Star Wars

[Brantly B.]

Rebels really made the Space Japanese guy die in a kamikaze attack huh.

Okay then.

[Thad]

I finished season 1 of Bad Batch and it was quite good! It was extremely consistent in a way the first seasons of Clone Wars and Rebels were not, though that's not an entirely fair comparison since it's such a direct continuation of Clone Wars that the first episode starts like this.



There are some criticisms -- like, okay, they're pretty much Domino Squad. Except that Domino Squad is dead and here's these other guys who are pretty much the same thing. The Domino Squad arc was one of my favorite storylines on Clone Wars, and having another, strikingly similar team makes both groups feel a little less special. It's effectively a death cheat, except in Echo's case where it is a death cheat.

(It also kinda felt at first like Tech and Echo were weirdly redundant since they both fit the "tech guy" trope, but after a few episodes of Echo sticking his screwdriver attachment into things I finally got that the trope they're going for isn't "tech guy", it's C-3PO and R2-D2.)

Also, "Crosshair" is a stupid name. Under what circumstance would anyone ever use "crosshair" as a singular?

I do like the arc he's on, though I've got some questions about how he "had his inhibitor chip removed". Obviously it's much more dramatically satisfying for him to choose to side with the Empire over his brothers than for it to be the chip's fault, but he says he had it removed, not that it was damaged or otherwise malfunctioned. And...that shouldn't be possible, unless it was malfunctioning already? So the simplest explanation is that it began to malfunction and then he deliberately had it removed so he would know for sure that his decisions were his own. Which is an interesting angle but wasn't explained in so many words. I hope they go a little deeper on that in season 2. Which kicks off in two weeks!

Also, it hardly needs to be said at this point, but got damn is Dee Baker an incredible talent.

[Mongrel]

Sorely disappointed when I realized that no, no one had made a SW parody titled "Star Wars: The Bad Bitch"

[Niku]

[Mongrel]

I genuinely appreciate the effort you put into making that, Niku.

[Friday]

Star Wars: Andor is a critical examination of Fascism and why Fascism is not just very, very bad, but why you cannot just "ignore it" and go about your life because Fascism WILL find you and fuck you up.

Cassian Andor returns from serviceable but fanservice infected Rogue One to tell a story about why it's important to resist fascism. The Empire has not ever been this scary. The people in charge wisely do not even use Stormtroopers hardly, because they are cartoon characters who literally wander around Disneyland and dance for kids. Instead they show the Empire and the bootlicking fascists who inhabit it as very real humans with very real motivations (hint: most of the motivations are racism) that humanize them in a terrifying "just doing their job" kind of way.

The first arc ends with "the blues" descending onto an industrial working class town in order to oppress, terrify, arrest, and murder the inhabitants. This isn't "these are not the droids you're looking for" this is straight up cops being cops. You see the situation from their perspective and it's not unrealistic. They view themselves as the "Paladins" of the world, the self-sacrificing holy warriors who fight for justice and order. The fact that unarmed people have to die for them to do their work doesn't bother them in the slightest because they are Right and you are Wrong.

Stellan Skarsgård as Luthen is my new favorite character. Like, not just in Star Wars.

Genevieve O'Reilly as Mon Mothra is also a stand out as she navigates the political realities of a democracy swiftly crumbling to an autocracy all around her as nobody but her seems to give a shit.

The rest of the acting is also very very good. I really like Skeen, Nemik, and everyone's favorite Andy Serkis.

Tony Gilroy, showrunner, has gone on record saying he doesn't give a shit about "Star Wars" and boy does it show. Can you imagine a show that was just intent on telling a story and a theme and not cramming as many cameos and fanservice in as possible per episode? It turns out that the key to making Star Wars not suck is just not giving a shit about it.

I will now conclude this review and recommendation by having a FAQ from the perspective of an exceedingly typical Star Wars fan:

Q: this show is so slooooooooow and borrrrrrrringgggg
A: fuck you

Q: there are so many scenes where they just sit around talking and developing the characters so you'll care about them as people and there are no lasers or explosions
A: fuck you

Q: i don't even recognize any of these characterrrrrrrrrs
A: fuck you

Q: oh my god there are no jedi or lightsabers and the force isn't even mentioned onnnnncee
A: fuck you

Q: i read online that the 'pacing' is 'indulgently' slow and i don't know what either of those words mean but it sounds negative and i didn't like this show because it didn't have laser sowrd in it so i'm going to repeat them
A: fuck you

Q: next VvW when?
A: Arc has to come back

[Thad]

I think about Kurt Busiek's line about how the stories are the cake and the shared-universe stuff is frosting often.

[Thad]

Star Wars: Andor is a critical examination of Fascism and why Fascism is not just very, very bad, but why you cannot just "ignore it" and go about your life because Fascism WILL find you and fuck you up.

This also seems to be a major theme of Bad Batch season 2. I just watched the first episode and there are multiple scenes where Hunter talks about how he just wants to keep their heads down and hide from the Empire, and multiple characters explain to him that one, that's not possible, and two, it wouldn't be the right thing to do even if it were.

Cassian Andor returns from serviceable but fanservice infected Rogue One to tell a story about why it's important to resist fascism. The Empire has not ever been this scary. The people in charge wisely do not even use Stormtroopers hardly, because they are cartoon characters who literally wander around Disneyland and dance for kids. Instead they show the Empire and the bootlicking fascists who inhabit it as very real humans with very real motivations (hint: most of the motivations are racism) that humanize them in a terrifying "just doing their job" kind of way.

Yeah, I love the sheer banality of the Imperials. They're ladder-climbing bureaucrats.

I groused a little about the first episode and how it goes out of its way to establish how it's Not For Kids by having brothels and curse words. All that shit's unnecessary. More than anything what makes the show Not For Kids is that the villains are mundane. There's no Darth Vader here; there are a bunch of people in matching suits who take their jobs way too seriously. One of whom takes his job so seriously that he becomes a stalker.

This is all extremely relatable to adults, but perhaps less understandable to children than a guy with pointy teeth and yellow eyes who shoots lightning out of his fingers.

The first arc ends with "the blues" descending onto an industrial working class town in order to oppress, terrify, arrest, and murder the inhabitants. This isn't "these are not the droids you're looking for" this is straight up cops being cops. You see the situation from their perspective and it's not unrealistic. They view themselves as the "Paladins" of the world, the self-sacrificing holy warriors who fight for justice and order. The fact that unarmed people have to die for them to do their work doesn't bother them in the slightest because they are Right and you are Wrong.

The prison arc fascinates me because it doesn't advance the plot at all but it's absolutely integral to the theme. Like, first of all, you can't talk about fascism without talking about the carceral state, and second, it's the thing that convinces Andor that he can't hide from the Empire; even if he manages to escape their notice for being Cassian Andor, Rebel Terrorist, they'll still arrest his ass and throw him in a hole forever just because they can.

Stellan Skarsgård as Luthen is my new favorite character. Like, not just in Star Wars.

Genevieve O'Reilly as Mon Mothra is also a stand out as she navigates the political realities of a democracy swiftly crumbling to an autocracy all around her as nobody but her seems to give a shit.

It's fascinating to me how similar her arc is to Anakin Skywalker's on Clone Wars -- they both watch the government at work and reach a place of disillusionment, a belief that it's broken and necessary change cannot come through the Senate. Anakin becomes an authoritarian, and Mon becomes a bomb-throwing radical. Not for nothin', Tales of the Jedi gives Count Dooku a pretty similar origin story, with two adjacent cartoons where he confronts corrupt senators. He becomes a secessionist.

At any rate, the consistent thread is that the Galactic Senate is fucked up. All three of them, hero and villain alike, are right to lose faith in their government.

Another interesting mirror between Mon and Anakin is that the season ends with Mon Mothma forced to use her daughter as a pawn. We'll see how it plays out -- of course ultimately it's Darth Vader's refusal to sacrifice his son that brings down the Empire.

The rest of the acting is also very very good. I really like Skeen, Nemik, and everyone's favorite Andy Serkis.

Some of Serkis's career best work here, and that's saying a lot. I've felt since The Two Towers that he doesn't get the respect he deserves as an actor; at first it was because he was a guy who played CG creatures, now it's because he's a character actor who does genre work. But God damn is he good and he should be one of those actors people talk about when they talk about actors who make you say "God damn is he good."

Q: this show is so slooooooooow and borrrrrrrringgggg
A: fuck you

It's definitely a slow burn and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it in the first couple of episodes. But it paid off. Everything that's there is there for a reason.

oh my god there are no jedi or lightsabers

I'm not so sure about that.

[Thad]

Really one of the things the spinoff media have done is help me to realize that some of the boring ideas in the prequels weren't actually bad ideas, Lucas just didn't have the chops to deliver on them. Like, you can do a good Star Wars story about political intrigue and venal nobodies trying to climb the ladder.

[Thad]

And I haven't talked about what Omega means for trans representation because I'm not the most well-equipped person to comment on the subject, but my read is that it's reached that kind of awkward in-between point where Disney's okay with a Star Wars cartoon for children strongly implying that one of its leads is trans so long as they don't actually state it outright.

The season 2 premire actually kinda leans into it as a meta-joke, how nobody ever seems to acknowledge that a clone who's a girl is in any way unusual or remarkable. Wanda Sykes's character is talking about how none of these clones look alike, and her comment on Omega is "This one's too short." Not "This one's a girl."

[Mongrel]

Really one of the things the spinoff media have done is help me to realize that some of the boring ideas in the prequels weren't actually bad ideas, Lucas just didn't have the chops to deliver on them. Like, you can do a good Star Wars story about political intrigue and venal nobodies trying to climb the ladder.

I've mentioned in the past that the main crime of the prequels is the fact that BECAUSE Lucas made them, there's virtually no way the story of the fall of the once mighty hero, Anakin Skywalker, will ever be properly told.

Like, the OUTLINE of the prequels is great; it's a classic tragedy.

Andor at least means there'll be a decent showing of the political component of that story, but thanks to the magic of US Copyright law it's unlikely we'll ever see the full prequel storyline done properly, at least not in our lifetimes.

[Thad]

I'm pretty happy with how Clone Wars handled his arc, really. It's disjointed and not the definitive arc as depicted in the PT, but it works pretty well.

There's a war on. People are suffering needlessly. Anakin witnesses firsthand the suffering of the masses and the dithering and impotence of both the Republic Senate and the Jedi Council; it's so clear to him what needs to be done, but his institutions have failed him. Authoritarianism is so much simpler; its appeal is obvious. On top of that, he's an immensely talented boy wizard with powerful friends, who's consistently rewarded for breaking the rules.

I think it's a well-told, and even sympathetic, parable of why people in general, and young men in particular, can be seduced by fascism.

And I think the biggest problem is the lack of a second act. I think I've said this before, but the Darth Vader story I really want to see is something a lot like Daenerys's Meereen arc in Game of Thrones -- the one where she sweeps from city to city acting like a badass and meting out righteous dragon-flavored vengeance against slavers, only to move on to the next thing and not realize that everything is going to go back to the way it was as soon as she's gone, because she's a child and doesn't understand that it's not enough to simply overthrow the power structure, you have to put in painstaking years building something to replace it. I think that's probably what Darth Vader is like in his early years, an idealist who thinks he can right the wrongs he's seen throughout the galaxy simply by breaking the backs of all the corrupt governments, criminal enterprises, and primitive civilizations he's encountered. Never understanding that, as flawed and venal as the Senate and the Jedi Council were, institutions like those are still a better basis for a functioning society than stormtroopers and Star Destroyers and the constant threat of violent retribution.

[beatbandito]

I'm only about half way, and wanted to wait to post about it. But I can not get over how much I was not only enjoying, but appreciating aspects of Andor until we started getting scenes with characters from the greater universe. And they're almost all universally bad.

[Thad]

I thought Mon Mothma's arc was quite good.

Saw Gerrera probably didn't need to be in there, but there's a payoff later on, involving some pretty grim greater-good moral sacrifices. Saw wasn't really necessary for it; they could have used a new character for that story. Though I suppose it fits Saw as the guy who ultimately gets kicked out of the Rebellion for being too much of a bastard.

[beatbandito]

So, I don't know if I was just not paying attention at the beginning, but I was enjoying the redheaded senator in a white gown's scenes before I heard her name or thought too much about who it was. The way they quickly covered the politics of her relationships and personal life was very well done and realistic. Especially just discussing parties that most other shows would turn into time wasting scenes, repeating the same idea in roundabout dialogue.

Then the scene they announce Mon Mothma is arriving at the shop was the first that felt like it was forcing reinforcement of a concept on the viewer. The next was showing one of the many political party scenes that would follow. It's still been good overall, but the ones that call attention to a character weirdly keep standing out as some of the most forced.

[beatbandito]

Okay I finished it, it was good. I liked Bee-mo, I like the most jewish mom in the star wars universe. The second half dragged a bit and I feel like they let the episodes go too long. The ending was good I wish we saw a few more imps getting torn apart by the crowd. And everyone getting to a ship with no real aftermath seemed a bit rushed. The credits "teaser" was dumb as shit.

I think Axis may be the single most mary sued character in the franchise from one episode. Just absolutely not the same character making decisions in the beginning. I'd put it at Mandalorian season 1 overall.

[Thad]

It's kinda funny how the best episodes of The Bad Batch are the ones that don't have the Bad Batch in them.

[Thad]

...huh. Did not have "Tech has a heart-to-heart with Omega where he explains that he's autistic" on my Bad Batch Bingo card.

[Thad]

Or for it to be followed by an episode where the workers seize the means of production.

Not that it's terribly surprising Disney would produce entertainment with a message in stark opposition to what the company actually stands for; every media company does that. But this one was a little more overt than I'm used to in its anti-capitalist message.

[Thad]

The problem with the twist ending of season 2 of Bad Batch is this:

It's fucking Star Wars.

If you introduce a character who's got some mystery about them that clearly I'm supposed to be saying "who's that, they're somebody important" -- I have no fucking idea if they're a new character who I'm supposed to be examining for some kind of narrative twist, or an existing character I'm supposed to recognize from one of the seven hundred and fifty million previous Star Wars tie-ins.

Like, there's so damn much Star Wars that I've watched nearly all the movies, nearly all the TV series, played several of the video games, read a few of the comics, and somehow after all that I still feel like a fucking Star Wars casual.

Like, fucking Zeb showed up on The Mandalorian a few weeks ago, and you know, I was delighted by that, but the problem with stuff like that is that every time I see a character I don't recognize, I can't tell if I'm supposed to.

All that aside, Bad Batch is great, and dammit, I have to wait how long for season 3?