#andor critical

[sydneyadmu]

I think the star wars fandom should be more critical of the fact that all the main revolutionary leaders in andor are white people (except for saw who has … 6 minutes of screen time). just saying

#some people around here act like it’s a crime to be critical of some stuff #there’s nothing wrong in pointing stuff that could be better #andor critical

[jyndor]

oh my god for the love of god

here's the explanation: he lives in a place, he has an accent. no one needed it spelled out like that. no one. it's how accents work. live in a place, have an accent.

#cassian andor #diego why oh why did you not idk check that shit in the development whyyy lol #executive producer has to mean S O M E T H I N G #not that i think it should be up to him but i mean... lol its not like hes powerless in this context #anyway thats dumb as hell #andor critical #xenophobia tw

[djarintano]

i just wish people would wake up and stop kissing the ground that tony gilroy walks on. andor has some of the most basic ideas about antifascism, ideas star wars has already told us many times before, so i’m confused on why people act like this show is revolutionary. tony gilroy said he wrote andor with the desire to explain cassian’s accent, which is one of the most absurd things ever considering star wars has already had many different accents and there’s even made up languages. it’s even more ridiculous when you realize the explanation was that a white woman drugged and kidnapped him when he was a child so she could take him to her planet to raise him. btw that whole thing was never seen as bad and she later goes on to inspire a rebellion and riot. the treatment of characters of color on this show was NOTICEABLY awful too and those characters were largely unimportant to the story. yeah, no show/movie about revolution and fighting oppression is ever going to good if it is racist. i’m not even going to get into what he did to susanna white, all i’m gonna say is there’s a reason NO directors from s1 will be returning. tony gilroy is nothing but a egocentric, pretentious nepo baby and people need to stop inflating his ego. he didn’t make anywhere NEAR the best star wars project and brought absolutely nothing new or unique to the table, besides the making the first space show without aliens i guess.

#anti tony gilroy #andor critical #star wars #he sucks SOOOOOOOO BAD #gilroy you will crumble!!!!

[anghraine]

Hey, I’m just wondering how the Cassian fans who are here since day one like you liked the Andor show. I have been out of fandom spaces for a while and apparently people have divided opinions lol. I don’t know if I’ll watch it, I’m just curious about people’s opinions (from those who have been here for more time)

Hi, anon!

I'm flattered that you thought of me as a veteran Cassian stan, haha. The truth is that I haven't seen it and at this point have no intentions of seeing it. I intensely disliked everything I heard about the handling of Cassian's characterization in the show, which I think would severely undercut his narrative function in Rogue One and make him at best a giant hypocrite—if I accepted the TV shows into my personal vision of SW, anyway.

Back when I was watching Kenobi, I mentioned something about how I found it engaging and cool to watch, but the details felt so removed from the OT for me that I couldn't seriously buy that they were actually happening in the same universe—there's something very AU about it to me. I know people tend to like Andor better, but that's also how I feel about everything I've heard about Cassian's role in relation to Rogue One.

I've heard a lot of great things about Andor, but it is not for me.

(I'm also not inclined to support Tony Gilroy, whose attempts to take credit for Rogue One have really annoyed me for a long time.)

#anon replies #respuestas #sw fanwank #andor critical #everything i did i did for the rebellion

[makiruz]

I think it's worth noting that Andor talks about indigenous struggles, but has little interest in indigenous people.

The most egregios example is in the Heist arc, which is nominally about this indigenous group being colonized, but there's no named-characters who are part of this group, they don't even have lines properly, I think only one speaks, in an alien language with no subtitles. But this is not unique, Cassian is an indigenous character played by a white actor and this element of his backstory is severely downplayed; and to a lesser degree the way Ferrix is presented aligns with this ideology, we're meant to relate with them as a people in the finale but most characters are not named

This show pays more attention to the rich white elites like Mon Mothma and her family than the downtrodden and I find it uncomfortable

#Andor #Andor Critical #Star Wars #my post #colonialism

[andorerso]

Anything about Cassian’s supposed womanizer behavior (aka Maarva and Bix comments) make 0 difference on the story so I wonder why it was there in the first place. Even whatever he had with Bix isn’t properly addressed besides that conversation “he thought we were back together” or something which provides us no real information on what kind of relationship they had 😬 But yes, this whole ladies man womanizer stuff feels completely OOC considering the character we met in Rogue One

yeah, that's what I was saying in the last ask, I think it's just an easy trope that they used because why not. him flirting with the waitress and Cinta made sense to me because they were both manipulation which is his thing. even Windi makes sense because I don't think that he never has flings. but a complete womanizer? not in my book. and like I said, those comments can certainly be up to interpretation (I myself choose to interpret them as Maarva being overdramatic and Bix being bitter) but I do feel like they were included with the intention to make him seem just a tad bit like a ladies man. and I think more than anything, the choice to do that is what I hate.

#replies #anonymous #but also wow i didn't know you guys had such strong opinions on this #andor critical

[the-one-and-only-valkyrie]

Sorry but I just don’t get the hype surrounding Andor, and it’s obnoxious how its loudest fans are so pretentious and holier than thou about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I personally found it boring and have about a million other gripes with it, and *that’s okay*. Not everyone has to like the same thing. Let people like what they like and dislike what they dislike. Get over it.

#episode ten was absolutely fantastic though #thouroughly enjoyed that one #the rest of it? #not so much #andor critical #anti andor #anti star wars fans

[corellianhounds]

I’ve been holding onto this thought until I could see what they did with the end of the season, but it does bear repeating that it sucks that nearly all of the named black characters we get in the show either die, are Imperials, or aiding the Imperials; the exception is Saw, who we know dies in Rogue One without getting to see the success of Rebellion.

It’s been pointed out by other folks on here that none of the black rebels live to see the rebellion they’re a part of come to fruition. While a lot of characters across different races die this season, there is a noticeable absence of named black characters living to see another day in the end. Not only that, but Andor’s father Clem is killed in a way that hits far too close to home in the real world, and while the show is meant to reflect and criticize so many of the problems our current society has in itself, this does still mean there’s a noticeable part of the show that is going to be difficult for black audiences to contend with (both in regards to the police brutality and the hanging itself). While the depiction may be done with care, it’s still there and it still contributes to the number of times it happens in media

Something that could have been done differently would have been swapping Maarva and Clem’s roles. I bring them up because even for as much as I like both characters and their respective actors’ performances, it wouldn’t have changed a lot of the story if their places had been switched. I would have liked to see Clem as the figurehead in the community whose passing brought the people of Ferrix together and sparked the retaliation against the Imperial occupation, with his visage and speech being the one people were literally looking up to in the end. It would have been just as beautiful to see Cassian’s relationship with a loving father as it was with his mother, and though it would have been differently heartbreaking if Maarva had been the one caught in the wrong place and wrong time on Rix Road all those years ago, it would still have been an atrocity of the Empire without adding to the amount of traumatic black deaths we see or that are alluded to in tv shows and movies in general. Again, I don’t think the original choice was done without care and I understand what the writers were criticizing/highlighting, but that part of the story still happens.

I guess it would have been nice to see a black character like Clem with a more prominent position and dialogue in the story like Maarva’s role. A Son of Ferrix, cared for by his community and worried over by his adopted son, giving the call to action and having a more visible role, resisting the Empire up to the end. Having a wife whose death had just as much impact on him and Cassian as his did on them, having just as strong and complex a relationship with Cassian, all of it. All of their dialogue and the dialogue about them could have remained the same if they were in each other’s roles.

There could have been a way for Lieutenant Gorn or Taramyn to make it out of Aldhani without it interfering with Vel’s perception of Cassian and Luthen’s directive to kill Cassian later. Nurchi didn’t have to be a snitch, or he could have double-crossed the Imps there at the end. Birnok could have survived the prison escape. Melshi’s role could have been switched for Stordan Tonc, another of Cassian’s crew from Rogue One.

It just feels like there could have been a little bit more done to ensure some of these lives had the chance to go on, even in a story where so much is being sacrificed already.

#tw lynching #tw police brutality #tw hanging #Andor spoilers #Andor show #I’ll look for the other posts in my drafts #It’s not my intention to talk over black people or other people of color there’s just a lot of posts by other people to wade through— #— in the tags so I don’t venture in very often #Andor critical #Maarva Andor #Clem Andor #Cassian Andor #Nurchi #Saw Gerrera #hounds speaks #Andor meta #I’m considering Taramyn and Vel having switched places but I also suspect Vel might be Luthen’s daughter #unsure of that though because of what little we know about Luthen and Vel #and I feel like that would have come up with Luthen in relation to Mon Mothma #I also don’t know what’ll happen in the second season so for now it’s just a thought #taramyn barcona #Lieutenant Gorn #Birnok #long post

[rebelrainfall]

it’s always hating maarva andor hours in this house ofc but currently seething especially about that last thing she says like “i love him more than anything he could ever do wrong” like that’s so backhanded the last thing he ever hears from her and she’s still putting him down she’s still acting like he’s some terrible person that she’s some kind of saint for loving and you really want me to find this sweet?

#anti maarva andor #andor critical #i want to write a whole meta sometime about maarva's emotional abuse #especially because the show so desperately wants us to see her as the hero #but i don't have the coherence for that right now just fury

[maaruin]

I’ve heard it said that Andor is a response to A New Hope. In a new hope Luke is the hero who saves the galaxy. Andor on the other hand says that you can’t save the galaxy as a single person, but you can join a broad revolutionary movement that saves the galaxy.

But see, in Return of the Jedi the galaxy is also saved by a movement. It is an alliance many different humans, and mon calamari, and sullustans, and ewoks.

There is, however, a different message packaged in both stories. In Andor, the response to the idea that it needs a movement to save the galaxy is to dedicate your entire life to that movement, because it is meaningless outside of the cause (”Kill me, or take me in!”). In RotJ the response to the idea that it needs a movement to save the galaxy is that you can trust other people to do it without you, and it is okay if you just want to save one person (one enemy) who is important to you instead.

Ideologically, Andor might actually be the furthest any Star Wars series has ever strayed from the spirit of Star Wars.

#star wars #star wars andor #andor critical #rotj #andor is a really good series but it isn't good star wars #andor spoilers #rotj spoilers

[sydneyadmu]

im glad someone else is talking about the racism issues in andor because people really gloss over it. it just had some of the most blatant racism i’ve seen in star wars in a while. maarva being treated as nothing but a hero as if she didnt literally kidnap a child. EVERY black character was unceremoniously killed off (except for the villain) while maarva and nemik actually had impactful deaths. all the nuance was given to the white characters. it was awesome to see a sapphic relationship, but cinta literally did nothing but be there and look pretty while the white lady had actual stuff to do. show already had limited black characters but you know damn well they managed to find a bunch of black background actors for the prison episodes. it’s just ridiculous to me, completely turns me off and makes the antifascism message just seem performative.

that’s exactly how I felt, thanks for sharing your thoughts!! it seems so performative because we know that people of color have been the central figures in many revolutionary movements but in the show they’re completely sidelined. maarva did nothing her entire life but recorded a speech before she died and suddenly she’s a rebel icon. ferrix is all about this community and etc but the most prominent characters are white while black and poc in general have awful deaths or no dialogues at all. In the prison arc we have lots of man of color as background characters but again, who are the main ones, the ones who have an active role and make the difference? the white guys… it’s really disappointing because it wasn’t only one time, this situation happened during the whole show but many people seem to ignore this because of good dialogue and nice directing

#asks #andor critical #cw racism

[jyndor]

My guess is that “this is a first for me” now refers to the fact that Cassian’s never been in prison while awaiting execution. He’s been sent to prison for crimes not punishable by death (not that prison wasn’t its own death sentence, at least on Narkina 5) but he’s never been locked in a cell knowing he could get a blaster bolt between the eyes within hours of being locked up. The Partisans were almost certainly planning to execute him, Chirrut and Baze; they just had to clear it with Saw first. As a secondary qualifier, it could also refer to the type of prison; it’s probably the smallest cell he’s ever been in, and it’s in a cave instead of an incarceration facility.

lol okay so i really went in on this as is my mo, not because anything you said is wrong or whatever lol it's your opinion. but it's sparked Discourse in my head rip

i feel like since the show aired i just haven't been explaining myself clearly with this but i'll try: i don't care what headcanon someone uses to handwave a thing that doesn't track 100%. i do it when something just doesn't track to ME or when i feel like telling canon to fuck off lol askdhasjdh but people will use their headcanon explanations to tell folks canon is still consistent. it's NOT lol it's a retconnnnnn

this is why i don't like retcons generally speaking. it just isn't that hard to stick to what canon already says, and while this one isn't really important at all (like it's a comment cassian makes offhandedly and can easily be handwaved like this) i think writers should try to avoid retcons (not always, sometimes things should be retconned because they're trash? but usually yeah retcons are meh). and then when you've got like a relatively small fandom like rogue one's that has been going along with what we all thought was canon until the show aired, it's extremely aggravating to be told that oh actually what we thought was true (even though until a few months ago it was) is not true anymore and aren't we crazy for not seeing that??? not that you have said any of that btw im not talking about you lol.

like i shouldn't have to qualify things to make them make sense with the main piece of media - which rogue one is. andor is a prequel to rogue one. rogue one is not a sequel to andor. andor has the responsibility to track with rogue one because it's supplementary material for rogue one. plus rogue one came out first. i shouldn't have to do mental gymnastics to make little moments in rogue one still make sense. and luckily i can divorce andor from rogue one pretty well and handwave shit and come up with my interpretations like yours and other fans' but we shouldn't HAVE to. it isn't a high bar to meet to be consistent.

when i analyze media, i always start with an out-of-universe (doylist) approach. i look for preconceived notions that might have influenced the writing, i look for motivations and at the history of the writers, etc. and then i can more easily take an in-universe (watsonian) approach. it's just hard for me to ignore inconsistencies, writer biases, real world context etc. probably because i have ocd and i am very literal. that's a personal problem lmfao.

so i can't even get there with things like this because it's obvious to me that tony gilroy, who did not write the film, wanted to tell a great story. he wanted to write what he wanted to write and wasn't super concerned with it lining up 100% with the film in a literal way. and he did. i mean all gripes aside andor is a fabulous show. easily the best thing i've seen all year. but i've still got my gripes lmfao.

in this case i think it's understandable that he'd do that because it actually doesn't make a whole lot of sense that cassian wouldn't have gotten caught by someone at some point. it is more reasonable that he would have. and for someone like the cassian in the show who is certainly anti-imperial, has politics despite what other people in the show say, but is not necessarily radicalized, yeah it makes sense that being sent to prison based on some bullshit xenophobic profiling would radicalize him. that is me doing some in-universe analysis btw.

but let's not kid ourselves. it doesn't fit with that line. before the show aired, not a single viewer thought he was lying or on some obi-wan bullshit with the "certain point of view" thing at that moment. yes, he's a liar. yes, he's a spy.

chirrut, who knows cassian is a captain not because cassian tells him he is but because of the force lol (this is why cassian gives him a weird look like 'how the fuck do you know that???'), takes him at his word and then says 'there is more than one sort of prison' meaning that just because cassian hasn't been literally locked up, it doesn't mean he doesn't have things that hold him back or imprison him metaphorically. that's the whole point of that moment - and lol it's actually kind of a more insulting retcon than I initially thought because chirrut reads cassian extremely well throughout the film with the force. but apparently he doesn't because he takes cassian at his word on jedha.

when cassian is about to go assassinate galen and he's avoiding jyn's eyes and being all shady lol, the camera keeps panning to chirrut looking away from the rest of the group but with a very disgusted expression on his face. he tells jyn that 'the force moves darkly around a creature that is about to kill' when she is like ??? the fuck do you mean by does cassian look like a killer?????

my point is that chirrut has a very good understanding of cassian's vibes in the force. chirrut takes him at his word on jedha but he is visibly disgusted by cassian on eadu. cassian actually being in prison before jedha changes chirrut's connection to the force for me. hmm now i'm mad LOL.

we were not intended to think cassian was lying on jedha. we were however intended to catch how shifty cassian was being on eadu - not making eye contact with jyn in a very overt way, not making a whole lot of sense to anyone, chirrut's callout, baze's deliberate use of "he has the face of a friend" but not that he IS a friend (although he is <333) because again. spy. mask. lying. that's what baze and chirrut call out on eadu, and what makes jyn realize that she fell for cassian's deception. it's really important that chirrut's connection to the force is credible because otherwise lol okay he's just some guy who fights well. he's not that - he's a guardian of the whills and his connection to the force is undeniable if not defined.

cassian's lying on eadu until he has his moment of truth. it's a different feel than his interactions with everyone else on jedha (although when he's talking to jyn about meeting tivik's sister he deliberately doesn't make eye contact).

cassian makes eye contact when he's being honest - the hangar scene, the eadu fight with jyn (which... lol im not even going there right now), definitely on scarif a number of times and most notably in the elevator. when he's lying, he gets avoidant.

that's a deliberate choice by the writers, director and diego ofc. in 2015/2016.

cut to 2020/2021 or whatever and tony gilroy, who did an immense amount of work on rogue one with the reshoots (allegedly mostly in the 3rd act of the film although that first scene with cassian is all him lol - also side note why couldn't he have cut the bor gullet smdh) to the point that he got a screenwriter's credit because of SWG(? the union idk) rules (totally fair of course, but i think a lot of people don't know that he didn't literally write the film or create cassian lol), is writing the best story he can and isn't really worrying about how much it tracks with minutiae from the film or like idk what pablo hidalgo wrote in guidebooks lol (pretty sure that's where the fest thing came from as well as him being 26 and jyn being 22? but also i mean im not sure if that hadn't been decided by the writers of the film).

i mean you'd have to ask him but im sure he'd say as much - that he wanted to tell a great story and as long as it was mostly consistent or could be considered consistent with who cassian will be in rogue one, it's easily handwaved or explained. and yeah that's true for most people but unfortunately for me i'm neurodivergent as hell with a hyperfixation on this dumb film and plus i have severe ocd so i notice discrepancies. and they annoy me.

i wanna be clear: i don't think this is the most egregious retcon of the show. not at all. but i'd like people to acknowledge that it is a retcon and that no, gareth edwards and chris weitz and gary whitta did not intend for cassian to be like "well actually what i meant is that technically, i have been imprisoned but i wasn't sentenced to death" or whatever reason we may now individually use to make it make sense. and i don't see a problem with doing that - i literally make headcanon all the time because canon ends in a way im sad about LOL. but this is headcanon. because canon doesn't track with itself.

also just a note: personally i think it's pretty clear cassian knows that narkina COULD be a death sentence. cassian understands narkina is dangerous as hell from the moment he steps his bare foot onto that metal floor. they fry people. he's smart, to me he knows it's a potential death sentence. but that's just my interpretation of the show.

i think the best way to handwave this retcon is to say cassian hasn't been imprisoned by rebels before or by alleged allies. or maybe in service of the rebellion.

*and cassian recognizes chirrut's force-ishness immediately, which is why he asks if he's a jedi. (it's why im like lol everyone just shut up about cassian not knowing what jedi are, i don't need an explanation for how he learns about them. i don't need them to make a big thing of whether or not cassian knows what jedi are because of course he does, jedi are in fact extremely well known in the galaxy and this is an area where im like tony gilroy stay on your lane XD)

#meta #asks #answered #jedi-valjean #star wars andor #andor critical #fandom critical

[moontheoretist]

[Only one of the women on the pic has a speaking role. I picked it, because it is a perfect hyperbole to the current state of SW franchise. Even after getting more and more great female characters, it is still lacking as a whole, and it is still suffering from rampant sexism in the fandom to the point that some men tried to remove the female lead from the sequels entirely. This is not existing on its own, it was fueled by years of sexism of this franchise. It is better, but it’s not enough.]

Did anybody else noticed that in each new Star Wars TV show there is so not enough women that it almost feels as if galaxy was hit by some mysterious plague that only targeted women? Seriously, it often feels as if the creators of those stories put women only in the roles they could actually imagine them doing, and were not creating more female characters simply because they could fill any other occupation with men. As if women needed a reason to be there at all, while men were an easy fill in every time. As if they had to think carefully where they can put women in the galaxy at large. There are significantly fewer women in every room, in every scene, in every occupancy, than there are men. Even less if we count women of color only. I specifically counted how many black men and women appear in the show. There are over 5 times as many black men than women. There are a few other women and men of color of different ethnicity or race, but the whole show is predominantly male and white. I have yet to see an SW property story that does equal number of genders for all sides. Where women are not the only one sitting in the room full of men as if it was unpopular for women to even exist.

#andor #andor spoilers #andor critical #star wars critical #i made an edit #because apparently a hyperbole without a direct explanation can't exist

[djarintano]

sorry i just can’t take andor and it’s antifascism and resistance focus seriously when that show killed off every Black character in the least impactful way while the white characters’ deaths actually had impact and meant something. Nemik’s death meant something for the story, and Maarva’s death and words wound up sparking a riot. Speaking of Maarva, it literally kills me that she deadass kidnapped Cassian as a kid and was never portrayed as anything else other than a hero. All the Black (men) characters died and the show moved on like nothing happened, and the only one who survived is a villain. I thought it was cool there was a wlw hint, but at the same time all the focus and nuance was put into the white character while the dark skinned Indian woman was just there to…look pretty basically.

like idk i just can’t view this show as some epic message about fighting fascism when people of color are treated like this. all the protagonists and important characters are white people, while the POC are either shoved to the side or forgotten. there was more Black people as background characters in the prison episode than any other time too, idk. i just don’t think this show is as bright and revolutionary as some people make it out to be.

#star wars #andor #andor critical

[anghraine]

damascusdalek replied to this post:

So do you think cass just fully formed out the ether in rouge one? What andor clearly shows is how andor is a complete person and how he got to be just a normal person living in the world and opposing the empire in little ways, to who he was by the movie. And besides that story isnt completely told yet. Theres still a whole second season of that story waiting to be told. I think you should give it a solid chance.

To be frank with you, I find this a rather hostile and very poor faith reading of the criticisms of Cassian's characterization in Andor (which are not only mine) and it's done nothing to convince me to "give it a chance."

I might end up watching it because a close IRL friend wants me to, but a) that is the only reason and b) it is currently unlikely.

#damascusdalek #respuestas #sw fanwank #andor critical #everything i did i did for the rebellion

[andorerso]

I think for me, they don't know how to make a male character without eventually turning him into some version of Han Solo; I feel like they did the same with Poe, it was such an interesting character to me until they basically turned him into that.

I feel like, obviously Cassian and Han are not similar, but they wanted to throw in the "womanizer vibe" or "bad boy" thing to him when it wasn't really necessary 🙄

can't comment on Poe too much because I saw the sequels exactly one time but I know he deserved better (I mean people have talked about him being a spice runner and why that was bad so there's that)

but it's such a typical male archetype, especially for a male lead, especially for the mysterious angsty spy that I do think it played a part... like it was almost a given that he had to be characterized that way. I personally find it less interesting exactly because of how common it is. the reason I was so drawn to Cassian in Rogue One is because he was unique for a male lead, you know?

#replies #anonymous #andor critical #i'll add that tag just in case