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paininthe
@youramericanlover
Eps 8 - 10 of Andor are easily the most interesting, well-written and executed piece of stars wars media of the entire franchise. The three eps obviously do not work as a standalone story, but as an arc within the universe it is head and shoulders above everything else made with a star wars logo. The slave prison was great place to explore power dynamics of authoritarian societies, both the emotional cost to the slaves and the cracks in social structure that imposes slavery on them. The prison guards are unfortunately not given any depth, and the Empire baddies are still fairly bland baddies. But the discussion in Clerks rings down through the ages when working out the human cost of regimes like the Empire. The detuned synthesisers (finally an appropriate environment for them, not just more neon interior / exterior shots) were also incredible. Music from these eps do stand alone as individual pieces.
Cassian's arc in the series reminded me of Catch-22, or at least Yossarian's view of how he fits into the war, I think similar to Cassian's:
"The thing that the world found impressive was Yossarian’s moment of illumination over Avignon – how he fitted into the big picture. The short answer was nowhere. Watching Snowden bleed, thinking about the roster of his dead friends, Yossarian sees with perfect clarity what is going on: the world is trying to kill him. The Germans firing at him from the ground, the pilots taking him in close over targets, the officers picking the targets, the warlords in Washington running the war: none care a damn about him and all are trying to kill him, just as they have killed a roster of his friends.
...
Great war books are usually about the magnitude and sorrow of loss; Catch-22 is about the insanity required of any man to imagine that the madness of war has anything to do with him. In war, what the world wants and what any sane man wants are radically at odds. Since that is the case, the sane man’s answer is always no."
We watch Cassian recognise that the world wants him dead and also that he means nothing within it. Really only in the last few scenes do we see him consider his larger place in the rebellion - this is a bit of an inspirational false note his development in the series, although Cassian has to be turned into a hero at some point.
Anyway incredible watch. Only real, proper complaint is that the jobsworth nerd turned stalker was given way too much screen time. Fundamentally un-interesting and the whole pyschopath due to overmothering was already done to death the first time Hitchcock rolled it out.