The ‘Star Wars’ Rankings and the 'Andor' Miracle

25:10Sean Fennessey:Hanging by a thread by every turn. It's the great drama of the show. Yeah, and they basically is funded sometimes knowingly, sometimes not by these rich people who are indulgent to the ideas, but not willing to get their hands dirty. They've got this guy, Luthan, who can't come out and just say straight up, I am Axis, I am the guy. So he's pretending to be an antiquities dealer. And he and Cassian go all over the galaxy and meet all these different people like Saw Gerrera and they're all like, I think I'm the Rebellion. I am the Luthan of my storyline. And they're like, yeah, checkmate, man. You're going to do what I need you to do here.

25:52I know.

25:52Sean Fennessey:That's the thing that is so clever about it is that everyone feels that they are the most important person in the execution of the plan and that they have the most at stake at any given time. I would say Luthan, weirdly, is the only person who doesn't have any anxiety about that. He is like the true philosophical militant where he kind of follows through on every single step that he feels is necessary for this work, and it is his life's work. But Mon Mothma is a completely different figure. She's a public-facing figure who clearly got into this line of work to help make change and make society better and safer, witnesses something happening but can't act publicly against it until she absolutely has to and does.

26:34Sean Fennessey:But the idea of drawing together spies living in secret, but publicly, politicians, true down and dirty rebels who are doing the grunt work and are being, you know, eliminated time and time again while trying to accomplish one incremental thing that gets you over a year's time a step further to vanquishing whatever the perceived evil is, is I find it hard to kind of like hold the whole show in my head, you know? That's one of its great achievements. This is why I'm not really looking at my computer. Like, there are episodic sequences of this show that still are with me like they were yesterday.

27:17And like that whole Aldani thing is essentially like exactly what you're talking about where you've got the Ebimos-Bacharach character who's essentially an outlaw. You've got Cassian, who is one trigger pull away from just being the Ebimos-Bacharach character. Nemec, who is the political ideologue and winds up being perhaps the most important person in the rebellion in some ways. He's like the Marx-Lenin figure, yeah. Yeah. And then you've got these dutiful soldiers like Faye who are all working for Luthan and trying to get Luthans, you know, the light of Luthan to shine on them. What a fascinating collection of portraits of people in resistance that aren't just all like, we all have a common goal, let's work for it.

28:02It's like, no, like, Mon Motha might as well be like a blue check lib person who's like, I thought maybe if I just voted the hardest, it would work. But it turns out I'm gonna have to raise money and give it to separatist groups.

28:14Sean Fennessey:No, I mean, in all examples of dramatic political social movements, whether it be the civil rights movement in America, whether it be changes in Chile, like you can like look at all these examples at Gilroy sites or that are clear inspirations on it. There are warring factions within the groups. There are people who don't agree about the way in which it works. One of the things I really like about the show is it shows you characters who seem minor and become major over the course of two seasons. Yeah, it's the wire thing. You know, like, which is, that's a, there's a kind of deliberate, like thought through quality to the show that I've, it's one of the reasons why I struggle with television so much is it often feels like, they're like, I hope we get renewed.

28:54Sean Fennessey:And if we get renewed, we'll come up with some more stuff to do. And I fucking hate that. And I know that it's the business and I, you know, I don't really blame the creatives who are in working in that environment. But in this particular case, even if the show didn't get to have its five seasons, seeing Clay in the way that we do. Yeah, I mean, that is, of many artistic master strokes, I wonder if Clea might be the greatest one. It's the kind of, what her character gets to do and become over the final three episodes of the season gives me chills to think about that. Yeah, but what she doesn't get to do, I mean, like any other television show on screen, she is just like the woman who's in the store who says, you can't do that, Luthen.

29:28Right, right, right. And that's in every fucking show is there's a character who's just like, hey, hero, you got to think twice about this. Right. That person to be the person who like saves the rebellion by killing Luthan and then escapes and gets the only salvation almost of anybody on that show is her and Bix getting out of there. I know.

29:48Sean Fennessey:It's beautiful though. And it really, it's a real genuine payoff if you've stuck with the series through all of the episodes that spending time with them, caring about them, trying to understand who they are. but like I didn't I don't feel any affection for Clea through the first 20 episodes of the series you know I was like she's yeah she's interesting to look at and she has great chemistry with Stellan Skarsgård and they're kind of like father daughter-ish quality but who why does this person matter this is the I would I would say this is a good case for TV is this is I think also Gilroy getting off book English badass actors and then being like oh like they can handle even more this stuff.

30:31And another example of this on the imperial side of things is Pardigas, who is this ISB kind of counterintelligence chieftain who runs terrifying meetings. In fact, one of my favorite lines is, nobody get comfortable. This is not a meeting. Call your families. You're not going home tonight. Nobody, I mean, Gilroy really is the Shakespeare of the business meeting. But that last scene that he has with Krennic, where they've put out an APB for Clea, and it's like, what are we going to say is the reason behind basically turning the entire eye of the Empire on one person? And Partagaz is like, she's diseased.

31:13She has a virus, and if she's exposed to anyone, she'll cause thousands of deaths, and she needs to be quarantined. And, you know, the underling goes running out of the room to send this. And, you know, it's just Krennic. it's just Mendelssohn and I can't remember the part of that actor. His name's Anton Lesser. And he's in Thrones and you've seen him a hundred times. Yes. And he just turns to Krennic and this entire time he has been like so still and so precise and he just like his shoulders drop and he's like, you were supposed to be ready, man. Like you were supposed to have the Death Star built by now.

31:50Like I can't. And Krennic's like, I can't protect you. You're going to go down for this, you know? to write that character into that moment and give these two guys an unreliably spoken intimacy with each other because they've come up through the military academy together or whatever. It will just set off fireworks in your brain when you're watching it. And that's what, when it's good, television can pull off. Right. When it's Mad Men and when it's The Wire and when it's Deadwood and when it's this, it's like cooking at a level that maybe even movies can't achieve.

32:26Sean Fennessey:I think there's, I will admit here on this podcast, this movie podcast, that that is true. We just don't get that routinely enough. Here's my thing, and here's why we're talking about it today. The moment that you're describing is also very similar to moments that happen in the parallax view. We don't have as much time spent with the figures in that world, but that sense that there's something between two people and that they're making a choice and one has more power than the other. Movies can do that. And this show doesn't exist without movies. And I would say that that is the foremost inspiration on the show.

33:02Sean Fennessey:Now, the time spent and the novelistic quality, the scope of the story, definitely that's a huge influence there. But there are so many movies about this idea and so few television shows about this idea of revolution and change within societies because it's hard to dramatize this. Like one of the reasons why the show is so acclaimed is because it's been so rarely achieved. But the only reason they got to make the show is because they called it Star Wars. Exactly. Exactly. The only reason they got to make the show is because it was the Death Star that they're trying to blow up. Yeah. If it was just overthrowing a sci-fi government, like there's no way.

33:36There's no way they get to build Gorman, you know. But because he could go into a timeline and be like, what's this? We've never built that. We should show this.

33:47Sean Fennessey:you know like that's that's it i was thinking about the different kinds of movies that are heavy influences on this show and there are multiple because of that trio episodic structure that you were describing but it's you know we've got revolutionary classics a lot of um european films like z and state of siege the acoustic obverse movies you got army of shadows and the jean-pierre melville films you got battle of algiers is clearly a huge influence back in the news thanks to one battle after another. Oh yeah. You've got Prison Break movies. Sure. Stalag 17, Bridge on the River Kwai, La True, Man Escaped, Spycraft movies, all the Le Carre adaptations, The Conversation.

34:28Sean Fennessey:You noted that Sandbaggers is a big influence on this show. It's a BBC show from the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s. it's available on Prime Video and it is basically a special operations department of the British Secret Service or the British MI6 it's really only told from the perspective of guys waiting for the phone call to come back in to be like mission accomplished and it's just dudes smoking and doing inter-office politics and trying to manipulate members of parliament or members of Whitehall into doing their bidding and it's I don't know if Tony saw it, but it is a very good and or precursor.

35:08Interesting. You know, it is Saw Gerrera and Luthan talking in a cave rather than the fight that they're talking about.

35:13Sean Fennessey:Yeah. There's another form of movie that is no longer very popular, but was at a time, which was a sort of World War II adventure resistance movie. Like, Where Eagles Dare and there's some Fritz Long movies like Hangman Also Die. Guns of Navarone. Guns of Navarone is a big one. I think Guns of Nightmare was probably pretty dramatic influence on the show, given the sort of like men on a mission quality. And changing the scope of the sort of physical landscape that they're in a bunch. And then also my personal favorite kind of movie like this is the sort of post-war racketeering espionage. The Third Man and the conformists, the lives of others, like people kind of operating on the fringes of a very vulnerable society.

35:57Sean Fennessey:and the show is clearly interested in all of these things and in fact it's sometimes like replicating moments from some of those films or at least recalling them specifically and you mentioned this already but this idea of the really the off book British actor the show does what so many good TV shows can do which is it takes complete unknowns to us yeah and just says like come into the world with this person and in fact this show would be much worse if it was a bunch of famous actors. But the fact that you've got certainly some holdovers from the films. You've got Diego Luna. You've got Forrest Whitaker.

36:34Sean Fennessey:Familiar faces from Rogue One. Mon Mothma. Yes. Genevieve O 'Reilly. You've got her. But then you introduce Thelon Skarsgård in I think one of the great performances of his career. Ben Mendelsohn returns from the film. Fiona Shaw is introduced in the first season giving an amazing performance. Yeah. Catherine Hunter. Benjamin Bratt. These are all people we've seen before quite a bit. But then all these other people, Denise Goff, who I, you know, British actress, I'm sure I've seen before. Mind-blowing. She did perhaps the best performance in the series. Yeah, her and the guy who plays Cyril have this truly indescribable weird relationship that I think is like such a beautiful invention of this show that really could have only worked because they get such a long duration of time circling one another, being with one another, and splitting apart.

37:27Kyle Soler is the actor

37:29Sean Fennessey:who plays Cyril Karn. Even someone like Richard Sammel, who is the Gorman leader, who believes that his people are prepared for resistance, who is a longtime working German actor. And the thing I recognized him from immediately is Inglourious Bastards. He's the German lieutenant who was beaten by the Bear Jew. And it's like, oh, right, that guy. And then a whole bunch of new faces. You mentioned Kyle Soler, who I'd never seen before, I don't think. Yeah, Faye Marseille, who's in Thrones but is quite amazing in this. Terrific in this. We mentioned Elizabeth Dulao. Clea. Clea. Adria Hona, possibly the first time I saw her in season one and has now gone on to become a...

38:10Sean Fennessey:You think she'll be Wonder Woman? I think she is Wonder Woman. Are you excited about that? Sure. Yeah. Do you think there should be a Wonder Woman? Do you think that's a character that should exist? You think they're just like James Gunn's doing a great job. We're going to keep everything as is once they do the merger? No, I don't. But we'll see. Could be wrong. Yeah. You gonna see Supergirl? Probably. Would you see it if you weren't obligated to? Wow. It's hard for me to even fathom that life. You know one thing, speaking of Supergirl, that I like about the show too is that even though it is, does feel like a hand-to-hand spy show most of the time, when it needs scale, it can get that Star Wars scale up.

38:55I mean, Luthen's spaceship fight is among the great set pieces in Star Wars history.

39:01Sean Fennessey:Incredibly cool. The other thing is just, I knew I was in good hands in season two when Cassian steals the TIE fighter. And I was like, holy shit. This is actually what it would be like if somebody tried to fly one of these things. You know, like that was another way of kind of tilting our perspective of what we think this world really is, where it's like, it's human beings. It's not just stormtroopers pushing buttons and moving things around. Yeah, Cassian escaping from Aldani while a paralyzed guy is giving him the instructions of when to turn to get out from under this incredible natural light explosion happening in the sky.

39:32The prison break on Arkina with Circus. Unreal.

39:35Sean Fennessey:Yeah. So to me, in addition to Klaia's arc at the final third of the last season, the thing that confirms the show's greatness for me is the Gorman Massacre. I thought we could take a little bit of time to talk about episode eight and why it's a very interesting and fascinating piece of filmmaking. Of course. Can you take me back to when you and Andy were doing the pod? What was your reaction to that episode?

40:04So I think that we were like, this was the one thing that had been in the air that this was going to happen. So when Gorman starts to get mentioned at the beginning of this season, if you were doing any online reading, people were like, this is canon. So there was something that happened there. And if you want to get nerdy, you can get into like Wikipedia and you can start reading some of this stuff. And there was some incident that happened on Gorman and Tony basically used that. and he was like this is where everything is going to come to a head I still think the thing that blows my mind is Cyril's death from that whole thing and the idea that they spent so much time on a guy whose life amounted to pretty much nothing and who has forgotten to history almost instantly but there are so many achievements within that episode I mean what did you think when you saw it

41:00Sean Fennessey:I think I was amazed by the way that they integrated real life history into that scene. I mean, it's seemingly a moment that shows the French resistance. It shows American political movements. It's extremely violent and upsetting. It's echoed in the backed and crossed sequences in one battle. Like, you know, basically like double agents working on other sides. You know, the orchestrated rebellion and the Reichstag fire and all of these different moments in world history where authoritarian state incites people to fight back so that it can make a larger point in its efforts to seize power. And I don't know, it just got me very emotional.

41:49Sean Fennessey:It's like I'm crying at this Star Wars TV show. And I, especially because I have had such a blah relationship to most of the TV shows, I was really taken aback by how sharply drawn I think all this was. Even though you know where it's going. I mean, in two episodes earlier, as you said, Krennic essentially explains what they're going to do. Like, we know where this is all headed. Yeah. And Luthan and Andor have these conversations, and Andor kind of warns Luthan about why this shouldn't happen, how they're not ready. and but Luthan and Krennic are like we need this to happen that's right because of what's going to come out that's right and these two men being so savvy about the way that these things work you know what it reminds me of a little bit and I'll just share this personal piece with with the world at large me and you and Zach Barron occasionally we'll have some conversations about politics sure and whenever we're having that conversation I find that you both are a little bit more hopeful than me and I tend to see the world patternistically and I'm like well this happened here and then four years later, this is going to happen here.

42:50Sean Fennessey:And I think I'm always trying to think about it as like, no matter how painful or bad things get, things swing back. It's not good that they swing back to the negative side, but that this has to happen for this to happen. And that there is a group of people in the world who try to manage power that way. They say like, well, if we do this here, we'll do this. And then there's some people over here who are much more impressionistic or reactive or impulsive. and the movie really psychologizes that so well in the individual characters. The idea that both Krennic and Luthan know that you got to break a few eggs to put a light gloss on it in order to get the things that they want and how deeply that affects somebody like Andor who has fully thrown himself over to this movie.

43:37Sean Fennessey:He's finally accepted that he is a rebel. Almost every moment, I think throughout the entire series, Cassian has like an actual, objective that is not what Luthan wants him to do. It's either find my sister, find Bix, get back to Marva, get out of this whole fucking thing. Like all these things that are never like defeat the empire. And he is an unwilling participant in the beginning of Rogue One when you first meet him. He's like, so I've become a murderer. I've become an assassin. And these four people on a base somewhere in Yavin send me out. Oh, and he resents Jyn so much. And he's so angry with her when they first come together in the movie.

44:20Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I just, I, again, feel like that is such an incredible act of writing to make us feel like there are people who are true believers who can't see the big picture. There are people who see the big picture who are true believers but have also been made cynical by their own dedication to the cause. Or there's Mad Men. There's Saw Gerrera. Saw Gerrera also. Smoking Rydro and just like, I just want to live in a constant state of guerrilla warfare. Yes. Which is also, I mean, there are people in real life movements who operate that way, you know, who bomb throw literally. So I find all of that to be incredible.

44:58Sean Fennessey:I think it was kind of a relief to me to not have to worry about where the show is going. That's another thing. Which is kind of weird because I think we probably go into a lot of these expanded timeline experiences being like, what is the point of this? Right. We know where this is going. Right. It's the prequel problem. Yeah. And for that reason, I guess, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this happened. How they let this happen. And how could they have let this happen and not let so many other things that sounded cool happen? I think that because this was still on the side. And I think that this doesn't mess with Skywalkers.

45:35A$600 million side, though. Well, I mean, for a brief Bob Chapek moment, we were like, hey, you guys scared my— Chapek, better than Iger? uh, scared money does not make any. So, but like they, they were pouring money into star Wars and Kathy Kennedy to her credit somehow got them to green light this. I'm sure she also was like, they are not going to give you$1 billion to make five of these. Right. But you know, we can, we can tell a really great story and this will go down as one of those great unacknowledged masterpieces of television, like the wire where, you know, true heads know how good this is.

46:12Uh, I was curious whether or not you felt like the end of season two sort of after. After Luthan and Clea's storyline and after the. The Deadro storyline is all wrapped up. Did you feel like it rolled too heavily into Rogue One in a way that like almost was too deferential to Rogue One? I mean, I think Tony always knew and or was going to end with the opening moments of Rogue One the same way Rogue One ends with the opening moments of A New Hope. Sure. but I felt like it gave Rogue One like more resonance to me, honestly. Like when I went back and watched Rogue One after Andor. But doesn't Rogue One open

46:50Sean Fennessey:with a flashback to Jyn's childhood? Yes. So it's not like a direct, like it picks right up here. But I think he's getting on the ship to go to find Galen or so's daughter. Yes, yes, yeah. No, no. I was like, this is fairly logical to me. I'll tell you what, in the same way that one of the things about Rogue One that I really enjoy is that it ends exactly where A New Hope picks up. And I'm like, this actually feels coherent to me. And it gives you both things. It gives you CGI Princess Leia receiving the plans for the Death Star and walking on, but it also gives you Vader, you know, wreaking havoc and doing something we hadn't quite seen before.

47:28Sean Fennessey:I think the show does the same thing. Speaking of Vader wreaking havoc, this show features no lightsabers, no Jedis. Brief mention of the Force. Brief mention of the Force. just very little of the core mythology. And the Force is kind of treated like Maha. Like they're like, hey, I don't know space healing. Like I need a doctor. Yes, which is such a fascinating choice and indicates, I think, probably how a lot of non-believers feel about believers in the world. Well, it also blows out the aperture of the Star Wars galaxy to all of a sudden have somebody be like, hey man, don't touch my shoulder.

48:01Like I need actual... You know what else it does though for me?

48:04Sean Fennessey:Is it makes something like... Alderaan being exploded feel more weighty in the other films. It gives more literal gravity to these planets because you come to realize that they're populated by people who have no idea who the fuck the Skywalkers are, who probably don't even know who Darth Vader is. There is this expansive galaxy, and that's a word that you hear used or you see on the scroll at the beginning of the film, and you just come to accept them as expressions of the titanic nature of existence that is being fought for. But by dispensing with all of those things that feel so essential to these stories, the Skywalker saga, you get more humanity.

48:47Sean Fennessey:You get more like the sense that this is, maybe this is a real place that could exist. Yeah, I mean, it's like, this would be the equivalent of making a movie about Dark Ages England, but having King Arthur just be somewhere in the background. That's right. You know, and rarely, but rarely do we get that kind of like like a depiction of a time period. Oh, can I tell you what I always thought would be a cool idea for a Star Wars TV show? You reminded me of it earlier. It's sort of to that point. I think it would be cool to have a kind of like have-gun-will-travel style show that just follows one blaster, but like it goes into the hands of different people.

49:19Sean Fennessey:So every episode is like... This was the promise of Mandalorian when it started is it did feel like an episodic Western from like the 50s and 60s. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about, I wanted to hear about some of your favorite performances. Like, I know we kind of went through the litany of people that joined the show, but did you have anything in particular that jumped out at you? Yeah, I think it's easy to overlook Diego Luna, even though he's the titular character and he's a person who's constantly pushing back against what we want to happen. He's one of the people who, for the first season and a half, it's like, he's kind of doing the thing, but he's not fully committing.

49:57Sean Fennessey:and he's such an interesting actor to me because he has leading man good looks and not leading man energy he's like a much more vulnerable and suspicious type as an actor but has like almost like a young Dustin Hoffman kind of little twitchy yeah neediness and like a little bit just angsty as an actor and I've heard I heard Tony talk with you and Andy about just how clearly how much he like admires Diego and that he wouldn't have done this without him also like Diego is essentially the on-sat unset ambassador for like the larger project because Tony would be like, I'm writing, I'm approving, I'm doing, doing cuts and stuff like that.

50:34And Diego is there every day doing all these scenes.

50:36Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And I think, so I think he gives a, a truly special performance. I think the two new faces, Elizabeth Dulao and Faye Marseille are the, like, if not the heartbeat, then like the pulse of the show in a lot of ways. And like the, the constant cutaways to them in a room alone, just like trying to navigate and make sure everything is okay. Yes. It's very similar to like looking at Gene Hackman in the conversation and you're just like, something is not okay right now. Like what is wrong? What is it he's hearing? What is going to be around the corner that could blow everything up? The sense of suspense that the show has.

51:13Sean Fennessey:So I really love them. She has a great reaction when some guy comes into the antique store and tells them that Aldani has been attacked and she has to pretend to still be a clerk in this store, but she's also looking at this guy who she knows is essentially the orchestrator of this and her eyes are kind of wet and she's just like it's a great moment yeah um what about you i would say scars guard i think that uh he has like three of the four or five moments of articulating the thesis statements of the show and i think he's like somebody who uses probably at this point like a bit of his physical limitations.

51:53Like he is not going to do a lot of running around to his advantage. Where like Luthen is like often confronted with possible capture or death. And it's just like, I'm either going to talk my way out of this or I'm not, but I'm not going to run. You know, we're not going to go scooting across and having like a fake 70 year old man set piece here.

52:16Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I think there's also something about his character as an actor where he's kind of ornery and confrontational as a performer. Like most of his best characters are sort of like, are you fucking kidding me? And that's perfect for Luthan. No, it's a guy who's like mourning the loss of his life, but not his death. But like, I gave everything to this thing that I'm not even going to be able to have a victory lap for. Yes, totally. But there's a confrontation he hasn't saw in the first season where he's basically like, hey, I know you want to go ride shotgun on this mission, but we're going to let this guy basically get caught by the Empire so that they think they've got a beat on us.

52:54And Saw's like, well, what if I tell him that's what you're going to do? And he's like, do what you want to do. But you have to decide right now if you're going to go or not. And it's like, he's caught by a crazy guerrilla military leader, but he stands stock still and is just like, it is what it is. And it's just a great moment of like, the conception of that character coming to life for me. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Shout out to the friends with the same niche taste as you. You know, ones that will join you in watching a three-hour silent film about the cats of Europe, followed by a cheesy superhero blockbuster.

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53:49Sean Fennessey:One other thing I want to cite is I love the scenes between Genevieve O 'Reilly and Ben Miles, who is her high school pal who is funding the... But then gets in over his head. He's a banker who goes into some debt, has some money troubles, and then, you know, suggests he may expose Mon Mothma and what she's doing for the rebellion. And then Luthan does what Luthan does. I was told I would be taken care of. And this is sort of like, he's the great, you see all these billionaires now who are like turning, maybe they're pivoting to the right. And they're all like, hey, I gave heavily to the Dems for years and now I'm the bad guy?

54:26Like, fuck you.

54:28Sean Fennessey:I mean, that's such a subtle dagger to that whole wing of people who have flipped in the last five years. And I love the interplay between those two actors. And Ben Miles, who's like an actor you've seen before, but I'm sure you don't know his name, has just such a smarmy, insinuating quality. And he's really put Mon Motha on the back foot. I mean, she really is terrified for a future. And then there's that wonderful scene at her daughter's wedding where she has to kind of perform and has this exultant dance. Well, because she knows that now she's in too deep. Yes. Now she's gone past, because I think she knows what's going to happen to him when he leaves the wedding.

55:05Andor is a show set inside of a movie that itself was set inside of a movie. But within this show, there could have been five or six shows. You could just do Mon Mothma's Palace Intrigue show. Yeah, the diplomat for Mon Mothma. Yeah, and it's a testament to being able to take small sections of story and imbue them with the depth that you would usually give an entire other series. You want to shout any other superlatives out before we move on? Well, to me, the show is all about the conversations that happen between characters within it. So I think I've referenced a couple of these, but I wanted to throw out some of my favorite scenes that aren't set pieces but have the importance of them.

55:46when Luthan recruits Cassian in that warehouse and he's like, your dad got hung out in that public square and Cassian pulls the blaster on him. And he's just like, if you want to actually stick it to these guys, you have a decision to make. Come with me. Cassian saying goodbye to Marva, probably the most like heart string tugging moment of the series. And that's when she's like, that's just love, you know? These are both season ones. Yeah. and Luthan's sunrise speech that's in when he's just like I'm never going to see the fruits of my victory if it does come to pass and then honestly like the Krennic too for him interrogating Dedra and the amazing moment where Mendelssohn puts his finger on the top of Denise Goff's head which was unscripted apparently and the Krennic imparted as

56:37Sean Fennessey:moment that I mentioned one other one that is so great is it's not much of a conversation but when Cyril spots Andor during the Gorman uprising. And he's like, it's you. And Andor's like, who are you? Just like a perfect stroke of we know everything, but not everybody in this world knows everything in realization. And also you pointed out Cyril's death, which is so perfect because it's basically like a blaster shot from the side that we don't even see coming. That's just like old school Western. It's like a John Ford movie. Will Star Wars ever do anything like this again? Can they afford to do anything like this ever again?

57:17I think, I don't want to say something as silly as in our lifetime, but I don't think for the next decade, at least.

57:24Sean Fennessey:Yeah, so we have the Menorin and Grogu film coming later this month. Seen, I guess, roughly a fifth of it so far. Wasn't that impressed? I hope it's good. I hope I like it. But it's crazy how big this show feels and how small what I saw on a big screen felt. And that's kind of the inverse of what you want. Not that Andor would have been achievable as a film. It wouldn't have been. But it could have been directionally, like a kind of story you could have told over a period of time baked within the world. Yeah. And that's one thing that it felt very missing from what I saw, at least from Mandalorian Grogu.

57:58Sean Fennessey:And even what I feel was missing from the show The Mandalorian, which I did like the first two seasons of. Yeah, the first season especially is quite good. But I never really felt like the bigger story, the sort of like the wraparound I don't think there was supposed to be one I don't is it Din Djarin's like quest for clarity within the way but that's what we kind of get into I think Favreau was making I'm sure they were in collaboration an episodic question but Favreau's like you know what would be cool is if Werner Herzog was chasing this cowboy across space yeah which is cool yeah and he's got a baby and he's got to protect him and it's a samurai movie yeah and then I think Filoni's like yes and also the Mandalorian have a rich history of like this sword that they have you know like and like all this stuff that goes into it the dark saber the dark saber yeah which I think you know like there are people who are like that whole story is amazing and you gotta go and read about this stuff was cool yeah Gene Carlo Esposito and yeah I think the more crucial movie to talk about is Starfighter which I don't know anything about but given Gosling's sort of pivot to optimism and sort of more lighthearted fare I'm going to safely assume is like a really heartwarming comic heroic film I mean will it be Han Solo as a Jedi I'm a little concerned about that because of the genius of the first Star Wars film is there's Han Solo and then there's the Jedi yes and is it like a glib Jedi I don't know I don't know I don't know if it's like Han Solo with a young Jedi you know but I don't think that augurs well for the idea of let's have Chandler Levax, you know, like Star Wars high school movie.

59:45Would love that. You know, like, probably not. You know, it's funny. But there was a moment in Star Wars. I was like, Rian Johnson and Benioff and Weiss are going to get one. I, you know, I would be interested. I don't think Mangold's High Republic show is a movie. Is that going to happen?

59:58Sean Fennessey:It still is on the long list. So maybe it could happen over time. uh, Alice has a book out of the library, out from the library right now called it's like Jedi school or young Jedi adventures or something. And it's written as almost like, um, gosh, how do you, it's not an epistolary novel exactly, but it's like a series of documents, some diaristic, some of like homework assignments from a young kid who's gone to Jedi school. And so like, I read this book to her and there are all of these kind of like, it's like found media inside of the thing that shows you like, well, here's what Yoda told me today.

1:00:36Sean Fennessey:And I thought to myself like the Goonies, but star Wars or something like that would be a lot of fun. Yeah. Um, you'd have to accept it. And this is some of what, um, uh, gosh, what was the most recent star Wars series called? Accolate. No, after that, the, about the young kids with Jude law. Oh, skeleton crew, skeleton crew. Yeah. Skeleton crew has some of this quality, whereas a little bit more childlike, a little bit more flight of the navigator. okay let's just rank some stuff with me okay let's do the exercise we're gonna do the exercise and i think one thing that i i don't know that i thought about much while watching and or in real time but when we did the draft a couple weeks ago and i revisited the prequels i was like narrative wise it's closer and or is closer to the prequels than it is to the original films in terms of all of the like taxation, senatorial process, parliamentary games like a lot of Andor is like

1:01:35how are we going to explain a mining project?

1:01:40Sean Fennessey:It's interested in the bureaucratic nature of the empire. And I thought But there is a key difference. The key difference is the performance style in the prequels, which is obviously not very good is classic melodrama. And the performance style in Andor is a very clean, pure, it's not naturalistic. It's like, it's tight. It's like every character is portrayed by Robert Ryan. It's very straight talking, very clearly delivered. And it's not grand, the performance style either. It's not, there are speeches, but it's not Shakespearean. No, it's like, it's the Michael Clayton school of acting. Exactly.

1:02:15Sean Fennessey:Which is obviously our favorite thing. But you're right that the subject matter is closer to that than the original trilogy or even the sequels. It did make me laugh, though. I think Topher Grace famously has done recuts of some of the prequel movies, and I was like, could you do a Tony Gilroy cut of the prequels that would actually kind of get closer to that? I don't know if you could do it with those performances per se, but I wouldn't mind going back in time and saying Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Ewan McGregor in a Tony Gilroy trilogy. It would be pretty cool. It would be very exciting, but even Sam Jackson, it's like, he's a little off his game in those movies, you know.

1:02:57Yeah, well, we can get into that now. I mean, when we did the draft, so I did the, more or less, the rewatch project, you know, skipping through stuff that I basically singed in my memory. I've seen, rewatched everything this year. And knowing that we were also going to do this ranking, I found myself having this funny impulse to get some reclamation projects going. I really really really tried for instance to revive Solo and it didn't work out it's not Aaron Reich's fault it's the script's fault or whatever they I think that that was like wouldn't it be cool to do a young Han Solo movie and nobody stopped to be like what's the story and nobody stopped to be like here's something that Tony has mentioned a ton of times when he's talked to me and Andy and I've heard him talk about it in storytelling in general is intention the idea that what's the story's intention what is your style's intention what is this actor's intention and i don't think solo i dare say i don't even know if rogue one in its original conception had like an intention it's cool cool idea yeah it's a cool idea to have the death star with modern special effects but i don't know if they were like yeah we have a complete clear idea Yeah, that we can get from A to B without somebody coming in and being like...

1:04:17Sean Fennessey:But that's hard and that's not something that I think most studio executives respond to because intention implies theme. That there is an emotional and intellectual core to the work that you're doing as opposed to this is why this should be made. And this is why this should be made is because people want to see it because they're curious about how they got the plans to the Death Star. Yeah. And that's actually at the absolute intersection of Star Wars' problem. Yes, but the problem, one of the issues is that's a Wikipedia entry. That's not us. I know. But so is Andor if done wrong. Yes. Right?

1:04:48Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Yeah. Where'd the rebellion come from? Who were its chief architects? Who pushed the ball forward? Could have been really boring. Could have been really action-packed. No, it could have been House of the Dragon. It could have just been like, hey. Precisely. You know, like here's, I'm walking in and I'm going to say what I want. Yes. So for you, there are 28 pieces of. No, 14. So we're just doing movies here. Movies and or Mandalorian and Grogu. Okay. Or excuse me, movies and or The Mandalorian. If you want to talk about the Book of Boba Fett, if you want to talk about Obi-Wan Kenobi, I've seen those shows.

1:05:21Sean Fennessey:I don't think they're successful. I don't think Ahsoka is successful personally. I haven't seen the two animated series. I haven't seen the Clone Wars film. So we can only work with what we were. How high would Andor go here? Well, so I think we can dispense with like, is it Empire and A New Hope at the top of the rankings? yeah and what order would you say they go in well I I am now in a new hope phase okay tell us about it I just think that there's some parts of new hope that I find a bit dull like I find Dagobah a little bit dull you mean in Empire sorry in Empire yeah so I have new hope a little bit above Empire right now no kidding is this just you trying to undermine my draft status or no it's just I think I talked about this I was just like I just think New Hope kind of rocks from the first note to the last and I think Empire maybe gets we spend a lot of time on Tatooine yeah it's like a lot a lot of Luke like wandering around the desert yeah but you get the fucking binary sunset you get like the origin of him being crabby and then there's like he's avoiding the Tusken Raiders Tusken Raiders are still cool no?

1:06:32Sean Fennessey:I mean it's great when Obi-Wan shows up do you find I'm negging the most important movie of my life. But, you know. Would you put Andor above either of them? I wouldn't, but only because it cannot exist without them. And my pitch is going to be Empire One, New Hope Two. Is Andor the third best thing? Now, I know you said Andor is basically your favorite Star Wars thing. Yeah. At least because of the phase of life. I mean, it's most intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant movie to me as an adult. But these are two of the most important movies of my lifetime as a child and ones that I still watch once a year, you know, as an adult.

1:07:14Sean Fennessey:What do we do about the New Hope Empire situation? Can I tell us? Like, I don't know. Like on Survivor? Yeah. What do you think of that? I have Mr. Beast right here. Beast games on the Star Wars rankings? Holy shit. Is Mr. Beast really one of the most famous people in the world? I believe so. I don't really know who's in front of him or behind him. It's probably you're in there. But like Mr. Beast is more famous than Bill. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, I'm just asking. Bill Simmons? Yeah. If Mr. Beast and Bill were both at a Lakers game, who gets more like, hey? Well, that's kind of a loaded proposition there.

1:07:52It's a home game for Bill. Yeah, yeah.

1:07:53Sean Fennessey:I think Mr. Beast is more famous. Okay. How many, doesn't Mr. Beast have 500 million YouTube subscribers? It's a lot. I think Bill's probably had 500 million listeners over the course of his career. I do not think that's the case. Do you have a coin in your pocket? I don't have any change. I'm going to give you Empire because it's your podcast. Thanks. Empire 1, New Hope 2, Andor 3. You think that's crazy? No. That Andor is better than Return of the Jedi, which is kind of silly. Just be nice. What? Just be nice to Return of the Jedi. It's underrated at this point. I like Return of the Jedi. I'm just saying.

1:08:30Sean Fennessey:Is it possible that anything could get above that? Thank you, Lucas. Keep filling those in. Could get above Jedi? at four can any can any prequel or sequel get above Jedi I'd have the Rogue One conversation I'd have the highs of Rogue One no no no no no okay seriously I'd have the conversation I'd take the meeting you don't like to take the meeting you like to be definitive in your proclamations I like to take the meeting I like to say like yeah let's get coffee let's knock it out I'm gonna go out I'm gonna have a cigarette I'm gonna come back in we'll talk some more you know Rogue One over Return of the Jedi I think it's a it's just a conversation to have.

1:09:08Sean Fennessey:I'm fascinated. I probably wouldn't put Rogue One over Revenge of the Sith. Oh, I would. I wouldn't put it over Jedi, Last Jedi. Rogue One is really cool, but Rogue One to me actually commits an interesting sin that you could argue Andor does too, but Rogue One does it in more overt ways. Where with Rogue One, I can feel all the archetypes from other movies being plugged into that movie. You know, the individual characters that represent the team that they all work on. I'm like, oh, well, this is Dustin Hoffman from Papillon and oh, this is, you know, a character that Donnie Yen has played in five samurai movies and, you know, which is cool.

1:09:45Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And it kind of scratched that part of my brain in a way I enjoyed, but I was like, this is barely a movie. Like, they just kind of took all these archetypes and slung them together. Okay, so you have Return... Let's... You have Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, and or. Would you put Last Jedi 4 above Return of the Jedi? I don't think I can. Okay, so Return of the Jedi 3, 4. you like you're not like you're not a major legion I may be like the last man in the world who it doesn't feel very strongly about it one way or the other you know like I thought it features some incredible sequences what that's the funny way of putting it well you know how like it's either you're on one side of this war or the other and I'm somehow I'm Switzerland here you know like I think the discourse around it overtook the movie itself and when I tried to rewatch it I was like there's lots of stuff that I like I find the Luke and Rey stuff a bit tedious to watch like on the planet of like and her sort of apprenticeship it is a bit tedious at this point and the casino planet stuff is awful but then there's some really cool stuff in it and this is the best driver you don't like Benicio?

1:11:04He's good. He's good. I like him more in The Way of the Gun. I'll bet you do.

1:11:11Sean Fennessey:So what do we do here? This is really the pickle of this whole enterprise is the original trilogy, Magic, and or falls in our lap some 50 years later. Like, holy shit. Yeah. This happened. And then there's 17 other things or whatever. Yeah. And I like all this stuff. I gotta say, I went and I saw the prequels of my daughter. We had a great time. It was fun. Good. if I had a daughter I'm sure I'd say the same thing I don't know man I like Attack of the Clones Yoda's fighting Count Dooku I'm like this is pretty cool I'm just a kid again okay nothing wrong with that yeah I've told this story before about fighting with Chris X on the phone when I moved to New York and he was like you keep talking about this fucking prequel shit man this is garbage and I was like I don't know I kind of enjoyed it I think it's okay to have kind of enjoyed those movies their flaws are huge their flaws are are vast it's just funny because at this point we have like these more than a dozen things to choose from and as hard as I tried I just couldn't figure out like a crazy zag pick or like I said with Solo like this isn't like watching James Bond movies and you're like actually never say never I'll tell you where my gut would take me on this one I would probably go five last Jedi six rogue one seven revenge of the Sith so you have rogue one over Sith here in this telling.

1:12:33Sean Fennessey:With you in mind. Okay, thank you. Navigating this with you. Probably Force Awakens after Revenge of the Sith. Yeah. Which I think is a very fun movie. Me too. And certainly it absolutely mimics the arc of A New Hope, but there are moments Han on the ship. It's true, all of it. Kylo killing his father. There's stuff in that movie that I'm like, these are movie chills. It's actually a good way of summarizing how I feel about those sequels, which is like there are a dozen across the three movies, wonderful moments. And I don't think I can coherently tell you the story of those three movies. I can, but only because I've spent so much time with them recently.

1:13:18But like the story of Force Awakens.

1:13:20Sean Fennessey:You were over at my house with Alice and she's brought out the book, the little golden book retelling of the stories. And she was just narrating it to you word for word because she's committed it to memory. very fun reading to Alice moment because I've gotten to start pitching relief on reading to her at night and first of all very cute thing is that she eats apples before she goes to bed and she eats them very close to your face while you're reading and so she's like crunching down while I'm reading a Spider-Man book to her and I'll like stop to kind of look up at the crunching and she goes keep reading

1:13:59Sean Fennessey:I'll return that in kind keep ranking yeah please keep ranking Force Awakens Force Awakens and then you can put clones here I think it's clones and then I think it's a little a little messy I don't really know where you go from here I think Solo goes here well okay wait it goes I think it might be Mando I was gonna say Mando Mando is a show is Mando even better than clones I think it might be what they did to Mando as a secondary act at the end of the first season though it would have easily been in the top six. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's better than... I would probably put Mandalorian Season 1

1:14:35definitely above Revenge of the Sith for me.

1:14:38Sean Fennessey:Definitely about... Yeah. I think it would have been right behind Rogue One. But then when they turned it into here's two seasons, then they're going to do Boba Fett, but in the middle of Boba Fett, they're going to lose their nerve and do a... I hated that. A backdoor Mandalorian Season 3A. Okay. Let's make Mando 10. Okay. Okay. I think, is it then Solo? Or is it then Phantom Menace? I can't. I have to put Solo above Phantom Menace. I find Phantom Menace to be almost unwatchable. Phantom Menace has Duel of the Fates, though. I know. You don't like it? You don't care about it? It's fine. Solo doesn't have a single moment that's as good as Duel.

1:15:14Sean Fennessey:I'm overruling you. Phantom Menace is above Solo. You don't think the train robbery in Solo is, or the Sabacc game when he walks in and Donald Glover's like, everything about me is true. That part is fun. Yeah, but it's not as good as Solo. It's not magical. Okay. To me, Duel of the Fates is magical. And then that would leave Rise of Skywalker 13th and the worst thing that Star Wars has done. And they have to hold that. They have to take that. What a consequential film. I mean, really a film that I think changed this entire franchise's past, present, future. We've been talking about Star Wars as an industry and as like a business story and as a behind the scenes story for almost as long as we've probably been talking about Star Wars as like a story that means something to us.

1:15:54Is there any sliding doors or moment in the sort of production history or the gossip history of Star Wars that you're like, God damn it, I wish that had worked out? Whether it's Ryan finishing the trilogy.

1:16:11Sean Fennessey:I'll tell you. I don't think that was ever realistically going to happen. I don't know the details. But I remember, and maybe it's Andy who's brought it up a few times, but wasn't the original idea of the first J.J. movie, the Michael Arndt script, the lightsabers falling from the sky? It's falling out from space into a planet and it lands, yeah. and there was something about the refresh concept there and not being not having too much fealty to what's come before that I think messed with that trilogy and that trilogy which I think is ultimately one third very cool one third very entertaining and one third disastrous could have been something completely different and I never actually read that script I don't think you might have read it did you read it?

1:17:02I don't know that that script in its entirety ever got out but I think people were like here are sections from Michael Hunt's script and they've used some of it and some of it is about like hunting for Skywalker and like looking for where Luke has gone but it's funny I mean that's like one of those things where it's like that broke Van's brain that Luke abandoned his friends and I'm like who cares I never even crossed my mind

1:17:28Sean Fennessey:I know it's so interesting the way the different relationships that we have with these things Is there anything else for you, a sliding door that you think would have been interesting? I think J.J. is the sliding door. I think J.J. is, you know, the guy who made Super 8, the guy who kind of was originally just sort of like, I love Star Trek. I'm happy to be on Star Trek. Getting this job and then being like, ultimately my job is to remake New Hope and remake, you know, Jedi and try to use these people, these older actors as much as possible and keep them present in these movies. I thought they cast those sequels wonderfully well, but ran out of script to give them.

1:18:11And so there was just basically not enough for Oscar Isaac to do. And there's not enough for John Boyega to do. Agreed. And they didn't make the tough choices. For every moment of Ben Solo killing his own father, you get a hundred things that you're like, eh, you really pulled out of the spin at the last second.

1:18:30Sean Fennessey:Totally agree. The Star Wars rankings, according to us. Number one, The Empire Strikes Back. Number two, A New Hope. Number three, Andor. Number four, Return of the Jedi. Number five, The Last Jedi. I'm sure we'll get some good feedback on that one. Number six, Rogue One, A Star Wars Story. Number seven, Revenge of the Sith. Number eight, The Force Awakens. Number nine, Attack of the Clones. Number ten, The Mandalorian. Number eleven, The Phantom Menace. Number twelve, Solo, A Star Wars Story. And number 13 The Rise of Skywalker where do you think Mandalorian and Grogu will go on that list got check

1:19:07Sean Fennessey:can it get above Attack of the Clones yeah I think it can it could it could it could I find it very strange how unclear what this like what this movie is about has like the fact that like we've gotten so close to its I know having seen the beginning but even what I know through the first 20 minutes I'm like this is the movie or that they're like we did tell you what the movie's about and you're like that's it could be yeah um thanks for doing this Chris well thanks for having me and thanks for watching Andor what's your next big TV project I'm watching uh um uh Euphoria in real time and did you watch episode 3 I'm not caught up yet okay um so I've seen the first two and uh it's a show I like uh what's the I haven't I haven't finished Succession season 4 not Succession Industry season four.

1:19:59Oh, you did finish it?

1:20:00Sean Fennessey:I haven't. Okay. So that's on the plane to Cannes. That's what I'll be doing. That's the exact place they'd want you watching it. It's being serious. Oh, that's exciting. Hey, thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh and to Sarah Reddy for powering through a series of recordings this week. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Later this week, a very special treat. A very fun podcast. The Physical Media High Council will return. We'll see you then. Thank you.