Andor (Star Wars: Andor) - Disney+

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's kind of the point, though.

She's taking advantage of two vices freely available at a wedding reception - excessive consumption of alcohol and uninhibited dancing - as a way to dissociate in a public setting so she won't have to immediately deal with the emotional toll from the events of the day.  Her dancing is clearly meant to show that she is emphatically NOT OK... something that other characters are also meant to notice (e.g. Perrin, who clearly notices she's in distress at the end of the episode).

I get the point they were trying to make, but they did it in the worst possible way 

[azrael]

On 4/26/2025 at 4:27 PM, Duke Togo said:

I disagree on Mon Mothma. We're seeing this character on a journey, and I believe in where they're taking her.

I'm going to agree with this.

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It seems like Mon Mothma has finally hit the point where she can no longer avert her eyes from the fact that people are killing, and/or dying, for the cause.

I would say it's more like it finally caught up to her. She tried to avoid crossing into that world but, that world and her's were on a collision course the moment she helped the rebellion movement.

  

5 hours ago, Big s said:

I get the point they were trying to make, but they did it in the worst possible way 

I didn't see it that way. I saw someone screaming in angst that they now would have to kill people, even those they considered friends. At that moment, she's not OK, but that's now a luxury Mon can no longer afford.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

I didn't see it that way. I saw someone screaming in angst that they now would have to kill people, even those they considered friends. At that moment, she's not OK, but that's now a luxury Mon can no longer afford.

I meant including a 90’s rave in Star Wars

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

I would say it's more like it finally caught up to her. She tried to avoid crossing into that world but, that world and her's were on a collision course the moment she helped the rebellion movement.

My read of her character from Andor and other related titles is that it's at least as much other characters like Luthen made a concerted effort to keep her out of that world for their own sanity as much as hers.  She wasn't prepared to deal with the mental or emotional toll of having people kill and die on her orders, and they didn't have the time or energy to be entertaining her protests about every decision and consequence involved in running an armed insurgency.  

We saw a bit of this in season one when Mon was deeply upset at the prospect of a post-Aldhani Imperial crackdown causing widespread suffering, and Luthen having to rather coldly explain that that was a good thing for the cause and run the op without her knowledge or involvement.

For Mon Mothma, Tay Kolma is the moment the war finally came home and became real.

 

1 hour ago, azrael said:

I didn't see it that way. I saw someone screaming in angst that they now would have to kill people, even those they considered friends. At that moment, she's not OK, but that's now a luxury Mon can no longer afford.

Yup.

 

26 minutes ago, Big s said:

I meant including a 90’s rave in Star Wars

It's A Long Time Ago... in a Galaxy Far Far Away.  Musical tastes can be different.

Mind you, it's not a rave either.  It's a bunch of upper class rich folks drunk dancing to popular music at the reception after a three day long stifling traditional wedding ceremony.  

It's not meant to be a coordinated Bollywood musical number.  From what I've read, the song playing at the reception is a remix of the same (presumably popular) song playing on that resort planet Cassian hides out on after Aldhani.

Edited Monday at 06:20 AM by Seto Kaiba

[azrael]

This is music from an human-looking but alien species from a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away. 🤷‍♂️

Another subtlety in the dance is Mon wasn't smiling (she was actually emotionless, just lost in the moment) and she was out of sync with the rest of the guests on the dance floor.

[Big s]

6 hours ago, azrael said:

This is music from an human-looking but alien species from a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away. 🤷‍♂️

Another subtlety in the dance is Mon wasn't smiling (she was actually emotionless, just lost in the moment) and she was out of sync with the rest of the guests on the dance floor.

It was a long log time ago in the 70’s, dubstep was was only a long time ago compared to now. It just didn’t fit. Especially when they’re trying to show oddly mixed traditional styles from old school Asian practices and medieval European dance routines and then the rave starts and it just doesn’t work. 
 

Again I get what they wanted to convey with her, just that the rave doesn’t fit at all and just comes off as super cringy. It ends up a terrible scene and kinda screws up the other stuff that’s going on with Andor himself. Basically the one good scene from the first three episodes gets ruined by the Mothma dance scene 

[pengbuzz]

18 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's kind of the point, though.

She's taking advantage of two vices freely available at a wedding reception - excessive consumption of alcohol and uninhibited dancing - as a way to dissociate in a public setting so she won't have to immediately deal with the emotional toll from the events of the day.  Her dancing is clearly meant to show that she is emphatically NOT OK... something that other characters are also meant to notice (e.g. Perrin, who clearly notices she's in distress at the end of the episode).

Mon Mothma having a mon meltdown...

 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Big s said:

It was a long log time ago in the 70’s, dubstep was was only a long time ago compared to now. It just didn’t fit. Especially when they’re trying to show oddly mixed traditional styles from old school Asian practices and medieval European dance routines and then the rave starts and it just doesn’t work. 

So, I don't know how it is where you live... but in the Americas, Western Europe, etc. this would not even register as unusual to a lot of people.

All it is, is a traditional wedding ceremony followed by a modern wedding reception.  The pomp and solemn ceremony of centuries-old religious tradition immediately followed by an unrestrained party where the wedding guests get absolutely stinko at the open bar and dance badly to the set list of a DJ with questionable taste.  A fair description of my own younger brother's wedding, TBH.

The scene works just fine.  It's an alien wedding on an alien planet with an alien culture... and even then, the wedding itself is noted to be abnormal because it's driven by the wants of a bridezilla who overcompensates in establishing her own cultural identity while living abroad by fetishizing her people's traditions.

[Big s]

50 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

All it is, is a traditional wedding ceremony followed by a modern wedding reception.

It’s that the traditional part is kind of a blend of things in a way that doesn’t feel off, but the modern part is way too on the nose with our modern that bugs me. I get that they might lighten things up a little, but to use 90’s music is where the problem is. If they had found a way to make it sound somewhat derived from our modern music while still being alien, it might’ve worked, but they just didn’t bother being creative in that way.

Og Star Wars had a way of taking established music styles and giving it a twist that made things feel and sound unique. This was more jarring than Captain Kirk listening to Rage Against the Machine, since at least that was music that actually existed in that setting, just a few hundred years off.

That’s why it throws things off and her dancing just comes off as cringy as well. They easily could’ve found a better way to convey their message both in sound and visually 

[jvmacross]

4 minutes ago, Big s said:

It’s that the traditional part is kind of a blend of things in a way that doesn’t feel off, but the modern part is way too on the nose with our modern that bugs me. I get that they might lighten things up a little, but to use 90’s music is where the problem is. If they had found a way to make it sound somewhat derived from our modern music while still being alien, it might’ve worked, but they just didn’t bother being creative in that way.

Og Star Wars had a way of taking established music styles and giving it a twist that made things feel and sound unique. This was more jarring than Captain Kirk listening to Rage Against the Machine, since at least that was music that actually existed in that setting, just a few hundred years off.

That’s why it throws things off and her dancing just comes off as cringy as well. They easily could’ve found a better way to convey their message both in sound and visually 

Agree....it was very cringe...anytime you see an older person trying to fit in with "the youth"...it comes off as weird...

It also doesn't help that all we knew of Mon was what we have seen in ROTJ, Rogue One,  and Andor S1....based on that, it just seems like something she wouldn't do....she always seemed like a very reserved woman...with that said, the showrunners went for spectacle to portray her breakdown, as they probably figured having her dissappear into some bathroom and cry uncontrollably would have been too cliche....

Anyways....it was not enough to bother me all that much....the first episode of the 3 was the best and got a little worse with ep 2 and 3....but I think now the real action will start.....I hope....

[sh9000]

The music was typical electronic dance music at a celebration.  It didn't sound like Dubstep.  The Dark Troopers scenes in The Mandalorian sounded like Dubstep.

[Seto Kaiba]

12 minutes ago, Big s said:

It’s that the traditional part is kind of a blend of things in a way that doesn’t feel off, but the modern part is way too on the nose with our modern that bugs me. I get that they might lighten things up a little, but to use 90’s music is where the problem is. If they had found a way to make it sound somewhat derived from our modern music while still being alien, it might’ve worked, but they just didn’t bother being creative in that way.

Og Star Wars had a way of taking established music styles and giving it a twist that made things feel and sound unique. This was more jarring than Captain Kirk listening to Rage Against the Machine, since at least that was music that actually existed in that setting, just a few hundred years off.

This is a very odd thing to get hung up on, IMO.

Typically, the only thing alien about the "alien" music in Star Wars is the performers.  The Mos Eisley cantina band is playing swing.  The band at Jabba's palace was playing a very 80's funk piece in the original '83 theatrical cut and was updated to a horn-heavy 90's pop-rock piece in the '97 special edition.  It doesn't strike me as out of place at all that there would be techno/EDM popular music in a setting with so many sentient androids.  It's a big galaxy, I'd assume there's room for a lot of different musical tastes and genres.  They went with a club/rave mix of the song because, hey, they're playing it at a wedding reception for guests to dance to.  (Two other mixes of the same song have showed up back in season one.)

(The only reason Kirk's infatuation with the Beastie Boys in the Abrams Star Trek trilogy seems so odd and out of place is that Star Trek habitually stuck with self-composed and public-domain music for cost reasons, meaning most of the diegetic music in Trek is classical by default.)  

 

12 minutes ago, Big s said:

That’s why it throws things off and her dancing just comes off as cringy as well. They easily could’ve found a better way to convey their message both in sound and visually 

Her drinking and dancing is supposed to be conspicuous and off-putting.  She's so distressed that she's doing something wildly out of character in a sort of silent cry for help.

She can't confide in anyone there besides Luthen without making them Luthen's next target, and Luthen is not exactly a sympathetic ear.

 

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

[...] as they probably figured having her dissappear into some bathroom and cry uncontrollably would have been too cliche....

Either that or they felt it would come off as sexist if she ran off to cry inconsolably.

I'd assume they're probably trying to set something up between her and her husband Perrin, since he clearly notices her out-of-character behavior towards the end of the episode... he might not have noticed if she'd just left the party since he is a party boy.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(The only reason Kirk's infatuation with the Beastie Boys in the Abrams Star Trek trilogy seems so odd and out of place is that Star Trek habitually stuck with self-composed and public-domain music for cost reasons, meaning most of the diegetic music in Trek is classical by default.)  

 

Sorry, you’re right, it was Beastie Boys. I really only watched that movie once a long long time ago

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Typically, the only thing alien about the "alien" music in Star Wars is the performers.  The Mos Eisley cantina band is playing swing.  The band at Jabba's palace was playing a very 80's funk piece in the original '83 theatrical cut and was updated to a horn-heavy 90's pop-rock piece in the '97 special edition.  It doesn't strike me as out of place at all that there would be techno/EDM popular music in a setting with so many sentient androids.  It's a big galaxy, I'd assume there's room for a lot of different musical tastes and genres.  They went with a club/rave mix of the song because, hey, they're playing it at a wedding reception for guests to dance to.  (Two other mixes of the same song have showed up back in season one.)

The music in the og was definitely derivative, but not exactly something heard before. They kinda played with the structure a bit to make it seem familiar, yet alien at the same time.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Her drinking and dancing is supposed to be conspicuous and off-putting.

It didn’t seem very conspicuous at all. Everyone including her husband were doing the cringy dance.

 

 

 

At least nobody danced to the scene in Mando

2 hours ago, sh9000 said:

The music was typical electronic dance music at a celebration.  It didn't sound like Dubstep.  The Dark Troopers scenes in The Mandalorian sounded like Dubstep.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Big s said:

Sorry, you’re right, it was Beastie Boys. I really only watched that movie once a long long time ago

's all right, once really was enough for that stinker.

 

4 hours ago, Big s said:

The music in the og was definitely derivative, but not exactly something heard before. They kinda played with the structure a bit to make it seem familiar, yet alien at the same time.

Not really... I've played several of those songs back in my music days, and they really aren't anything particularly unusual.

 

4 hours ago, Big s said:

It didn’t seem very conspicuous at all. Everyone including her husband were doing the cringy dance.

The Mon Mothma we've seen in Andor, in Rogue One, Rebels, and Ahsoka is a very stiff and formal person... and in this case, she's also the host of the party.

Given her personality and her day job, you'd expect her to be doing the rounds and chatting up the various members of Chandrila's Great and Good.  That she's drunk and dancing instead is itself a conspicuous out-of-character moment.  (She pounded three shots in thirty seconds, which is definitely out of character given that previous episodes show she's very good at moderating her alcohol intake at parties.)  She's also visibly upset where everyone else is smiling and laughing and generally having a good time.

And we can say with certainty that it was conspicuous, because we can see characters in-story notice that something is wrong.  Perrin is initially seen dancing happily with the guests, but once he catches sight of Mon we see him stop dead to look at her with a very concerned expression.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That she's drunk and dancing instead is itself a conspicuous out-of-character moment. 

I don’t really think so. Everyone there got kinda dragged into it, she pretty much got pushed into it by her friend in a way her pillpopping party antics seem common to those that know her.

[Duke Togo]

Reading this thread is like "Andor is the best Star Wars since 1980, but here's why it's bad."

[jvmacross]

If only it weren't called Andor....

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

Reading this thread is like "Andor is the best Star Wars since 1980, but here's why it's bad."

How hard the Star Wars fandom has to reach to find something in the series to complain about, and how petty those complaints are, is truly a ringing testimonial to the quality of the series.

Other shows in the franchise like The Acolyte or Ahsoka are so flawed that the fans have no end of legitimate significant narrative problems to chew on. In Andor, they're reduced to picking nits about the dancing at the wedding reception, the dance mixes of the in-universe popular music, or that they have brick buildings on Ferrix. 🤣

 

[Duke Togo]

I think the show is flat-out fantastic. There isn't a damned thing anyone could say to convince me otherwise.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

I think the show is flat-out fantastic. There isn't a damned thing anyone could say to convince me otherwise.

Same.

I would consider it one of the finest, if not THE finest, stories Star Wars has ever produced. 

Edited Tuesday at 09:44 PM by Seto Kaiba

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

How hard the Star Wars fandom has to reach to find something in the series to complain about

It wasn’t reaching very hard. I guess the escape scene actually turned out to be a near shot for shot escape scene from the sequels

[sh9000]

Season 2 Episodes 4-6 Declassified.

 

[Mog]

I wonder

Spoiler

if Syril is being set up to be the patsy.  Is Dedra using him, or actually going to protect him once it all blows up?

Pretty certain that assassination was a quick gimme to get those two into the right headspace.

Kinda sad to see Wilmon got locked in with the bonkers Rebels.  Probably not gonna end well for him.  I do wonder if Saw planted the stuff to make the other dude appear to be an informant.

Vel tore that knucklehead to shreds.  Such a vicious verbal beatdown.

If this arc could be summed up:  it’s people using each other to get what they want.  Kinda sad in a way.

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:44 AM by Mog

[Duke Togo]

5 hours ago, Mog said:

I wonder

  Hide contents

if Syril is being set up to be the patsy.  Is Dedra using him, or actually going to protect him once it all blows up?

Pretty certain that assassination was a quick gimme to get those two into the right headspace.

Kinda sad to see Wilmon got locked in with the bonkers Rebels.  Probably not gonna end well for him.  I do wonder if Saw planted the stuff to make the other dude appear to be an informant.

Vel tore that knucklehead to shreds.  Such a vicious verbal beatdown.

If this arc could be summed up:  it’s people using each other to get what they want.  Kinda sad in a way.

 

Spoiler

1. I'm having a hard time reading this situation, given the nature of both characters. It could really go either way.

2. Luthen needed Andor to be in 100%, and he just wasn't with Bix's degrading mental state and substance use. It was causing him to make rash decisions. I appreciated the outcome here, but it seemed too easy to me. The kind of operation it would take to actually get to that doctor was all but eliminated to make room for the heist on Ghorman within the running time of this season.

3. I agree here. Saw seems to have gone full Colonel Kurtz. I do not believe that guy was a traitor.

4 & 5. Combining the two because it became pretty clear that both the Empire AND Luthen are instigating the situation on Ghorman to meet their own goals, but only Luthen has a grasp on what the outcome could mean. 

 

Edited Wednesday at 12:28 PM by Duke Togo

[pengbuzz]

12 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Season 2 Episodes 4-6 Declassified.

 

Guest starring U2's Bono...

 

[Mog]

 

2 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

  Reveal hidden contents

1. I'm having a hard time reading this situation, given the nature of both characters. It could really go either way.

2. Luthen needed Andor to be in 100%, and he just wasn't with Bix's degrading mental state and substance use. It was causing him to make rash decisions. I appreciated the outcome here, but it seemed too easy to me. The kind of operation it would take to actually get to that doctor was all but eliminated to make room for the heist on Ghorman within the running time of this season.

3. I agree here. Saw seems to have gone full Colonel Kurtz. I do not believe that guy was a traitor.

4 & 5. Combining the two because it became pretty clear that both the Empire AND Luthen are instigating the situation on Ghorman to meet their own goals, but only Luthen has a grasp on what the outcome could mean. 

 

Yeah,

Spoiler

Luthen pretty much hinted at the two possible outcomes during his “leader” speech to Cassian:  either Ghorman becomes a major financial backer or they die as a sacrificial offering on the altar for the Rebellion.

 

[Duke Togo]

In an interview last week with Rolling Stone, Tony Gilroy revealed the two legacy characters who would not appear in season 2. The title of the article is a partial spoiler to this, so I won't link it.

Speaking of legacy characters,

Spoiler

having Benjamin Bratt step in for Jimmy Smits (whose schedule kept him from being available) was a pretty good pivot. Obviously, we'll be seeing more of him in the role this season (otherwise, why cameo the character in episode 6?).

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:09 PM by Duke Togo

[Mog]

Yeah, I think the argument was to have the cameo now to get everyone hot and bothered.  Get the recasting out of the way.

And then let the character actually do “work” during the next arc.  Have folks focus on what the character actually does, rather than the recasting itself.

[azrael]

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

Speaking of legacy characters,

  Hide contents

having Benjamin Bratt step in for Jimmy Smits (whose schedule kept him from being available) was a pretty good pivot. Obviously, we'll be seeing more of him in the role this season (otherwise, why cameo the character in episode 6?).

Just a little FYI..

Spoiler

https://tvline.com/casting-news/andor-bail-organa-benjamin-bratt-recast-jimmy-smits-1235441141/

Quote

Andor Season 2 filmed November 2022 through Spring 2023, with the Chandril scenes shot in Valencia, Spain. Smits during that stretch of time was largely busy shooting CBS’ East New York, 3,700 miles away in the Big Apple.
“It’s very difficult sometimes to bring legacy characters back, for a whole variety of reasons,” Andor creator Tony Gilroy explained to TVLine. And in the case of Bail Organa and Smits, “they just couldn’t work it out” due to the franchise vet’s East New York commitments.

https://sffgazette.com/sci_fi/star-wars/andor-showrunner-addresses-decision-to-recast-star-wars-prequel-character-spoiler-in-season-2-a8870#gs.lyot70

Quote

"Kathy had the idea for Benjamin," Gilroy revealed. "It was just a brilliant idea. He’s a wonderful human being and really eager and beloved on set and really happy about what he does. I put him in episode 6 in an arbitrary way so people will get the conversation out of the way until the next week when he really starts to work."

Also in that mix was the WGA & SAG strikes so if you wanna have the entire industry's schedules thrown into the blender..🤷‍♂️ Gotta do whatca' gotta do so 👍

Considering Bail Organa's role in the Rebellion, it would have been weird if he didn't show up eventually as we get closer to Rogue One.

 

[Big s]

Well, this batch was far better than the first horrible one for the season. Light on action , but still had some tense moments 

Spoiler

Really glad Mon was thrown off to the side. 
a bit odd that they decided to skip the massacre and just had it off screen. They should have ditched most of the crap in the first few episodes to make that a bigger part of the story.

kinda thinking Cyril will try and get too far ahead and just ruin things for his lady.

Was kinda fun to see the Nazi vampire from The Strain play a character that is almost the complete opposite as a character trying to lead a rebel faction 

[Duke Togo]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Just wait until next week...

Edited 17 hours ago by Duke Togo

[Big s]

I know the rebels had some questionable members, but this show makes them seem a certain kind of special. Now whenever I see an X-Wing, dueling banjos will be stuck in my head

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Big s said:

I know the rebels had some questionable members, but this show makes them seem a certain kind of special. Now whenever I see an X-Wing, dueling banjos will be stuck in my head

"Fly faster; I hear banjos...."

[Seto Kaiba]

My watch group finished up the new batch of Andor episodes last night.  I'm pretty satisfied with the story thus far.

Spoiler

I was rather amused that the showrunners decided to make the Ghormans into the Space French... effectively both communicating why they're stereotyped as aloof and arrogantly condescending AND giving them a French Resistance vibe.  Don't think I didn't see those turtlenecks on several Ghorman Front members. 🤣

Very surprised to see that Syril has turned spy for the Imperial Security Bureau, helping his girlfriend monitor and manipulate the inexperienced Ghorman Front rebel faction into manufacturing the pretext for heavyweight Imperial retaliation and clear the way for Imperial control over the planet.  He does a surprisingly good job of playing the role of the reasonable authority figure who thinks the Imperial propaganda about the Ghormans is BS, is outraged by ISB overreach, and is sympathetic to the Ghorman cause.  I got a good laugh out of Major Partagaz teasing him and Dedra about the combination of inexperience and enthusiasm, though Syril is definitely now giving the vibe of a guy desperate for fatherly approval.  

Cassian seemed to be having fun on his undercover trip to Ghorman.  He cleans up surprisingly nicely, and Diego Luna does a good job depicting his mixture of amusement and dismay at the Ghorman Front's enthusiastic clumsiness and his disappointment that Luthen is basically ready to set Ghorman on fire and kill a lot of innocent people to spite the Empire.

I'm particularly pleased with how Bix's story arc has played out.  Instead of treating Imperial torture as something easily gotten-over, we've seen Bix struggle to deal with her post-traumatic stress disorder for half the season.  It's not just played as sad either, with the terrifying dreams and hallucinations, the constant health-sapping anxiety, and tendency to become overreliant on medication.  Seeing her get even at the end was also VERY satisfying... catching that doctor unaware in his own lab space, giving him a taste of his own medicine, and then blowing the whole lab up.  (Since Star Wars loves "No plans, no prototype, no backup" as a trope, this probably means that method of torture is lost.)

Seeing that Luthen is overstretched as his network grows and grows is definitely an interesting point to reach, and while it hasn't been fully explored yet it was a lot of fun to see the collateral damage... using Mon Mothma and Director Krennic's historical pissing match as a cover to remove the bug in Sculdun's collection.  Joking about murdering Krennic adds an extra layer of irony to it... they would've saved everyone a LOT of trouble if they had.

Saw... well... he's being himself.  Poor Wilmon, getting caught up in that maniac's orbit.  

 

5 hours ago, Big s said:

Spoiler

Really glad Mon was thrown off to the side. 
a bit odd that they decided to skip the massacre and just had it off screen. They should have ditched most of the crap in the first few episodes to make that a bigger part of the story.

kinda thinking Cyril will try and get too far ahead and just ruin things for his lady.

They didn't... the Ghorman Massacre hasn't happened yet.

Apparently, as something of an olive branch to the Legacy fans, they decided to keep the pre-Disney version as a separate but less-severe event as a way of establishing the rising tensions on Ghorman.

The series'll be headed back to Ghorman in future episodes, since the massacre is a pivotal event that directly gives rise to the Rebel Alliance.

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I know the rebels had some questionable members, but this show makes them seem a certain kind of special. Now whenever I see an X-Wing, dueling banjos will be stuck in my head

Yeah, Saw is... a unique personality.

He was never the most stable person in the galaxy.  When we first see him in The Clone Wars about 17 in-universe years before these Andor episodes, he was already a bitter and violent man fighting in a guerilla resistance movement against the Separatist occupation of his homeworld Onderon.  Then the Republic sent Jedi and clones to train the Onderon resistance, which only made them better at guerilla warfare.  He became even more unstable when his sister was killed fighting the Separatist droid army... and it's basically been all downhill from there.  20 years of nonstop guerilla warfare against the Separatists, and then the Empire, with the accompanying stress and paranoia has not done great things for his mental state and he's going to get even worse in the next few years until he dies on Jedha in Rogue One.

It's not surprising Luthen is still willing to work with him, since Saw's partisans are basically the oldest and most experienced rebel faction out there and the ones with the fewest qualms about their goal of burning the Empire down.  Once Mon Mothma forms the Rebel Alliance, his lot refuse to join because most rebels think he goes too far and Saw thinks every other rebel group doesn't go too far enough.

[Big s]

30 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, Saw is... a unique personality.

In the six episodes I’ve seen, it’s not just saw.

Spoiler

We had that whole group of people in need of a shipment of football helmets turn on eachother and this new group had a guy accidentally kill one of the rebellions top agents on oopsie. I get that storm troopers have a hard time hitting their target, but the rebellion can’t even tie their own laces. The whole war would be like going to a kindergarten and giving all the kids too much candy and punch, but lock the bathrooms except one single stall and see who wins