Random stuff

[colleybri]

“Ghorman fucked him up”

A few more absolute bangers from that Andor official script for 2.09…

It’s the inclusion of what are sometimes called “unfilmables” that makes it really interesting. Here’s Mon meeting Bail before the speech. The emotional stage directions. “The summoned smile seems dangerously brittle right now”.

Cassian’s state of mind after Ghorman summed up very, very simply at the end of this section where he is examining the twisted blade while Kleya prepares his false credentials… “Ghorman fucked him up”.

The scenes where Bix makes her decision and leaves are a bit different on the page. There’s different lines like Cassian saying “ I choose you”, which might have contrasted too heavily with “ I choose the rebellion” - Cassian ends up saying “ I wanna be with you” instead. It’s the editing that really brings out the emotion of the scene, but also the acting choices … in the final version, Bix does not turn away so that he “can’t see her try not to cry”. I think it’s probably because Adria Arjona showed that she has the talent to do something even more heartbreaking instead: have Bix gaze steadily at Cassian while she is making her decision, unable to give a single clue away about her true feelings except for the very brief moment when he can’t see her face – when he’s gently kissing her forehead. Her nose and eyes wrinkle then, just very slightly- the only clue about how devastated she is. 

The scripted “unfilmable” for the final part of the sequence though is something Diego Luna shows with open emotion.

“How can she be gone and everything and keep moving? How is that possible?”

Oh fuck 😞

Here’s the link.

[wetsandmemories]

just realized that cassian tries to chose himself and his loved ones instead of fighting the empire twice: first with maarva, and then with bix. and both of them chose the rebellion instead of running away and being with him. maarva decides to stay. and bix decided to go, making the decision for both of them, knowing how useful cassian is. and both times he ends up alone, fighting for the cause he will never see working out, because the fighting kills him before it happens.

[basementexplorer07]

[faceofpoe]

something about the line from Bix opening the door to Luthen standing there and assuming Cassian must be dead, to Kleya opening the door desperate for help in the wake of Luthen's death and of-fucking-course it would be Cassian standing there.

[rovingotter]

I've heard a few people say that Cassian Andor is a bit of a bland main character or not especially charismatic, that he's dragged "kicking and screaming" into being a rebel, and I myself have said that he has kind of an understated character arch, but I dunno, I kinda like that about him. I think that vibe is fitting for a show like Andor.

Cassian never wanted to be a hero. He's not some starry-eyed kid who wants to change the galaxy and Do the Right Thing. He's fucking tired and he wants to be left the fuck alone, but the Empire won't leave him the fuck alone.

When the show starts, he's just looking for his lost sister, minding his own business, and these fucking Empire-aligned security guards start harassing him and threatening him and trying to shake him down for money, so he kills them in self-defense. He goes back home intending to wash his hands of the whole thing and then more security guards come poking around looking for him and harassing his loved ones. He takes his first job for the rebels partly as a way to give the middle finger to the Empire but also for the money, and then he fucks off to some beach planet to chill and gets arrested...not for his rebel activity (they don't know about that) but basically for nothing, and then sent to a hellish labor camp.

He's competent and ruthless and he's always hated the Empire for what they did to his home planet, but ultimately, he's just a regular guy who wants to live. He isn't in the rebellion because he's a zealot like Luthen or an idealist like Nemik. He is not, temperamentally speaking, the sort of guy who is inclined to join higher causes. He's in the rebellion because he's fucking fed up.

I've talked before about how it's important to have fictional characters who actually change their minds and their ideals and go on that internal journey and make a conscious choice to change sides, and I do still think that's the case. But I also think there's something to be said for showing how people are "radicalized" by the mere presence of these intrusive, overbearing systems that just won't allow them to live their lives.

[misskrose]

There's something about this that I find absolutely charming and adorable.

[rubensmuse]

in honor of the Lilo & Stitch remake being a huge piece of shit here's a comic about what the original meant to me as an 8 year old

[ahotknife]

the thing is that childhood doesn't just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21. it's going to end dozens of times over. your childhood pet will die. actors you loved in movies you watched as a kid will die. your grandparents will die, and then your parents will die. it's going to end dozens and dozens of times and all you can do is let it. all you can do is stand in the middle of the grocery store and stare at freezers full of microwave pizza because you've suddenly been seized by the memory of what it felt like to have a pizza party on the last day of school before summer break. which is another ending in and of itself

[clearestbluest]

<3

[shining-bewear]

[whimsicalsesquipedalian]

Some thoughts on Andor, and that final shot everyone hates so much.

I don’t. I’ve been sitting with this show for a while now. This whole season I’ve been waiting to hate Bix’s arc with the same fervour that some of the more vocal fans do. I’ve been waiting to feel the injustice done to a “strong female character” (a phrase I fucking hate by the way, but that’s an argument for another time). I’ve seen the arguments that she should have stayed with the rebellion, that she was a fighter sidelined for the sake of a man, that she was reduced to a baby-factory straight out of right wing propaganda (Jesus Christ). And I disagree with every fucking one of them. 

For me, in season two, Bix is the heart of the show. She is the ethos, the drive, the reason that rebellion matters. Bix becomes, in a way, the most important character Andor has to offer us.

Andor has always been very clear in its ideology. Blatantly so. And one of the ideals it strives to impart to its audience is that we are not meant to live in fear. We are not meant to live under oppression. We are not meant to live looking down. For Andor the heart, the drive, the reason behind rebellion is to create a future where we are free. And where love, and peace, and community, and kindness, and hope are our foundations and are the only matter of our lives. 

Andor doesn’t want its characters to be fighters. They are forced to be. Andor doesn’t want its characters to live hiding and scared and clawing for any glimpse of peace and love and hope they can get. They have no other choice. Rebellion is important. It is so so fucking important. But it is only important because of what it fights for. 

Bix is not a fighter. In Andor’s first season she is a mechanic selling to Luthen on the side for extra money. She is not struggling against the empire. She is not joining a rebellion. She is getting the fuck by and living her fucking life. And one day her connection to Cassian puts her under the empire’s gaze and she is invasively tortured and horrifically traumatised because of it. And she endures. 

Bix is, also, an incredibly important character to me personally. There can often be a narrative surrounding trauma that it should make you the fighter everyone seems to think Bix should be. That you should take your pain and terror and suffering and turn it around and let it make you stronger. Use it to beat back against the person, or group, or institution that traumatised you. That you should pick yourself up, dust yourself off, take that horror, and fight back (girlboss-ify yourself and take those motherfuckers down). And to that I say, no. I don’t want that. I’ve done my fighting. I’ve lost my battles and I’ve come out the other side scarred in ways that still hurt to touch. What I want is to stop. Is to rest. Is to put this pain down and move out the other side of it and live, finally. 

For me, watching Bix as an horrifically traumatised woman live stuck in that fight for the first half of the second season was harrowing. To see her spend her time in the Coruscant safehouse grappling with the true cost of what it means to fight the way she needs to in this war, never at peace as the life she lives and the things she must do force her to stay held in her trauma, had me aching in ways I didn’t realise I would. To see her stuck in the dark and the gloom and the cold, and yearning the whole time she is in Coruscant to be able to go out and live without having to look over her shoulder, hurt in ways I struggle to put words to.

And then, to see her get out. 

I know there is a lot of contention about seeing Bix have little to do on Yavin. And to that I will say, it’s a big show, there are a lot of characters, and she is on Yavin during a storyline that arguably should not narratively or structurally be focusing on her anyway. I know there is also a lot of contention about writing her leaving Cassian for the sake of the rebellion. That it diminishes her character to a plot beat. And while perhaps the tropes at play feel trite in comparison to the more grounded beats the show is known for hitting, this is still storytelling. All the characters are, functionally, still devices serving a narrative. Bix leaves, and narratively becomes our ethos. Becomes the heart of this story. Becomes the reason we have been watching this all play out for our two-season run. Bix becomes the most important character in the show. Because this is why we must fight. For Bix. For everything she represents in that moment. She becomes the way Cassian’s life should be if it weren’t for this war, and in doing so becomes the way all of their lives should be. Should have always been. And will be one day soon. 

She is the reason. For all of it. For every loss, for every death, for every fight. It is her. She is the hope at the heart of the rebellion.

That last scene on Mina-Rau; the gentle light, Bee playing, the table set for a community to eat and laugh and be. People smiling and content and together and peaceful. And Bix, free. Of the trauma, of the loss, of the death, of the fight. Looking up at the open sky with her child. Literally holding in her arms the life that the rebellion has always been fighting for. 

That is the hope at the end of our story -- that Bix is the one that gets to live. 

And you can pry that fucking ending from my cold dead hands.

[chronicowboy]

i love andor's refusal to be subtle in the face of rising fascism. it's not complex metaphors for the audience to unpick. it's a kick in the fucking teeth. a banner and blaring alarms. THIS IS WHERE WE ARE. THIS IS WHERE WE'RE HEADING. it's knowing there's a time and place to be gentle and knowing the here and now needs us shouting from the rooftops. it's using energy independence, that thing tr*mp harps on about, as a cover for building the death star. it's a bunch of powerful empire officials brainstorming ways to colonise a planet for capitalist gains. it's the pomp and circumstance of the upper classes used to distract from the grit and ruin of the everyday. it's the visa inspection of harvest workers. it's the brutal abuse of power over "illegals" to the point of dehumanisation. but more than that. more than that. it's people working together against these forces of tyranny. it's kellen running around trying to keep them from the troopers. it's mon mothma trying to save her daughter. it's talia putting her legal status on the line to help them. it's brasso trying to save wilmon. it's wilmon running all the way home to help bix. it's cassian choosing home over orders. it's bix fighting for her fucking life rather than giving in. it's the fight. it's the people.

[soranatus]

“Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy”

[sleepdeprivedartboi]

It is so unbelievably funny that the moment Mon Mothma makes the declaration of Rebellion to the galaxy, literally everything for the empire fucking falls apart in the span of a god dammed year lmao

Mass rebellions, Sabotages, the empire panicks and forces things harder which results in more rebellion.

Then Governor Pryce dies, Thrawn disappears from the face of the galaxy, a Jedi denies Palpatine the way into the world between worlds by destroying a one of a kind temple, and the TIE defender program is shut down, and the empire loses Lothal.

Then literally a few months later, The ISB loses 4 of its most senior staff members, They fail to get Luthen, then a few days later, Krennic gets the Death star taken away from him, The Research facility at Eadu is destroyed, then literally the next day, the Scarif Database is attacked, a whole rebel fleet shows up out of nowhere at Scarif, They escape with the fucking plans, Empire never learning of the sabotage Galen put.

Then literally within the next weeks the fucking death star is blown up with 70% of imperial high command in it, Tarkin and Yularen die, Vader goes missing for weeks, and A skywalker is a jedi and leading the fucking charge. Then when Vader's back, Tagge dies and Cylo flips and tries to murder vader so he has to be put down as well.

I just know Palpatine was absolutely fuming in his chambers. You know the man is raging out of his mind.

[mouth-of-andraste]

‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[elwenyere]

Okay, much to process, much to process, but one hot take before bed: for me the sequence leading up to Syril's death was perfect, 14/10, no notes. He has a crisis upon learning that his job wasn't what he thought it was and that Dedra's been withholding information/manipulating him, but rather than sprint into the square to try to protect people or to join the resistance, his reactions are to (1) assault Dedra, (2) spin out uselessly, and (3) react with instinctive, snarling violence upon recognizing Cassian - completely unable to recalibrate his moral system in the face of new information and just seizing on the first person he'd previously categorized as a bad actor to try to recover his own sense of self-righteousness. And then the "who are you?!" right before he gets shot by the man he shoved down in the street for calling him a stooge and a narc? Perfect to me. He's more upset about finding out that his self-concept as a daring romantic hero was mistaken than he is about people getting hurt, and he gets exactly the ending that such an inability to overcome ego deserves.

[blue-saaaaargent]

cassian’s “who are you?” to syril is not a thanos “i don’t even know who you are” moment. it is not “for me, it was tuesday” or “the axe forgets but the tree remembers”. because cassian didn’t ruin syril’s life. syril upended CASSIAN’S life, and ruined his own in the process. syril stumbled on on the case of two dead beat cops that the empire could not care less about and told him so to his face, but he was so desperate to prove himself as a useful cog in the empire’s machine that he went against his superiors to make a big show out of apprehending someone who was only trying to get back to his normal life. and it goes horribly. syril fucked up, and he’s fired, and he can’t make himself blame the empire so he becomes fixated on andor, his enemy, this big bad master criminal who escaped justice and ruined his life. it’s an obsession. and years later, in the midst of his disillusionment and regret watching the violence on ghorman he helped bring about, he sees him. cassian andor. and all this rage and resentment that’s been boiling under his skin for years overtakes any thought of the innocents dying and he throws himself into fighting cassian with a brutality that is obviously personal. and he almost wins, he has the gun pointed at him, when cassian looks at him with genuine confusion and asks “who are you?” and syril breaks. because he’s spent so long convincing himself that andor is out to get him, and now he sees that this was just as futile as everything else he dedicated himself to. because andor did nothing to him. and he has to die with that realization.

cassian had far more reason to hate syril than the other way around, but syril was completely unimportant to him because he chose the rebellion and love over resentment and the empire

[bellamyblcke]

mon mothma meeting cassian andor literally a transcendent experience. mon has spent the last seventeen years utterly trapped in her life, able to trust no one, fighting the long fight, frightened and alone and waiting for something to snap and when she’s just done the most direct thing she’s ever done and she knows she will in all likelihood be killed for it she meets a man whose primary trait is Making Things Happen. oh this man has been hounding your steps for the last five years? he is now dead the instant he is close enough to shoot. and suddenly all at once instead of dying or rotting in an imperial cell mon is riding away from the life that has suffocated her slowly, free and unmoored, terrified and elated and grateful all at once (her hair mussed!). and cassian…liked her speech fine.

[chipthekeeper]

Rebellions are built on hope.