Andor

[waynekerr55]

Looks impressive, roll on 21st September

https://youtu.be/cKOegEuCcfw

https://youtu.be/N5S9Vx3-QM0

 

[dickythorpe]

Oh bloody hell! I enjoyed the first 3 films when I was a kid.....but how the hell can people keep up to date with all these spin offs!!???

 

[waynekerr55]

Oh bloody hell! I enjoyed the first 3 films when I was a kid.....but how the hell can people keep up to date with all these spin offs!!???

You don't know the power of the dark side

 

[exiledclaseboy]

Most of the spin offs have been unutterably tedious as well.

 

[JustJack]

Who's this chap? My memory of Empire Strikes Back is hazy, was he with Vader?

 

[JackSomething]

Most of the spin offs have been unutterably tedious as well.

I'm a Star Wars nerd, but for a franchise that consists of 11 films and nearly the same number of TV series so far, not that much of it has been very good.

The original film clearly as it launched everything else, Empire is the peak of the franchise, Return of the Jedi was the weakest of the original trilogy, but still fun. Outside those three, Rogue One was very good and everything else has been different shades of disappointing, finishing off with the completely awful Rise of Skywalker.

For JJ, Cassian Andor has only appeared previously in Rogue One, he wasn't a character in the original trilogy. For obvious reasons if you've watched Rogue One...

 

[Dr. Winston]

Rogue One and ESB are excellent. I enjoyed the first Abrams film and bits of The Mandalorian.

The rest of it ranges from average to terrible, including the first movie, which is one of the most overrated films of all time.

 

[MrSwerve]

Yeah, The Force Awakens was watchable, but the other two films were absolute messes. Seriously unwatchable.

Rogue One decent. Solo was awful.

The Mandalorian is the is the best thing to come out of Star Wars since the original trilogy in my opinion. A great mixture of space and westerns. Can’t wait for the next series. The Book of Boba Fett was ok but nothing on Mando. Kenobi was meh - underwhelming…but the fights with Vader were pretty good.

Andor does look promising.

 

[Darran]

Childish thread. Grow up.

 

[JackSomething]

Rogue One and ESB are excellent. I enjoyed the first Abrams film and bits of The Mandalorian.

The rest of it ranges from average to terrible, including the first movie, which is one of the most overrated films of all time.

The first film is really hard to judge now as so much of it is iconic. It laid the groundwork for everything that followed and helped usher in the age of summer blockbusters which still rule supreme over 40 years later. I recently watched it again with my son seeing it for the first time and what stuck out for me was that it properly whips. It gets through a hell of a lot of set pieces, locales and story in it's 2 hours.

If you compare it to the other film that started the summer blockbusters, Jaws, then A New Hope is clearly nowhere near as good a film. Find it hard to agree with it being overrated given the context around it, but I think we're in broad agreement on the other films.

The Force Awakens was exciting at the time because it felt like Star Wars was properly back after the prequels. Let's face it, the film is basically A New Hope redux in terms of the story. Unfortunately Abrams specialises in intriguing beginnings, then has no idea how to continue the story. Appointing a different director to the second film who has a completely different style/ideas and then going back to Abrams for the 3rd film, was just stupid by Disney/Lucasfilm.

As for Darran, I refuse to grow up.

 

[Professor]

Rogue One and ESB are excellent. I enjoyed the first Abrams film and bits of The Mandalorian.

The rest of it ranges from average to terrible, including the first movie, which is one of the most overrated films of all time.

The first film is really hard to judge now as so much of it is iconic. It laid the groundwork for everything that followed and helped usher in the age of summer blockbusters which still rule supreme over 40 years later. I recently watched it again with my son seeing it for the first time and what stuck out for me was that it properly whips. It gets through a hell of a lot of set pieces, locales and story in it's 2 hours.

If you compare it to the other film that started the summer blockbusters, Jaws, then A New Hope is clearly nowhere near as good a film. Find it hard to agree with it being overrated given the context around it, but I think we're in broad agreement on the other films.

The Force Awakens was exciting at the time because it felt like Star Wars was properly back after the prequels. Let's face it, the film is basically A New Hope redux in terms of the story. Unfortunately Abrams specialises in intriguing beginnings, then has no idea how to continue the story. Appointing a different director to the second film who has a completely different style/ideas and then going back to Abrams for the 3rd film, was just stupid by Disney/Lucasfilm.

As for Darran, I refuse to grow up.

'A New Hope' was astonishing for me at 9/10 in 1978. It's still great package but would agree that 54 year old me thinks "Jaws" is a better film than any in the Star Wars cannon. The 1999-2004 prequels had a good story but suffered from poor direction and script editing and above all poor chemistry between Portman and Christensen as leads. In many ways the 'Clone Wars' animated series was superior. The Force Awakens was exciting but really does not age well. Rise of Skywalker is a mess of 'greatest hits nostalgia' due the poor reaction to the Last Jedi, which despite its silliness at times has some good acting and perhaps the best set piece of all films in the throne room battle.

'Solo' for me is a decent enough 'heist' film (though Emilia Clarke is truly dreadful) and 'Rogue One' by far the best of the 'modern' films-and hopefully Andor follows the darker side of this and Diego Luna's character.

As for the recent series-they are all enjoyable and closer to the original origins of Star Wars from the 1930s/40s serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers. I enjoy them all-they are all entertaining and that's all they are. As much as I love the Star Wars series, when you start taking them as anything but entertainment the the plot has been lost. And there are far too many who fit into this.

 

[dickythorpe]

Childish thread. Grow up.

Look out Barry Norman is on the turps!

 

[JackSomething]

As much as I love the Star Wars series, when you start taking them as anything but entertainment the the plot has been lost. And there are far too many who fit into this.

Absolutely. All fandoms have a toxic element but Star Wars may well have the worst of them all. You only have to look at the reactions to making a woman the lead of the sequel trilogy, of casting a black man as the secondary lead, the horrific abuse directed at an actor of Vietnamese descent, etc.

They're films about space wizards fighting with glow sticks. It's extremely weird how so many people consider them to be such an important part of their lives and that's coming from a big fan of the universe.

 

[Professor]

As much as I love the Star Wars series, when you start taking them as anything but entertainment the the plot has been lost. And there are far too many who fit into this.

Absolutely. All fandoms have a toxic element but Star Wars may well have the worst of them all. You only have to look at the reactions to making a woman the lead of the sequel trilogy, of casting a black man as the secondary lead, the horrific abuse directed at an actor of Vietnamese descent, etc.

They're films about space wizards fighting with glow sticks. It's extremely weird how so many people consider them to be such an important part of their lives and that's coming from a big fan of the universe.

The idiocy around a black (John Boyega) character and a female protagonist (Daisy Ridley) was bad enough. The abuse Kelly Marie Tran received was horrific.

 

[Dr. Winston]

Find it hard to agree with it being overrated given the context around it, but I think we're in broad agreement on the other films.

It's fine for what it is as long as you ignore some of the dialogue. Popcorn entertainment. I just don't get why it's anywhere near lists of best films ever made. And that's not me being a genre snob. I still sit down and watch the LOTR trilogy (Extended edition. I'm hardcore) once a year.

Maybe it's a generational thing. There's probably people now swho weren't born when the Fellowship of the Ring came out and wonder what all the fuss is about.