Cinematography of “Andor”
405 comments
·June 1, 2025meowface
manmal
The prison episode is a masterpiece and would have been an amazing movie on its own. It‘s weird how zany the other SW shows and even movies look now in comparison. I‘m really sad there can’t be another season.
sbarre
I am hoping that they follow this up with stories set between the original trilogy movies, with some of the characters that were expanded on in the Andor show (and new ones too).
It feels like there's plenty of room in the timeline between those movies to keep telling stories about the rebellion against the Empire, in the same tone as Andor.
null
brianzelip
Be sure to watch for after the credits of the last episode of season 1!!
m3kw9
I find the credit heist escape was epic
mtillman
Loved Andor. Unlikely Gilroy would do more Star Wars and if he did, he probably wouldn’t be given another $650M for a side character. Season 2 was $290 and that was after their budget was capped by Iger, they tried to spend more.
meowface
On one hand I want to say "fuck it, let them have whatever the fuck they want", given they should've known how well-received the show is by critics and viewers alike and how they should consider it basically the savior of the Star Wars brand. On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day.
toyg
> the savior of the Star Wars brand
I think Rogue One is the best Star Wars ever and Andor is in the same vein. But.
The savior of the Star Wars brand is always going to be the latest lightsaber-fest for 10-year-olds. That creates customer loyalty that will survive forever. Those kids then grow up and get to bitch about the new lightsaber-fest, and to fawn over the artsy drama.
fernandopj
Andor S2 was around $350M and most likely paid for itself and some. [1]
> On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day.
You're right, in the sense that Andor was an exception regarding every other SW show on Disney+ for the past 4 years. All had high production costs and seems like Andor is the only one which recouped itself. Acolyte was a spectacular viewship failure.
So the business logic would be to cap costs, most likely in half for now on. I don't have high expectations of Disney learning the right lessons from Andor & Tony.
[1] https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-andor-revenue-disney-plus/
ghaff
For quite a while, the further the films/series are separated from the original trilogy, the better they seem to be.
ninkendo
I maintain that the Jedi are the most boring thing about Star Wars, and the less about them we hear in a story, the better. Andor managed to go the whole series run without a single lightsaber going brrr, and it’s the best Star Wars outside of the original trilogy.
The empire is a compelling thing to make stories about, and what Andor does well is actually make the whole thing believable. It’s not a bunch of cackling supervillains aiming to be maximally evil, like it is in so many of the movies… it’s an actually-believable thing, filled with characters with their own motivations, none of whom are explicitly evil by themselves, but through all of them evil is done. The episodes of season 1 when Andor is arrested and sent to prison are the most compelling and actually-scary depictions of the empire ever put to film. It’s just that good.
fmajid
What I really liked about The Acolyte is that it showed how evil the Jedi really are behind their holier-than-thou propaganda.
Whoever governs really should implement a R&D program to eradicate the midi-chlorian infestation and rid the galaxy of the scourge of both Jedi and Sith in one fell swoop.
lucideer
Ironically Andor is one of the closest to A New Hope narratively.
e3bc54b2
It is one of the reasons I love Andor so much. Rogue One was so good that it elevated a A New Hope and Andor in turn (especially after S2) elevates Rogue One in similar fashion. The movie/show on their own are some of the greatest, but they don't limit their achievements to themselves and like a rising tide lift whoever they connect to. It is really really hard to pull that off, and people in Andor somehow managed that twice.
ghaff
It ties in but isn't really part of the main storyline except incidentally. You could say the same thing about Rogue One though the tie-in is even stronger in that case. The Mandalorian is pretty separate other than baby yoda.
marcosdumay
You could have the exact same story on a completely different universe, without using any of the Star Wars IP by doing only superficial adjustments.
But also yes, it's the closest thing to the original theme since the second movie.
rockemsockem
I've made peace with the fact that "Star Wars" basically means nothing w.r.t. what kind of story I can expect, both in terms of quality and variety of story. Gotta look for talented people in charge of the project and make guesses at quality that way now. I'm hopeful that with Donald Glover running the Lando movie that it'll be good, but otherwise IDK of anything else in Star Wars that I'm really looking forward to...
Arkhaine_kupo
I would recommend Skeleton Crew. Its def aimed at younger crows but if you have nieces/nephews or kids of your own its a delight.
Basically treasure Island/ goonies in space, it is campier than Andor but does what it aims for amazingly. Cause andor can get quite heavy on the fighting fascism and sometimes finding a treasure map is more the vibe than seeing holocaust planning meetings
I didnt watch anything mandalorian past season 2, never watched boba fet, obiwan or ahsoka because I thought it would be Dave Filoni getting action figures and bumping them together, and friends who watched them agree with my intuition. But yeah of the new star wars stuff Andor and Skeleton Crew are both amazing in very different ways
duxup
Skeleton Creis basically the movie Goonies .. but Star Wars, and it’s tons of fun.
They should make a new Skeleton Crew show every year with a whole new cast.
It really hits the lighthearted adventure button that to me is the core of Star Wars.
epolanski
I gave it a try, and it wasn't bad indeed, but honestly I have too much fatigue towards all this repetitive milking of IPs to keep my interest up.
JodieBenitez
> I had long since written off the Star Wars franchise as a shameless cash grab since the original movies but they proved they could do something cool with it.
I'd argue they already proved this with Rogue One. Too bad we had the Abrams/Johnson dumpster fire.
iainmerrick
Yeah, it’s honestly hard to find a weak element. The actors are all great, the music is great (with an interesting progression from electronic to orchestral), the set design is incredible. It’s both timeless and topical.
pixxel
[dead]
iainmerrick
To address this interview specifically, rather than just gushing about how great Andor is--
One point Nuyens makes in a few different ways is that they used a variety of tools and techniques at every stage. People often have simplistic, extreme viewpoints like "modern CGI can do anything" or "CGI looks fake and weightless, practical effects are better". But here's somebody with a big part in making a fantastic-looking show, who very explicitly embraces multiple approaches. Massive real sets with CGI enhancements; sometimes green screens, sometimes old-fashioned backdrop paintings, sometimes LED screens. It sounds like close collaboration between teams in different areas was key, like the VFX team working with the production designer from the start. "Some shots started VFX and then became sets."
It sounds like a big success for an artisanal approach, where every element is a bespoke construction by cross-functional experts, versus a modular approach where each team has a position in the workflow with well-defined inputs and outputs.
But maybe it's not worth the time and money, and the "worse is better" approach wins out? I hope not, or least I hope we get more shows aspiring to be as good as this.
On a smaller scale, interesting to hear how much equipment on a high-end film set is now wireless. That must be a massive change from just a few years ago, where you'd have had massive cables snaking everywhere.
jfengel
The sets are jaw dropping. An awful lot of them seem to be practical, and that must be very expensive.
They didn't have to. It's cinema quality. They could have spent less and gotten a goodly fraction of the quality. But I'm really glad they did.
jimbokun
Watching it I felt like watching something that had been filmed on location, even though I knew that was impossible.
Like they actually took the actors to Coruscant to shoot scenes. Felt so much more lived in than Coruscant in the prequels.
iainmerrick
One of the big Senate buildings is apparently the Prince Felipe Science Museum in Valencia. The real thing looks incredible.
"Lived in" is absolutely right. That's something people always praised about the original movies, but that was about the smokey dive bars, messy aircraft hangars and broken-down machinery. Getting that lived-in feel for massive Imperial buildings and cities is a great new twist on it.
lucideer
One of the things I've heard about the practical sets in multiple interviews is how they made an intentional effort to put a lot of real, functional, working props throughout the sets explicitly so that extras & folk appearing in scene backgrounds would have something to engage with & feel more immersed in their smaller roles. Most of these props would never be in frame - many were inside of cabinets or containers.
RataNova
Andor felt like a show where every detail was sweated over by people who cared
manmal
I have zero knowledge about lenses and optics in general, but found it interesting that the outer edges of the frame are often blurred in a peculiar way. Was that a stylistic choice?
NelsonMinar
It's the anamorphic lenses. It's become something of a look recently so I think of it partly as a deliberate stylistic choice. But also an accident of a particular lens geometry. They just don't mind it.
Shogun did this too, I think also The Witcher.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsAndor/comments/15rjjcg/why_...
prhn
Any odd blurring, distortion, or vignetting you might find around the edges could be caused by anamorphic lenses. Vignetting is often also added in post.
andrepd
> Massive real sets with CGI enhancements; sometimes green screens
This is the definition of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and they're still some of the best-looking films I've ever seen, far surpassing the modern UE slop.
DavidPiper
The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is well-known for being peak CGI Artist overtime and burnout. Don't have the source handy right now, but At World's End in particular was allegedly an absolute meat grinder for the CG folks for years.
That said, I do agree, they made something truly incredible that has stood the test of time. And I wish we could have more of it (but I'll also take better working conditions every day until we figure out how to have both.)
andrepd
Oh yeah yeah, I'm a massive fan of the trilogy so I've gone through all the BTS and staff interviews and whatnot. The consensus among the vfx artists is that yeah, while Davy Jones looks great due to its mix of procedural + handmade animation, it's also completely impractical to do; it was hundreds and hundreds of hours for each few seconds of Davy Jones' tentacles to be perfect.
monocularvision
We watched the original trilogy a couple months back with our kids and we were all so impressed by how they looked. And it wasn’t an “impressive for their age” but legitimately looked better than modern day films.
captainbland
The main thing that impressed me about Andor is how they managed to make the Stormtroopers seem like a genuinely intimidating force rather than just a rabble of goons in costumes. It goes to show how much they elevated the believability of Star Wars in Andor.
twodave
I agree. Especially in the originals, everything just sort of “works out” for the protagonist(s). The bad guys don’t aim well, fly well or really do anything great. And that’s fine because that is era of cinema Star Wars came from. In Andor the empire is smart, calculated, deadly and just plain scary—nearly to a visceral degree, if you allow yourself to be absorbed into the story.
And despite how good Andor (and Rogue One fits here as well) was, I think there’s some merit to wanting to go see a film that makes you feel good. There are certain films and books I won’t put myself through (especially fiction) more than once because I don’t want something ultimately meaningless adding stress to my life. It’s supposed to be an enjoyable escape. So Andor/Rogue One come pretty close to that point for me.
CGMthrowaway
> Especially in the originals, everything just sort of “works out” for the protagonist(s). The bad guys don’t aim well, fly well or really do anything great.
In a New Hope as Luke and Ben are inspecting the damage to the Jawa transport, Ben does say "Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise." Then the stormtroopers go on the rest of the series missing everything they aim at.
jimbokun
One aspect I didn't realize though watching it as a kid is they only escape the Death Star because Vader WANTS them to escape. So he can follow them back to the Secret Rebel Base.
fknorangesite
It's not exactly subtle. Leia says it outright:
> Leia: They let us go. It was the only reason for the ease of our escape.
> Han: Easy? You call that easy?
> Leia: They're tracking us.
manmal
The security droids were also quite something. I found them super scary, with their eyes that seemed to understand, in a calculating way. And with a posture like giant primates, and the ability to easily tear people apart. Definitely not the watered down versions of „battle droids“ we‘ve seen so far, who were easily tricked and fell apart when you kicked them.
RataNova
Yep, they finally felt like an actual occupying military force rather than just target practice for the heroes
hammock
Plus the Deathtroopers, the navy seals of storm troopers
nicoburns
If you haven't watched Andor and you are at all open to sci-fi then I would urge you to consider giving a go. The writing, acting, and cinematography are all excellent, and IMO it is a very strong contender for the best TV show released in the last few years.
meowface
It makes me wish it were the actual start of the franchise and then they made Rogue One and the trilogy de novo. In that counterfactual I think there's a good shot it'd be far better than the originals, and the Star Wars story would be considered not just a classic but a masterpiece. (I don't think the original trilogy is bad exactly, but the trilogy with the Andor look/feel/style/writing/acting could've been some of the best films ever.)
iainmerrick
I don’t know, I still really value the original trilogy. It’s just very, very different in some crucial ways.
One aspect that’s really striking when you see Andor is how little the Jedi and the Force have to do with it; which highlights how central they are to the original trilogy. (Rogue One does a pretty deft job of bridging those worlds, eg with Donnie Yen’s character.)
And the Force was a big part of the charm of the original movies, right? All the scenes with Luke and Yoda are wonderful, for example. I wouldn’t want to take that away, any more than I’d want to shoehorn the Jedi into Andor.
I think the real problem with the original movies starts with the prequels, which doubled down on all the Jedi business but managed to make it feel very pedestrian, rather than mystical.
The sequel movies could have been great if they had really tried to explore the collapse of the Empire and what the reconstruction would look like, rather than shamelessly retreading everything beat-for-beat. The Last Jedi did at least try to be different, but its ideas were completely scattershot and (I think) not very fruitful.
JKCalhoun
"The Force" never sat well with me. It was the one weird supernatural thing in the Star Wars universe that pushed the whole franchise into "magic" territory.
The less Force, the better in my opinion. Save super-powers for comic-book movies.
jajko
Its like being raised from earliest age with some religion (any, really, they are all equal in good and bad ways) vs somebody who wasn't. The thickness of rose-tinted glasses is something that's hard to argue about rationally.
I wasn't in both cases, communists considered it a capitalist propaganda about US might and banned it (maybe just heard about Star wars being US space program, took just first result on soviet gugel so to speak, but fight for freedom at all costs is generally not something you want to encourage in dictatorship).
They are an interesting flick (original trilogy), but nothing really magical for me in them. As mentioned by others they feel like 80s pop sci fi movie, nothing more, characters and acting are... mediocre and it all feels aimed at kids/teens. A lot of creativity with sets, but that's not primary reason for me to watch a movie.
Since I refuse (can't even) to be swayed emotionally of some good ol' memories from growing up, prequels felt even more childish (maybe apart from ep3), and this trend continued with last 3 movies. Rogue one was by far the best experience in whole SW universe, so if this goes even further happy to experience it.
jaybrendansmith
It's again amazing A New Hope was as good as it was, given the budget, inexperience, and writing. But the ideas were brilliant, and Lucas' vision was unparalleled. And Andor is great because it had the budget and the writing to actually live up to that original vision. Empire is so good precisely because Lucas had the money to live up to it and really fill out the world. And the vision just exploded from there with the Expanded Universe. It's now a science fiction franchise that is much larger than the original Foundation novels it was based upon, and much larger than pretty much anything excepting Star Trek and maybe Marvel, at least in TV and film. There are quite literally hundreds of stories they could tell if the fans are still there.
manmal
If they can reboot Harry Potter as a series, I guess Star Wars should be an option, too. Disney will run out of storylines/timelines that are compatible with nostalgia, soon.
lupire
As a matter of language, "classic" is far higher status than "masterpiece".
peeters
> you are at all open to sci-fi
That is to say, a sci-fi setting. Andor would not be correctly put in the sci-fi genre, rather in the political thriller genre.
aidenn0
Sci-fi (and fantasy) are settings, not genres.
atq2119
That's the thing about sci-fi: almost all good sci-fi stories are really sci-fi + X, where X is some other genre. Often adventure or mystery, sometimes horror, and in this case political thriller / spy story.
lolinder
I'm trying to figure out what sci-fi not crossed with something else even means. Even most of the great works of classic sci-fi of the 20th century draw tropes and plot points from other genres.
ragazzina
Isn't that true for every genre?
fsloth
I'm not sure why some plots would be off-limits in sci-fi genre? Isn't setting limits antithesis to the whole idea of sci-fi?
peeters
I guess like with all categorization, genres are reductive generalizations. And I'm saying the sci-fi generalization is much less descriptive of Andor than the political thriller generalization is. You could transplant Andor to WWII historical fiction and it would be less of a change than changing the mood and story to fit what most people's preconceived notions of sci-fi is.
I guess in short, I'm saying that you really don't have to be open to the sci fi genre to enjoy Andor.
whatnow37373
It’s not sci-fi though. If Star Wars is sci-fi then Jurassic Park is a biology documentary.
whilenot-dev
...or Westworld (1973) a western
mmplxx
Also the music, it has an impressive original soundtrack, I love how they play with opening variations.
hei-lima
Strongly agree!
poisonborz
Andor is a huge middle finger for everything that came after the original trilogy. It manages to be menacing and showing a convincing rebellion against realistic fascism - relying heavily on the tones of the old films - without any of the dumb Jedi magic, light sabers andd mystic blabble.
aeve890
> without any of the dumb Jedi magic, light sabers andd mystic blabble
They have some of it too. But it's a very well crafted scene showing how normal people would react to the force weirdos.
mystifyingpoi
What's wrong with light sabers? It's just a weapon with some useful properties (like bouncing back blaster shots). Finn used it fine for a sec, so it's proven that the user doesn't need to be trained at all in anything really.
The Force though... yeah, as much as I'm a big fan of SW, the whole concept leans way too hard into soft magic territory, at least to my taste.
CGMthrowaway
> Finn used it fine for a sec, so it's proven that the user doesn't need to be trained at all in anything really.
Even in ESB, Han Solo uses it to cut open the ton ton
poisonborz
For one the technology for such a saber far surpasses and stands out from anything else in the Empire. But more importantly it requires the same superhuman Jedi magic to be useful (swinging to bounce blaster shots). It works as a ritual weapon / in climatic battles, but modern SW overuses it (as the Jedis in general).
mystifyingpoi
> But more importantly it requires the same superhuman Jedi magic to be useful
No, Finn used it fine in defense when fighting a trooper in TFA. It is useful even without the Force. We can only blame sequels for that :P
Although yeah, when compared to other weapons at the time, they seem overpowered, I agree, never thought of that.
chiph
What has impressed me is that in all the Imperial scenes - they have a lot of polished surfaces (floor, control panels, etc) and you never see a reflection of crew or film equipment. I'm sure most of this is the result of good planning before filming but also the amount of effort put in post-production to remove any it.
As a physical media guy, I'm happy that Disney decided to release season 1 on 4k UHD. And I hope to buy season 2 when it hits the shelves.
iainmerrick
That reminds of Arthur C Clarke writing about the process of making 2001 with Stanley Kubrick. Clarke visited the set one day, and was absolutely blown away, but jokingly pointed out that somebody had left some fingerprints on the Monolith. Kubrick was furious and Clarke was seriously worried he was going to fire somebody on the spot.
(I think that's in Lost Worlds of 2001, which is a fun read)
isleyaardvark
I love how there are a lot of reflections in windows, makes it look more real.
morkalork
All the interior sets of imperial ships, especially the crashed one in S1 were absolutely gorgeous. The shiny black glass surfaces, analogue controls, blinking lights and fixtures everywhere were just wow. I can't remember the last time I saw such a well done rendition of "sleek retro-futuristic" aesthetic.
chiph
Part of the design esthetic is that nothing is labeled. How do people know that the 2nd switch from the right opens communications? I think that in the Empire you have to be a fast learner.
Or else.
parsimo2010
Andor is shot beautifully but it has a major issue that has plagued an increasing amount of shows recently. It is way too dark. The creators knew it was going straight to streaming and was never shown in theaters. I can’t watch the show in the daytime because even with my blinds down and curtains drawn the window in my living room washes out half of the scenes. Some very important things happened in the dark (it being a spy/espionage show), and I felt like I was blind. The script was not written to be an audio drama, it relies on visuals that I literally couldn’t see half the time.
Directors shooting something for streaming: please watch your show on a laptop or cheaper TV in a realistic bedroom or living room setting (with daylight leaking in or with some lights turned on). We don’t all have reference grade monitors and a pitch black studio. In fact, most consumers don’t have those things. If you really want to keep the cinematic purity, could you at least make a “normie edit” that pumps up the brightness?
hammock
I finished season 2 yesterday and was actually thinking how refreshing it was that andor WASNT too dark. It has some dark scenes sure but I really it’s not nearly as bad as most shows these days
vachina
Turn on dynamic tone mapping on your tv, or reduce contrast your TV settings.
I’d rather they preserve the dynamic range than succumb to the loudness war.
piyuv
Agreed. Real PITA with OLED tv’s. Musicians listen to their tracks in car stereos, directors should do what you suggest
djaychela
Not seen any of these issues on my oled and have watched in full daylight.
fsloth
I think it depends. For me on a fairly recent OLED, watching from the Disney app in AppleTV it looked pretty spectacular during day and night. I do know _some_ shows are terrible but Andor was totally legible to me. I'm not saying you did not have this problem, just that it's not as bad as in some other shows and personally I could not notice it.
kenhwang
I had the opposite opinion of Andor's cinematography. On a nice OLED, everything looked so gray and flat because most scenes were devoid of true dark blacks or bright whites or vivid colors; like every detail on every scene had to be softly uniformly lit so it could be seen. All the beautiful shot composition was defeated by the color grading and lighting that just screamed that it was targeted towards lower common denominator streaming quality screens and not theaters.
Whole time I thought there was really no point watching on an OLED or in HDR cause it's not taking advantage of either.
You can even see it on the photos in the article. The BTS photographs have contrast and blacks while the stills from the show are muted and gray.
The whole series basically looked like it was trying to recreate the "Shot on Google Pixel" look and completely opposite of HBO's black on black on black.
ruined
you might have misconfigured HDR in your viewing setup, even if you don't have an HDR display.
a lot of video players don't get it right consistently codec-to-codec, even the gold standard FOSS classics (VLC, MPV) and wrappers like iina on mac.
i typically use iina and vlc as fallback, but wasn't able to get either to play correctly, even though they're fine players for some other examples. i wound up subbing to disney plus for a month to watch it properly.
if you're viewing MKVs of unknown provenance, use an HDR version to ensure it's not a bad encode. if you're not viewing on an HDR display, double-check that tone mapping is enabled and configured correctly.
jfengel
Netflix has a brightness setting that you can easily get to while watching. I really wish the Disney app had one.
Kon5ole
Andor + Rogue one are my favourites from the franchise. It tells a story that the 50 year olds that grew up with SW can appreciate for its depth and intrigue as well as connection to the original films, but leaving the hallowed originals mostly alone.
I wish the crew behind it would be allowed to continue the story until the fall of the emperor, so we could get the whole "rise and fall of the empire" story told with the same quality, depth and overall "tone" for lack of a better word.
Three more seasons taking place during the same time as the original trilogy would be nice, but of course keeping the Skywalker and Jedi stuff mostly in the background.
A similar show as Andor with storylines taking place on Alderaan and the construction site of the death star, say.
sdenton4
Hmmm, rise of the empire you say? So a long hard look at a faltering parliamentary system, gradually usurped by an authoritarian and his team of goons...
Doesn't sound very relatable for today's audiences.
kriro
I think Andor is a bit over hyped in this threat. I absolutely love it (especially the Imperial side of things) but saying it is better than the original movies is a bit too much. If you take into account the time and technical possibilities it's not even close. And the original movies have more memorable things overall. I mean the two villains alone are all time greats. The music is also better (imo).
But most importantly, I think Andor is less strong without the original movies. The looming threat and the Mothma high-society scenes become a lot less powerful. Same for the insights into the Imperial machine. And even the meaning of the Rebellion itself. I'd argue while technically great, well written etc. without the SW backdrop the storytelling suffers quite a bit.
Joeboy
Andor is a very good TV show, but it's obviously getting extra appreciation because it's part of a beloved but increasingly exhausted franchise.
belval
It's the opposite for me. I could not be more burnt out on StarWars, when they introduced the force in season 2 I rolled my eyes and it somewhat took me out of it. The main downside of watching Andor is that you have your brain nagging you about eposide 7 making everything that you are watching pointless (the new republic is obliterated after 20-30 years).
I have friends that I can't convince to watch it because they are just too done with that universe in general.
But that's the thing, Andor could be outside of StarWars and just its own thing because the world building that it does on its own is excellent, the premise (empire vs rebellion/revolutionaries) is mostly intemporal.
CGMthrowaway
7-9 should basically be taken out of canon. They aren't truly original stories or extension of the existing one - they are just a retelling of 4-6 for a modern audience
kriro
And this is exactly where I disagree. Andor does not stand very well on its own outside of SW (and that takes it from great tier to very good for me with the other minor squibbles that I have). If you don't know the lore, things will be less clear and the writing will feel strange at times. FWIW, I have recommended this show to many friends who never watched anything SW, they mostly liked it but found some things odd.
WARNING, SPOILERS
The story is not properly resolved. If you have no SW knowledge, the threat isn't even very clear. Some galaxy government lead by an emperor is building a weapon, shown once. If S2 is the end it's pretty unsatisfying in general. The politics are kind of unclear.
The sacrifice of Mothma is very unclear without a SW background. A senator said something and had to flee to a planet (oversimplified).
Without knowledge of R1, the killing machine super droid is down right comical/a sloppy resolve for things.
Without SW knowledge the (imo) best part of the Imperial machinery, bureaucracy, power hunger also becomes awkward at times and frankly less interesting. Syril is my favorite character and Dedra probably second. I found their arcs great, every single non-SW viewer I talked to found them "boring", "that guy with the annoying mother was strange" and "why did they have to be a couple, that's pretty unimaginative writing" etc.
END SPOILERS
My personal quibbles are that the crashed tie episode was pretty bad filler. I have not heard anyone say anything good about it.
Someone else already mentioned minor technical problems (field scene).
I found Diego Luna's acting ok but not great. It felt wooden at times. To some extend that's subjective but it doesn't compare to the lead acting I have in my personal top tier (Breaking Bad for example)
lupire
Someone who appreciates Andor should find it easy to forget Ep7 entirely or understand that it was just a reboot remake alternate history, not "canon".
The Force part was hamfisted. It was clear that they were trying to avoid "midochlorians" but didn't know how it handle it, and didn't spend any time to develop it organically. It felt more like highbrow fanservice connecting Cassian to Luke. It's similar to the Kleya hospital/flashback episode, which could well have been its own 3 episode arc and gotten time to breathe like the S1 prison arc. Since they cut the project down to be 4 3-episode mini seasons after S1, instead of 6+ episodes each, they rushed some story arcs and sublots that end up just being presented as bullet points.
meowface
I think with nostalgia goggles and appreciation for what it was at the time, the originals are great, but in retrospect I don't think the original movies are that great. The story is very compelling and fun but across basically all other dimensions Andor is just higher-quality.
jccalhoun
I don't get what people love about Andor. The prison break episode was good but the flashbacks to the kids in the jungle were horrible and the funeral with instruments straight out of Fat Albert's junkyard band were laughable.
themgt
There's a lot to love, but e.g. the whole S2 arc where the Empire is provoking and covertly encouraging a rebellion on the planet they want to gut for resources - our protagonist gets a bad feeling about helping the amateur hour rebels but the amoral leader actually wants to encourage them knowing they'll likely fail.
"Think about a planet like Ghorman in rebellion. A planet of wealth and status."
"And if it goes up in flames?"
"It will burn... very brightly."
There's barely any recent popular TV or movies I can think of with the level of subtle, complex, morally grey themes Andor explored.
jccalhoun
I found season 1 so underwhelming that I haven't gotten to season 2 yet.
greatgib
There were some good sequence and episodes, but mostly I agree with you. I found it slow and boring. The bottom plot is nice but but there a some episodes where almost nothing happens.
I'm quite sure that they were empty on ideas in terms of scenario, so they tried to spread the longest possible what would have fitted in a single movie of 2 hours.
I think that also explains why they didn't manage to do more than 2 seasons when their original goal was 5.
Arkhaine_kupo
Things to love about andor.
1) the themes it explores. Things like fighting fascism has been done to death by this point, half of YA is "goverment military and bad, young girl gets a love triangle and defats them". Andor shows the slowing, encroching effect of military rule. What a prision industrial complex looks like (from fake incarcerations to unescapable sentences). What colonialism looks like (bleak pragmatic bureocracy about mineral extraction while discussing genocide over hors d'oeuvres). How political silencing happens (mothma cannot find allies because they all understand they have very limited political capital and have to be very careful were they spend it). Those are serious topics, and you basically do not see them outside of shows which care on systems like Wire on the drug police system, or House of card with the political congress system. Certainly not on star wars
2) Cinematography. The show is shot like a spy thriller from the get go. It makes sense with Gilroy previous Bourne experience but for a disney property opening up with killing 2 cops outside a brothel sets a tone not seen previously. Thats carried with every arc having instantly recognisable look and feel, from the cold harsh lights of Narkina 5, to the warm beach vibes of Niamos (space miami), the future vibe of corusant or the jungle vibe of Yanvin 4.
3) Monologues. Most shows cant pull off one monologue without it looking awful, this show manages plenty of them, sometimes in the same episode.
4) The topics its willing to address. I mentioned themes before, but those themes can be explored in many ways. Prequels dealt with growing fascism in the republic then turned empire, but it wouldnt say genocide or have a isb officer talk about how annoying it is the army wants their interrogation techniques because their torture works so well. Or show insignificant middle managers so untouchable they attempt to rap* a main character. Saying the empire is very powerful and scary is one thing, showing how they behave with that power is way more chilling.
5) The carnival of interesting people explored. Most shows have a few main characters and then supporting characters whose mission is to not have a personality and be a plot device of some kind. Here outside of the incredible inner life of even minor characters you get to see the journey of peopel as varied as Andor, a colonial genocide survivor who was a petty thief and became a high ranking member of the rebellion. Luthen, an ex empire soldier who after crumbling on a mission rescues Kleya and becomes one of the leaders of the rebellion from within Corusant, sort of batman/bruce wayne. Vel, a nepo baby from Chandrilla who joins the rebellion. Syril, a dadless little shit who is obssesed with following the rules thinking he would get far inside the empire system. Dedra, an orphan that cares so much about results she might be actually responsible for the fall of the empire. Kleya, another genocide survivor, taken in by Luthen and basically nightwing to his batman. Like whether you like womanly women, or tomboy super killers and whether you like manly rebels who dont follow the rules to super organised overachiever you can find a character with an entire arc in andor for you.
I could keep going but honestly its just a great show. From ideas like making 3 episode arcs, to how well it ties into Rogue one I think there is so much to praise there
tecoholic
Everyone seem like to be discussing the show and none the article.
For someone who hadn’t watched the show, the article is a pain to read. The images are thrown in randomly, there is no relationship between the text and the images. Every images is pointlessly labelled “Cinematography of “Andor” by Christophe Nuyens”. The interview seems to have covered things in detail, like going into specific scenes and sets, and lens.. etc., but the accompanying images are utterly useless in showing any of that to the reader.
I gave up after a while.
acomjean
To be fair, the photos were just ones provided by Disney.
Most likely promotional shots. They used them as examples of the work, and as stills they hold up. I thought the article cromulent.
lucideer
I didn't find the images relevant to the article - they seemed to just be filler to avoid it seeming like a mundane wall of text - but I just ignored them & didn't find it hard to read as a result?
I can understand it might be difficult to understand the context of some set descriptions without having seen the show but I think that would also be true with relevant still images as you'd still lack character & narrative context.
Honestly can't see how they could've formatted the article any better than they did. Seems fine.
beloch
The only thing I can say against Andor is that it made Rogue One seem a little bit inadequate as a capstone film.
jfengel
I'm astonished at the sets. Some of them seem impossible even for The Volume.
I'm sure it's a combination of techniques (locations, Volume, CGI, green screen, etc), because that's what keeps your eye guessing. But I'm continually blown away by how expansive it is in both the foreground and background (and moving between the two).
lucideer
Afaik they didn't make any use of The Volume for this, but otherwise it's a nuanced combination of all 3 of CGI, locations & built practical sets.
The cinematography, editing, writing, and overall feel of this show far exceed any Star Wars movie I've seen. I had long since written off the Star Wars franchise as a shameless cash grab since the original movies but they proved they could do something cool with it.
I'd definitely watch a new movie if it were handled by the same team that made Andor. Prequel, sequel, side story, or re-telling of the originals.