I don't understand how the creatives in the Star Wars universe think the solution for their inconsistency in quality is to always hold back the best storylines for later.
It's like they go "well we have this in our back pocket, let's just buy ourselves some time."
But that doesn't serve the story nor does it serve the audience.
Tell the damn best story you can, when you can.
It's like the #1 lesson from Andor that they've failed to take away. Just serve the damn story.
Cut the fat. Cut the c***. Cut the wasted B plots and side character c*** and just serve the story.
Audiences know when they are being manipulated. They know when the carrot is being dangled in front of them.
If the end game was always to bring in Thrawn, then why wait to "interconnect" two franchises?
Even the economics of it doesn't work. If you lose 50% of your audience before serving the story, what's the point.
303
Chalky9711 hr ago
+51
The showrunner for the early seasons of Dexter and current showrunner for the series mentioned this. He was asked why he decided to have the Police investigate Dexter’s murders so early into the shows lifespan (season 2). He said that it was the most interesting story they could tell and you need to get your best ideas out there ASAP because you’re never guaranteed another season
51
FrostyD710 hr ago
+8
All that's missing is the realization that they ran out of stories. Their aggressively paced storytelling made it virtually impossible to keep going without recycling themes and storylines. So it's no wonder there's pressure to draw it out. The bean counters see the potential for more but don't see the risk of watering down the product and what made it a hit in the first place.
8
The_Lone_Apple12 hr ago
+58
They should take a page out of Scott Ryan's book - the creator and writer and star of the Australian series, Mr. Inbetween. He did half-hour episodes because every moment of the show served the story. No fat. No extra. Just the story. Brilliant writing.
58
Welsh_Cannibal12 hr ago
+17
I don't answer questions. Great show.
17
TheRealCRex12 hr ago
+20
100% agree.
Because even if the argument is "well we gotta keep the money printer going" - they aren't even doing that right.
I've re watched Andor countless times. Haven't rewatched a single other series. I've tried. Can't do it. Even Mando season 1 is excruciating in parts. Lots of fat.
Make something good and the audience stays forever.
20
Ewoksintheoutfield11 hr ago
+11
Yeah I just can’t stomach new Star Wars anymore with the exception of Andor.
We just want new stories in the Star Wars universe. It’s not that hard. These studios are so risk averse they are sacrificing the good for the great, always swinging for the home run instead of just getting on base, and they are striking out in the process.
Go back 500 years and give us a brand new story with no retreads. No Luke Skywalker comes in at the end, no Palpatine is still alive. Just all brand new stuff.
11
Nasty_Goblin10 hr ago
+3
I don’t care if it was just Goonies in space, I loved Skeleton Crew.
3
Quixotic_Seal10 hr ago
+4
>Go back 500 years and give us a brand new story with no retreads. No Luke Skywalker comes in at the end, no Palpatine is still alive. Just all brand new stuff.
We literally did that already and it flopped hard.
The Acolyte was pretty much a perfect storm of everything wrong with modern Star Wars: an obnoxious group of “fans” hated its guts before it even came out because it was a women-led project, then the show came out and had frustrating character and script problems despite ending with promise in some areas, and then Disney shitcanned it to ensure it never got a chance to grow a beard because they can’t seem to commit to anything in this damn series and do nothing but course correct constantly.
4
OddOnion_10 hr ago
+3
Whilst I think there was a lot of wasted potential, I quite liked The Acolyte!
3
Mysterious-Counter589 hr ago
+1
I think Acolyte should have been a movie. You could've told a much more condensed version of "Rashomon but in Star Wars," which is a novel format in 2 hours but can feel frustrating and stretched across 8, and you could've given those stunt coordinates carte blanche and given us some really fantastic lightsaber battles.
1
BengaliBoy9 hr ago
+1
Or forward 500 years with Jedi and Sith being totally forgotten and a lore wipe. I feel Jedi Visions is trying to soft launch this kind of thinking, but it doesn’t feel right either.
1
havewelost638812 hr ago
-11
"Excruciating"? Seriously?
-11
Yetimang11 hr ago
+2
Yeah the whole middle of season 1 is pointless filler with basic plots devoid of anything interesting. It's only the first couple and last couple episodes that are worth watching.
2
jawaismyhomeboy11 hr ago
-1
These people are insufferable
-1
ImpossibleGuardian11 hr ago
+17
I think part of the wider problem is Disney’s inconsistent approach to Star Wars and Marvel projects over the last 7 years or so.
The Bob Chapek era saw a massive Disney+ push and every project imaginable getting greenlit, so a bunch of interconnected New Republic shows leading up to a Thrawn finale probably made sense and seemed pretty feasible on paper.
Then Iger came back in 2024 with a shift back towards theatrical and away from Disney+ (which had apparently been losing money) then Kathleen Kennedy announced she was heading off in 2025 after a few years of SW projects being announced but never materialising.
Honestly it’s a miracle Andor managed to come out as good as it did.
17
Quixotic_Seal10 hr ago
+7
Yeah the high level production of Star Wars has been such a complete shitshow. The quality is all over the place, they rapid fire shows out and hope something sticks, and they just instantly drop shows that didn’t quite nail it the first season.
Meanwhile they can’t seem to decide what the f*** they’re doing with movies, to the point that the first Star Wars in theaters in like 6 years is basically a glorified TV movie.
I honestly think Andor only came out the way it did because of how unique Tony Gilroy’s involvement was. He got the two seasons guaranteed ahead of time and had a clear tight plan to execute that didn’t involve weird crossovers, which insulated it from a lot of the BS that Star Wars has suffered from lately.
7
BigfootsBestBud11 hr ago
+24
It’s a disease that spread from Marvel to Star Wars under Disney.
It works better under Marvel because that style of storytelling is exactly how comics work. Set up and filler before the big payoff in a crossover event.
But Star Wars, whether or not it was a good movie, was always the most pivotal story moments you were seeing in each movie.
Now we have stuff like The Book of Boba Fett which is filler for the Mandalorian, which itself has padded out the payoff for years now.
24
Vladmerius11 hr ago
+6
Yep. Biggest problem most media has nowadays is constantly saving the good stuff for later and never getting to the later part.
I'm glad Fallout delivered on New Vegas instead of going "yeah one day they'll go to New Vegas" and stringing things along.
6
Hot-Guard-911910 hr ago
+1
Well, it is also them just not knowing what to do with the good part. So allusions to that good part work better than them just screwing up the one good idea they have.
1
Nasty_Goblin10 hr ago
+1
The opposite actually.
Fallout has the same problem.
It took them half the season to get to Vegas, and much of that was tee-up for the next season (legion, NCR, brotherhood of steel)
1
Rylegit111 hr ago
+6
Marvel suffers from the same problem. Instead of just telling a good story, the plot of almost every show or movie has to also somehow tee-up another spin-off series or another character.
Or the story is adjusted or weighed down in order to serve the greater “cinematic universe”.
6
Heavy_Arm_70609 hr ago
+1
I was thinking about the Marvel part a bit, because I love the Captain America trilogy a lot, and Civil War of course introduces a couple of pretty major characters who got spun off.
Black Panther was handled well, basically a main character through the story and has a great ending with Zemo. Spider-Man comes off more like a gratuitous cameo but the standalone film worked because they leaned into what they had with an existing relationship, even if Tony Stark wasn't in the film that much in the end.
Ironheart, she always felt kind of tacked on in Black Panther 2 (definitely felt like a studio mandate they tried their best to make not feel gratuitous), but then the show didn't do a lot with what she did do in the film. I wouldn't say nothing about her BP2 appearance impacted the show, but I'd probably say 'next to nothing'. Makes the spin-off factor more egregious.
1
-F1ngo11 hr ago
+4
Spielberg sends his regards: Rule No1, Don't be boring.
4
HerbaciousTea9 hr ago
+4
Yeah, this is emblematic of why Mandolorian fell off so hard. It became a vehicle for a \~\*cinematic universe\*\~ instead of it's own piece of art.
And Andor came along as a standalone piece of art and crushed the entire portfolio of Disney star wars under it's heel without so much as a single cheeky reference to anything outside it's own immediate narrative.
4
DaweiArch11 hr ago
+4
The MCU has created this need for studios to build up to crossover events, while abandoning good storytelling. It was done well initially by Marvel, and is now being tried unsuccessfully by other studios AND Marvel.
4
Hot-Guard-911910 hr ago
+3
MCU did it well because every movie was a standalone movie with some references sprinkled in. Usually, in other movies, they would use a character's history that we don't get to see, or some global event that isn't shown but is semi-important for the plot. In MCU movies, all of that is usually connected to other movies or shows, and someone who didn't watch them would just get a regular exposition, but someone who did would go "Aha, that was from that and that!"
Maybe some movies were more dependent on other movies, but I honestly can't think of one that would leave you very confused if you didn't watch some other movies in the universe.
3
PetyrDayne12 hr ago
+145
>“It would have heavily linked to Ahsoka season 2. “You can’t just take those scripts and turn them into a movie,” Favreau said of the shifting ideas when they hit pause on Season 4 ideas to focus on the film. “There were a lot of characters, it assumed you’d watched the whole show, and it was teeing up what was happening moving into [the second season of ] Ahsoka. It was about Grand Admiral Thrawn and following the larger storyline [of this era of the Star Wars timeline].”
>“This is a completely different medium,” the filmmaker continued, “so I had to start from scratch, essentially. There were certain things I wanted to pursue, like the idea of Grogu being the Mandalorian’s apprentice. As long as you understand the archetypes of this hardened warrior with their vulnerable young apprentice, you’ll know these characters well, even if you’ve never seen the show. But there’s still a lot of Star Wars in there. You’re going to see where things are going [in the wider universe], but that doesn’t diminish from the experience of watching it as a standalone film.”
>It remains to be seen if “The Mandalorian & Grogu” will now fill that void meant to be done in Season 4 and include elements or story beats concerning Thrawn, but given the scale of the movie, we wouldn’t be entirely shocked if they try to plant seeds there.
Now I'm glad season 4 didn't happen. Should have just been a Mandalorian story from beginning to end but now it reminds me of those hundreds of Star Wars spinoff comics I have to scroll through to see if Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have released a new comic.
145
Demerzel6912 hr ago
+41
He said S4 is still happening though.
41
PetyrDayne11 hr ago
+35
If this movie is super successful I don't think there will be. They'll probably turn it into a movie trilogy because no Disney suit will allow it to go back to streaming.
35
Demerzel6911 hr ago
+16
Dave Filoni is literally the boss.
16
LightHeartsLiveLong11 hr ago
+41
He literally has lots of bosses. It’s not his way or the highway.
41
[deleted]11 hr ago
-14
[deleted]
-14
bigboygamer11 hr ago
+8
Disney has a new CEO and has been laying people off like its 1929. Th who company's power dynamic has already started to shift
8
Captain-Wilco10 hr ago
+2
Kennedy is extremely well respected in the industry, and Dave doesn’t even remotely have that same prestige. When she put her foot down, Iger listened. That’s how we got Andor.
2
Picacco11 hr ago
+1
I think you’re right for the wrong reasons.
Disney will make more from the Disney+ subscription than the box office, but they might also come back and say “well, if we make them movies, we can put them on Disney+ anyway and still get the subscription”.
The flaw there is you’ll pull in more on months of a D+ subscription with a show than you will a one-and-done movie where you pay for a month and cancel.
That said, the bosses will do whatever they want whenever they want. They always think they have some grand scheme and usually don’t have many people who will tell them their idea sucks — everyone wants to make the boss happy.
1
pleasedtoheatyou11 hr ago
+1
Kennedy had spent decades in the industry building connections and exec confident in her decisions. She got what she wanted done based on her sway and reputation, not because she didn't have people above her.
1
Demerzel6911 hr ago
-2
>Kennedy had spent decades in the industry building connections and exec confident in her decisions
So has Dave. He didn't just show up out of the blue, lol.
Anyway this is a super boring argument that I'm now done with.
-2
SnooDrawings78769 hr ago
+1
Huh? How are we this far into the push for streaming and you're still not on to the fact that these mega corporations see magnitudes more value in streaming than theatrical?
Why sell a couple movie tickets a year and split it with theaters when they can get $20 a month all to themselves?
The movie is basically a big budget commercial for Disney+
1
Dash_Rendar42511 hr ago
-5
Dave Filoni doesn’t say things are happening if they aren’t for Sue.
-5
Irrerevence11 hr ago
+31
>There were certain things I wanted to pursue, like the idea of Grogu being the Mandalorian’s apprentice.
Why, man? Grogu is the size of a boot, with the mental capacity of a toddler, how can he fill the role of an apprentice?
31
Yetimang11 hr ago
+21
I don't know why you're being downvoted. Baby Yoda isn't really a character.
21
Appropriate_Value12211 hr ago
+9
Yawn.
9
Powerful_Rub_405111 hr ago
+23
Why does Thrawn look like blue Elon Musk lol
23
SilkySmoothRalph10 hr ago
+8
They cast the same guy who voiced him in the animated Rebels series. I guess it makes sense for some continuity, but yeah, I don’t think he’s got the right look.
8
thejawa9 hr ago
+4
He does for his age. Thrawn is roughly as old as Anakin Skywalker was (born ~59 BBY), so he wouldn't be a sharp looking Chiss at this point in time. So with Ahsoka taking place ~10 years ABY, Thrawn would be around 70 years old.
Sure, there's some well put together 70 year olds out there, but how many of those have been exiled effectively twice in their lives?
4
dronesitter11 hr ago
+18
This c*** is why i stopped watching the marvel movies. I don’t want to have no idea whats going on because i didn’t consume everything else. And i gave up mandalorian because boba fett was too bad to get through so same thing applied. No idea what was going on.
18
Astrosaurus429 hr ago
Yeah Boba Fett killed any interest I had in the Star Wars television shows.
0
chillybruh10 hr ago
-7
It's not that bad. There's like a billion of marvel movies in the MCU and a handful of star wars things in the filoni-verse. Mando, ahsoka, book of boba. And technically the animated clone wars, bad batch, rebels, and mau, which are great but not necessarl. As far as boba, you can just skip the first half of the season until it becomes mandalorian season 2.5. or even just episodes 5 and 6
-7
frolix4210 hr ago
+4
I get they were trying to do an interconnected MCU thing, but carrying Boba Fett on it's back just made Mandalorian worse.
4
NativeMasshole12 hr ago
-5
How many series would I have had to keep up on at that point for it to all make sense? Ahsoka was originally introduced in Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars miniseries, developed further in Favreau' Clone Wars and Rebels, and then reintroduced in live action through the Mandalorian, which takes a side track through the Book of Boba Fett, while also being tied into Ahsoka's own series, for it all to be tied back into the Mandalorian. Did I miss anything?
-5
Caciulacdlac12 hr ago
+71
Ahsoka wasn't in the Tartakovsky series.
71
AwesomeManatee12 hr ago
+38
And John Favreau had no involvement in The Clone Wars or Rebels. Pretty much everything Ahsoka has been in was under Dave Filoni's direct control.
38
Quixotic_Seal10 hr ago
+5
Which is kind of the problem with her at this point. Dude cannot put down his favorite toy.
5
-SneakySnake-12 hr ago
+3
The OG Clone Wars show is up there with Andor in terms of Star Wars ancillary material. The Filoni one is pretty good - suffers from horribly clunky dialogue a lot of the time, though - but it isn't a patch on Tartakovsky's. There isn't a single storyline I can think of that wouldn't have been handled better in every respect if they'd revived Tartakovsky's instead of starting fresh.
3
RefreshNinja11 hr ago
+3
The show in your head is always gonna be better than a real show, that doesn't mean anything.
3
jamers_the_great11 hr ago
+4
Star Wars was built on horribly clunky dialogue my man.
4
-SneakySnake-11 hr ago
+2
Yeah, but there were gems in there, too. And you had Han talking like a normal person to add some accessibility to it.
2
barrynomad11 hr ago
+1
Disagree. 2D CW was fantastic for short bursts of action but it was never dialogue heavy and when they did speak it was pretty clunky. I cannot imagine Darkness on Umbara or Mortis handled well in the 2D show. In the latter half of the CG series and into season 7 and the Disney+ spin offs they put much more of an emphasis on writing, character growth and dramatic dialogue.
1
-SneakySnake-11 hr ago
Anakin's stuff in season 2 is what the Mortis arc wishes it was. And the dialogue can be clunky, but it's Star Wars clunky, so every now and then you've got a line that sings.
0
NativeMasshole12 hr ago
-4
I thought she was introduced right at the end? Whoops.
-4
Bartimaeleus12 hr ago
+10
Probably mixing her up with Shaak Ti who had a major role the last episode
10
barrynomad12 hr ago
+13
Ahsoka was not in the 2D series. You’re thinking of Ventress maybe? Ahsoka was in Filoni and GL’s The Clone Wars CG series. Favreau was not TCW or Rebels, that was Dave. Favreau was Mandalorian.
Ahsoka’s story goes: TCW, Rebels, Mandalorian, Ahsoka.
13
ImmortalMoron311 hr ago
+6
And how much of her appearance in Mando is really required to follow her story? I'd argue basically none of it.
People fall for that trap too often, that you need to follow every appearance of someone to get their story. It's like when someone wants to start reading Spider-Man and reads Amazing Fantasy #15 instead of just starting with the current arc. Most stories will give you everything you need to follow it, you almost never have to do homework.
6
barrynomad11 hr ago
+3
Mando isn’t essential, but if one is a fan of the character and watched all the cg animated shows one is doing a disservice to oneself by missing the character’s live action debut. Plus it does give Morgan Elsbeth an introduction.
3
RefreshNinja11 hr ago
On the contrary, the character's live action version is boringly written and acted, and ironically lacks the physicality of the CGI version.
As someone who liked Ahsoka the character a lot, watching her in Mando and her own show was disappointing.
0
RefreshNinja12 hr ago
+8
Ahsoka was introduced in the CGI clone wars show, not the Tartakovsky show. She hadn't been conceived yet as an idea at the time that show came out.
Favreau was a voice actor in the cgi show, he didn't write or direct TCW or Rebels.
Nothing that happens in the Mando show with regards to Ahsoka or Thrawn is required to understand these characters.
8
stonertboner12 hr ago
+2
There’s probably some comics involving Ahsoka that are canonical, too.
2
el_palmera11 hr ago
+1
You missed like, everything, apparently
1
the_pounding_mallet10 hr ago
+1
Most of this is incorrect.
1
Boomshockalocka00711 hr ago
+1
You forgot the Tales of the Jedi series. It literally shows Ahsoka as a baby. Come on bruh.
1
ozgun141410 hr ago
+3
im so glad they completed season 2 as a grand finale. cause im so not interested in rest. glad i enjoyed part of the journey. im not gonna watch zibillion side series to be able to keep watching mandalorian.
3
agewin1629 hr ago
+1
That would have been awful. Thrawn had absolutely *nothing* to do with Ahsoka in the books.
Yet another example of them pillaging from the EU without understanding why people liked it so much.
1
theDude129412 hr ago
-11
Ah yes Grand Admiral Temu Thrawn how exciting
-11
OPMajoradidas11 hr ago
Read the thrawn books. He don't f*** around
0
theDude129411 hr ago
+1
Precisely my problem, he was criminally nerfed in Ahsoka season 2 . Was more like a dumb guy’s portrayal of what a smart villain is
1
ImamBaksh10 hr ago
+3
>Ahsoka season 2
Um, can I borrow your time travel machine real quick?
3
jscobb11 hr ago
P
0
manfromfuture11 hr ago
They declared Star Wars: Legends to be retcon'ed but they just borrow from it whenever.
0
Hot-Guard-911910 hr ago
+1
I think it's a good idea. Because the newer stuff in legends would conflict with the new stories they wanted to tell. And let's be honest, back then, everything was canon, but not everything was that great or even fit the Star Wars theme that well. They didn't want to pick and choose what's canon and what's not, so they just made it all legends. As in just stories people tell each other in the Star Wars universe, and no one knows what's true or not.
And now they can decide what is canon by reintroducing the old stuff, but slightly altered to fit the new continuity.
1
The_Man_of_Steel11 hr ago
-7
Thrawn is such lame cult schlock, why can't we leave this dreck buried in the 90s
-7
Demerzel6912 hr ago
-13
tl,dr HE CONFIRMED THERE WILL STILL BE A 4TH SEASON OF MANDO!
THIS IS THE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🤘
-13
MrPanda66310 hr ago
-1
I stopped watching anything star wars related ever since they did Andor dirty.
-1
a_horse_named_orb10 hr ago
-2
Not hiring an actual actor anyone’s heard of and instead just using the voice actor was ruinous.
85 Comments