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From: Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-05-31 (Saturday)
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2025 14:41:04 -0700
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On 6/1/2025 2:25 PM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
> On 6/1/25 11:16 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> 
>> What Did You Watch?
> 
> I treated yesterday as my first "vacation day", and it was glorious! I 
> did nothing!  :D
> 
> But I did get through the end of "Andor" and rolled that right into a 
> rewatch of "Rogue One" (or is it "Rouge One"?!!  ;p  ), plus a soap:
> 
> soaps: DOOL - Thur's ep. Drama about the purchase of the hospital - 
> everyone who is a hospital board member is extremely ambivalent because 
> the two buyers are EJ ('nuff said!) and Xander whom everyone thinks beat 
> Philip to within an inch of his life (they're right - Xander did do 
> that!). In the end, Jada shows up to arrest Xander for that crime and 
> haul his ass off to jail, leaving the final board vote, which is 
> Brady's, to decide who gets the hospital.
> 
> golf - Day three at the Memorial. No suspense here - Scottie Scheffler 
> moved into a tie for the lead, and then the outright lead when Ben 
> Griffin choked on a putt on the 18th hole and bogeyed... Expect 
> Scheffler to win this today.
> 
> Andor (Disney+) - The final 3 episodes - ep's #2.10-2.12.
>     The final three episodes are top notch, though the "One Year Later 
> (BBY 1)" teaser at the start of #2.10 is patently untrue this time, as 
> these episodes basically take place mere days before "Rogue One" (or is 
> it "Rouge One"?!!  ;p  ), which itself take place just days before the 
> original "Star Wars" movie's ending. (So, more like "BBY Day T-7" or 
> something!)
>     These episodes do have some fun bringing back tons of people from 
> the "Rogue One" film... with one major exception - I didn't even realize 
> until I watched "Rogue One" again that Bail Organa had always been 
> played by Jimmy Smits, and not Benjamin Bratt as he was in season #2 of 
> "Rogue One"! (I really wonder why Smits couldn't make it back - they 
> claim "scheduling conflicts", but I'm not buying that and wonder if 
> Smits has health issues... or if they didn't want him back?!) FTR, I 
> actually *prefer* Bratt's take on Bail.

You may be right.  But Bratt had a bit more screen time, didn't he? 
That could help with general character development.


>     Anyway, in the final episodes, Lonni Jung finally hits pay dirt in 
> Dedra Meero's files (which he's been snooping on!) and finds out that 
> everything that has happened previously is all tied together in the 
> Imperials' plan for a "super weapon"! (though Jung doesn't know the name 
> of this weapon). Jung wants out, but in his one final dastardly act, 
> Luthen Rael does NOT send Jung home to his family.  >:/
>     But doing all this likely means Jung is blown, which means Luthen is 
> also almost certainly blown to the Imperials as well. Sure enough, Dedra 
> Meero soon shows up. Will Luthen get out of this alive? Will Kleya 
> (Elizabeth Dulau)?! Will they be able to contact Cassian Andor in time 
> to come rescue them?!
>     After episode #2.10, I was very worried that we would be robbed of 
> Kleya's escape from Coruscant (with them just skipping to her on Yavin), 
> but episode #2.11 pretty much was 100% about Kleya trying to escape 
> Coruscant. Also, there's finally backstory of how Luthen came to be 
> Luthen and how Kleya came to be his "daughter" (of sorts) in episode 
> #2.10 as well.

I forgot about this one.  When you said episode 9 was Mon's escape I 
kept thinking what was left for the other three episodes.

>     The final episode is pretty much 100% set up for "Rogue One", which 
> is actually unsatisfying, as we know there will be no follow up on the 
> stories of Kleya, Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) or Bix (Adria Arjona). In 
> fact, I'm finding this incredibly frustrating, as this series may end 
> with (effectively) Cassian's "end", but there are a bunch of others here 
> who survive "Rogue One" whom we will get no follow up on.
>     (P.S. Whatever happened to Mon Mothma's dopey daughter, esp. after 
> Mon fled the Empire as a traitor?! We get a final scene with her 
> husband, and the lovely Rosalind Halstead as the mother of her 
> daughter's husband, implying that he wasn't arrested, but I am 
> skeptical, and we get no mention of the daughter after the wedding.)
>     As for the Imperials, it goes badly for all of them, especially 
> Dedra Meero who finally gets her just desserts for being an Imperial spy 
> fangirl.
>     But, as far as Cassian goes, this sets up a pretty heroic ending for 
> him (even if "Rogue One" doesn't 100% deliver on this), and gets all the 
> other pieces that we see in the "Rogue One" film in place.
> 
> I then followed this up immediately with:
> 
> Rogue One (or is it "Rouge One"?!!  ;p  ) (Disney+) - In glorious 4k! 
> though this movie looks so good that even in non UHDTV, it still usually 
> looks great.
>     I mainly watched this to see, 1) how well it lines up with the 
> "Andor" TV series, and 2) how well it matches up in terms of how people 
> look between the film and the TV series (where season #2 was filmed 
> about 8 years later!).

Everyone immediately watched the movie after the series, except for me. 
I was tempted, but held firm.  I'm going to do a full rewatch of all the 
movies next year before the new movie comes out.


>     On the former, I'm going to say... not well. At the end of "Andor", 
> Cassian is in possession of a lot more information that he seems to know 
> in "Rogue One" - like, he already knows the Empire has a "super 
> weapon" (even if he doesn't know its name), and he already knows about 
> Galen Erso, but *none* of that comes across in "Rogue One" which clearly 
> portrays Cassian as not know about the details of any of this stuff. Nor 
> does Cassian *ever* mention anything about a "girl he lost" in this film!
>     I don't know what you call this phenomenon, but it's basically the 
> *exact opposite* of a "retcon [retro-continuity]"!!
>     However, I did appreciate Andor's executing the informant in this 
> film being foreshadowed by what Luthen does to Lonni Jung. That was a 
> nice touch from the TV series.
>     On the second point, they do a lot better: Diego Luna and Genevieve 
> O'Reilly look the same or imperceptibly different between the film and 
> the TV series. And while Alistair Petrie (as General Draven) looks a 
> little bit older in the series, it's not so as you'd really notice...
>     However, this is definitely *not* true of Ben Mendelsohn as Krennic 
> - he looks *way young* in "Rogue One" which means he looks *way older* 
> in "Andor"!
>     I'm going to say that Duncan Pow (as Sgt. Melshi) - and I didn't 
> realize he was in both seasons #1 & #2 of "Andor" as well as this film! 
> - also looks noticeably younger in "Rogue One" which means he looks 
> noticeably older in "Andor".
>     And, of course, Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa here, while Bratt plays 
> him in Andor.
>     "Rogue One" is very likely the best SW film since the original 
> trilogy (probably by a lot). But, in comparison to "Andor", it actually 
> comes off as "trite" and simplistic - not as simplistic as all the other 
> post-original trilogy SW films, mind you, but definitely trite in 
> comparison to the depth of "Andor".
>     I wonder if, over time, they will come to regret making "Andor", as 
> it will inevitably take some of the "shine" off the good feelings that 
> "Rogue One" has engendered.
> 
> 
> What did you watch?
>