chemiosmotic reblogged
Sly Moore was confirmed a total party animal in Andor, so I wanted to design a quick and dirty outfit that says “I’m Palpatine’s only exciting friend”
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I think get what you're saying in your last Andor post. It's not enough to just topple states that enforce their rule through violence (which is pretty much most if not all states when you think about it), you need to destroy the very concept of state enforced violence itself. Idk correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a very interesting post. Really gets the noggin jogging.
(re: this post)
yeah!! like star wars has played with this specific idea before so andor isn’t the first one to do it. I think a very instructive example is the star destroyer - it is introduced to the audience as an imperial ship, and is used as a visual representation of the empire’s might. and then in the prequels it’s revealed to the audience that actually those are republic ships that the empire simply seized and took over. which isn’t to say that the republic and the empire are the exact same, but they are both governments that benefit from (and arguably require) “star destroyers” existing in the first place, and that tells you something about how those states operate and view themselves. and to the extent that the prequels have a point or thesis, it’s about the susceptibility of liberal democracies to turn explicitly fascistic.
but I think andor is sort of noteworthy when comparing it to the other live action sw shows, because it seems to approach star wars from a much more curious perspective. like, how does the empire actually function day to day? what are the whims and goals of the people who work in those institutions, and how do they align or contradict the goals of the empire? what does imperial control actually look like? yes they occupy planets, but how? what happens to the people who live there? how are their economies and ways of life impacted?
Star Wars has a very established visual language, so we know what the empire looks like (stormtrooper helmets, big ships, pressed uniforms, clinical greys and whites, etc), but I think andor is encouraging you to consider what is informing those aesthetic choices, what values and beliefs produce that kind of visual language. they even call attention to it in the first episode, where Syril’s boss asks him if he’d gotten his suit tailored (which he had). A pristine uniform, to Syril, means something more than just looking good - the uniform is meant to portray his values and how he views his job. and so what I was trying to say in that post was that andor feels like it’s challenging star wars canon not through brute force retcons or rehashing of established lore, but is instead asking you to think about the history and politics of the universe that produce star destroyers and tailored security suits and tasers and stormtrooper helmets. they are not just neutral visual elements akin to the music score, detached from history, they are also storytelling elements that teach you how the empire thinks about itself.
chemiosmotic reblogged
we are soooo beyond back ..
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hey. don’t cry. there will be times when the struggle seems impossible. i know this already. alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. remember this. freedom is a pure idea. it occurs spontaneously and without instruction. random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. there are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause. remember that the frontier of the rebellion is everywhere. and even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. and then remember this. the imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. tyranny requires constant effort. it breaks, it leaks. authority is brittle. oppression is the mask of fear. remember that. and know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the empire’s authority and then there will be one too many. one single thing will break the siege. remember this. try. okay?
chemiosmotic reblogged
lmao
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When I realize the intro theme we've been hearing in Andor the entire time is a funeral march
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Wandor Wednesday Wars #1 - Round One
WHO WOULD WIN?
It's a no-rules fist fight - no weapons allowed. Who scores a knockout?
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ANDOR 12. Rix Road
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Anonymous asked:
Your last Andor ask was great, your reply is right on the money. My partner said that andor is good, but it doesn't feel like star wars because it's not campy enough. His theory is that while it's really good, it doesn't match the goofy aspects of the rest of star wars. If course andor is good tv, but do you think it's good star wars? (I disagreed with him but I'm curious of your thoughts)
thank you! I’ve joked with some friends that andor is “hbo star wars” because it does feel qualitatively different in a lot of ways. Idk if I would say it doesn’t “feel” like star wars, although I’ve seen a number of people say something along those lines. I know I keep saying this but it just feels like andor is taking the universe seriously and wants to tell a story with it, it’s using star wars as a stage to tell a story, not a story about star wars necessarily. Star Wars is very much present in andor but even if it wasn’t, you would still have a great show to watch. So I think to the extent it doesn’t “feel” like Star Wars is because SW lore feels sort of like a house guest in the show. It’s there to be useful and to give shape and form to the story, but it’s not about Star Wars itself.
In contrast, recent sw content feels intensely self-referential and meta. I know I keep using mando as a counter example and I don’t mean to dunk on it, but in chapter 5 in the opening scene some bounty hunter is chasing din and is like “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold” and dins like “that’s my line” and kills him. and like whatever that’s a dorky line but it’s specifically doing the “haha you’re watching a star wars show!” thing where it draws attention to itself. and meta stuff is fine every now and then but at a certain point it starts to feel like insecurity, like the writers can’t be too earnest and have to couch everything in genre-awareness and fourth-wall jokes. Again, that’s fine in moderation but like, just tell the story! I clicked on the show to watch it I’m obviously invested.
So yeah idk I’m fine with cheese and camp in Star Wars that’s it’s bread and butter, but it’s nice to watch a show that doesn’t treat the audience like a stupid little baby and seems secure enough in its own ability to deliver a story that you don’t need to be reminded that Luke Skywalker exists to enjoy it
chemiosmotic reblogged
tovezza
i’m thinking about how ferrix is a desert planet and cassian is associated with water. (it’s also probably much, much colder than kenari, and we see him always covered in layers and layers when walking around, even inside.) which makes sense- a shipbreaking planet is going to want a very cold, dry climate that will keep the massive hulks of ships they keep out in the open from rusting. but what happens in rix road as cassian reads nemik’s manifesto? it rains. right before the rix road uprising and in the time of cassian’s return, rain comes onto the desert
tovezza
also the costuming analysis too about how cassian’s rix road looks are the most lean and narrow/slimmed down silhouette we’ve yet seen him voluntarily wear. (setting the narkina 5 prison uniforms aside for a second). like he starts out in these really bulky layers and layers of clothing and coats that both kind of make him seem bulkier and smaller, like he’s almost hiding himself under these layers, or they’re armour, and over the course of the series he’s stripping them off as he walks into being this new person who is, in fact, himself. and the final Look, on luthen’s ship, brings him in the closest yet to the uniform he’s introduced wearing in rogue one
(also thinking costuming wise about his space!carhartt. there’s a lot of interesting costuming visual cues, but i think the idea that he’s introduced wearing… denim and by a LITERAL BLUE COLLAR is fascinating as he’s linked texturally to a visual icon of blue collar and working class life in the real world. the denim jacket as ferrix!cassian, ordinary kinda blue collar guy who’se not /yet/ wearing a uniform guy, etc.)
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romanoffs-nat
Wouldn’t you rather give it all at once to something real?
ANDOR (2022).
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cinta! ✨
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girlfriends <3
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Whatever happens now, we made it!
ANDOR (2022 - ) 1.10: One Way Out
chemiosmotic reblogged
cassian starting his road to being an antifascist hero by killing two cops is i fear the biggest slay in all of star wars
chemiosmotic reblogged
one thing andor does right (among many) is how terrifyingly accurate it shows true fascism.
after the aldhani robbery, the ISB casually decides in a meeting that now every crime is a class one offense. they just sit together in a meeting and decide to doom millions of people as a sign. the empire doesn't care.
we see the flashbacks of Clem and Cassian, and we see that Clem tried to calm down and stop the protestors. And yet he still got hanged for it, because the empire doesn't care.
we see the shore trooper areesting cassian for nothing, having him choked by a K2 unit just because he can, and then he gets sent to court with no way to defend himself and his sentence just gets randomly pushed up from 6 months to 6 years. because the empire doesn't care.
star wars, for years upon years, has always depicted the empire as the bad guy, sure, but you were rarely terrified of them. stormtroopers can't hit anything, the empire gets defeated by ewoks, atrocities are mentioned but seldom showed directly.
but here? here you see enitre long arm of fascism. you see the banality of it. it's everywhere, it follows you wherever you go, it keeps you on your toes all the time. it's everywhere and it's coming for everyone. even you.
I don't know about y'all but I thought this whole episode was terrifying, bone chilling and ice cold
chemiosmotic reblogged
people who are like oh I like andor even though the first three episodes were boring. fakers and philistines all of you. sorry there was no big explosion go boom in the first 30 minutes. if I wave some pretty lights around will that keep you entertained long enough to watch the rest of the show