johnnymonsarrat

I get it. You make everything look brown and dirty and that grounds your fantasy world in the real world.

But a TV show can't be monochromatic. And a plot shouldn't maintain a single dark tone for so long; there have to be variations.

In other words, congratulations; you just made the world's most drab fantasy show, with characters that I don't care about. I didn't sense any particular chemistry between the two leads, or really between anyone in the show.

There's nothing wrong with having a world that's complicated, but you have to add milestones and explanations, or it can't be followed. This show just wasn't for me.

I originally gave this film 10/10, but several years later, it feels like style over substance. I actually love dumb action movies, so I don't require substance in a film, but the stunts weren't enough to cover a lack of interesting characters.

The hero, Baby, is portrayed as a good person, but through his actions he's an accessory to multiple murders. Why should we root for him?

More importantly, his whole thing is that he doesn't speak much, doesn't react much. He lacks a personality.

The badguys are over the top in a way that upon first watching I found captivating, but on a second viewing found boring, overacting.

I recommend the book "Save the Cat", which argues that protagonists should do something good early on that bonds the viewer with them. For this film, I just didn't care enough about the characters.

That being said, the film has a good ending. Originally 10/10, now 7/10.

Andor is well acted with stunning scenes, but the writers took two wrong lessons from Star Wars.

First, I guess someone told them that conflict makes a plot interesting. Joseph Campbell famously inspired George Lucas that a hero must accept the task reluctantly. So Luke Skywalker at first doesn't want to join Ben Kenobi in Star Wars IV: A New Hope.

But Andor is full of empty conflict that's not driven by character. Wow! Everyone REALLY doesn't want to work together and they keep saying it over and over. It's boring. Luke Skywalker decided to join Ben Kenobi after just a few minutes of film time because of the emotional character arc of his parents dying. Character arcs in Andor are few.

The second rule of Hollywood is that plots should turn based on character. Luke Skywalker doesn't win in Star Wars VI because he's a good light saber fighter. He wins because he believes that his father still has good in him.

Andor is too full of plot twists that turn on irrelevant things. It's about character, people. Why are we rooting for these characters? Why is everything so grey and uninteresting?

Finally, I think to like this series you have to come in already knowing a lot about Star Wars. You have to begin watching hating the Empire and loving The Rebellion. Because the show doesn't really give you enough reasons to hate the badguys and root for the good guys. Cassian's allies are generic. Who is Bix to him, really? Bix's boyfriend, a tangential character, has more depth.

I have to say that I'm disappointed that some people feel this is a great TV show. I'm not some out of touch intellectual. If you want to make an action series where nothing makes sense but a lot of stuff blows up I'm actually fine with that! But Andor doesn't have the fun adventure of Rogue One.

Instead, Andor is a slow-paced drama. It's not fast moving enough to be powered by action. It rests on the plot and character and there is not enough of either. The whole world is grey and depressing. How does that have any connection to what we think of as Star Wars?