I thought this was going to be another typical low quality Star Wars production to toss into Disney's hoard of content. I initially struggled to continue past the first two establishing episodes because I had low expectations from Disney's track record. Looking back, those episodes really flesh out the narrative and I'm extremely glad that once the season finished airing, I continued to give it the full chance it deserves. Star Wars: Andor completely subverted and exceeded any expectations I had for a Disney+ show.
All the filmmaking aspects excelled throughout the presentation. Set design, props, costumes, makeup, lighting, camera work, dialog, acting, tone, themes, character writing, choreography, stunts, CGI, blended landscapes, puppeteering, animatronics, music, SFX, ADR, and much more. There are even some good-faithed callbacks/homages that come off very natural rather than solely serving memberberries. I'm taken aback that there's actual talent and effort poured into a modern-day Disney production. This really feels like it's apart of the Star Wars universe rather than what we've recently been getting from Disney, which has felt like amateurish cosplay filmed at theme parks with multi-million dollar budgets. It's as if this show actually cares about crafting the art instead of soullessly milking the intellectual property. It's a well needed change of pace.
This is an incredibly underappreciated show in my opinion. The narrative is the methodical type that gets more interesting the longer it goes on and becomes even more charismatic during rewatches as you see how all the pieces align. I feel it deserves so much more recognition but will have difficulty receiving it due to how many of the Star Wars normies will be turned away by the extensive dialog sequences, time allocated to characterization, sparse action scenes, and fewer colorful lasers to signal dopamine to their brain. All of which are reasons that make this some of the best Star Wars has ever been but I can understand how this will turn away the casual audiences who only want to see lots of flashy lights, laugh at humorless jokes every 5 minutes, and distract themselves with substanceless action.
There's a little retconning but I'd say most of it is positive and none of it drastically change the world or established characters like how many of the recent Star Wars additions do. An issue that I have with the show is what feels like checkboxes where you can tell they are going out of their way to meet the criteria for in their plot/characters. However, unlike how many of the other Disney shows and movies meet these checkboxes, this show is able to do it with good purpose, intention, intelligence, and execution. Because of how well they are integrated, it's basically become a non-issue for me here.
This show is fan service done right. High quality production, amazing actors, and a passionate set of directors that care about their source material. This is a great watch for intermediate fans of the Star Wars universe and brings insight back into the cunning political structure with actual competent antagonists. It's even particularly great for non-fans that are just interested in a compelling narrative. I can't wait until season 2 next year. This might've just been a creative endeavor that miraculously flew under the corporate radar and avoided its chokehold. I hope the executives don't see the reception of this and push changes or set additional creative-restricting criteria to cater to a broader audiences for Season 2. Creating high quality content to fewer, more heavily-invested fans will always be better than sacrificing quality storytelling to appeal to the masses.
In the future, I'm also really hoping that this team will be given creative control for other Disney projects like Marvel, which is in desperate need of coherent direction. Whatever set this apart from Disney's normal production procedures, they need to continue with it and we might end up with an abundance of well made modern media instead of the recent soulless catering garbage spewing off the conveyor belt.
Review by TheUnsatisfiedConsumerVIP 4BlockedParent2023-01-19T16:38:33Z
I thought this was going to be another typical low quality Star Wars production to toss into Disney's hoard of content. I initially struggled to continue past the first two establishing episodes because I had low expectations from Disney's track record. Looking back, those episodes really flesh out the narrative and I'm extremely glad that once the season finished airing, I continued to give it the full chance it deserves. Star Wars: Andor completely subverted and exceeded any expectations I had for a Disney+ show.
All the filmmaking aspects excelled throughout the presentation. Set design, props, costumes, makeup, lighting, camera work, dialog, acting, tone, themes, character writing, choreography, stunts, CGI, blended landscapes, puppeteering, animatronics, music, SFX, ADR, and much more. There are even some good-faithed callbacks/homages that come off very natural rather than solely serving memberberries. I'm taken aback that there's actual talent and effort poured into a modern-day Disney production. This really feels like it's apart of the Star Wars universe rather than what we've recently been getting from Disney, which has felt like amateurish cosplay filmed at theme parks with multi-million dollar budgets. It's as if this show actually cares about crafting the art instead of soullessly milking the intellectual property. It's a well needed change of pace.
This is an incredibly underappreciated show in my opinion. The narrative is the methodical type that gets more interesting the longer it goes on and becomes even more charismatic during rewatches as you see how all the pieces align. I feel it deserves so much more recognition but will have difficulty receiving it due to how many of the Star Wars normies will be turned away by the extensive dialog sequences, time allocated to characterization, sparse action scenes, and fewer colorful lasers to signal dopamine to their brain. All of which are reasons that make this some of the best Star Wars has ever been but I can understand how this will turn away the casual audiences who only want to see lots of flashy lights, laugh at humorless jokes every 5 minutes, and distract themselves with substanceless action.
There's a little retconning but I'd say most of it is positive and none of it drastically change the world or established characters like how many of the recent Star Wars additions do. An issue that I have with the show is what feels like checkboxes where you can tell they are going out of their way to meet the criteria for in their plot/characters. However, unlike how many of the other Disney shows and movies meet these checkboxes, this show is able to do it with good purpose, intention, intelligence, and execution. Because of how well they are integrated, it's basically become a non-issue for me here.
This show is fan service done right. High quality production, amazing actors, and a passionate set of directors that care about their source material. This is a great watch for intermediate fans of the Star Wars universe and brings insight back into the cunning political structure with actual competent antagonists. It's even particularly great for non-fans that are just interested in a compelling narrative. I can't wait until season 2 next year. This might've just been a creative endeavor that miraculously flew under the corporate radar and avoided its chokehold. I hope the executives don't see the reception of this and push changes or set additional creative-restricting criteria to cater to a broader audiences for Season 2. Creating high quality content to fewer, more heavily-invested fans will always be better than sacrificing quality storytelling to appeal to the masses.
In the future, I'm also really hoping that this team will be given creative control for other Disney projects like Marvel, which is in desperate need of coherent direction. Whatever set this apart from Disney's normal production procedures, they need to continue with it and we might end up with an abundance of well made modern media instead of the recent soulless catering garbage spewing off the conveyor belt.