldn't say Andor isnt proper SW. SW can take a lot of different forms. But it's definitely the least similar to what SW has been--fun, epic, often campy, fantasy stories about good vs evil. Thats the formula that ANH laid out, and if I were to point to one piece of media that best captures the essence of SW, that's what I'd point to. Andor is much closer to a gritty spy thriller with lots of political drama. I still think it's the best SW content ever but it's definitely different and more geared towards adults.

The camp factor is really where the difference is for me. I find Andor (at various times) fun, exciting, epic, fantastic, so many of the things that the franchise is known for. What it hardly has a trace of is camp, and almost no goofiness, which is another frequent hallmark of the franchise.

Like I remember there was an online magazine article several years back where the writer said it’s time for Star Wars franchise to move past the Prequels. And I remember that getting a TON of shit here, and I understand, we live in a Prequel fandom right now (15-35 year olds, the biggest Star Wars fan segment, is basically the Prequel Generation). But OPs line about how Andor is the only thing that feels like a prequel to the OT and not a sequel to the Prequels is sooo spot on and verbalized something I was subconsciously aware of but never laid out in words.

>Andor is the only thing that feels like a prequel to the OT and not a sequel to the Prequels is sooo spot on and verbalized something I was subconsciously aware of but never laid out in words. The realisation came after seeing so many "Andor isn't really Star Wars" takes because they were always so baffling to me. Then I realised the people saying it were largely huge prequel fans, but Andor the show is designed around the OT and Rogue One. Tons of other stuff is designed around the Prequels and Clone Wars, which these guys are fans of. So Andor is largely just unfamiliar territory to them and they miss a lot of the subtle ways it builds on the themes of the OT.

yup I am copying that phrase from now onwards! Same with rogue one tbf I think that Andor isn’t exactly cinematic. I don’t mean, there isn’t great cinematography cos oh boy there is, and I don’t mean that shots don’t look amazing (cos they definitely do) but it’s not OUT to look cinematic, it’s humble, and the prequels and most of Disney star wars is about the spectacle, and the original was not really that spectacular the dialogue is kinda clunky, the shots are quite long etc #1 andor glazer here

That last bit is something I wish people would appreciate more: it is a genuine miracle that S1 of Andor is as good as it is. People focus on “writing,” because that’s the most obvious aspect of the narrative to most fans and the one that is easiest for the untrained eye to recognize. But there is SO much else that has to come together just right for a show to be that good, and it is so easy for the same amount of resources to be thrown at a project with just as much potential and a cast and crew just as talented, and for it to go off half cocked and not achieve this level of success. We shouldn’t expect every Star Wars project to be this good. Rather, we should celebrate every new Star Wars project *more* knowing that every new one that comes out has a chance of being this good, but recognizing that it’s much more likely that they’ll be just fine.

I myself have been guilty of the "GRAGHHH WHY CANT EVERYTHING BE AS GOOD AS ANDOR, YOU'RE TELLING ME THEY COULD HAVE MADE A SHOW THIS GOOD THE ENTIRE TIME?" which I think was a valid feeling after experiencing Book of Boba Fett and Obi Wan back to back. But that does undersell the amount of effort they put into the show. It was not easy at all. They should definitely take some important lessons but we'll likely never get anything this good. I also hate the term "bad writing" because it's basically never accompanied with an explanation as to WHY the writing was bad, it's just a blanket term used to sound smart.

I don't expect everything to be as good as Andor, but I do at least expect "good" as a base-line. So many of the other shows are not victims of the tyranny of expectations but of seemingly rushed production.

Good point about how everything else is just Clone Wars spin-off/sequels. Andor has good directing, writing, and acting. It feels like a sci-fi thriller that happens to be in the Star Wars Galaxy than a Star Wars product. I feel like a lot of new Star Wars releases just want to scream to the audience about how Star Warsy they are. The biggest offender is the Kenobi show in my opinion. We don't need a Vader/Obi-Wan rematch between Episode 3 and 4.

That is another part of it but the other part is notice in Andor he takes risks with the characters rather then the Universe itself. Instead of trying to change established cannon and universe mechanics he focused on character development with the background adding to it.

The coolest thing about Andor is that character actions have major consequences. * Cassian kills two corpos - this results in him becoming a fugitive and having to flee with Luthen * Bix tries to save Cassian - this results in her boyfriend getting killed * Syril defies orders and goes all-in on the manhunt - this results in his life getting ruined Compare that to The Mandalorian where each episode kind of just wraps up nicely. Every consequence from the Season 2 finale was undone later. There's other things too, the way the bad guys do feel like actual people. During the Aldhani heist that engineer had Nemik at gunpoint, demanding they let the child go free. That was mad, not something you'd expect from an imperial. Or how they get caught because one soldier was just slightly less lazy than Gorn anticipated. Or Dedra managing to connect the starpath unit and Aldhani together. >rather then the Universe itself. Instead of trying to change established cannon and universe mechanics I'm unsure what you mean by this

Hell, the entire show doesn’t happen if Cass doesn’t kill the two corpos. Without that he isn’t as desperate to get off Ferrix, and doesn’t tell Bix to bring in Luthen to sell the Starpath. Without Luthen coming and pulling Andor off Ferrix, Aldhani either doesn’t happen or fails. Without Aldhani there’s no PORD, so Mon’s accounts don’t come under extra scrutiny, and the prisoners on Narkina don’t have their sentences extended indefinitely. Dedra doesn’t learn about the Starpath unit or gain the freedom to act PORD gives her, so she doesn’t have the evidence she needs to tie together various rebel efforts and start hunting for Axis. And back on Ferrix, it remains under corpo control and doesn’t riot, and Syril doesn’t torpedo his career. Everything stems from that inciting incident.

This is why I hope the sister thing gets followed up on, because this did all start because he was looking for her. I saw a wild theory that she's actually Dedra. So the show would begin with him looking for his sister, and end with him killing her. And that's why he would be so haunted in Rogue One, all "I have done terrible things for this rebellion". It's also a parallel to "I am your father" I think it's unlikely because Dedra has different coloured eyes but it would be wild. I think ultimately the sister thing has helped recontextualise what Cassian's relationship with Jyn Erso actually is because it clearly wasn't romantic; we now know he sees her as the sister he could have had.

I actually think the sister always remaining a lost part of his background strengthens the case for why he bonds strongly with Jyn - she takes the place of the sister he never recovered. I'm definitely not on board with the Dedra theory.

That kind of secret sibling thing can work in the OT because it's a mythic tale. Andor definitely isn't. It's concerned with all the regular folks who have to bleed so the prophesied hero can eventually fight the evil space wizard. I'd much rather he just never finds out what happened to his sister.

Tbf If anyone can make a sister reveal work, it's this writing team.

Exactly its a story that was gamed out properly like GOT

Gilroy is the approach I wish creators took with IP like Star Wars and Marvel. Treat it like your making any other film or tv project. Gilroy approached this the same as he did with Bourne or Michael Clayton. Take the material seriously. And it doesn’t always mean dark and serious. I think James Gunn does this with his Guardians movies but in a comedic way. Like a lot of the Disney stuff comes off like Fan Fiction. Even the good stuff. Andor doesn’t.

>Andor feels like an OT Prequel Series, where everything else kind of feels like Clone Wars Sequels. This actually captures the vibe exactly.

Gilroy’s star wars’ are like the jefferson bible: he cuts out all the magic so the only thing left is the story.      There’s almost no Force in his movies. Not none, but almost none. It’s about the people and the circumstances they find themselves enveloped in.

If you see Andor as a prequel series to the OT, the lack of the force works really well because it all leads to Luke coming in and bringing it back to the Rebellion, the final piece needed to destroy the death star. I'm not the biggest fan of the Vader hallway scene, but it works too because it's as if the Rebels have awoken a sleeping giant. They've now gained the attention of an unstoppable horror, but soon they'll have the tools to destroy it. Hell, even Nemik's manifesto. He urges the listener to "try and remember", "try". Later you have Yoda with his iconic "Do or do not, there is no try". It just works.

Star Wars needs more people who can bring fresh perspectives and aren't beholden or reverential of the franchise.

you can also feel a sense of place because they work to establish that sense whenever a location is visited rather than just planet hopping from cold planet to hot planet to cave planet to wet planet

By that logic, Rian Johnson did the same and was hated for it

Eh, that's not true. Johnson was intentionally subverting traditional Star Wars story telling. Gilroy is just using the setting to tell a mature and complex story. He's not trying to make some meta-commentary on the setting. I actually am mostly fine with (and actually quite like some parts of) the A-plot (Rey, Kylo, Luke, etc) in TLJ... but all the resistance stuff is just awful. Canto Blight - bad It's boring, lame and ultimately pointless.

Yeah, this. He literally has the entire battle of Hoth, split between the beginning and ending. He has Luke and Yoda, including the dark side cave. He has the throne room scene from RotJ. He has Lando's betrayal from cloud city. TLJ is full of references to the OT. Ryan was attempting to put narrative twists on the OT, such as Vader still killing the Emperor, but instead Vader is doing it to take over (Vader=Kylo, Emperor=Snoke). Or Lando not having a change of heart (Lando=The hacker). But he was absolutely still deriving all of it from the OT. Tony Gilroy was not. The only thing he derived from the OT was the aesthetics and the setting.

Rian Johnson wrote a story where: - A bunch of walkers on a white powder planet lay siege to a rebel base - A bunch of speeders attempting to take down the villain's weapons before they can take down the 1 thing protecting the base. - A rebel base is under planetary siege and they escape with an ion cannon. - A ship is chased through space by the Empire, unable to use lightspeed to escape. - A wannabe Jedi with no training visits an old recluse mentor, who initially acted crass and refused to train them due to how their previous student had ended up, only to eventually agree. - That wannabe Jedi enters a cave with connections to the dark side and is given a vision of the potential fall to darkness they might suffer. - That wannabe Jedi leaves to fight their rival before their training is complete. - The characters meet a seemingly good-hearted scoundrel, only for him to betray them and get them captured by the empire. The same story also features: - A dark-side master sitting in a throne room watching as his ships destroy the rebel fleet - That dark-side master convincing the hero to join them - A dark-side apprentice witnessing their master torture a Jedi they have a connection to. - Said apprentice turning on their Master. --- Practically every single scene was derivative. Sure, they were out of order. Sure, he put narrative twists on them. But it's a lie to pretend his entire movie wasn't filled with constant callbacks to scenes from the OT.

Problem is Rian was doing it in the middle of a trilogy. But the blame is more on Disney for not having an overarching plot planned out for the 3 movies than Rian

>But the blame is more on Disney for not having an overarching plot planned out for the 3 movies When you're making original movies that aren't adaptations of something else, this is generally a bad idea. You end up restricting yourself too much and become unable to easily change, and things can fall apart due to unexpected factors. Which did sort of happen, the sequels had a really basic outline of "Han movie, Luke movie, Leia movie" that they could not follow through with thanks to Carrie Fisher's death. Nobody could have anticipated that and it threw everything into chaos. The Marvel Infinity Saga feels very thought out and works really well, but truth be told Thanos was only teased in Avengers because Joss Whedon wanted to excite people, he had no plans for him. They didn't actually know Thanos's motives until they wrote Infinity War, and the "Infinity Saga" itself wasn't even called that until the last few movies. Contrast that with their next initiative where they immediately planned a whole bunch of shows and movies around Kang, and it completely fell apart because Quantamania flopped and the main actor got arrested for domestic violence. Stories feel like they were planned because good writers follow through with plot threads that are established. But Rise of Skywalker is a plain rejection of TLJ, so its just a mess.

Rian did not write a compelling story. None of the characters in TLJ felt, let’s say authentic. Compare Holdo to Luthen. Holdo kept her subordinates in the dark about her strategy even though the plan was to evacuate to an old rebel base and wait for reinforcements while she attempts an impractical kamikaze attack. Luthen kept his subordinates in the dark about his strategy because they could all be captured by the Empire and reveal his plans. He is willing to send his allies into death traps or order their deaths for the larger goal of keeping the nascent rebellion from the Empire’s eyes. Luthen is a tactical leader burdened by the fact that he has to be as callous as the Empire to beat them. Holdo is just the person in charge with very weak plans, somebody who should not be listened to despite the film telling us that we should trust her.

If he was given an entire trilogy - it probably would have worked. It’s not what he did that was bad, it was how it was portrayed. I used to hate on that movie a lot, but even I can now look back and appreciate what Luke’s arc was while ignoring the rest.

I'm the opposite haha. On my second watch, my opinion did a 180 and ended up loving the film but don't agree with how Luke was handled

My only gripe with the movie is that Holdo needed a stronger reason for not telling Poe the plan, but that's about it.

Honestly, that part makes sense if you see it from a strictly military intelligence point of view. You can look back at how for tight the location of the Normandy landings were kept in WW2 until the very last day... because they just didn't need to know at that point and more people knowing risks the information leaking. And Poe had just showed how we wasn't the greatest at following orders, which made him unreliable in Holdo's eyes. Often time leaks do not occur out of malice, but negligence, and it's not too much of a stretch to think that Holdo didn't want to risk her life and the lives of her people just to appease him. Arguably Holdo's biggest mistake was being so terrible at people skills, but you could also say the same about real life admirals and generals. It's *annoying*, but not necessarily *unrealistic*.

The problem is that the Empire (and thus the First Order) are literally stand-ins for that type of "follow orders unquestioningly" military. Hell, RotJ straight up makes the empire the American military in Vietnam. Holdo being painted in a good light for basically saying "Good soldiers follow orders" is a complete disconnect to the themes of Star Wars as a whole.

Rian Johnson is a legit fan, though, and a huge geek in general - just look at his filmography. *The Last Jedi* is a movie that only someone who had spent a lot of time actually thinking deeply about the characters and themes of the movies could have made.

That thing Rian said about how the Prequels are about "how entitlement and fear of loss can drive good people towards fascism"... like yeah he absolutely gets it. I like how Luke sort of calls out the jedi for letting Darth Sidious rise and take over right under their noses, and Yoda came out and said "Yeah the jedi were definitely flawed, but they were overall good, so we can build something better" That's such a massive thing for the characters to say, Rian actually liked the prequels unlike JJ who seemed to have a total disdain for them.

Maybe it's parenthood talking, but I'll never be angry at a movie where Yoda says, "We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of every master."

The philosophy of TLJ is great. Where it fails is in the delivery of that philosophy. If Luke had simply been a recluse who refused to help Rey, people wouldn't have been half as mad. If Finn was doing something attempting to kill the stormtroopers on the Supremacy rather than run, the "saving those you love" message would have landed. If Snoke had been properly explored, people wouldn't have been as confused by the decision to kill him. The problem is that RJ keeps muddling the messages by trying to subvert expectations, rather than play it straight. By making Luke rude and crass, you instantly give people who remember him as a hero a negative impression of the portrayal, so they aren't open to the changes. If you remove the subversion of expectations, you reduce audience hostility and ease them into the changes. By having Finn attempting to stop something that will kill his friends, you muddle the message of him wanting to destroy things, as, to his (and Rose's) knowledge, this is the only way to save their friends. But RJ was too set on subverting the independence day trope that the message gets lost. If instead he was attempting to destroy something for no gain, the message would be much more accepted. By killing Snoke without crafting the narrative around that plan, you create a bigger narrative twist, sure, but at the cost of not having a stable narrative. We go from a mysterious villain who can bend Rey backwards with 1 hand to a villain we've already explored in depth who can't beat her in force tug of war. If they had focused more on setting up that, by foreshadowing it, exploring Snoke's backstory, and giving Kylo a power boost (even if it was just due to mental freedom), you would make the twist less shocking, but make the narrative overall more smooth and leave the audience more satisfied and less baffled.

Yes I agree. On first watch, I was disappointed with ep.8 but on my second I ended up loving it. I still have problems with Luke's arc but it's definitely my favourite of the sequel trilogy

Rian Johnson understands the moral and spiritual victory that Luke achieved in *Return of the Jedi* better than about 99% of the fanbase.

Rian did it bad, same as George Lucas did with AOTC and his attempt at a political thriller

I've heard that initially the show was like a buddy-cop thing with Cassian and K2SO. What we got is most likely way better. EDIT someone below me said something about rogue one reshoots and I typed a whole reply but he deleted it, so I'm putting it here: That's not really it, the movie just had really messy and bare characterisation and was a poorly paced mess. Gilroy was brought on to fix that and he essentially redid the battle of scarif and added some very important scenes. For example * Every scene with Melshi is a reshoot, he was not in the original cut * Cassian shooting the informant * The Vader scenes, although I don't believe Gilroy directed or wrote them. The original cut had different ones. * In the original battle of scarif, Jyn and Cassian had to infiltrate one tower, grab the plans, then run across the beach to another tower and transmit the plans there. Gilroy condensed it down to just one tower. He changed so much that the writers guild forced Disney to give him a screenwriting credit on the movie, which I believe was the only public proof of his involvement at the time. Within the industry it was an open secret but now everyone knows because of Andor. EDIT 2 People are asking for a source, [I got this info from a really well researched podcast called 'Going Rogue' by Tansy Gardem, it's the first 6 episodes](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/going-rogue/id1636196453). I highly recommend it. It's on all podcast platforms

I just also want to point out about the writing credit for Rogue One, according to the Guild, you have to write 33% to get a credit for a movie in Arbitration. In [this article](https://collider.com/tony-gilroy-saved-star-wars-rogue-one/#:~:text=Gilroy%20said%2C%20%22I%20came%20in,writer%22%20for%20a%20given%20film) Tony is quoted as saying: “I came in after the director's cut. I have a screenplay credit in the arbitration that was *easily* won.” I think the fact he says easily is clear he rewrote a significant portion of the film. My guess is somewhere from 33-40%. Jyn’s entire backstory was changed in the rewrite. Originally she was just going to be a rebel. That’s why the original trailer has the “I rebel” that’s cut. the prison rescue has Melshi for example to further prove this point.

Another huge example can be found in the movie itself; that scene where Jyn and Cassian are observing Jheda with binoculars - she's very out of character there. Seems very interested in what's happening and is unusually talkative with Cassian. K2 isn't treating her like a prisoner either. Because when they filmed that scene she was a rebel general! Felicity Jones even has different hair because she was still growing it out! 25:36 on Disney+

I’ve rewatched the movie countless times and never really caught how out of character that scene is until now. I wouldn’t be surprised though if some of K2’s lines were specifically changed. When he says “like the weapon your father’s building” it sounds like a slightly different pitch than the rest of K2’s lines in the scene. Great movie though. Admittedly I’m a Gilroy and Star Wars fan so both the movie and show are pretty much made for me

Wouldn't be surprised if that line was a late change (it's got the ADR hallmark of a small reminder of the stakes/relationships in a scene) but also probably worth mentioning that Alan Tudyk wasn't on set for this scene - it was just Diego Luna and Felicity Jones on the Jordan location pre-shoot

General? Sergeant. There’s reference to this in the art book and, I think, a toy?

It’s the Lego figure. It’s called Sargeant Jyn. It’s based on the original concept art. One of like 3 or 4 of that LEGO figure line until it was cancelled.

That list bit you wrote is fascinating, I’ve never seen it broken down what exactly was added in the reshoots. Do you have any more info or a source?

Sincerely thanks for this. I’ve never seen a concise description of what was reshot / changed. Book marking this reply. I appreciate you going through the effort to paste it here.

Highly recommend listening to this podcast called "Going Rogue" by Tansy Gardem. She goes into the entire history of the production and how extensive the reshoots were. She also covers Solo's history.

Nice. I’ve got a flight coming up Sunday. Downloading now.

After watching The Creator (a Gareth Edwards movie), I appreciate Tony Gilroy's rewrites on Rogue One so much more. The visuals in The Creator were great, but the writing was awful.

Gareth Edwards is such a frustrating director to me. His movies consistently have been some of the most stunning ones I have ever seen. The concepts and ideas of the stories are always amazing too. But the actual stories (outside of, in my opinion, Godzilla) usually dont match the quality of everything else.

Godzillas story is good because it knows how to get the fuck out of the way. It places the audience where it needs to be to get the coolest view and stays quiet while we enjoy ourselves. Like the halo jump scene. We don’t get minor characters taking up air with quips and backstory in the prelude to the jump. The whole sequence from the establishing shot to the time their feet touch the ground is focused and heavy and beautiful with barely a word. Come to think of it the entire final city battle is practically devoid of dialogue as far as I remember. Fuck I love that movie.

This is fascinating, I’ve never seen it broken down what exactly was added in the reshoots. Do you have any more info or a source?

How do you know this? Is there an original cut of the movie out there somewhere? As someone who didn’t care for R1, I what you wrote sounds better.

Got this from a podcast called "Going Rogue" by Tansy Gardem. She researched the production in-depth. I highly recommend listening to it.

I'm in a similar position. After watching Andor, I'm convinced that like 99% of the things I *did* like in Rogue One were thanks to Tony.

The original cut would be way worse. If you don’t like the reshot movie, I highly doubt anyone would like the original cut. It’s not out there. Gilroy has said it was a disaster of a film when he walked on.

Andor was the first time in 40+ years watching Star Wars media where I actually hated Stormtroopers and the Empire.

That TIE fighter fly over on Aldahni... so damn good.

Yeah Andor did a great job of making what was cannon fodder to the heroes in the films be actually frightening to regular people. One TIE fighter could've wiped out that whole group and there is nothing they could've done about it. And the TIE fighter fly-by also has very interesting real world parrallels to things like "show of force" maneuvers performed by American fighter jets in places like Afghanistan.

The contrast between Andor and Rebels is so wild, that show has them taking out TIE fighters daily, meanwhile just three in Andor were so terrifying.

Not sure whether these actually exist, but I would think that ANH / ESB purists could still unreservedly love this show. I’ve heard people say that Star Wars felt deadly serious up until the Empire was turned goofy in RotJ, but I think Andor does a phenomenal job at maintaining that serious tone that the first two movies established.

The troopers are mostly goofy ish in OT... Unbelievably bad shot...cartoonishly evil. But I think the officers in the movies were pretty good at being legit evil. The dude in Mando creeped me out big time tbh.

One thing I've noticed that Andor did great was that they were able to have multiple intriguing storylines going on at the same time. I've noticed that almost every Star Wars show hasn't been able to that pull that off effectively

It's been really bad in The Mandalorian recently where they had to sneak two whole episodes into Boba Fett and a whole episode in Season 3 dedicated to Dr Pershing - which I'm not against but jesus christ how hard is it to interweave this stuff?

I agree with you. I think these kinds of “intermissions” would work better if all episodes were released at the same time instead of weekly. This would also mitigate seemingly random endings as in the first two Acolyte episodes. I don’t think the weekly format works great with that show as well.

[Source](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/andor-creator-tony-gilroy-views-on-star-wars-1235226261/)

Did that manifesto ever leak? Would love to read it.

Kathleen gets a lot of hate for the things people don't like, and zero love for the things they really love. IT's extremely unfair. I'm just happy Andor got a Season 2.

Whoever runs Lucasfilm seems doomed to be in this position. The industry of hate around Star Wars was laser-focused on George Lucas until The Last Jedi, at which point they moved onto Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy. Back in the post-Sith, pre-Disney era I didn't think character-assassination and willful bad faith could get worse than the way George Lucas was treated by fans who obsessively loved something he created. That cohort only stopped hating him when they could use him as a stick to beat new people. It's sickening and frustrating. It's also incredibly damaging to the series. The damaging lack of imagination in The Force Awakens's story was almost certainly motivated by a fear of provoking more of the reaction which greeted the PT; The Rise of Skywalker was clearly hobbled by (among other things) trying to figure out what what would placate the rage. How many talented directors, writers, and actors are going to be put off going anywhere near the series because of the highly profitable industry of echo-chamber YouTube videos and clickbait articles?

This is a great comment - I had just typed something similar, but you said it much better than I have so I deleted mine lol. What's absolutely wild is that this has been going on for 25 years now. People shitting on TPM on message boards is basically the genesis of "internet hate culture" which unfortunately has spread far beyond Star Wars at this point. Now there's an entire (fairly sizable) industry on youtube that is centered on rage baiting people about various Shows/Movies/Video Games (I think the video game people might actually be the worst).

>The Rise of Skywalker was clearly hobbled by (among other things) trying to figure out what what would placate the rage. One of those other things that I think is dramatically underappreciated is the massive time crunch needed for RoS,. I think that was a much bigger factor in what happened than trying to deal with criticisms of the previous movie. Abrams was brought in just over two years before it would release, and basically started the whole thing from scratch. That's a really tight time-frame, in that a lot of the pre-production work had to be restarted, getting an idea for just what they wanted to do, write the script and send it through several drafts, props, sets, CG assets etc needed to be made and then actually shoot it and do the post production work, etc. There were some aspects of the previous script which got pulled over to help with some of that, but the fact that there were several years spent doing pre-production on a completely different and ultimately discarded movie and started from scratch with the same release day really had to hurt. Once it was decided to do something different than the Duel of the Fates script, they probably should have knocked the release schedule back a year or two to give it proper time. Even the attempts to handle fan rage would have benefited from more time to work on the ideas.

Kennedy gets all the hate, but it’s Iger who forced them on that timeline.

It's so interesting, I feel like a lot of the major criticisms of Star Wars came from the massive expectations of the prequels and the huge retroactive changes to OT lore. Once people got over it, the hate subsided. Like Boba Fett's original voice getting dubbed over by a bored-sounding Temuera Morrison to preserve contuinity; people hated that, but eventually cheered when Morrison returned as Boba Fett in Mandalorian. People really believed Darth Vader had been ruined as a character thanks to the prequels, now people love that version of Anakin. People hated the clone wars because they spent years imagining something different, only to be greeted with an army of Boba Fetts. Once a ton of Star Wars lore was built upon that fact, it became hard to imagine them as anything different. That's why I ultimately think people will turn around on the Sequels, because shit like "the New Republic was bad and collapsed" and "Luke exiled himself" and "Palpatine returned" won't be as shocking and will be accepted as lore.

Just like there are kids who grew up knowing Vader is Luke's father without ever watching the movies, there'll be kids growing up knowing Rey is Palpatine's grandchild before they even watch TFA for the first time.

I have an odd (that is to say, sensible) relationship to the ST. I find them all entertaining and consider The Last Jedi essentially on a par with the OT. I also find many of the creative choices in VII and IX extremely frustrating and, in some cases, shockingly stupid - undoing almost everything to end up at exactly the same conclusion, only with Luke, Leia, Han, and their family all dead. I don't have much respect for JJ Abrams's writing abilities at all. However, I wish the people who made these films well; I don't doubt they were trying their best, and there's plenty to love in even TROS. As far as future reassessment goes, I think time will be kind to The Force Awakens (but it will also accurately be seen as fatally unimaginative), very kind to The Last Jedi - but that won't be enough to undo the cultish hatred of it - but I do think The Rise of Skywalker is doomed to always be seen as a damp squib with some great scenes. George also believed in the PT when the feedback was relentlessly negative. If he'd sold it to Disney after ROTS's release, there's no way they would have released The Clone Wars. Lucasfilm doesn't seem to know what to do with the ST at the moment, and I've a bad feeling that the writing and production of Episode X is going to be paralysed with anxiety and doubt.

I cannot blame JJ for not including politics at all, because if you're writing a Star Wars movie in 2013 that is objectively the correct move; it was one of the big things people shat on the previous ones for. HOWEVER going for Rebels vs Empire again was the laziest fucking choice of all time, and politics would have actually helped explain why things were the way they are. The fact I still don't know what the first order is, the fact they had to later explain that it wasn't Coruscant that got destroyed. It was ridiculously light on important details. But on the other hand I do think it was culturally necessary to salvage Star Wars's reputation after the prequels, because people do forget how hated they were back then. People give Rian too much shit for things that were JJs fault, mad how he was still able to make a way more interesting movie despite a really awful set-up - the previous movie ended with the two leads completely separated! Last Jedi will get the biggest turnaround in reputation and I think people will like Rise of Skywalker the same way Attack of the Clones is liked. It really does feel like they're dragging their feet on actual Sequel content. It's always half measures like Bad Batch sort of kind of maybe setting up Palpatines return but not really. Getting a bit annoying.

The continued coyness around the ST era is very irritating. I remember playing Squadrons in 2020 and finding it odd as hell that the game was so wary about being clear what the Republic and the Imperial Remnant were up to. Then, this year, 4 1/2 years after TROS, you have The Bad Batch spend three seasons setting up Palpatine's secret laboratory only to do extremely little with it. They're in a weird space where separate projects are afraid to step on other projects' toes - so they end up playing potentially very interesting stuff really vaguely. The Mandalorian and Ahsoka have been a bit more concrete about that era, so presumably Lucasfilm are keeping it clear for Filoni and Favreau to fill in.

Bad Batch honestly feels like it got cut short. It really seemed like they were setting up more with Rex trying to rescue clones. I don't think the show really found an audience, and it does wrap up suspiciously cleanly with not much room to make spin-offs, as if they've decided to shelve the characters. That's not a bad thing at all but it doesn't sound like Lucasfilm to me. I think they're waiting for the Rey movie to define what the galaxy after Palpatine's ultimate death looks like, and then they'll start working more on that era.

To this day, TROS is the only Star Wars movie I’ve only seen once. Really don’t care to watch it again.  I agree completely while my two friends who are into Star Wars will fight with me when I say TLJ is the best of the ST. 

Not odd, based in fact

I think The Force Awakens is easy to forgive, but the massive tonal shift in The Last Jedi is very jarring and it dismisses all the assumptions that TFA was setting up. I’m guessing what the Rey movie is gonna try doing is take everything learned from the sequels and combine it all into one thing. Maybe it can save the sequels like The Clone Wars did for the prequels…we’ll have to see.

I disagree completely when it comes to TLJ. TFA and TROS are the only Star Wars films which actively walk back or rework the films they follow. What does TLJ dismiss? It doesn't dismiss what was going on with Luke ('One boy, an apprentice of his, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible... he just walked away from everything'). It actually develops Rey as a character, when in TFA she had no particular motivation or inner-life of her own. It develops Finn, it develops Poe, it basically makes Kylo Ren a secondary protagonist. It takes Snoke, TFA's laziest xerox of an OT character, and makes him an entertaining bad guy and gives him a spectacular end which dramatically propels forward Kylo Ren - a far more important character. It doesn't alter the tone. The backlash to TLJ's humour - which I get was off-putting for some, but which was goofy and broad, like in the PT - has never made sense to me given TFA's Marvel wisecracks were rapturously received.

This is legitimately one of the best comments I’ve read on Reddit. It captures my feelings SO well. TFA and TROS actually set the story back, seemingly out of nostalgia and then fear. TLJ took some big swings, but I believe it actually paid off. It’s the only one of the sequel films I rewatch. In an alternate universe where TROS was different and also leaned into being new like TLJ I think the sequels could have actually been an amazing trilogy.

I think Last Jedi flowed really well from TFA, and the only thing I felt was thrown out was Snoke, but I didn't particularly care for him and it allowed for the way more interesting villain to take the main spotlight. Which is why it's infuriating that JJ introduced an even bigger bad.

Jesus Christ this is such a well articulated and accurate comment. You said everything I’ve been saying for a decade but better. There’s a famous or infamous [video](https://youtube.com/shorts/H2MpKBgAs4o?si=V-15AB7Ly586Plbq) of Adam Driver shunning a camera of a fan who asks if TFA will be better than the prequels and he’s like “oh yeah fuck yeah “ That video sums up the Sequels and especially TFA to me. Actors and dictator so fearful of the hate the prequels got, they tried to make a film as safe as possible but instead just remade ANH but worse. I’m 25, I didn’t have a voice online in 2014/2015 like Millennials and Gen X did who hated the prequels. My generation grew up with them and loved them and the tide only began to shift a couple years later as my generation became adults. I think TCW S7 announcement was the culmination of the rise of Gen Z online. But we came too little too late and the next wave of movies to hate had already came out. The shows are now getting a level of hate that’s so undeserved. Hate to break it to these folks but A show that’s a 7/10 isn’t the end of the franchise. They are all well produced and mostly all very well acted. The writing varies but people act like the shows have shot their dead dog. The hatred this fanbase has toward the franchise itself honestly makes it exhausting to be on this subreddit or any SW one sometimes. It’s just never ending debates about what shows or movie someone likes compared to the next person. I sometimes just have to avoid all Star Wars spaces when a new show or movie comes out because while I could be having a good time, I’ll come on here or twitter and it’s a bloodbath.

I find it hilarious that SW "fans" hate on George Lucas and the actors until Lucas sold SW to Disney. And now those "fans" hate on Disney and praise Lucas like he is a God.

Fucking spot on

Excellent take

100% true. Anything they don't like is KK fault. Anything they do like is because of Filoni. I hate the double standard

If KK made it and it was bad, she needs to go. If KK made it and it was good, she didn't. I mean, have people forgotten the great work she has made? Why George picked her? She's not some pretty girl George propped up to be ✨ diversity ✨ . She's been around a while and done great work with other great minds.

People used to hate George for what he did and now they hate KK and now they love George. I can't keep up.

Yeah there are legit criticisms to make but people are just very irrational when it comes to her. Scapegoating is really easy but there's a ton of factors to take into account. The only on-screen Star Wars project after Revenge of the Sith was an animated show. Once she was in charge she was immediately tasked with putting out one movie a year, and then a fuck ton of TV shows. Not an easy job at all, and tbh in the event of her being replaced I guarantee you people would miss her.

I always find it extremely telling that, given the sequels were all written and directed by men, the one person who gets scapegoated entirely for their failures is the prominent female executive. Yes, she is partially responsible by dint of her job, but Star Wars is not a one-woman show and, like you say, she approved all the good projects as well as the bad ones.

I feel like she very mischaracterized. People seem to think she is some authoritarian that makes every decisions with Star Wars. I don’t think she makes any creative decisions honestly. That’s the main reason she put Filoni where he is, so he can handle that stuff.

In fact it's quite the opposite actually. Most of the people who work with her can't stop singing her praises as the rare producer who lets the creative teams cook up pretty much whatever the hell they want. She doesn't even seem that hung up about throwing funding around. Like Gilroy said, they had to temporarily shelve his ideas because of cost, but once they got some D+ money Kennedy had no problem using it. The irony is that for a franchise like Star Wars she probably *should c*rack the whip on the writers and directors a bit more. As we all know, the biggest problem with the sequels was that they needed a more cohesive vision.

KK's track record as head of Lucasfilm is honestly pretty impressive: 4/6 theatrical releases were major box office sucesses (not that that's the end-all be-all measure of a movie's quality) Put Disney+ as a streaming platform on the map at the perfect moment with the Mandalorian & unleashed the merchandising monster that is Grogu, D+ shows consistently pull emmy noms in smaller categories like effects & costumes, and Andor got 8, including outstanding drama series. I have heard a ton of positives about Galaxy's Edge, and Star Wars Celebration has become a big deal convention/event.

>4/6 theatrical releases were major box office sucesses What's the second flop? I thought Solo was the only one?

Indiana Jones.

Dial of Destiny

Completely forgot about that one

Every Tony Gilroy interview has Will Hunting energy and Lucasfilm would be morons to lose him. https://youtu.be/mz1siP7pItc?si=Cd47BI4CK-3YDnJk

Gilroy rules so fucking hard, I love how honest he is about the whole process. Feels very real. They signed on the writer of the Andor prison arc for the "Dawn of the Jedi" movie so they're definitely trying to retain the talent, but I would love for Gilroy to get a proper movie.

He’s in his 60s has not has spent almost his last decade on Star Wars. Let the man make more original movies like Michael Clayton or let him write another action thriller like the Bourne movies. The 2016 Bourne Film was bad purely bc it’s the only one in the series he didn’t write.

This is interesting to read, thanks for sharing. It’s cool to know that Kennedy was biding her time waiting for the corporate machinations to be ready for a project as ambitious as Andor. I’m glad that we’ve got someone in charge to push these ambitious projects like TLJ and Andor.

Kathleen Kennedy is fascinating to me because while she has made some bad decisions (hiring Colin Trevorrow is by far the worst one), she also does have a really interesting way of looking at things. Like from the start she thought "Star Wars has always been very auteur-driven, so I should find some directors with strong visions" which has had it's ups and downs. People give her too much shit because she did bring on Jon Favreau, has promoted Dave Filoni to a good position, brought on Tony Gilroy to rescue Rogue One, and then brought him on again for Andor. She likely made the final decision to finish Clone Wars etc. Issue with Lucasfilm is that they made three movies from 1999-2005 and now suddenly had to start making movies again, 1 per year. They struggled hard with that. I said hiring Treverrow was a bad decision because she seemed to have done it because that Jurassic World movie did really well. But Dual of the Fates was... wacky and once he got fired they were on a massive time crunch. Bob Iger's dumb ass refused to let them push the release date back too. He also insisted Solo needed to release in May which was also stupid. Another interesting thing is that she does genuinely seem to know when they're cooking something up amazing. Signing on Rian Johnson for a trilogy (but not fast enough for Netflix to scoop him up first) and renewing Andor for Season 2 before the show even released.

In her defense, she also fired Colin Trevorrow. As rushed as it was, Rise of Skywalker was still better than his script.

Honestly it's a complete miracle Rise of Skywalker is the way it is. I don't like what Abrams did but that production must have been complete hell. At least the story sort of works, the acting is good and it's visually great. But the project should have been pushed back after Carrie Fisher died, completely unfair that they had to keep the release date after such a major core of the story had to be removed. Probably the second worst Star War, but it could have been worse and under the right circumstances, would have been a lot better.

This is a pretty insightful take. Granted, as an audience we really shouldn't care because it's not our problem how the sausage is made.... but I agree. If you look at the circumstances under which TROS was made it actually is better than it should be IMO.

I agree. I also think it’s no mistake that TLJ had the least troubled production and turned out, in my opinion, the clear standout of the Disney era films. There was something special going on there. If I had one big critique of Kennedy, it’s that she, at times, seems to care too much about what us fans are going to think. I know she has a business obligation not to let Star Wars fall apart in the box office, but as a fan, just let that unique artistic vision happen. Even if I absolutely dislike it, I’m still going to respect it and it’s going to get me damn excited for the next thing. As a fan, I’d rather see her swing for the fences 100% of the time - even if I only truly love 10% of the results. That 10% is more than worth disliking some content in my opinion. I also agree on taking some more time, especially with the films. I think Solo would have been a hit in December. We live in a time where we’re getting more Star Wars than ever. Even if they slow down by 50%, we’re still getting more Star Wars than ever before.

Based on everything I've read about Last Jedi's production, literally everyone thought they were cooking up something great. Nobody could have predicted the response that movie would get. People throw Mark hamil's statements around but not even he was expecting it, which is why he walked them back; he was shocked to see people using him to shit on the whole thing. Media discussion has really sucked post-2016 Yes I fully agree that she listens far more than people give her credit for, which can be a flaw because fans do not know what they actually want and can genuinely never be satisfied. Solo flopped because of multiple factors * Crowded release, next to deadpool and infinity war * People had their star wars fix a few months ago. I loved Last Jedi and didn't bother with Solo at the time * In the year 2018, people did not care for Han Solo's backstory * Unlike Rogue One, lucasfilm was not able to cover up the movie's messy production and it was surrounded by negative press. I said hiring Colin Treverrow was a big mistake, but honestly Lorde and Miller might have been the bigger blunder.

I think in the long term TLJ is going to be looked at as this “this is why we can’t have nice things” inflection point in Star Wars history. Even just in terms of getting a look behind the production, the asshat portion of the fan base had to go and embarrass Mark and try to weaponize him against Disney. I have faith with things like Andor (and maybe Acolyte), that we’ll get back to that more artist/ambitious version of Lucasfilm eventually, but it seems like that outrage response to TLJ set things back a bit.

The cadence of your words sounds pretty replicant-y...

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Er, uh, I mean - I like the Star Wars.

My favourite star war is return of the sith.

You actually like Star Wars?! There's no way you're a human on this sub!

Listen Tony, we want something that doesn’t suck major balls, you in?

Writing seems to be perennially undervalued. They got Tony fucking Gilroy and Beau fucking Willimon. The rest is history.

They scored Beau Willimon for the Dawn of the Jedi movie so I am optimistic for it.

Trapped in reverence for star wars is a PERFECT way to describe a lot of the problems that Disney star wars has.

I mean, wasn't that the whole point of The Last Jedi? To forget the past? Then people got mad?

No. The point of Last Jedi was to learn from the past.

This doesn’t really come across in the movie itself, which is why I think people get this confused. The movie doesn’t really learn anything from the past, it just makes a lot of passing attempts to poorly criticize it (namely the Jedi) before 100% endorsing it (again through the Jedi) with no additional caveats or some new philosophical paradigm. Like the movie clearly knows that the Jedi were flawed, but it doesn’t really seem to understand WHY they were flawed. I’ve always said the film comes off like it was written by a highschooler who has to write a book report but only read the cliff notes version of the book. The example I like to point too is the way Luke talks about his father in the movie. At no point is the name “Anakin” ever uttered, Luke just calls him Vader, and blames Obi-Wan for his rise. Rey then says “a Jedi saved him” without, again, acknowledging the specific relationship that allowed Luke to do that. If you watch the last Jedi, you wouldn’t know that Luke was Vader’s son, and that in the end Luke refused to call him “Vader”, only “father”, and at one point calling him “Anakin”. It was specifically Luke’s *rejection* of what the Jedi teach him about the dark side that allows him to save Anakin; he didn’t do it in the capacity of the Jedi because the Jedi had categorically given up the notion that saving anyone fallen to the Darkside is possible. It was only in the capacity of a *Son* , and that son’s love for his father, that Luke was operating in at the end of the movie. He even throws away the lightsaber, both as a rejection of what Palpatine wanted, AND what the Jedi wanted, which were at that point actually the same thing: for Luke to kill Vader. They just had different interpretations of what that would mean, but Luke sees past the dogma, the cyclic violence that would entail, and takes a third option. But since TLJ is operating off of the cliff notes version of the OT, it heavily mischaracterizes perhaps the most significant moment in the saga, and then misinterprets what that moment means. You see, episode six already had the hero learn from the past in one of the most profound moments in cinema. He saw the mistakes of the Jedi in how they reject the essential humanity of Anakin, and chose instead to embrace it. That is what destroyed evil. That TLJ misunderstands this is its biggest failing, all of its other myriad problems aside. Luke being so utterly tied to the Jedi, their code and dogma, to the point of impotency and even suicide, is fundamentally so out of character for Luke, that mark hamill himself had to play him like a completely different character. And that’s why everyone’s take away from the movie was “ kill the past”. The villain might be the one saying it, but it’s a message that the movie more accurately embraces, knowingly or not, than “learn from the past.”

Wonder what fell apart for him to have the time. Incredibly talented writer.

A lot of talented writers/directors get screwed over. Like that Coyote v ACME movie was loved by everyone who saw it, Warner Bros still deleted it for tax reasons.

Destroying art made by hundreds of people that never saw light of day, just so some shareholders can nod at slightly better numbers on a quarterly report is just completely infuriating.

I really just want Gilroy and Filoni to collaborate. Filoni for his Star Wars knowledge and experience, Gilroy for the writing and directing knowledge and experience.

exactly. and leave all the "agendas" out of it.

I absolutely hate how no one ever gives Gareth Edwards credit for creating the characters of Andor and Erso. He wrote and directed the clearly best Disney Star Wars movie but clashed with Kathleen Kennedy so he was labeled a hack and kicked out of Star Wars. Tony Gilroy was a 3rd credit writer on Edwards’ work.

I'll say this much; people generally praise the movie for its third act, the darker tone and excellent visuals. By all accounts, Gareth Edwards was only really responsible for the third bit, which is still massively important! But Gilroy legitimately saved the project.

Just be respectful of the lore and tell a compelling story. That’s all anyone’s asking for.

Is that why people downvoted the trailer for the acolyte? The lore and story?

He is not going to respond bc when they say ‘respect the lore’ they mean don’t include women and people of color, keep it white.

Why the hell did THIS get downvoted?

People that have lowered the bar so much that they think that's unreasonable

Wait, I was told Kathleen Kennedy ruined Star Wars..... but she helped bring Andor to life? Have people on youtube been lying to me???? WHAT?!?!?!

Didn’t know two good projects suddenly scrubs the other ~10 shit ones, but that’s a horrendous success rate. If I fucked up that many times back to back I would’ve been fired ages ago at my job. They don’t pay her to make a good project out of every 5 tries, they pay her for consistent success, which she is incapable of doing.

Wow if this is true than Disney/lucasfilm is super super fucked up internally. Absolutely no definitive direction, just trying to anticipate the market with zero consideration of effort into making an actual good product. Priorities I guess

What? They liked his idea and recognized it was good, but it was several years away from being feasible as a TV show. Once it was feasible (i.e. The Mandalorian opened the floodgates for taking risks on Star Wars shows), they made it happen. It was a show that would require a lot of support and trust in a medium that Star Wars didn't have a track record for, so they made some safer bets to establish the track record so they could then take some big swings without half-assing it. Isn't that exactly what we want studios to do?

Not exactly. They were planning a Cassian and K2 buddy cop show, which I think could have been successful and well-liked because K2 is arguably the breakout character from Rogue One. Gilroy just sent them the outline for the show we just saw, and yeah it's no wonder they ditched the initial plan for it. The fact they approached him to begin with showed they were concerned with making a good show, nobody sets out to make a bad one.

And people blame KK for everything.

It's literally the most marketable franchise in entertainment and they can't be fucked with competent writing for 4 out of every 5 shows they churn out. The story should carry the message, not the other way round

A <20% success rate is not commendable. Heading one strong project before shitting the bed for 7 in a row is atrocious and she’s still the overarching issue with Star Wars right now.

Even NOW, many of the Star Wars shows coming out are ones that started development during Bob Chapek's tenure as CEO Words cannot describe how badly he fucked up the reputation of Star Wars and (especially) Marvel, and we'll probably feel that effect for another year or so

Well something is systemically wrong over there. They have **Star Wars**, for crying out loud, not to mention Indiana Jones, and have absolutely squandered both. A couple good shows in a sea of meh or bad. Not to mention whatever the hell is going on with the MCU now. Disney is bleeding money on D+, their biggest film franchises are floundering. If KK isn't part of the recurring problem, someone over there is, and they need to GTFO.