Maxwell Lord posted:

Like if anything the problem with Disney SW to date has been the excessive reverence and treating franchise nostalgia as a sacred thing.

Maxwell Lord posted:

See to me a Star Wars that isn’t at least some part cheesy swashbuckling nonsense is missing the entire point.

Maxwell Lord posted:

Yeah but you can’t just take out the Flash Gordon stuff any more than you can take out the Kurosawa influences. I’ll get around to the show but the people talking it up keep acting like it’s an inherently good thing for this goofy kid’s stuff to finally be Taken Seriously and that attitude rarely leads somewhere good.

Like if anything the problem with Disney SW to date has been the excessive reverence and treating franchise nostalgia as a sacred thing.

Black Lighter posted:

Yeah, to me, it's like when Disney tried to convince people that the MCU could encompass just about every genre under the sun, with the end result being every genre getting ground into comedy-action-adventure paste. Even if Andor's a good show (it might be, I haven't watched it), incorporating the stuff of political thrillers into a hermetic fantasy universe meant for kids does a lot more to diminish the politics than it does to mature the kids' stuff.

Black Lighter posted:

Yeah, to me, it's like when Disney tried to convince people that the MCU could encompass just about every genre under the sun, with the end result being every genre getting ground into comedy-action-adventure paste. Even if Andor's a good show (it might be, I haven't watched it), incorporating the stuff of political thrillers into a hermetic fantasy universe meant for kids does a lot more to diminish the politics than it does to mature the kids' stuff.

SCheeseman posted:

It's different, its own thing, and it's amazing for it. Not to say that the show isn't faithful to Lucas' intent, but the opposite; the latest arc even draws heavily from THX 1138.

SCheeseman posted:

For a fantasy universe meant for kids Star Wars' production design always tried to read as real and lived in, Andor uses that setting for a political thriller played completely straight. Tonally it's closer to Michael Clayton than Winter Soldier, which was more a mix of the MCU paste with just a sprinkle of Sidney Lumet. It works, arguably better than Star Wars with it's vague Vietnam allegory, at creating a mirror of reality than is uncomfortably familiar.

"BonoMan posted:

I think this is extremely reductive. Star Wars isn't a kids fantasy universe. I'm no star wars stan. I can't even watch the og trilogy anymore to be honest. Good or bad, it's always been a serious story about an oppressive, physically violent empire being upended by a guerrilla rebellion.

Black Lighter posted:

Like I said, it might be a good show - Tony Gilroy's a smart filmmaker, so I have no trouble believing that he could carve out a success within the limited space afforded by Disney's IP portfolio. Even if it is, tho, the fact that it does take place within a fantasy universe takes a lot of the bite out of the politics because it adds so much distance between anything that happens in the show and recognizable reality; it diminishes any genuine relevance that it might have.

Then there's the fact that it is part of Disney's IP portfolio, and basically functions as a savvy bit of brand management. Even if this show is smart and well-made, if everything Disney has done over the last twenty years is an indicator, it's just opening the door for them to further colonize every other kind of movie or show and grind them into paste. Like, I'm not interested in a media landscape where we get a Star Wars political thriller and a Star Wars romantic comedy and a Star Wars horror movie, no matter how good or bad any individual entry in that lineup might be, because it all blends together into one homogeneous, corporate, 'family-friendly' mass.

If it was 2002, and it was easier to find mainstream movies and shows that weren't exercises in IP management, I might feel different; but it's 2022, and Andor just seems completely interchangeable with the Star Wars product that preceded it and the Star Wars product that'll follow it. Because once you get past the particulars, it pretty much is.

I mean, that could just as easily describe Robin Hood, but that doesn't mean the version where he's a fox isn't for kids. Star Wars is mostly lighthearted fantasy adventure with anything genuinely adult sanded away; hell, it's expressly modeled on the children's serials Lucas grew up with. The fact that it's about a ragtag crew overthrowing an evil ruler doesn't make it any more or less mature.

Black Lighter posted:

Like I said, it might be a good show

BonoMan posted:

"hey I haven't even seen this show but let me present some wild conjecture" is not a good foot to start on.

I'd argue that past a New Hope and the Ewoks in ROTJ. The near entirety of Star Wars after that hasn't been a "kids fantasy universe." And even in New Hope... it's just some campiness. Both prequel and sequel trilogies were pretty straight arrow in tone and so are the Star Wars story movies after that.

I'm not sure why you still insist that it's some kids movies when it's pretty clear it's not.

And Rogue One and Andor aren't like... some genre bending Star Wars additions. It's literally the original rebellion story with a little bit of the campiness edges sanded off.

I also don't understand the critique about being too distant from recognizable reality because... holy poo poo are you aware of the world we're living in? The empire was molded out of our reality and I think a large part of the draw about Andor is that it's *directly* recognizable in our real world now. We're facing down the larger, looming threat of facism from multiple countries around the world, including the US.

It's honestly never been more relevant than it isnow.

Black Lighter posted:

But you could drop any movie or show ever made into a fantasy universe and it would lose at least a little bit of relevance

Papercut posted:

Fiction, amirite?

Black Lighter posted:

But you could drop any movie or show ever made into a fantasy universe and it would lose at least a little bit of relevance; and you could make Citizen Kane or The Godfather or whatever you want in the Star Wars universe, and it would lose something just by being part of the IP production line.

Martman posted:

Lolling at the idea that you just need to "get past the particulars" to identify what art actually is. Only by ignoring it, or not even watching it, can you truly analyze it!!

Black Lighter posted:

Sorry I'm not brand loyal enough to check out Star Wars Product #957, but I don't actually need to in order to talk about how the fantasy IP mill diminishes even quality work done within it. If you like your space wizard shows, go ahead and like them, but don't pretend that even the best of them are ultimately anything but exercises in brand management.

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Astonishingly stupid conclusion here coupled with the unearned arrogance when challenged has me feeling 2003 all over again.

Black Lighter posted:

And that's especially true now, when so much mainstream film and television is brand-managed fantasy with only tangential connection to our own shared reality.

Like, if Andor has great politics, cool; but a Star Wars show with great politics is, to me, way less interesting than the same narrative taking place in our world and it's inherently way less relevant. Give me something like Z or Battle of Algiers, because they haven't been reduced to allegory by dint of taking place in a galaxy far, far away and the mirror they're using to reflect our world isn't that distant.

Black Lighter posted:

Sorry I'm not brand loyal enough to check out Star Wars Product #957, but I don't actually need to in order to talk about how the fantasy IP mill diminishes even quality work done within it. If you like your space wizard shows, go ahead and like them, but don't pretend that even the best of them are ultimately anything but exercises in brand management.

Black Lighter posted:

but it's 2022, and Andor just seems completely interchangeable with the Star Wars product that preceded it and the Star Wars product that'll follow it. Because once you get past the particulars, it pretty much is.

enigmahfc posted:

having a child is just brand management

BonoMan posted:

I normally agree with the brand managed part. I actually don't like what Disney has done with Star Wars for the most part because of that. It feels very sterile and micro managed at times.

Which is why I love Andor so much. It honestly feels the exact opposite of that. And Tony Gilroy said as such. When making Rogue One, he likened it to the Battle of Britain instead of Star Wars. And even when asked if he'd make more (this was pre-Andor) SW stuff he said probably not because he had nor reverence or care for it.

So naturally that's why it works and feels so un-SW than anything else. I mean hell, the show literally opens with our hero accidentally killing someone then killing a witness - who is begging for his life - just to cover this tracks. It's definitely not the safe clean Star Wars I associate with the other properties.

The fantasy universe does give you a few more rules to play with which keeps things interesting (but nothing too far fetched so it still feels grounded). And combined with an almost BR2049 aesthetic and it all just makes for great TV.

If you can't find a way to enjoy traditional stories in a fictional universe then... yeah I guess it's not for you? Although I would work to try to not limit myself so much if that were the case. You're probably missing out on some really enjoyable things.

I think you do though. I mean I was normally with you and am enjoying Andor specifically *because* it doesn't feel like brand product #957. And I think a lot of other folks are as well - and even point to that specific reason as to why.

I think that should be enough to give a try or at least admit your pocket flyer for why you don't like SW products might not be applicable here.

Black Lighter posted:

Jerkface posted:

I hate to interrupt this guys incredibly stupid discussion about not watching Andor (which owns everyone watch Andor) but I went to the Regal Mystery Monday movie yesterday which happened to be Apple+'s new christmas movie "Spirited" starring will ferrel and ryan reynolds and it was good. will ferrell christmas movies don't miss.

also its part of the scrooge cinematic universe and is good brand management

Nihonniboku posted:

Has network television actually gotten really bad? It seems like across the major networks (CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC, CW), there are only a handful of shows worth watching. Abbott Elementary, and, anything else? Has network tv gotten worse? Or have we just gotten so used to quality shows on cable and streaming that our standards are that much higher, and network TV was always to varying degrees as bad as it is today?

Baron von Eevl posted:

Buddy network television is OTA, it's literally in your house right now, all around you.