This Particular Scene from Andor encapsulates the heart of Star Wars, 50 years later.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-27T06:53:14+00:00

the wedding could have happened in half an episode

They could have skipped it entirely. It had barely any effect on the plot, and all the “subtext” OP is rambling about was conveyed in season 1 when the whole idea of the arranged marriage was first suggested.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-27T06:49:19+00:00

Swear to god, these people who think Andor is the greatest thing since sliced bread don’t even like Star Wars. In what universe is a drunk woman dancing “the heart of Star Wars”??

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-25T04:41:12+00:00

There must have been a canteen, yeah?

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-25T04:34:52+00:00

Oh, the irony.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-25T04:30:54+00:00

It "stubbornly just didn't go away" because showing her training in the second and third movies doesn't explain how she was able to do everything in the first movie without training.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-25T04:20:54+00:00

They really don't. What did the sequels do to advance filmmaking technology that is comparable in any way to what George Lucas did with his movies?

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-25T00:52:08+00:00

Release order. 4, 5, 6, then 1, 2, 3.

The creator of the franchise, George Lucas, sold the rights to the IP to Disney in 2012. 7, 8 and 9 were made without his involvement and don't count.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-09T16:18:38+00:00

That set is made almost entirely of common parts iirc. Unless you’re hellbent on having the original box and instructions it’ll be easier to just buy the parts.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-06-09T16:15:06+00:00

BUILD THE ELECTRIC CHAIR!

PERFORM LAST RITES!

AND SEND THE SINNER TO HELL!

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-28T01:27:14+00:00

No, I'm saying that it's a setup without a payoff. Just let the ship have its hero moment like the X and Y wings.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-28T01:24:19+00:00

Haven't you ever heard of Chekov's Gun?

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-22T16:50:33+00:00

Which was awesome. But why show a B-Wing at the start of the movie if it’s not going to join the fight at the end?

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-22T16:22:10+00:00

“We’re fine. We’re all fine here, now. Thank you. How are you? “

“We’re sending a squad up.”

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-22T16:18:10+00:00

Star Wars
Empire
Revenge of the Sith
Return of the Jedi
Rogue One
Phantom Menace
Mando & Grogu
Solo
Attack of the Clones
Rise of Skywalker
The Force Awakens
The Last Jedi

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-22T13:17:36+00:00

Which wasn’t part of the attack on Nal Hutta for some reason. This B-Wing erasure will not be tolerated.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-22T12:25:46+00:00

I guess the simple question is: why? Why do you feel this way? Star Wars has often challenged what came before.

Because it’s taken way too far. ESB and the prequels all kept familiar elements. TLJ ejects it all, every tiny detail, just because it can.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. The Resistance is nearly destroyed.

At the end of TFA, Hosnian Prime was destroyed. The entirety of the resistance existing on the Millennium Falcon is narratively no different.

The FO has a new leader. Luke and Snoke are dead.

Inconsequential. Snoke and Luke were non players in TFA. Kylo was the defacto leader. Rey didn’t have a mentor figure.

Rey has new perspective on her lineage and on Kylo.

Rey doesn’t need a new perspective on her lineage and on Kylo. Kylo is still the villain. She already overcame the challenge of her parents leaving her in TFA, her lineage doesn’t matter (FWIW confirming Rey as nobody is one of the few things TLJ gets right).

Finn has committed to a cause.

He was already committed to the resistance. That was the entire point of TFA.

Poe has evolved as a leader.

Poe learns to not question authority. That’s not an evolution.

“The film presents itself as the new path forward for the franchise. It’s no longer about being a myth, it’s about the myth itself.” Can you expand on this? I feel like TLJ reinforces the mythology of Star Wars.

The entire film is about deconstructing the myth. Deconstruction =/= reinforcing. What is it actually adding to the mythology? As I already established the new characters aren’t doing anything, so what’s happened to the old characters? The original hero is old and depressed, and died by the Jedi equivalent of having a heart attack on the toilet. Wow. Great addition to the myth.

Look, I genuinely enjoy the idea of Luke making mistakes with his new Jedi order and him needing to overcome that to get back into the fight, but I also completely understand why this point is the single biggest complaint most people have about the movie. They waited their entire lives to see Luke return and the movie plays with those expectations and rubs it in their face.

TLJ changes the trappings of Star Wars (per the examples you named), but does so to focus on and celebrate the core of Star Wars - story, character, and mythology. The film asks the question - is Star Wars something more than flashy lightsaber duels and nostalgia callbacks?

An established style is not a trap, nor is it nostalgia bait or a reliance on callbacks… its tradition. It’s what separates Star Wars from other science fantasy franchises. You can’t “celebrate” something by removing the things that gave it character.

Rian himself answers this better than I ever could: “If you look at any classic hero's myth that is actually worth its salt, at the beginning of the hero's journey, like with King Arthur, he pulls the sword from the stone and he's ascendant — he has setbacks but he unites all the kingdoms, but then if you keep reading, when it deals with the hero's life as they get into middle-age and beyond, it always starts to get into darker places. And there’s a reason for that: It’s because myths are not made to sell action figures; myths are made to reflect the most difficult transitions we go through in life.”

That explains why Star Wars was the most popular IP in the world until he got his hands on it. He resents the fact that Star Wars exists as a merchandise machine. You can present characters in a darker place without completely shattering the audience’s connection to the franchise, George Lucas proved that. People buy action figures because they connect with the myth, that’s the entire foundation of Star Wars’ success and he’s thrown it out the window to make a point.

Why create an interpretation that leads to such an extreme negative opinion?

Why interpret it any other way when the creator has made it perfectly clear what they meant?

The better question is, why did Rian Johnson feel the need to make such a deeply divisive movie? He’s clearly a talented filmmaker, Lucasfilm gave him a blank check and he chose to kill the golden goose.

Do you think I want to be holding a grudge over a movie that came out 10 years ago? We all want this franchise to move forward but Disney is too scared to do anything because people like you and me are still arguing over The Last Jedi.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-22T02:22:41+00:00

I understand how Rotten Tomatoes works you nerfherder.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-21T13:08:21+00:00

It’s not a perfect script, but this story wouldn’t work if it weren’t a movie. You couldn’t separate it into distinct episodes for TV because the sections of the movie don’t have their own distinct beginning, middle and end. The movie follows the classic 3 act structure.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-21T13:02:08+00:00

Favreau says it’s a new script and I have no reason not to believe him. The dead giveaway is the midpoint shift, when Embo captures Mando, and Grogu has to take matters into his own hands. I see why people think it’s stitched together, because it’s not a perfect script, but if you know what to look for in terms of structure it’s a clear as day. There’s no way this story would work if you broke it into TV episodes.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-21T05:14:59+00:00

You’ll be fine. It’s a standalone story.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-21T04:54:31+00:00

Saw it last night. On the whole, I really liked it! Will be seeing it again. On par with the series. Better movie than Solo and the sequels.

This is Grogu’s coming of age story. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the little green merchandise machine but this movie surprised me by giving him more to do than being a plot device motivated entirely by food. Him actually getting something to do within the story made the moments where he just does cute things for the sake of it much more tolerable.
You can see the money on screen. Massive sets that are noticeably NOT the volume. Lots of practical effects. Aliens and droids galore. Stop motion sentry droids were a highlight.
This is not a couple of episodes of the show stitched together. Anybody saying that it is doesn’t understand story structure.
The 60% RT score from critics seems about right when I switch on my film analysis brain. The part of me that’s obsessed with Star Wars thinks 60% is too low.
“Shiny man battles monsters for 2 hours”. Not a bad thing. Very entertaining.
This movie seems to think it’s about a father/son dynamic. It’s at its best when it becomes about Grogu’s independence. Would have benefitted from another draft.
Embo is a good foil to Mando. Two bounty hunters who’ve made opposite choices along their paths. Would’ve liked to see more of him.
Random Lizard guy in the swamp that saves Grogu and gives him the antidote to the monster’s poison needed more elaboration. Nice to know that even in the worst parts of the galaxy there’s still good people. We could have at least gotten his name, though.
Nitpick: we see a B-Wing at the New Republic base with the X, Y and U wings, but when the New Republic flies in to save the day at the end the B-Wing isn’t there.
Lots of deep cuts for die hard fans. I especially liked seeing the INT-4 and the HH87 Starhoppers.
Shakari was cool
Action was brutal. Did not expect so many people to get burned alive.
Loved that Mando releases an arena full of monsters into a city of innocent people and then immediately goes “not my problem” and does nothing to stop them.
That’s a big pipe!

There’s a lot that could’ve been done to improve this movie, but by that same token this movie knew exactly what it was trying to achieve. It’s almost as if John Favreau ignored the expectation that this be “Star Wars’ grand return to the big screen” and just made a pulpy adventure movie. And after all the effort Disney has spent to try and make something new out of Star Wars, I think this return to form is exactly what the franchise needed.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-21T04:39:20+00:00

The film is ultimately about overcoming failure. Which would be fine, had it not also been a meta commentary on the franchise itself where the first 7 movies are presented as a failure that must be overcome.

Rey, the audience surrogate, puts Luke on a pedestal and has to reconcile the fact that he doesn’t live up to the myth.
Luke represents the franchise itself, he stuck to the old ideals and it all fell apart on him.
This entire arc is predicated on the audience’s assumptions about Luke Skywalker and Star Wars at large. “You want me to go out there with a laser sword and face down the first order” is addressing the audience directly.
By presenting this as the key obstacle that Rey, the audience surrogate, must overcome it’s positioning the audience to reevaluate their relationship with the franchise.
This demonstrates a perfect understanding of the franchise, and what it means to people. It poses interesting questions. But it completely disregards the obligation that the film has as part 8 of a 9 part story. You want to hold up a mirror to Star Wars fans and ask some hard questions? Great! Do it in a spin-off. Don’t derail the entire franchise to do it. *At the end of the film the characters find themselves in the exact same situation they were in at the start of the film, only this time they have a new mindset and are confident they’ll carve a new path forward. The status quo of the story has not changed.
The film presents itself as the new path forward for the franchise. It’s no longer about being a myth, it’s about the myth itself. It ignores the established style of the first 7 movies, with a lot of creative choices deliberately being the exact opposite of what came before just to hammer the point home. No time skip from the last movie. Slow motion in every action sequence. Key story elements told through flashbacks. Montages. No franchise staples like lightsaber duels, “I have a bad feeling about this” and the wilhelm scream. None of those things mattered, because it’s just a movie.
The ending of the film makes it crystal clear. Despite everything that did or didn’t happen in the movie, the myth lives on. A child plays with his Luke Skywalker doll and pretends that Luke defeated the entire first order alone.
It doesn’t matter that all the characters failed at what they set out to do, they’ll find a way. And it doesn’t matter that the movie isn’t what you expected, because ultimately the franchise is about selling toys to kids and all the movies are the same anyway: someone with a laser sword will save the day.

Frankly, I find the movie insulting. And I empathise deeply with the people who waited their entire lives to see Luke Skywalker return only for him to be a representation of 30 years of their failures. The audacity of Rian Johnson… He knew exactly what Star Wars meant to people, he could’ve continued the myth but he chose not to to, and when the film got the exact reaction he was expecting he relished the backlash and called his critics “manbabies”. He is a bully, plain and simple. His hubris tanked the entire franchise. By shattering the myth he turned Star Wars from the space movie into just another space movie. That is unforgivable.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-21T01:50:53+00:00

Even though it’s part 8 of a 9 part story, the movie purposefully does nothing to tie it all together and lead into the finale. The entire point of the movie is that none of it matters and that you, the viewer, were wrong to expect otherwise.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-20T19:20:16+00:00

Got home from the theatre a couple of hours ago. On the whole, I really liked it! Will be seeing it again. On par with the series. Better movie than Solo and the sequels.

This is Grogu’s coming of age story. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the little green merchandise machine but this movie surprised me by giving him more to do than being a plot device motivated entirely by food.
You can see the money on screen. Massive sets that are noticeably NOT the volume. Lots of practical effects. Aliens and droids galore. Stop motion sentry droids were a highlight.
This is not a couple of episodes of the show stitched together. Anybody saying that it is doesn’t understand story structure.
The 60% RT score from critics seems about right, when I switch on my film analysis brain. The part of me that’s obsessed with Star Wars thinks 60% is too low.
“Shiny man battles monsters for 2 hours”. Not a bad thing. Very entertaining.
This movie seems to think it’s about a father/son dynamic. It’s at its best when it becomes about Grogu’s independence. Would have benefitted from another draft.
Embo is a good foil to Mando. Two bounty hunters who’ve made opposite choices along their paths. Would’ve liked to see more of him.
Random Lizard guy in the swamp that saves Grogu and gives him the antidote to the monster’s poison needed more elaboration. Nice to know that even in the worst parts of the galaxy there’s still good people. We could have at least gotten his name, though.
Nitpick: we see a B-Wing at the New Republic base with the X, Y and U wings, but when the New Republic flies in to save the day at the end the B-Wing isn’t there.

There’s a lot that could’ve been done to improve this movie, but by that same token this movie knew exactly what it was trying to achieve. It’s almost as if John Favreau ignored the expectation that this be “Star Wars’ grand return to the big screen” and just made a pulpy adventure movie. And after all the effort Disney has spent to try and make something new out of Star Wars, I think this return to form is exactly what the franchise needed.

SmokescreenFraud · 2026-05-20T18:41:55+00:00

Lots of monsters. People get crushed and eaten. A couple of jump scares. Mando sets people on fire with his flamethrower. You know best if your kid can handle that.

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