The complete review: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rrJ4edSf16mXpYU.html

"Theres no reason for Young Andor to be angry during the flashback scenes..." Totally, should be sunshine and rainbows after the imperials show up to your planet, strip it down and kill members of your tribe. Hmmm I wonder why he's upset.

Tbf, explosives weren't "spawned" in the street... the previous scene Cassian asks if he has more slap charges left when he's looking at the decoy speeder... the decoy speeder crashes near those three guys, the explosives are triggered... seems like a pretty simple setup, but I get how people might have missed it

I took Marv's "when the banging stops" threat to be psychological warfare. She was trying to freak out the Corpos so that when the banging eventually did stop, they would be too frightened to continue to worry about her. The banging seems to really just have been a warning to everyone to get to cover because the presence of the Corpos could get people caught in the crossfire. Marv used that practice to her advantage.

The dialogue is phenomenal compared to just Star Wars but also 95% of other shows as well. It took me by surprise.

I don't know, I thought Tim made enough sense as the jealous boyfriend. The first time he meets Cassian is in a seemingly close/secretive relationship with his romantic interest. He's the jealous boyfriend who goes a bit over the top, which I thought was reasonable enough. Though I did think the initial stalking was a bit odd at first since his introduction gave me the impression that his relationship with Bix was less developed than it apparently was.

I think you're missing nonverbal cues for young Andor. There was a scene where he was staring at the leader girl that died. He then copied her makeup style with the mark down the middle of the chin. You can tell he either looks up to and respects her or has affection for her. He also wasn't the only one up top right before she died, the entire clan was. I dont think he was left there as a lookout, I think he was just there with the rest of the clan hdiding in case something bad happened. And his reason for destroying the ship is because the people that came out of it killed the girl he either looked up to or liked.

Timm's "I'm getting tired of hearing that" is a shining example of Andor's effective writing. It tells us that Timm and Cassian has had that "are you hitting on my gf?" conversation multiple times. And to put a nail in the head, Cassian replied with "Then you better find yourself a less complicated woman", which is basically just telling Timm to go find a new girl. That is 100% sus

Around 1:03:27, you talk about how the chaining of the ship wasn’t set up. I thought it was…we got a shot of Andor’s friend walking away from it. Also, just because they are employed by the corpos doesn’t mean they like them. The working conditions look terrible, and they probably aren’t paid much. They are also forced to wake up at a specific time every day, and have a set curfew.

Disney is so arrogant that they could never imagine that someone like the Andor writers could be among them. Be in their production studio, take their funding, and use their marketing machine. All to produce something with a message so fervently against their own interests with their own tools. Andor is art on so many levels, especially in the irony of the corporate environment it was created.

It’s obvious that young Andor and his friends are all wearing adult sized clothes but there’s no adults. And they don’t explain it. Which is bloody great.

I totally felt the guys in the bar at the start never really thought Andor was laughing at them, they were just making something up to try and provoke him. Something to give them an excuse to cause violence toward him in a public place but Andor never took the bait. I genuinely thought thats how the writers were trying to portray that scene right when I watched it.

I've heard from several reviewers about the "lack of expressions" from Cassian and I'm so confused. He is miserable the entire season and it shows. Not only that, but the subtle changes in his expressions tell so much. The moment after he kills the second guard focuses on his expressions and his acting is brilliant.

The only reason it wasn't weird for me when the town people started banging metals to signal to each other, and in fact it was familiar for me, was because I live in a society where people collectively hate any armed person in a uniform; someone sees a police on the street, they start to honk their horn, and suddenly and unexpectedly everybody joins in on this irritating civil disobedience just to annoy the uniformed person and show them just how many people hate them. But I guess it's correct that for most people this scene might be a bit unexpected and unexplained in universe.

You missed Tim's introductory scene...he gives looks at Bix and Andor. He clearly is suspicious of their current relationship (and its implied that they did have a past intimate one, which Tim might be aware of). Bix also disappears a lot. So all of that makes Tim suspicious. So when the bulletin comes, he see's Bix's reaction and then wants to see what she read. I think all of this is established.

Andor is just phenomenal television.

3:48 when I watched it, I interpreted his expression to mean irritation and trepidation (like he really didn't want anything to draw attention to him but he knew those guys would do something stupid. So he was anxious). His expressions convey a lot.

No clear delineation (between flashback)? What about the obvious change in the droid? I thought that the change in age between the droid and Marva were very apparent markers to convey the time shifts despite the fact that they may be a little jarring. I think I've grown accustomed to being pulled into flashbacks in such a way. Although I agree that the young Andor scenes on Kenari are a bit crude and bereft of talented acting, at least they're not very long and eventually serve to explain how Cassian ended up on Ferrix in later episodes.

They were making up a reason to mug him, he didn't cause any actual problems. Hope this helps your understanding of the opening

@1:01:50 If you paid any semblance of attention, you would know that he was informed that the fugitives were heading their way and as an added measure he tells the other security officer to keep pushing Cassian and Luthen towards their squad.

I’m trying a new vocal EQ in this video. It’ll either be sexy or horrific - I know nothing about audio mixing. Next video will be Rings of Power Part 2. These will probably be alternating so I stay at least partially sane.

How I understood Cassian tagging along with his tribe during his backstory, it seemed like it was his first time joining them, was the other kid had smacked his hand away from the face paint as if he wasn't allowed to use it and therefore not allowed to go. This would explain his fascination with seeing the abandonded mines for the first time, why he kind of just froze on the spot when the Republic dude was getting up, and why it took him until his friends were carrying the shot girl back to camp to actually come out of the shock and get angry. I agree his rage fit in destroying the ship controls is seemingly random and only used to keep him there long enough for Marv to find him, but I don't think it's completely implausible. I always enjoy your insights, and look forward to the rest on this series.

Re: Child Kassa marvelling at the mining operation while the others just walk past: I got the distinct impression from the earlier interactions, with the hand-swatting and face/arm painting, this is Kassa's first time out, and the older kids weren't too keen on him coming this time, either. So he may have genuinely never seen that mining site before. And as for taking it down a notch, and dealing with the Imperial underlings rather than the "proper" Empire... I'm all kinds of happy about that. Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight did this rather effectively, as well. The first several stages in that game are spent in seedy underbelly areas fighting rando thugs and stuff... You don't see your first stormtrooper in that game until like... mission 6 or something, so it feels *big* when you actually run into them, as opposed to the first Dark Forces where you're gunning down legions of Stormtroopers by mission 2. I can appreciate a slow burn, and the longer we wait for the first stormtrooper, the more impact it will have. Hopefully at that point they don't fall back to the meme-ish "lol stormtroopers can't shoot" nonsense... rather than our introduction to them, where they absolutely curbstomped the Rebel troops in the first movie. Then do it again in Empire Strikes Back.

Andor is an amazing show. I hope to see a full review of the show

Please do the later episodes, especially episode 10, Luthens speach is some of the best written Star Wars I've come across. To me, the fact that my mind was screaming "everything" throughout the crescendo of the speach speaks to its impeccable craft.

When you talk about media conditioning, one thing that I think doesn't get talked about enough is that there is increased pressure for authors and script writers to grab the audiences attention immediately and never let up. A lot of writing courses strongly emphasize that you should never trust your audience to have patience with your story because if they put it down they might not pick it up again or if you fail to grab them in the first sentence of your story they will never pick it up. That combined with the increase in very short form media (TIk Tok, Instagram, even KZfaq) there is a general perception that there is no audience for "slow", carefully built shows or books. Many writers literal don't trust their audience to pay attention if they are not dangling keys in front of them because they have been taught their entire career that we can't be trusted.

@1:03:44 Earlier Syril is told that the people of Ferrix have their own way of doing things. They don't work for the corporate authority. The corporate authority administers the section of space they reside in. Syril is explicitly told that while their jurisdiction technically extends there, it is a bad idea to go in there guns blazing.

The bar scene is fine. You're skipping over the fact that they're corrupt cops, already drinking, Andor dead pans their brash yet still friendly introduction, has gotten service earlier than than them and is also being served by someone they'd rather see than what they are to be provided later. It may seem light, sure - but it still ultimately escalates from there. The lines of "is there something funny" is more him commenting on his own appearance as just a look form Andor, someone who he is currently already annoyed of, is now eyeing him up. The intention isn't meant to have Andor "do funny". Not sure how much you go to clubs, bars or pubs but dumb confrontations like this is pretty damn plausible given the situation.

Even if Disney begins to produce half decent (let alone spectacular) Star Wars productions, I think that fan goodwill isn't even on fumes at this point. It is truly spectacular how quickly Disney burned Star Wars as a franchise to the ground so quickly.

Now that it’s over I can confidently say Andor was a fantastic show. I hope you review the rest of the series

I think tims motivation is that he suspects a relationship between bix and cassian so when he finds out cassian is wanted by the law then he sees that as a chance to take cassian out of the equation

This set in the latter part of the Empire. This is 5 years before the Battle of Yavin. That's what the "BBY 5" text at the very beginning notes. Yes, in the Star Wars universe, they use that battle as the BC to AD flipover.

I think that Andor stopping to look at the strip mine suggests that, instead of seeing it for the first time, he's seen it many times before and he's lamenting what it represents for his people/forest/world. Also, it seems puzzling that you didn't catch the setup for Timm ratting out Cassian. Timm clearly dislikes Cassian for the fact of his being Bix's old "bad boy" flame. He's worried about Cassian dragging bix back into trouble, or back into bed, and sees this as a way to get a potential menace out of the way. The "ground work" was laid literally every time Timm looked at Cassian or disapprovingly questioned Bix about him.

Well, that was a pretty cynical take on Andor compared to a lot of other reviews. Though I certainly can't blame you for reacting in a deeply cynical way to anything coming out of Disney Star Wars (or anything) these days. At the same time, a lot of your critiques come across as the sort of thing a professor might say about a student's paper when that student is way ahead of their classmates and legitimately mostly good, but brought down here and there by sloppy moments.

My man here jumping to conclusions so fast he could win Olympic games

This is genuinely one of the worst criticisms of a show I've ever seen. At one point you're lamenting the show for not letting you fill in the blanks and then criticizing it for not filling in the blanks when the show literally does. The writing isn't even subtle, you just straight up miss it. Most of your problems are nitpicks or questions that are answered later in the season, you know, as shows tend to do. Actually incoherent.

I think this is the first Star Wars flick that hasn't focused on member berries, and lots of badly aimed Pew Pew, Pew. I feel this could lead to new characters, settings, and story lines away from the Holy trinity of Luke, leia, han. Which is refreshing.

I’m looking forward to seeing your thoughts on episodes 4-6. I’m really liking this show so far and episode 6 was pretty damn good

51:15 ...no? Not at all. The droid itself is in pristine condition, Marva's hair is colourful, not grey, Clem is someone we've never even seen before. This is a good match cut

The way you described the first episode as setting a slowing ticking clock is perfect. Andor COMPLETELY is on a ticking clock because we know how his story ends. Didn’t think about it at all until you mentioned it.

the thing you were missing with young andor is that the other kids try to leave him behnd in the beginning. they arent generically bullying him, but excluding him from warpaint to go raiding. thats why he looks at the mine in wonder, hes not gone this far before. also their parents all died in that mine, i forget when that was established though, maybe not this early.

So there was the comment made early on in the bar scene where Andor glanced at the other guys and they tried to pick a fight with him, that the writers faked a reason for the guys to be angry by picking said fight. The thing is though there are people who will literally fight you for simply looking at them. It happened to me. One of the only fights I’ve ever been in was for the exact reason they picked a fight with Andor. There were 5-6 of us at a table and my eyes glanced over everyone every few seconds because I’m socially awkward and don’t know if I should look at people or not and one dude I guess mistook it for me “staring” st him and legit tried to fight me over it. I’ve seen the same situation happen quite a few times actually. Only once with myself thankfully. My point is maybe the writers weren’t contriving a reason for the fight, maybe they were in a similar situation and out it in the script because those kinds of people exist.

1:03:53 i thought there wasn’t really a higher up or big connection with the empire, thought this was a low security outer region planet where it was a worker machinery culture, I think what establishes the trust and bond among the community is their wall of gloves, everyone has a specific pair and presumably because it is left out in the open nobody steals from another. A well knit community, also bell man. I like bell man

I'd say - don't blame the kid for bad acting, blame the producers for casting him in a role that's clearly beyond his reach. And yeah, as much as it seems like a bit of a leap to assume it was psychological warfare on Marv's part (i've read the other comment) we get to see her travelling the galaxy for what seems to be about 20 years so you could assume she's expirienced. And i would be shitting my pants internally if an old local said something like that to me. It's very refreshing to see you like a show, but it also makes me kinda sad to see how desperate you are to get a good show. I'm not exposing myself to Rings of Power and i'm very sorry you have to go through this for our sake. We won't forget this favor.

I keep on imagining what the prequels would have been like if they had had a tenth of the character depth, script, and story telling this show has. Anakin's downfall would have been much more convincing and emotionally devastating.

You need to do another one of these once the series is over. It's only gotten better and better. It's star wars for the kids who are now adults. People have grown up with starwars, at least some of starwars should grow up with them. Really liking your videos btw, if you do another Andor one, I'll subscribe

They needed Tim to be the one to call the police because Bix told him andors secret that he was from kanari since it was destroyed by the empire and he never really told anyone that wasnt super close to him. Its kind of all explained after the fact but if your reading the subtext it makes sense. the whole "when the banging stops line" was hillarious and worked well because it wasnt that she was giving an on the surface exposition to show the viewer something might happen it was her getting into the heads of the corpo to get them rattled because she hates them and theyre in her house

"Andor deals with immigrant experience" might be the most shit take Ive seen past few days

Some notes on the flashbacks. They depend entirely on body language to convey almost everything. Things I got from them: Derp has a bit of a crush on the girl that got shot or at least looks up to her as she seems to be a leader in the tribe. Derp is young, he goes to put on the war paint to join the party, someone stops him, the girl overrides him. I suspect that was his first time on this sort of raiding party. That explains both his curiosity at the mine and his anger and why he stays (to prove himself.) Is it great? Not really. Is it hamstrung by Derp's poor acting? Yeah. Does the show does at least the minimal work to get these events to happen? I think so. Someone else covered the the droid condition being your only real hint to the time transition, but there's another one. As they are approaching the planet to scavenge the crashed ship I think they mention the Republic, tipping you off that it's pre-Empire. (Or possibly the only mention of the Republic is later, I'd need to re-watch.)

Hiring Fiona Shaw for a show gives you the opposite of hiring Jameela Jamil. The former brings gravitas, nuance and screen presence. The latter…

Personally, I love this soundtrack and thought it was very memorable. The ending montage of episode 3 stuck in my head like glue.

All I can say Andor is basically pure genius...so if its "not Star Wars" than your idealogy and opinion of Star Wars is at a rock bottom which isnt an Andor problem but either a Star Wars problem or a fan problem

Thanks for the review and interesting thoughts on this show. Here are my long-running notes that I started keeping while watching your review: I disagree with your assessment of Timm. My take on him was that he and Bix had been working together for a long time, during which he presumably developed feelings for her, and then they decided to start hooking up. This isn't outright stated in the show - well, some of it is - but I think that this fits with their personalities as far as we see them. He reads to me as a guy who is investing in their relationship much more than she is. She is a little more walled off and seems to think of this as mostly just hooking up. Because Timm is thinking of this as a developing relationship, he starts getting more territorial, which we see when he confronts Andor after Andor first talks to Bix. Then Timm notices that Bix is hiding something when it comes to Andor. We know it's that she is a fence, but Timm doesn't seem to know that, so he naturally assumes that Bix might be hooking up with Andor on the side (the show implies that Bix and Andor have a romantic and/or sexual history). When he checks the computer, it's because he notices her turning the screen off as soon as she sees him (an overreaction on her part). When she leaves, he checks the screen to see that she was looking at and apparently trying to hide information from him about Andor, which of course makes him even more suspicious. This leads to him following her to the bar where she meets Andor after putting off Timm for a date, and with an alcohol-infused sense of betrayal he lashes out at Andor by contacting the CorpSec authorities about him. After finishing the review, I think that your read on Timm is just off. The young Andor actor is fine imo. This doesn't seem too far off from how I've seen many kids act...I think most of us were derpy kids at some point. I also think that they were trying to impress that he is innocent and inexperienced, even in relation to his own tribe. To me, it looks like he was trying to transition from the younger kid group to the older kids that do the scouting for the camp. this is why that one kid smacks his hand when he reached for the ash to mark his face - he wasn't considered mature or old enough to join them, but the leader of the group seems to allow him. Then we see young, derpy Andor putting on the face paint with a goofy grin because he's just happy to be included. This is the face of an innocent child that has no idea of what life outside the camp is like. He's been sheltered because of his age, and this is probably why he's the only one to marvel at the strip-mining pit. The others have been on scouting/gathering patrols, but it's a first for him. I do agree that this is the least compelling part of the show, and opens many questions about why a group of kids is living in the jungle on an industrial planet. I don't think that the lady from the beginning of the show showing up when CorpSec gets the hologram of Andor is a coincidence. From the dialogue, it sounds like the staff called in Cyril Karn once they had the tip, so it would make sense that they also had instructions to call in the witness to look at the holo once they had the records. Yes, it seems to happen quickly so it does seem like they rushed the timing to move the plot or for dramatic effect, but it does make sense that they would want her there as quickly as possible once they had a name for their suspect because they would have records and probably holos ready for the witness to look at once they had a suspect. On the scene between Karn and Sgt. Kostek, you said that this scene is not great because it overtly explains things that were already insinuated earlier in the show, which is unnecessary. While it does do this to an extent, I don't think that was the point of the scene. It wasn't to fill in gaps in our knowledge about how things work in this sector of space; it was to build the characters in the scene and establish a relationship for them. Sgt Kostek explaining how the Corporate Security forces is the last line of defense against lawlessness contrasts what we've seen so far, which is the complacency and corruption of the CorpSec authorities. So, it does do some additional world building because we have only seen a willingness to care from Karn so far. This is where character development and relationship building come in. You can see how Karn's demeanor changes completely once Sgt Kostek starts talking because he finally finds someone that thinks like him. They are a little different because Karn strikes me as a bit of an idealist, but Sgt Kostek is a blunter military-minded person. They both believe strongly in law and order, but Karn is the head/heart to Sgt Kostek's boot/fist. Their meeting and Sgt Kostek's willingness to embolden Karn is part of what sets the stage for episode 3 where things get way out of hand. Sgt Kostek sees this as a chance for his group to make an impression and get the recognition that they deserve, and Karn sees this as his opportunity to follow his ideals and show that doing the right thing (in his mind that's what law and order is) truly is the best way. Of course, things don't go as planned and at the end of episode 3 we see that the senior inspector was right all along (he's one of the best characters in this arc imo). For the ship design, I will just say that this is the Corporate Sector of space, so they will have their own ship suppliers. I think they fit well enough in the sector of space they are in. CorpSec doesn't need things like Star Destroyers because they are corporate entities, not a galactic government. As a corporation, cost would be top of mind, so they would most likely go for practicality and low-cost over everything else. Of course, that's just guessing, but I can definitely see this as a ship design for this sector of the galaxy. They did have some separatist ships, but we do have to remember that this whole operation is only going off of what Karn can scrape together with no higher approval. It's actually impressive that he managed to get this squad, and probably due to the fact that Sgt Kostek is so eager to actually do something. He gives the impression that their unit is pretty much never used, so they would have the bare minimum of resources and clunkiest ships. The box isn't a mystery box, it's an NS-9 Starpath unit which can be used to track movements of Imperial ships. This comes directly from the show itself, so no external knowledge of Star Wars is required. I personally just assumed that Andor boiled down his explanation about how he got it to a very rough idea behind whatever actually happened. It's not like he was going to give a play-by-play of what actually happened to this random guy, so he essentially said that he had an opportunity to get at one and pulled a con. By not explaining the origin, it can be as involved or as simple as your imagination dictates; or he could just be lying or bending the truth, which we do see him do in later episodes. Anyways, there's no mystery there, it part of what moves the plot along, and will drive at least part of the Imperial involvement in the show since they will want to know how this box came to be on that planet in the hands of criminals. Yes, there are unanswered questions about how Andor got it and it is, in fact, a box, but there's no mystery around what it actually is or its function. That's called plot, and really it's more of a sub-plot. It might be interesting to learn how Andor got it, but the show is more interested in what is going to happen going forward. Even Luthen didn't care about it and told Andor he's more interested in recruiting Andor to his team. Incidentally, the box was only marginally useful in bringing them together because Andor mentions to Bix that her buyer was interested in meeting Andor before he knew about the box. It just gave a reason for Andor to interest Luthen in coming quickly with the money that he needed. I could say a lot about the city fight scene, but I've already written way too much. I will just point out that Andor specifically asks Luthen if he had any more charges just before the speeder getaway scene, so that was presumably Andor's idea rather than Luthen's. The guards didn't shoot because they were first taken off guard and then the explosion drew their immediate attention as they got away. I've seen some people that acted like Luthen was ruthless for unnecessarily blowing up the speeder to kill the guards as they got away, but that's silly. Sure, they were riding away with the guards momentarily processing the change in the situation, but they would have gotten over that quickly enough to shoot them in their exposed backs as they rode away on a speeder bike. His timing allowed a few moments of surprise to get them part of the way before blowing the first speeder up to eliminate and/or distract the guards while they continued their escape. They were in a fight for their lives and very likely would have been shot after a few moments if he hadn't blown the charges (inaccuracy of villain shooting notwithstanding).

holy crap for someone so smug I would have thought you would get what the guards were doing in the beginning of the show. They were looking for a fight because they wanted to rob him. They are corrupt guards. He doesn't want to bribe them. The "fee" is their score. Andor just knew how this works because it was probably not the first time he was in a situation like that.

@19:24 All of the interactions Cassian has with the people of Ferrix are important. He speaks with Brasso to establish his alibi and for the audience to learn that they are friends, while also giving some minor insight into Marva. He speaks with Bix to establish that he needs to sell the starpath unit and for the show to establish their previous and current relationship and how that will affect Timm's perception of their later interactions, he speaks with Nurchi to establish to the audience that Andor owes him money and that Andor is not above screwing people over for his own benefit, as he lies to Nurchi about his money "being in play", this will become important later in the show. Finally, he speaks to Pegla to establish that it was not Cassian's ship that he used last night and that he no longer has access to it.

That into had me in stitches >∆

I think a lot of the points with Tim being a stick to the writers can be excused by his motivations of jealousy - or at least that’s how I took it. He was suspicious of Bix because Andor had come back and they were talking (quite obviously) behind his back. The subject matter he would be suspicious about. Which is also the reason he snitched - to get rid of him.

The thing is, BBY5 isn't really "early Empire". That's "the Empire's already been around for almost 15 years"... We wouldn't really be getting a look at the early Empire in 5 BBY... By 5 BBY we'd already be seeing a matured Empire already starting to show stress fractures. Kenobi was earlier Empire than this. Solo was earlier empire than this. Both were awful, but if we were going to get a look at "early Empire", this is where we should've been looking. The events of this show are, coincidentally, happening at the same time as the events of the Rebels animated series. And, as we saw in Rogue One, the two are linked. And we saw in the events of Rebels that the Empire was, indeed, already starting to face significant issues with social unrest.

My guess is derpy Andor has just barely graduated from childhood and been initiated into the blow dart wielding "warrior" class of his community. This is why Andor reacts differently from the others to seeing the mine, as it was probably the first time he’s seen it. This community consists of the orphans of minors who were either all killed in some kind of mining accident, or possibly murdered by the Empire, perhaps for going on strike, ah-la Pinkerton style strike breakers of the late 1800s.

The main writer for this wrote the Bourne films. And it's amazing you can tell the jump in quality when the writer is someone who... you know... actually wrote something.

I am complete agreement with your point about media conditioning. Between shorter length KZfaq videos, TikTok and similar types of spastic media, it rewires your brain to seek out pop & flash over actual stories. Bad Reboot uses this cynical type of story telling to People complaining about this show need to detox with slower shows/stories. It's a marvel (heh) to see a more mature structure to the pace of the set up. Cassian is making his rounds on Ferrix after being "away" to set up who the people around him are, what his motivations are and what he is trying to actually hide (who he really is). He's not jump-cutting to somewhere to get a McGuffin to appease plot device person x (with zero set up as to why the McGuffin matters). He's trying to get money so he can continue to surreptitiously search for his sister. His motivations aren't noble, they're not trying to tell some massive overarching narrative, it is as simple and human as it could be. He's got so little in his life that connects him to his past. Once he's part of the nascent Rebel cell, he's not really there for any noble reasons either. Yes, I should not have been retconned. :)

I like how in all your videos you try to engage with all the source material and find something good about it, rather than merely an entertaining "this sucks" "this is stupid". Gets into a lot of details, from the ship reuse to the structure of fictional societies and what questions come up, and this show does bring up some interesting ones about its world.

You are easily the most consistent, tempered and fair reviewer I've encountered. And possibly the one with the best sense of humour. I usually can't suffer overly long vids about anything, but your reviews hold my attention. Great stuff.

I don't agree that Andor as a kid has to have agency in those flashbacks. I think the point is that we see his home get ruined by a mining disaster, forcing them to salvage supplies from the Empire. This way of getting by puts his community at risk and we see he's angry at what the Empire has brought to his world.

wasnt the point of the guards confronting Andor in the first scene to be contrived? Contrived by the guards, right? They considered him an easy mark and were trying to intimidate him. I think it was a great opening scene.

Episode 3 and 4 is absolutely amazing. The writing, the characterization, the acting, all just impeccable. Is it the best thing I’ve ever seen? No, but the stakes are clear, the directing is on point, and damn if I’m not invested in seeing where this story is headed.

I personally thought it was quite good so I’m interested to see what you think if you do a full review.

31:14 there is no connection between Timm and the police. If you watch the show carefully, Bix is the one looking at the police bulletin. When Timm comes in she hastily and very suspiciously turns off the monitor. When she leaves he immediately goes to check the computer because he thinks she's cheating on him with Cassian and he saw her acting suspiciously. This is when he learns that he can get Cassian out of the way by reporting him. Once again, Timm knows they used to date, watch how close Cassian stands to her when he's talking to her in that scene. Timms, watching through the window. Plenty of guys would be upset about a guy like that coming round to see his girlfriend and acting in that way. Especially because she starts acting weird, too. Honestly you need to watch more carefully because it's very clear.

I get the feeling this guy has never liked anything, ever in his life. He received gifts, summarily destroyed them verbally, and was then confused when no one continued to give him gifts. 😝

34:57 - You might not recognize him, but that guy, Alex Ferns, was absolutely a scene-stealer in the mini-series Chernobyl, as head of the mining group.

I enjoyed this review. I liked the step by step take. I didn't agree with several bits which also I found intriguing. This seems like a very cerebral take that often seemed deaf to the emotional resonance that I clearly perceived in a scene. As an example, I thought the flashbacks clearly showed the incredible pathos of a young boy, with a real sweetness to his nature, affectionate and protective of his sister, but eager to join a scary but irrisistably exciting world of adventure with the big kids' for the first time. It showed also that he is exceptionaly brave and willing to take risks even at that young age, and that he has a fierce loyalty to those he cares about, an indomitable will and a natural curiosity about the world. This was all as clear as if it had been told to me on my first viewing of the flashbacks. Possibly you were watching with your 'analytical side' or aren't particularly affected by these kinds of themes. But for me, it was a pleasure to watch it unfold AND it added a whole delicious layer to Andor's character. Could the boy have been acted better? I don't know - it seems pointless to ask when he so thoroughly appealingly got the job done for me... As for Andor the elder I don't know, to me, Luna's incredible facial expressions in this are pure gold. Another example - I thought the jealous boyfriend was also full of pathos. He's obviously (to me) insecure and feels threatened by Andor's charisma and his girlfriend's obvious affection for him while at the same time is clearly un comfortable and ashamed of this jealousy, but incapable of resisting it's prodding to unforgivable behavior. My theory is you were watching with left side of brain on hyperdrive working on the KZfaq critique. However we're all different so who knows. In any case thanks for the review - plenty of good points and and I'm eager to watch the next installment to see if the trend continues :-)

Seeing as most other commentors have pointed out most of what I could say, I want to add to the easter eggs. I haven't noticed the one with Katarn's blaster, but later on in the series, in Luthen's museum, you can see Starkiller's iconic Sith Warrior armor from The Force Unleashed. Let's see if you noticed and pointed it out in your full review, that I'm glad you got around for.

You didn't need to do such a long video... Andor is excellent, acting superb, by far the best Disney has given us since buying Lucasfilm And yes, it's "slow and boring" by today's "fast and furious" standards. The only thing we need is to give this team more content to develop, like the other side of the coin about ex Imperials trying to get a grip on things AFTER the death of Palpatine and the ruin of the Empire... By the way even the new Arrestor Imperial ship is awesome 👏🏾👌🏾

Well shift to flashback is clear (atleast for me) from look of droid. In future he is old and worn out with scrashes and so on. In flashback he has new and clean colour. Also kid wonders on mine because he is first time so far from villige -thet would be my guess. That colour marking of face should be some kind of marking of warrior. That is also reason why his sister had to stay behind and why he is upset when scout girl dies. She allowed him to be among those warriors.

43:26 "Platoon sits in the otherwise dark room, staring scathingly through his monocle at the burnt embers in the Fire Chimney. It reminds him of the once Glorious Star Wars, now in shambles; He adjusts his Top hat and takes another sip from his wine glass. Of course, there's Beethoven Symphony No.8 playing in the background" :D

Can’t wait for the follow up video. I’m hoping for praise

Loved the video and agreed with most of your points, but it's unfortunate you skipped over how the show handled Tim's death, as I believe it ties into a wider point the show's trying to make. After Tim gets shot, the corpo that killed him takes his hat off in disbelief that he just took a life, and his leader confiscates his weapon and sends him back to the ship for killing a civilian. A fascist system has incentivized downplaying crimes that led to an overzealous inspector taking things too far that led to an encounter that killed a civilian, and then kills the one that shot him, and none of the death was looked at approvingly. The show has taken killing very seriously and doesn't mess around with death, Tim is a douchebag but the show doesn't celebrate his death because it's still a tragedy. (At least till episode 6, the rest haven't come out at the time of this comment) There have been no Stormtroopers, every on screen death has a person showing their face. All of it's horrific, even when it's justified, and that's the point that Andor is trying to make that Star Wars hasn't really done before. I really hope you keep making videos on Andor, I saw someone say it was "Good filmmaking, just not good Star Wars" and as a die hard Star Wars fan, I couldn't be happier.

I remember watching this show and thinking how slow and boring it is, but I was surprised to hear that a lot of people have been saying that this is one of the best Star Wars TV shows. It’s like you said, that we’ve been so conditioned to watch a more simplified storyline and pace that we expect any Star Wars media to be the same cookie cutter story. I’ve been through this before when I didn’t like Legend or Korra because it wasn’t just like Avatar and Star Wars Rebels because it wasn’t like TCW, but after rewatching those two shows with different expectations, I like them now. Based on precedence, I think if I watch Andor again, I’ll like it.

The scene transition into the flashback with the droid, when it drove down the road was rather obvious imo. It literally went from looking like a dinged up rust bucket to brand new from one scene to the next. I'm not particularly an attentive person. I miss a whole lot of details in shows like these, but even I saw the difference right away. I think that's the whole reason why the focus was the droid during the transition into the flashback.

@54:51 This is incredibly uncharitable. He wanted to confirm that B2 had gotten back to Marva safety and was clearly going to ask him to convey more to Marva, likely telling her where he was going without giving her an oppurtunity to try and talk him out of it, but B2 didn't respond to him.

3:55 we must be watching different shows. He's a good actor. He's subtle. Watch rogue one just before he gets incinerated. Watch is expression carefully as the light reaches him. For andor watch the prison episodes as he's on the ship waiting to go in. See the terror. He's good at it. He's just not overacting and hamming it up. He chose a cool indifference for those scenes and it's perfectly natural.

almost all good take, but you missed the point about the dirty "live' percussion that sounds like a punk band is playing in a small scotland town in 1989. that grittiness is really sweet. they purposely intended it to be jaarring because cassians world is in a turning point.

I'm enjoying your videos, thanks. I have to figure out my my speakers are making popping sounds, I thought it was your channel but it's everywhere.

31:24 The reason Tim is being so shifty is that he thinks Biggs and Andor are boinking behind his back. And seeing the message the thing Biggs was looking at tells Tim that she knows more about Andor’s situation that she is letting on and instead of just talking to her about it he instead decides to act shifty as all hell cause he’s jealous that his GF might have a side dude.

I think you glossed over the fact that the we know Pre-Mor security like to act like cops -- according to the hostess -- so it's reasonable for them to see Andor's awkward and paranoid posture as an opportunity to flex their authority as dirty beat cops and possibly mug him, which they do.

Hey lil platoon! Relatively new and already love your channel, keep up the great stuff!

"It's in the water" Nail meet head! I haven't heard a better, bang on, analogy. Been loving your insight, articulation, and guest appearances on EFAP and the like. Top shelf!

Every time Platoon says "Bix" it reminds me of the translator Protoceratops in the historical novel, Dinotopia.

Now a new name will be stuck in my mind for the next few days… “TIM” 🤣 as it replaces “Mighty Morphing Power Elf” 🤣 Thanks 😊

Platoon! You are swiftly becoming my go to commentator for all things film. Great work again beautiful dictiion and absolutely class analytics.

Yeah, Timm isn't really a very "spacey" name, but don't forget the name of the most important and popular character in all of Star Wars.... Luke. As for the cut that you found to be so jarring... it didn't bug me very much. It is my understanding that they showed B2-EMO in the present to contrast his old, dented, chipped paint appearance with his fresh, brand new version in the past. Great analysis! I love your videos. Would love for you to cover the other story arcs in Andor.

@31:30 Timm is suspicious of Bix because he is insecure about their relationship and thinks she is still seeing Cassian. He is looking through her computer and notices the mesage that Carn pushed out. He takes note that Cassian appears to be who they are looking for as he seems to remember that Bix mentioned off-handedly that Cassian was from Kenari instead of Fest.

Of course the star wars show I was the least excited for had to be the most well done

Is this parody or irony? There are two drunk mall cops trying to intimidate a guy in a brothel. He doesn’t look at them funny. That’s the whole point of the scene. And it’s a brothel, not a nightclub. You’re looking so closely at the show you can’t even see it.

20:11 the body language and small amounts of dialogue make it clear that Andor and Bix used to be a thing. She and Timm are new but she and Andor aren't close friends. He probably only turns up there when he needs to shift product so that wouldn't be day to day but it has been going on for quite some time. Timm knows they used to date and when he talks to Cassian he says he's "tired" of Andor coming around and hassling his girlfriend, in not so many words. He's sick of it and he's decided to do something about it today. It's actually made quite clear what's going on and it's not thrown in at random at all.

25:06 well you were close, the slang word for scrotum is kassi(which is also the word for bag) . The actual finnish word kassa means cash register.

I died at the Macarena scene for the Book of Boba Fett, well done lmao

You're quickly becoming one of my favourite youtubers.

I was happily surprised when I watched the first episode. I find myself liking the show, I find myself wanting to know what's going to happen, I find myself actually longing to see the next episode.

i love how you use the clips as subtext. like in 9:45, which perfectly fits what your saying at that point. it´s not a special scene, but i admire the attention to detail, and the work you put in to archive that.