Trivia question: What do Andor S2, Picard S3, and the live action Yamato movie all have in common? See the spoilery answer behind the cut.

Warnings: rant, mentions of sexual assault, written quite fast.( Read more... )

My overall take: it’s excellent, and my chief feeling at the end was “disappointed.” This is only partly the series’ fault. It’s partly the inevitability to ending up at Rogue One, which is melancholy. It’s partly that it was a long three years’ wait with high expectations, and there’s no way a handful of episodes could live up to those fantasies.

The series falters in its own right due to its compressed timeline. You can tell it was four seasons’ worth of storytelling compressed into one. It reminds of seasons 4 and 5 of Babylon 5: it’s clear they had a good plan, and they had to pivot hard to align it with a different production timeline. They couldn’t quite pull it off, but they came about as close as anyone could. I hope there may be either deleted scenes (maybe a directors’ cut?) or a novelization/comic book that uses the five-year story they clearly had mapped out, character building and all. I’d buy it. The action, script, filming, etc. remain top notch.

As many have noted, this series is incredibly important, trenchant, and bloody prophetic as a fictionalization of the fascist upsurge we are currently living through. At times, it was difficult to watch because it hit so close to home. That’s needed and deserves high praise.

Spoilers follow( Read more... )