Andor last 3 episode thoughts:

Here we go

I like how that series tried to be MEGA (Make Empire Ghastly Again). Andor's biggest achievement is doing their best to right the incompetent Empire schtick from the later Disney films and TV series. Malicious, calculating and duplicitous from the ISB to other people. Good to see them flesh out Luthen's story and the inception point for how word finally got out, with Dedra and Partagz's ultimate demise after all that political work,

Overall, Andor was good. Way too much filler in it took down took the score down a notch or two - some parts were pointless, but it was good to watch adult Star Wars that made you think and developed its characters and didn't rely on pew, pew, oh look cameos and lightsabers. This is the way.... In the pantheon of historical TV series, nowhere near the top 10., but will I rewatch again at some point? Yes. Best compliment that I can give.

As an aside, I have no idea how Andor as a concept got past the KK and Filoni filters. Its worlds apart from their slop and shows how bad stuff like Obi Wan, later Mando and Ahsoka are.

Take with a mine sized pinch of salt because it's the internet, but this would kind of explain why Disney Star Wars is consistently crap, how nothing good gets made anymore and how Andor got made and didn't suffer from the usual issues.

That Park Place

Is Dave Filoni Gatekeeping Star Wars? New Report Suggests...

Rumors are swirling that Dave Filoni is gatekeeping Star Wars, filtering pitches out that don't adhere to his personal vision.

Seen on a Facebook post, IT humor. @paco

Why the Empire Deserved to Lose: A Rant by an Exhausted IT Professional

Everyone talks about the Rebel bravery in Rogue One, but let’s address the real scandal: the Empire’s catastrophic data infrastructure.

Scarif. A literal beach planet with palm trees and a single giant archive tower. No cloud. No edge nodes. No backup sites. Just one glorified space Dropbox holding the Empire’s most sensitive documents—like, say, the blueprint to their WMD moon.

Where was the replication cluster? Where was the cold storage mirror site? Why the hell were the Death Star plans stored on a removable data brick that fits in a backpack? Did no one in the Imperial Data Governance Council ever hear of zero trust architecture?

And don’t even bring up security. The archive was accessed by a stolen keycard, a cape, and a healthy disregard for OSHA. The data wasn’t encrypted, wasn’t fragmented, and apparently wasn’t even checksum-verified before transmission.

I’ve seen HOA boards run tighter ops than this. Did the Empire skip their ISO 1138-B Galactic Continuity Compliance audit? Was their chief data officer just a stormtrooper in glasses?

Honestly, Scarif wasn’t a security breach—it was an open invitation to rebellion with a side of sandy feet.

Let’s face it: the Death Star didn’t get destroyed by the Force or plucky rebels. It got destroyed by an empire that architected its data lake like a kiddie pool.

On 5/16/2025 at 6:39 PM, NOTW said:

Seen on a Facebook post, IT humor. @paco

Why the Empire Deserved to Lose: A Rant by an Exhausted IT Professional

Everyone talks about the Rebel bravery in Rogue One, but let’s address the real scandal: the Empire’s catastrophic data infrastructure.

Scarif. A literal beach planet with palm trees and a single giant archive tower. No cloud. No edge nodes. No backup sites. Just one glorified space Dropbox holding the Empire’s most sensitive documents—like, say, the blueprint to their WMD moon.

Where was the replication cluster? Where was the cold storage mirror site? Why the hell were the Death Star plans stored on a removable data brick that fits in a backpack? Did no one in the Imperial Data Governance Council ever hear of zero trust architecture?

And don’t even bring up security. The archive was accessed by a stolen keycard, a cape, and a healthy disregard for OSHA. The data wasn’t encrypted, wasn’t fragmented, and apparently wasn’t even checksum-verified before transmission.

I’ve seen HOA boards run tighter ops than this. Did the Empire skip their ISO 1138-B Galactic Continuity Compliance audit? Was their chief data officer just a stormtrooper in glasses?

Honestly, Scarif wasn’t a security breach—it was an open invitation to rebellion with a side of sandy feet.

Let’s face it: the Death Star didn’t get destroyed by the Force or plucky rebels. It got destroyed by an empire that architected its data lake like a kiddie pool.

I was literally thinking about this the other night. (I work in Data Protection Sales)

If they were able to beam the file to a ship, why didn't the ship beam multiple copies of the file to other ships, etc?

They obviously figured out intergalactic data transfer bec they have video calls all the time.

I'm 1977 having a physical copy of the plans that needed to be delivered by hand made sense. Rogue One definitely created this plot hole.

2 hours ago, iladelphxx said:

I was literally thinking about this the other night. (I work in Data Protection Sales)

If they were able to beam the file to a ship, why didn't the ship beam multiple copies of the file to other ships, etc?

They obviously figured out intergalactic data transfer bec they have video calls all the time.

I'm 1977 having a physical copy of the plans that needed to be delivered by hand made sense. Rogue One definitely created this plot hole.

I mean it's just humor. Even today with our technology, there are reasons organizations have hard files of things, legal docs with wet signature, that kind of thing. It was just a way they created to make the plot happen.

14 hours ago, iladelphxx said:

I was literally thinking about this the other night. (I work in Data Protection Sales)

If they were able to beam the file to a ship, why didn't the ship beam multiple copies of the file to other ships, etc?

They obviously figured out intergalactic data transfer bec they have video calls all the time.

I'm 1977 having a physical copy of the plans that needed to be delivered by hand made sense. Rogue One definitely created this plot hole.

Ironically, in some areas, physical copies of documents are increasingly being handed over for some info vs remote downloads as it is seen as safer from a security perspective. I work in a similar area and we are constantly badgered about not putting unfamiliar USBs in your PC, being careful about what wireless networks you use, being careful about social engineering to stop data leakage, ransomware etc.

2nd half of Andor season 2 definitely got better.

It did, and shows how poor early eps were, and how certain groups can be evil vs how they were presented elsewhere.

And...

Why beer gut Thrawn is so disappointing because he comes from that version of the Empire

Incidentally, I was day dreaming about Star Wars the other week and how to remove the Disney era stench. Considering Filoni introduced multiverses, perhaps the Disney version can be seen as Star Wars 2.0, and the OG is in another dimension as 1.0.

It would allow a brave showrunner to do some dirty retconning and just remove later garbage out of existence, meaning OG Luke (as an example) isn't a complete idiot. I can but wish

Overall the Andor series did some things very well, non-spoilers here. It zoomed in away from the larger story to show the impact on lower levels. It showed the oppression happening to real people in real communities. It showed the issues the rebellion had with trust about spies, allegiances and agendas. It showed that different pockets of rebels doing their own thing might be counter intuitive to the larger plan and the need to be coordinated and on the same page. Between this series and Rogue One it also added to the aura of the Death Star. They didn't believe such a weapon was possible. And showing how the Empire used government resources and even approval in the Senate for projects that ultimately were going toward such an evil cause.

The sets, costumes and practical effects looked and felt like Star Wars. If the prequels were shot that way, would have been much better. The scripts, dialogue and acting were well done. There were also easter egg type things or references that weren't cringe, but rather made sense in the development.

I have to wonder about that final scene. Why? Why was it necessary? It was completely meaningless to Andor's arc beyond that point so why throw it in there? I mean, it could have been extremely significant but, if the ending of season 2 was leading directly to the start of Rogue One then he would never have known and it would have absolutely nothing to do with what happened.

38 minutes ago, The_Omega said:

I have to wonder about that final scene. Why? Why was it necessary? It was completely meaningless to Andor's arc beyond that point so why throw it in there? I mean, it could have been extremely significant but, if the ending of season 2 was leading directly to the start of Rogue One then he would never have known and it would have absolutely nothing to do with what happened.

If you're talking about Bix & the baby it ties in very well with what Luthen told Cassian about "sacrificing for a dawn we'll never see".

On 5/21/2025 at 8:38 AM, UK Eagle said:

Ironically, in some areas, physical copies of documents are increasingly being handed over for some info vs remote downloads as it is seen as safer from a security perspective. I work in a similar area and we are constantly badgered about not putting unfamiliar USBs in your PC, being careful about what wireless networks you use, being careful about social engineering to stop data leakage, ransomware etc.

That makes sense from the Empire's point of view (the target) not the Rebels (the hackers)

Their goal was to get the data to the Rebel Alliance as fast as possible

1 hour ago, The_Omega said:

I have to wonder about that final scene. Why? Why was it necessary? It was completely meaningless to Andor's arc beyond that point so why throw it in there? I mean, it could have been extremely significant but, if the ending of season 2 was leading directly to the start of Rogue One then he would never have known and it would have absolutely nothing to do with what happened.

I agree that it felt out of place as far as the last scene to show. Rogue One had a scene that directly linked to A New Hope. This finale had a montage of the characters and all that and then threw in that final scene.

I suppose it explains why

she just suddenly left. Her character was pointless this season. Season 1 she was a rebel fighter. This season she was just having nightmares and hallucinations. Then she just ups and leaves, which the baby explains why she probably wanted to get away from the action. But they would have been better off killing her character during a mission, for Cassian to be emotional and out for revenge. They also could have shown Gaelyn Erso living peacefully away from the Empire which would have linked to the first scene in Rogue One.

7 hours ago, UK Eagle said:

Incidentally, I was day dreaming about Star Wars the other week and how to remove the Disney era stench. Considering Filoni introduced multiverses, perhaps the Disney version can be seen as Star Wars 2.0, and the OG is in another dimension as 1.0.

It would allow a brave showrunner to do some dirty retconning and just remove later garbage out of existence, meaning OG Luke (as an example) isn't a complete idiot. I can but wish

I used to think there's no point, because they've moved on and created so much content. But there are other franchises with multiple iterations of the same character and stories. Halloween retconned some of the sequels with their recent movies. Now even Harry Potter is rebooting with a TV show with a whole new cast.

I think if they were to re-do anything, at this point they'd have to let the current stories wrap up: Mandalorian and Grogu, and finish the Thrawn/Ahsoka/Rebels story with a movie.

Or they could pause everything else, take a break for a bit and then come back with something else. It's too late to give us the sequels to ROTJ everyone wanted with the OG cast. So they could just recast and use Sebastian Stan for Luke and get someone better than that guy who played Han in the solo movie, and others. And just do a better sequel to ROTJ. Maybe go the Andor route and have a TV show that shows rebuilding the Republic, new Sith, etc. and then build up to a new movie or something.

1 hour ago, dawkins4prez said:

If you're talking about Bix & the baby it ties in very well with what Luthen told Cassian about "sacrificing for a dawn we'll never see".

That's a fair point, but they could have done it with any child. I guess it's supposed to mean more to us being who it is, but it didn't.

16 hours ago, NOTW said:

I used to think there's no point, because they've moved on and created so much content. But there are other franchises with multiple iterations of the same character and stories. Halloween retconned some of the sequels with their recent movies. Now even Harry Potter is rebooting with a TV show with a whole new cast.

I think if they were to re-do anything, at this point they'd have to let the current stories wrap up: Mandalorian and Grogu, and finish the Thrawn/Ahsoka/Rebels story with a movie.

Or they could pause everything else, take a break for a bit and then come back with something else. It's too late to give us the sequels to ROTJ everyone wanted with the OG cast. So they could just recast and use Sebastian Stan for Luke and get someone better than that guy who played Han in the solo movie, and others. And just do a better sequel to ROTJ. Maybe go the Andor route and have a TV show that shows rebuilding the Republic, new Sith, etc. and then build up to a new movie or something.

Marvel and DC do that with a lot of their comics when it gets silly don't they? Forget it all happened

For me, they need to pause now. Why?

The Star Wars fandom will start to age out if they carry on with low quality films/TV chasing one last great project over the next 5 to 10 years, because not enough young people are into Star Wars nowadays (not cool.) to carry it one and AI will evolve to the point where I can create a Thrawn trilogy myself and won't need Disney's interpretations. They need to go back to selling merch, selling books and re-releasing the old OG trilogy and prequels. Nothing new, at all.

Then as that is taking place, plan a proper sequence of films/TV with credible people in charge, to start anew with the Heir to the Empire and forget the Disney efforts ever existed - just pay the book authors their dues and use those stories. It's the only way to save Star Wars now.

Sadly, I think that Andor is it for good Star Wars because of who is in charge and who controls the story. Neither will let go without having a stooge in place, and it will just perpetuate the cycle.

On 5/30/2025 at 1:35 PM, iladelphxx said:

Bail Organa had a separate conversation about a side mission to go contact Obi-Wan. We never see that ship takeoff, so they loaded the droids. After the Scariff battle went down they joined to help.