Agreed. Rogue One was basically redeemed with that final act, basically right when it became clear to everyone that no one was getting off that planet alive. But everything leading up to it (aside from the opening) was basically just okay in retrospect, and I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at some of the memberberry cameos like R2 and C3PO just having a random conversation, or bumping into the guy with the weird face from the Tatooine cantina. And uncanny CGI Tarkin, which I remember thinking was fine when I first saw it but now just really sticks out a bit.
Surprisingly, other than the mere presence of some core characters, Andor didn’t rely on nostalgia bait at all and I think that really worked to its benefit.
I avoided all media about season 2 until after I had completely finished watching it and then went back and watched reviews etc. Seeing one reviewer who was watching week by week complain about gratuitous fanservice cameos that would turn out in later episodes to actually be core to the story was very amusing. This happened multiple times. To be fair to the reviewer, they didn’t say it was some terrible thing, and even at least once described it as being earnt, even if it was out of character for the show.
Spoiler: examples of the above
The reveal at the end of episode 3(?) that they were on Yavin IV, and the inclusion of Senator Organa (whose first episode was seemingly just a minor cameo before he becomes more important in later episodes) are the two that come to mind, but I think there was at least one more.
I’ve read that the first cameo was just to get people to spend THAT week talking about the Benjamin Bratt re-cast so they’d be calmed down by the time he had something important to do.
Oh that’s very interesting. Personally it never occurred to me as something to get upset by. Obviously the actor from 2002 is probably not going to be a great fit to continue playing the character in 2025.
Yeah I’m not that upset about it, but I was at least a bit disappointed that Jimmy Smits couldn’t make it work with his schedule. That’s all it was though, a scheduling conflict. He played the role as recently as 2022 in the Obi-Wan show.
Agreed. Rogue One was basically redeemed with that final act, basically right when it became clear to everyone that no one was getting off that planet alive. But everything leading up to it (aside from the opening) was basically just okay in retrospect, and I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at some of the memberberry cameos like R2 and C3PO just having a random conversation, or bumping into the guy with the weird face from the Tatooine cantina. And uncanny CGI Tarkin, which I remember thinking was fine when I first saw it but now just really sticks out a bit.
Surprisingly, other than the mere presence of some core characters, Andor didn’t rely on nostalgia bait at all and I think that really worked to its benefit.
I avoided all media about season 2 until after I had completely finished watching it and then went back and watched reviews etc. Seeing one reviewer who was watching week by week complain about gratuitous fanservice cameos that would turn out in later episodes to actually be core to the story was very amusing. This happened multiple times. To be fair to the reviewer, they didn’t say it was some terrible thing, and even at least once described it as being earnt, even if it was out of character for the show.
Spoiler: examples of the above
The reveal at the end of episode 3(?) that they were on Yavin IV, and the inclusion of Senator Organa (whose first episode was seemingly just a minor cameo before he becomes more important in later episodes) are the two that come to mind, but I think there was at least one more.
I’ve read that the first cameo was just to get people to spend THAT week talking about the Benjamin Bratt re-cast so they’d be calmed down by the time he had something important to do.
Oh that’s very interesting. Personally it never occurred to me as something to get upset by. Obviously the actor from 2002 is probably not going to be a great fit to continue playing the character in 2025.
Yeah I’m not that upset about it, but I was at least a bit disappointed that Jimmy Smits couldn’t make it work with his schedule. That’s all it was though, a scheduling conflict. He played the role as recently as 2022 in the Obi-Wan show.