The Series is now over. we can now officially declare we avoided it! Not one Jedi, not one sith, not one appearance of Vader of the emperor, not one lightsaber, not one physical manifestation of "The Force". They actually did Star wars with zero bullshit.
These couple of weeks, Hexbear has been full of Andor posts. Considering these last 3 episodes were probably the best television I've ever seen in my life, I figure there are gonna be a lot of people who want to share their thoughts on the finale.
I'll be honest, until episode 10, I thought Season 2 wasn't for me. it's wasn't bad but I just felt it didn't have the punch of Season 1. that season gave us novel tropes like a gold heist, a prison break, a riot, etc. season 2 was a more character focused set up for rogue one.
but the last 3 episodes, they changed everything. every minute was amazing.
Andor is often called perfect for someone who doesn't think they like star wars. If it was just a standalone sci-fi spy thriller, it would be still be the best thing on television, but what's truly the crowning accomplishment is that if you do know a lot about star wars, it somehow becomes ever better. This show redeems other media in this franchise. it redeems rogue one, it even strengthens Episode 4.
How much the destruction of the death star cost. In episode 4, the audience is shown "It was a longshot, but somehow a backwater orphan pilot managed to score the killing shot and destroy the battle station."
in Rogue One, they're shown "Okay, it was an even longer shot than that, because before they got to that point, they had to do a big adventure culiminating in getting the plans off Scarif with just seconds to spare"
And I always thought that was sort of weak, because it's a work of fiction. fiction naturally collects around the execution of extremely lucky acts. how ever unlikely their success was is ultimately arbitrary, they can always be written to succeed in spite of the odds.
But it's not about their luck, it's about their sophistication. it's that the rebels were doing all of these things collectively and competently, that they had become what they needed to be at their finest hour, and all the contributions, all the sacrifices of every single character all lead to this being possible.
Or I'm just high an none of this makes sense.
Clearly it's too late now, but I think the answer is to just jump into watching A New Hope.
click here to read my proselytizing about the Rogue One novelization, which I do every time the film is mentioned
I think the best way to experience Rogue One is to listen to the audiobook. The book papers over the worst parts of the movie and adds some much-needed dimensions to Jyn Erso, and I really like the audiobook narrator they got for it. But then I am biased because of course I saw the movie first. I had already experienced the performances. Do Saw Guerra and Orson Krennic really work on the page if you've never seen Forrest Whittaker and Ben Mendelsohn's performances? I'll never know. Then again we get some of Galen(Jyn's father, the scientist)'s POV and I think the character is much stronger in the book than the film, ditto for nearly all the characters but Galen and Jyn especially, so maybe it all balances out.