I know I’m a bit late, but I just watched the 1st 3 eps of Star Wars Andor

So spoilers (for Andor and Rogue One)…

I hadn’t really seen Andor on my Tumblr dash so honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think. I watched OWK (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and honestly, I thought it could’ve been better. I’ll do another post on my thoughts on OWK but I really wanted to talk about Andor (because I haven’t really seen anyone talk about it??). So because I was slightly disappointed with OWK, I was skeptical about Andor (despite the trailer). Because we know that pretty much everyone dies in Rogue One, I thought Andor was a bit…out of order? Idk if that’s the right term. I thought Andor was similar to Marvel’s Black Widow movie tbh. It was good but because we already know that Cassian dies, events preceding Rogue One seem a little…unimportant? Again, I’m not sure if that’s the right word to use.

After watching the 1st 3 eps, despite the story going all over the place (there are so many characters they introduce), I actually kind of liked that? It reminded me of Game of Thrones. Mixing in the flashbacks of Cassian’s backstory (he’s like a tribal kid or something) also reminded me of TBoBF (The Book of Boba Fett) with the Tusken Raiders flashbacks. I liked BoBF tbh and I know a lot of people have mixed reviews about it, but I really enjoyed it, more so than OWK (honestly I like both shows, but I’m more knit-picky about OWK).

I think the only thing I’d change so far in Andor would be the addition of subtitles. I’d like to know what everyone’s saying in the tribal flashbacks. I know it’s supposed to be one of those things about understanding what’s happening just from setting/context/whatever, but I’d prefer subtitles because I, personally, have a hard time reading people’s emotions/expressions so when the kids all decided to check out the crashed ship and Cassian’s little sis had to stay behind, I was a bit confused as to what was happening/why they were going. I had to rewatch the flashback tribal scenes a couple times to really understand what was going on. Strange thing is, I really enjoy Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron, a movie where there is little dialog and the animals do not talk. I think maybe Andor could’ve done a little narration over the flashbacks if they were persistent about not using subtitles, similar to Spirit.

Also I really enjoyed the music and even if I couldn’t understand at some points what was going on, the music really helped set the tone for each scene. I think SW has always been pretty consistent having great music. People used to shit on the prequels but one thing no one ever said was the music was trash. Like Duel of the Fates and Battle of Heroes is amazing (TPM and RoTS respectively). Even in the Clone Wars series, I thought the music was great. It had such a mid-2000s vibe to it that I can’t really describe other than ‘mid-2000s’ lol. So I’m not surprised Andor would continue with the good music.

I know the first few episodes are supposed to be more world-building and exposition to explain what’s going on so I’m sure the episodes will seem more…put together, if that makes sense, as the season goes on. Also, I heard S2 was confirmed??? Lemme know if that’s true or not cuz I’m sure having an extra season also allows the writers/people involved to go as slow/detailed as they want with the world-building, but rn Andor just kinda seems all over the place.

I like that the Empire hasn’t really shown up yet either. I’m sure that’ll change as the season goes on as well, but I like that there’s more than one ‘evil’ presence. I’ll be real here and say that I’m not too sure who the guys in the blue uniforms are. They’re like the policing force on whatever planet Cassian was on (after the flashbacks and Cassian ends up killing 2 of the guys). If anyone knows who they are and if we’ve seen them before, please lemme know. But I like that they weren’t Empire (and if they are, sorry I didn’t pick up on that), though it seemed like they reported to the Empire?? Again, idk.

I don’t think I have any expectations going forward really, but one thing I do hope they show is how K2 and Cassian met and Cassian reprogramming him (like how Nick Nolte’s character on Mando reprogrammed that IG11 droid). But other than that, I don’t really have anything else I wanna see other than a good story lol. It doesn’t matter how pretty the settings are, how good the music is if the story sucks.

So I think that’s all of my main thoughts on Andor so far, which I’m sure will change once more episodes come out. In short, the story is just starting but because of how many new characters there are, the story seems a bit all over the place. I’d also like subtitles for any of the flashback tribal scenes (though with Maarva taking him at the end of ep3, I’m sure there won’t be so many long talking scenes w/o subtitles and she will teach him English/Basic? Idk if it’s Basic or Common). The music was good and the scenery/effects looked nice. I think maybe this show would’ve done better had it been released before Rogue One (because watching it all I could think about was how similar it was to Black Widow, not in the story but b/c the main characters die in movies released before). Overall, not bad and I think Andor’s better than OWK by ep3. I’m a bit surprised I haven’t really seen any posts on Tumblr about it.

I’d love to talk to anyone and hear your thoughts on the show because I haven’t really seen anyone talk about it. Thanks Readers!

—Maisy

PS—I’ll do a more in-depth review once the series is over as well

OKAYYY i finished watching OWK yayyyy spoilers under the cut 

(this is about ep 5 and 6 cause i watched them together just now)

sooo...... okay dammit tala died, and they always fucking kill the robots grrrrrrr

there needed to be more leia in ep 5 and 6 but then again the tv show IS called obi-wan kenobi and that’s what we got so i can’t complain

obi-wan and esp vader, the two kings of cheesy lines...

i liked reva from the beginning and i think she got a good ending. everyone’s fucked up on this show lol. buuuuut it’s a little weird she didn’t fucking die when she got impaled lmao ksjfngkf i mean you’d think vader would’ve done a nice neat job on her because he has no ~feelings over her (for the lack of a better word). i mean... she means nothing to him. it’s not like how it is with obi-wan. they can’t even fucking kill each other (but apparently in the space of about 9 years vader finally got his act together and did it ksfjgn)

FINALLY we got a qui-gon appearance, i’ve been waiting for it since i saw ep 3 in the movies in 2005!!!!!!

what’s with all the star wars music finally making an appearance only in the last ep of OWK? (although iirc there was a star wars-ey one in ep 5 too maybe...? aboard the starship. but i could be wrong, i didn’t specifically recognise it, so maybe it was just something reminiscent)

i loooove leia, she should adopt obi-wan as her second dad... or maybe third dad lol

the obi-wan and vader fight was the least tension-ey thing ever because you knew neither of them were going to die, but i did wonder how they were gonna get out of it, and i have to say, with what they had to work with, i think they did a pretty good job

(btw, the acting when obi-wan was like ‘i’m sorry’ to vader/anakin???? hhhhh)

alsooo... hm i sorta wish the pacing of ep 6 (and ep 1) was faster. ep 6 more so than ep 1. 

aaaand reva going and trying to kill luke, it was kinda random ngl. if you think of a synopsis type thing and how it’d be written out, reva’s thing seemed kinda footnote-ey... but also kinda not, i guess, cause it got her out of the revenge arc. idk. or maybe it was okay. hmm. idk, just, when i think about it, it seems kinda random, although i guess it’s not. how did she even figure out from what she heard that it was vader’s kid anyway? orrrr... did i not get it... skjngfg idk whatever

anyway, am looking for fanfic now of obi-wan visiting leia from time to time over the years... and maybe something cool about reva...

also, the whole gun/holster thing was very american... i guess? idk. but uh, yeah. star wars is american, so. (and american as in US, ofc)

anyway! will add to this if i think of anything else