Even the original trilogy isn’t “great”. The star of Star wars has always been the fantasy universe. The story was already cannibalizing on itself by ROTJ (Death Star…2?)
Rogue One/Andor shine because they treat the universe as the star. They’re still compelling even if it was the only content that existed outside of the original trilogy, IMO anyways. People can enjoy whatever they want for whatever reasons they want.
I’d even go further, people have seriously just forgotten the first 2/3rds of Rogue One. The characters are stiff and boring, the plot is meaningless because you know nobody survives, and the few action sequences before the big battle are nothing to right home about.
Once you get to the big battle, it’s bombastic and exciting, and you even get a little tension from “but how exactly do all these people die?” I don’t even think it’s just nostalgia talking, the battle really was executed incredibly well. It’s like ~45 minutes of the greatest sci-fi war porn ever made. It’s so high quality that it makes you forget the other hour and a half of your life that the movie wastes on Jyn Erso’s angst.
I don’t know about you, but knowing the characters die does not make them uninteresting to me. They aren’t real in the first place. Why does the fact that they die matter? Its the same as saying the character building for any other character that isn’t in a sequel doesn’t matter. Once they’re off the screen, does it matter if the character is dead?
In fact, I’d potentially say them dying adds more to the character potential. We get to see what made them willing to die. That said, I don’t think Rogue One pulls this off. Andor absolutely does, and it’s the best thing that has come out of SW because of it. We rarely get to see that in this universe. We sometimes see what people will kill for (with Anakin at least), but not the reason they’re willing to die for the cause, other than just they’re supposed to because they were written as heroes.
I’m not claiming that you cannot tell an effective story when you know the fates of the characters, just that Rogue One was particularly ineffective. Usually to make those plots compelling you need to have interesting well written characters with motivations you can understand and care about. The most compelling character Rogue One has is a funny robot.
Exactly. The first half of the movie doesn’t deserve the ending it gets in the second half.
I unsubscribed from /r/starwars after a few weeks of trying to have a friendly conversation about it. “The first half didn’t develop the characters as well as it could have”. You come back a half hour later to a -36 score. People were rabid fans of that movie and that was the final piece that made me want to not interact with that community anymore.
Rogue One was meh except for the visuals. The train heist has the most beautiful explosion VFX in s very long time.
Story wise it was meh but it paved the way for Andor which better committed to the WW2 action/spy thriller angle without the Star Wars prequel bagage dragging it down. Yes it’s a prequel itself but it won’t need to connect to space wizards which tend to bog down a lot of the Star Wars offshoots.
I can see the WW2 spy thing for bits of Andor, but not most of it. Not Andor’s part at least. It’s more about leftist revolutions. I know Andor’s actor has some connection in his past with the Zapatistas, an anarchist group in Mexico. It pulls from a lot more than just that obviously. It’s also crazy that it can be made under Disney somehow.
For the WW2 spy thing, I guess it’s because I’m very fond of WW2 spy movies based on real events. There are quite a few European movies portraying events and operations done by their local partisans during WW2 and I feel Andor takes some inspiration in those.
I wouldn’t call partisans spies, but I get your meaning. Yeah, I’m sure it does take a lot from those. It is a smart show with a crew who seems to know where to draw influences from, and does so broadly. I can’t say the same for any other modern Star Wars sadly.
Yes it’s complicated and all a question of point of view calling someone a spy, partisan, terrorist, freedom fighter.
But in the end it’s spycraft involving locals vs. some powerful oppressive State. Often involving another sympathic State supporting the partisans using straight-up spies.
Rogue one is only held up as great because the rest are so awful. Like the first Wonder Woman movie in the DC universe.
It’s a mediocre movie that ends with an amazing action sequence that capitalizes on nostalgia.
Even the original trilogy isn’t “great”. The star of Star wars has always been the fantasy universe. The story was already cannibalizing on itself by ROTJ (Death Star…2?)
Rogue One/Andor shine because they treat the universe as the star. They’re still compelling even if it was the only content that existed outside of the original trilogy, IMO anyways. People can enjoy whatever they want for whatever reasons they want.
I’d even go further, people have seriously just forgotten the first 2/3rds of Rogue One. The characters are stiff and boring, the plot is meaningless because you know nobody survives, and the few action sequences before the big battle are nothing to right home about.
Once you get to the big battle, it’s bombastic and exciting, and you even get a little tension from “but how exactly do all these people die?” I don’t even think it’s just nostalgia talking, the battle really was executed incredibly well. It’s like ~45 minutes of the greatest sci-fi war porn ever made. It’s so high quality that it makes you forget the other hour and a half of your life that the movie wastes on Jyn Erso’s angst.
I don’t know about you, but knowing the characters die does not make them uninteresting to me. They aren’t real in the first place. Why does the fact that they die matter? Its the same as saying the character building for any other character that isn’t in a sequel doesn’t matter. Once they’re off the screen, does it matter if the character is dead?
In fact, I’d potentially say them dying adds more to the character potential. We get to see what made them willing to die. That said, I don’t think Rogue One pulls this off. Andor absolutely does, and it’s the best thing that has come out of SW because of it. We rarely get to see that in this universe. We sometimes see what people will kill for (with Anakin at least), but not the reason they’re willing to die for the cause, other than just they’re supposed to because they were written as heroes.
I’m not claiming that you cannot tell an effective story when you know the fates of the characters, just that Rogue One was particularly ineffective. Usually to make those plots compelling you need to have interesting well written characters with motivations you can understand and care about. The most compelling character Rogue One has is a funny robot.
Exactly. The first half of the movie doesn’t deserve the ending it gets in the second half.
I unsubscribed from /r/starwars after a few weeks of trying to have a friendly conversation about it. “The first half didn’t develop the characters as well as it could have”. You come back a half hour later to a -36 score. People were rabid fans of that movie and that was the final piece that made me want to not interact with that community anymore.
Rogue One was meh except for the visuals. The train heist has the most beautiful explosion VFX in s very long time.
Story wise it was meh but it paved the way for Andor which better committed to the WW2 action/spy thriller angle without the Star Wars prequel bagage dragging it down. Yes it’s a prequel itself but it won’t need to connect to space wizards which tend to bog down a lot of the Star Wars offshoots.
I can see the WW2 spy thing for bits of Andor, but not most of it. Not Andor’s part at least. It’s more about leftist revolutions. I know Andor’s actor has some connection in his past with the Zapatistas, an anarchist group in Mexico. It pulls from a lot more than just that obviously. It’s also crazy that it can be made under Disney somehow.
For the WW2 spy thing, I guess it’s because I’m very fond of WW2 spy movies based on real events. There are quite a few European movies portraying events and operations done by their local partisans during WW2 and I feel Andor takes some inspiration in those.
I wouldn’t call partisans spies, but I get your meaning. Yeah, I’m sure it does take a lot from those. It is a smart show with a crew who seems to know where to draw influences from, and does so broadly. I can’t say the same for any other modern Star Wars sadly.
Yes it’s complicated and all a question of point of view calling someone a spy, partisan, terrorist, freedom fighter.
But in the end it’s spycraft involving locals vs. some powerful oppressive State. Often involving another sympathic State supporting the partisans using straight-up spies.