"Don't you wanna fight these basterds for real?"It was like watching a movie, which given Tony GIlroy, I guess is what it really is. Totally worth skipping 2 a.m. -4 am. of sleepy time for me.
Random observations after a few hours of sleepThe world building on both Cassian's current planet and the one he grew up on are just lovely. Production design off the charts - lots of familiar Star Wars looks, but lots of things that make me feel like I'm on an alien world untouched by Skywalkers and Solos.
One of my biggest pluses was that they didn't put the native tribe's language in subtitles. We can only go by body language, facial expressions, and tone/pitch of voice to guess at their meanings.
The first 5 minutes have a brothel, booze, and an execution-style murder. That's exciting, but probably going to have me telling my SW fan she's not old enough to watch it, which is heart breaking.
Kudos to Timm for presumably nailing Bix after ratting out her ex-BF to the imps. That takes some balls.
I love that the Chris Farley-esque military officer played for laughs in the beginning, then you saw him being really efficient at his job, then giving into conspiracy "They're everywhere!" at the end. I can definitely see him and the deputy inspector getting really sadistic if they continue on in the show.
The random, yet coordinated acts of defiance and rebellion by the rest of the people in town was probably my favorite thing - the beating on the metal to raise the alarm, which the militia guys totally misinterpreted, the guys showing up outside Marva's house to question what they were doing to her, and Cassian's friend hitching the squad car to the giant slab of stone were all what Marva is talking about.
The editing cuts back and forth in the final half of the third episode between past and present, revealing Cassian's true origins in getting off planet then and now.
Everything Skaarsgard did as Luthien. Especially when he was testing/interviewing Andor, and you realized he already knew the asnwer of how to steal from the Empire, and he just wanted to see if Andor knew too. He has been in so many incredible roles, but feels like he was born to play this one.
The first talk between the Deputy Inspector and his supervisor. That guy was fantastic, great, tight scene, and the guy totally had the right of what happened, and was like - I don't have time for this BS.
Incredible to think all of that was without a single stormtrooper or TIE or Star Destroyer, that was just fighting against a giant corrupt corporation that has control of your city.
Great tapping into on some connections from other pieces of SW workthe holo-entertainer at the brothel, those have been in half the video games in SW history at least, including KOTOR, TOR, and Galaxies.
Lucien's ship's droid is from Fondor, the shipyard, according to the sub titles.
The family droid looked a lot like the droids from the Black Hole. I loved how fluent BEEMO was.
The ships the corporate police used looked a lot like the Republic's go-to ships during the Clone Wars.
It was a Republic vessel coming to investigate the crash when Cassian was a kid.
One more thing ...The scene on his home planet where he pauses and looks into the open strip-mining pit was really phenomenal. Years ago, my brother and I took a road trip through Arizona and stayed on night in Bisbee, a small town that during the mid-20th century was a boom town because of its mines full of copper and turquoise. Its population was around 10,000 in the late 50s, then the mines played out and all the big companies lit out, leaving behind scarred landscape and people who couldn't afford to move somewhere else. It was so striking seeing that giant pit in the episode, such a familiarity to what happens when big brother has used your town (or planet) all up and just moves on.
Bisbee
Andor
Life is better with a beagle