DarthDementous

it's interesting because I still see a lot of Lucas in Andor, maybe not Star Wars Lucas, but the Prison Arc especially is incredibly reminiscent of THX-1138

LOL absolute clown world. unbelievable. I'm glad I was skeptical of these rumours

it really depends on how much appreciation you have for minimalism. because on paper 100 Tie-Fighters sounds a lot more thrilling than 4, but thanks to how effectively they're utilized in the Tie Fighter Attack scene in the first movie it overcomes that limitation significantly

making Mara Jade a clone would certainly be up there in terms of baffling adaptation decisions

yes. you've just described Quinlan Voss's arc which you previously threw into the 'edgelord comics post 9/11' category despite it exemplifying everything you're talking about and saying that George wanted to convey. Quinlan Voss also existed before 9/11, for the record this also has nothing to do with KOTOR 2 narratively, that was the evidence you were meant to be presenting

that went unreasonably hard great action and bonkers stakes, Magneto comforting the Morlocks by saying 'don't be afraid' in Polish was very powerful agreed on the no music part, it definitely contributed to this feeling of something being very wrong. this honestly felt like an animated equivalent to Infinity War's ending kind of a hilarious tonal whiplash compared to last week's episode, there was some really heavy stuff in this one, not least Cyclops losing it and basically taking the Magneto-pill for a good 30 seconds

this is very uncompelling evidence that quote is from Jolee Bindo who is the type of Grey Jedi covered in that item description I said that the 'other kind of Grey Jedi' you brought up didn't have any explanations in the games, the one that uses both light and dark abilities. Jolee only uses light side abilities and is morally aligned to the light side on the point of Quinlan Voss as well, I read the Republic comics and the whole point of his character is that you can't use the dark side without consequence. even though he does it to be a double agent, it actually starts getting to him and he starts falling to the dark side. he doesn't fit the category of Grey Jedi you described either, he's a maverick within the Jedi Order who skirts too close to the dark side whilst trying to be in deep cover.

so to be clear, an explanation for that other kind of Grey Jedi isn't in the games themselves unless I'm misremembering. you took issue with me praising KOTOR 2 because of its handling of Grey Jedi, but it sounds like your issues with that lie outside of that game as you acknowledge being able to use both light and dark powers is a gameplay conceit

I should check it out before this comes out to set expectations, because I was a big fan of the first season and it's probably a combination of that and Leslie's comments about the EU that have me most intrigued about this project

in terms of the narrative, 'Grey Jedi' (a term not even used in the games) just means someone who follows Jedi ideals but doesn't associate with the Jedi Order - that's it

good. not everything needs multiple seasons to tell its story.

as @Yavar Moradipointed out, yes that article linked doesn't back up any claim made by @Schilkeman and I actually remember reading that interview in preparation for the series and feeling a glow of hope because of how much Star Wars had been caught in the glut of self-reference and how inaccessible it had become the snippet from his Rogue One interview I don't think says anything we didn't already know, but given this was well before Andor was even conceived of I don't think it's a very up to date perspective for Gilroy, especially since the nature of his involvement in that project is very different from being the idea progenitor and showrunner of Andor Yavar brought up Star Trek, but to bring up an example closer to home, Chris Avellone the lead narrative designer of KOTOR 2 which is one of the most critically claimed Star Wars stories ever, was on record saying how he wasn't really a fan of Star Wars and had gripes with it. despite this, he did his due diligence and dived into the expanded material and in the process fell in love with the series, whilst also grounding his ability to critique long-accepted facets of the Star Wars universe in the story such as the Force it would not surprise me in the least to learn that in the process of diving into this universe, Gilroy has actually found things to appreciate about Star Wars that he didn't before. he strikes me in the vein of Irvin Kershner, director of ESB, who if you listen to him talk about the film it's clear he's not bogged down in the lore but is far more interested at the character drama at the heart of the piece and that's where his interest lies instead. something far more important from a film-making standpoint than knowing and being a database for lore factoids, I have to say. that's the job of other people in the production like the Lucasfilm Story Group anyway, and they did a very good job because there's a lot of deep cut references and no contradictions at all that I could tell

that actually helps makes the argument of the stylistic difference between the PT and the OT because George had to go back and modify the original films in order to update them to his modern sensibilities which very clearly changed. clear example of that is the shot in the ESB special edition where Leia is walking back and forth in front of a window and the camera is doing a slow digital zoom-in which is a very common shot in the Prequels. it's also very jarring stylistically in a film with a completely different directing style. it's not a different video. it's a segment from the 'How To Watch Star Wars' monstrosity that I suffered through with some friends. it's gobbledegook because it goes off on these bizarre tangents like the Bon Jovi one (I think that went for 30 minutes?) and assumes that you're on the same page as him of what makes good film-making. so you end up in an endless montage of pointing out film references (some of which are a huge stretch) with the implication that by virtue of Lucas making all these references, even when it's to the detriment of the sensibility of the Star Wars such as the terribly convoluted Attack of The Clones Padme assassination plot, it is good because it has showed he has watched a bunch of films - something that I think Rick Worley genuinely believes about himself. the TPM review again was made by one member of RLM, 15 years ago in a completely different format from the Andor review which features two members. to write it off based on that is bizarre, and stop saying 'they' when the Plinkett reviews were almost entirely one person whereas RLM is made up of multiple people who don't all see eye to eye. it's such a convenient narrative that gets peddled by the anti-RLM brigade that avoids them having to engage with the nuance of anything about the content outside of the Plinkett reviews I doubt that Tony Gilroy has said that 'Star Wars can be anything', but feel to prove me wrong if you've got a quote from his you'd like to share when it comes down to it, the science fiction aspect of Star Wars is just as valid as the fantasy element, and the beauty of the EU and expanded material in general is that it doesn't have to appeal to everyone. you can enjoy the shows that play up the fantasy element (and are unfortunately significantly worse in construction, not because of the dialling up of fantasy but because of every other aspect of the production) and not be personally interested in the ones that play up the science fiction element - they are both Star Wars though. Andor isn't just the sci-fi aspect of Star Wars either, it's the political aspect and also the ramifications of tyranny and the nature of revolution - all of which can be found in the Original Trilogy, just dialled up to 11 here as the main focus instead of the backdrop. exactly what TCW does, minus the pulp that actively harms the kind of story being told

I have watched that full Rick Worley video before (both parts) and it is gobbledegook. as tempting as it is to pull the same lazy trick of writing you off because you're a fan of his, I will point out that none of what he says there applies to their Andor review which I assume you haven't watched. for one, the Plinkett reviews are the opinions of Mike Stoklasa, whereas the Andor re:view features both Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans who don't see completely eye to eye on the show, and it's an unscripted discussion as opposed to an edited video series that came out ~15 years ago at this point when you brought up Thunderbirds I assumed that was going to be relevant to the 'feeling of Star Wars' in general but that seems to just be specific to the animation style of this one show and doesn't relate to the movies, so I don't get the relevance that consistent appeal to pulpiness is actually not a good thing in TCW. the arcs that want to explore the more serious and dramatic aspects of the war like the Umbara arc suffer heavily because characters like Pong Krell instead of exploring a more nuanced view on how some of the Jedi regarded Clones and the question of whether they were legitimate life or basically genetic tools, the pulp machine kicks in and makes him an unequivocally evil dark Jedi who was actually working for Dooku the whole time and his actions were one-note sabotage. I am so very thankful something like this does not happen in Andor as it would weaken the storytelling significantly. 'the style of Andor doesn't match the films' again assumes the films all have this one homogenous style when stylistically the Original Trilogy and the Prequels are miles apart. even A New Hope to Empire Strikes Back is quite stylistically different, owing to a change in directors. that's then clearly not what makes something Star Wars or not.

if that's the level of reactionary thinking you're going to display, I'm glad you didn't waste both our times either. TCW is a mish-mash of different tones and different things Lucas was influenced by that are dialled up or down depending on the arc. sometimes it's Kurosawa, and in a way far more directly than the movies, and sometimes it's the Silmarillion where Lucas gets interested in creation myths and Force deities. sometimes it's taking its cues from more hard sci-fi like The Cube or Bladerunner - it depends on the arc. the irony is something with the tone of Andor could exist pretty comfortably in a TCW arc. to call it a mash-up of 'Flash Gordon and Thunderbirds' is reductive and I don't even think very accurate. plus, as @Chen G. went to great and thorough lengths to cover, Flash Gordon is not nearly as large of an influence on Star Wars as Lucas and others would have you be lead to believe. for that matter, what Flash Gordon and Thunderbirds elements are even in TCW?