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Andor (2022)
It Manages To Be Pretty Good In Spite Of Itself
Let's start with what it does well...
Visually, it is fantastic. The tone is pretty good, though perhaps at times trying to be too much like the Mandalorian rather than itself (which is like Rogue One mixed with a spy drama). They don't knee cap Kassian (yet) unlike hobbling The Mandalorian to make the Bo'Katan show (or however it is spelled). {As an aside, that too was still ok despite the headbangingly forced handicapping instead of good writing and choreography.} Andor (or Andur, as titled by Gisney) establishes a fairly involved plot, dim and moderately grim (but not quite quite as dark and gritty as they hoped). Some of the characters are interesting, most importantly, Kassian himself. The action is also pretty good. Perhaps I can note this without spoiling anything, but there is a group of imperial big-wigs and the show conveys their meetings (the acting, the dialogue, the process) surprisingly well.
Now join me as I unload a bag full of sticks they threw into their own spokes (just like the meme).
First and foremost. WOW, the audio balancing is absolute GARBAGE. Disney needs to go back and fix this immediately, relatively speaking it is easy to do. Hell, even I can do it. If you want to hear the whispering, the music will not only blow your speakers, but the doors off of your neighbbour's house. It isn't just a music issue it is a universal problem (I had to turn subtitles on).
One thing that is always painfully obvious with Disney
star wars is their under represantation of the most important group in a space series with a diverse galaxy. Aliens. In this case, there were also markedly few Droids. Even if you can't make everyone an alien you need to make the one alien more prominent or else your Star Wars show feels like Battle Star Galactica or some other show with no aliens at all. Generally they struggle with Star Wars in General, some key costumes are good but they got lazy and have a little too much current day fashion (and expressions, and mindsets). That said the series was notably better on costumes later.
There were also a number of logic and dialogue issues
throughout, which are a bit too out in the open. Things like saying, "As you are no doubt wondering why we aren't carrying weapons..." When it is very obvious they have shock batons. If the writers meant 'blasters' they should have said that, but this flaw persists.
On the topic of blasters, rather than use the sound effects they already have from the films, they used their own. They distinctly sound wrong, and perhaps also less high fidelity. Fairly small issue but it along with the above pulls you out of thinking you are watching Star Wars.
The actor playing the droid did an exceptionally poor job of sounding like a droid in the early episodes. This is relative to every sci-fi I have seen, but especially relative to Star Wars, be it games, movies, or these new series. Either he improved or you grow to ignore it. Again immersion breaking, but not the end of the world.
As noted above sometimes the characters behave too much like they are 'current year' "basic Bs" rather than someone in existing in the context of that universe. That just impedes immersion
Plot wise, they do miss the mark a bit with the subterfuge, and espionage aspects (They may want to look to things like Firefly or Farscape for handling capers, and maybe The 100 for handling politics and subterfuge). Everything has plot holes now and then, but it's more establishing and maintaining the tone, intensity, danger, and secrecy. I won't list specific examples to avoid spoilers. But suffice to say the camera gets distracted too much. And there is an issue of, 'convenience'. Some things are simply poorly established amd some characters aren't delved into enough to make their deaths impactful, because they chose to spend time on things unimportant to the situation.
On that matter I will note this show does not escape the air of forced male inferiority. Though to its credit it manages to restrain itself somewhat (Note it is often in subsequent seasons, when they feel you are a captive audience, that they start forcing absurdity). Time will tell if it improves worsens or stays the same. One imperial is actually fairly reasonable but seems to be a target of bullying by the writers?? Basically they make sure to infantilize him, by a character who's existence is wholly irrelevant. A distraction. Focusing on background characters just to show they are a woman or a woman who likes women. If they are going to be important characters, save it for when they are important, and make their scenes matter. Glimpses filled with content rather than an errant scene of staring or hand holding. It isn't impactful, you don't know them. You have limited time, make it count. This show has seems to try to waste a lot of time rather than writing more content. Anyway, I don't know if it is actually KK's fault or not it doesn't really matter fixing a problem is what matters (and they have already established she is not suited for her role). If they didn't waste time, they might have actually been able to make the one imperial guy seem like a "creep" if that was their actual intent. Instead of assuming we recognize whatever trope it seems like they think they are showing. Even some scenes just starring at kassian's face are a waste of runtime.
Lastly, like in the Witcher Kassian takes back bench more than he should. You want to examine the other characters, but the show is usually better when through his eyes rather than spending as much time belabouring that focus on others. The attention shift gets progressively worse as time goes on. You want Kassian to be like Clarke Kent in Smallville. You follow his story and learn the companions along the way. There is room to establish other characters or give them seperate arcs. But you cannot dally or people will be drawn away from the core plot. It's like a blacksmith folding steel, you always want it kneeding back into itself. Not like shovelling snow onto the path you just cleared.
In all, I would rate it like I rated Solo: Pretty good as a bit of content, but not great at being Star Wars (for different reasons). Andor might actually be better Star Wars content than Solo, just not as well made. There are a some tweaks that could make it a 9 or 10, and a few of which could still be done even now after the fact. But again I enjoyed it, I would like to see season two, and I hope they manage to improve on their weak points. Though I will watch it how it is, and continue to enjoy its strengths... So long as S2 doesn't focus even more on their prior pitfalls.
Robyn Hood (2023)
This is an Embarrassment To Our Country
From one embarrassment to another,
The days of the world not taking us seriously are certainly coming to a middle.
I hesitate to even describe the show, I want to spare you from secondary time wasting. However, there is a minimum character limit. If the goal was to create something people would watch to make fun of, they probably did a good job (but time will tell).
I appreciate that it took time and effort to make this, and that it was low budget. But... It probably should never have been.
The audio is low quality; the writing is bad, the cinematography is probably something I could do (which is not good, the camera quality is decent at least); and between the writing and the acting... I have a feeling even AI can do a better job, it at least has the zany charm of not comprehending existence. It's not that everyone is terrible all the time, it's that the lows are so numerous and prominent, even the best performances are irrelevant.
Hey, at least we can hope someone will one day use clips to make an epic music video for a good song. ...Or satire.
(Establishing the evil deeds of the bad guys at the end of the series is not the best way to make people root for the protagonists).
If all of this sounds good to you, I am certainly not going to stop you. But you'll probably find more enjoyment in that other show that caught your eye. Or, re-watching Attack of The Killer Tomatoes.
Godzilla (1998)
The "Nickleback Sucks" of Films
I was there when people were seeing it in theaters, people were enjoying it and telling other people to go see it, the vast majority of people didn't walk out and say, "This was certifiable garbage". - Critic 2021
It won a lot of awards and it sold a lot of tickets. Cinematically it was cutting edge (at the time), and it was entertaining. I would argue this film is the reason so many people watch/know Godzilla today. Before 1998 it was just an old monster movie mostly cult fans cared about (at least in my part of the world).
I can't say it's flawless or has everything (no film does). It isn't scientifically accurate, but it's a monster/disaster film all of them are unbelievable (look at King Kong, or Planet of The Apes). It doesn't have monsters battling the whole time, quite frankly it was more believable than the newer one with mothra, and had better characters. (Not that the newer one doesn't have advantages).
In all, watch the film if you are interested, it may not be as true to the source material (I don't know, nor have I ever cared to) but so many people these days say it's bad just because that has become the expected perspective. Or maybe modern critics can only stand out by bashing formerly popular films?