Andor (Star Wars: Andor) - Disney+

[Big s]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Andor (and Rogue One) just isn't that kind of story... and Dedra Meero's not that kind of character.  She is done. 

Just because something was done in Andor or Rogue one doesn’t mean that someone else won’t do something horrible later on. It is still Disney owned and they have shown that they have the power to ruin anything they can

[Duke Togo]

I find it amusing that anyone thinks Disney is making story decisions.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Big s said:

Just because something was done in Andor or Rogue one doesn’t mean that someone else won’t do something horrible later on. It is still Disney owned and they have shown that they have the power to ruin anything they can

Disney is just LucasFilm's parent company.  Their only involvement in its day-to-day operations is appointing the members of its Board of Directors.

The development and production of new Star Wars stories is managed within LucasFilm itself by its Chief Creative Officer (Dave Filoni) and the various producers working under him.

Dave Filoni has brought characters back past their use-by date, as noted previously, but that's effectively a fate reserved for Filoni's personal stable of action-friendly Creator's Pet characters that he used heavily in his Star Wars: the Clone Wars series and its spinoffs.  As a non-action girl and a non-Filoni original character, Dedra Meero is profoundly unlikely to make a comeback at any point. 🤣

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Disney is just LucasFilm's parent company.  Their only involvement in its day-to-day operations is appointing the members of its Board of Directors.

The development and production of new Star Wars stories is managed within LucasFilm itself by its Chief Creative Officer (Dave Filoni) and the various producers working under him.

Dave Filoni has brought characters back past their use-by date, as noted previously, but that's effectively a fate reserved for Filoni's personal stable of action-friendly Creator's Pet characters that he used heavily in his Star Wars: the Clone Wars series and its spinoffs.  As a non-action girl and a non-Filoni original character, Dedra Meero is profoundly unlikely to make a comeback at any point. 🤣

Unlikely, but not impossible 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Unlikely, but not impossible 

Well, yes... in the same sense that it's merely very unlikely, not strictly impossible, that any randomly selected person will be trampled to death by a cow or struck by lightning on any given day.

It could theoretically happen, and there are some people it's more likely to happen to than others, but the odds against it are so long that it almost certainly won't.

 

After all, most Star Wars stories would not benefit from bringing back a character like Dedra Meero.  She's a villain, sure... but she's a villainous bureaucrat.  Former bureaucrat, as of the end of Andor.  There's no end of those in Star Wars already.  She lacks the adventure hooks of someone like a Sith assassin (Asajj Ventress), a Sith apprentice turned Crime Lord (Maul), a legendary bounty hunter, or a famously brilliant Imperial admiral (Thrawn) that would fit into a more conventional Star Wars story.  

Dedra Meero's relevance to the story and setting is mostly wrapped up in her connections to the other characters in Andor.  What makes her important is her hunt for Cassian, her self-destructive determination to capture the mysterious rebel organizer Axis/Luthen Rael, and the obsession with justice she shared with Syril Karn.  Those people are dead and gone now.  Even if she weren't rotting in an Imperial prison for mishandling classified materials, a post-Andor Meero would be just another interchangeable sadistic evil Imperial bureaucrat like Minister Tua or Governor Price from Rebels.  The only reason to bring her back would be for the New Republic to put her on trial for the Ghorman Massacre... and war crimes trials aren't exactly the thing Star Wars stories are usually made of.

[tekering]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Kleya make a return appearance as an agent of the New Republic... probably as a character foil for Elia Kane. 

Two strong female characters in conflict is a trope Disney Star Wars favors nowadays.

[Duke Togo]

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Two strong female characters in conflict is a trope Disney Star Wars favors nowadays.

That's not even remotely true. And don't bring that sort of nonsense here. Go back to X or YouTube or wherever else your kind of fan hangs out.

[tekering]

8 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

That's not even remotely true.

Dude, I actually watch this stuff.

If you care to contribute to threads like this, perhaps you should as well.

 

[TangledThorns]

3 hours ago, tekering said:

I wouldn't be surprised to see Kleya make a return appearance as an agent of the New Republic... probably as a character foil for Elia Kane. 

Two strong female characters in conflict is a trope Disney Star Wars favors nowadays.

Do you mean trope in a negative context? Trope can means its overused but I don't think that is the case for female characters in Star Wars. 

As for Andor its waaaay more complex because of its ensemble of characters. 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by TangledThorns

[electric indigo]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

After all, most Star Wars stories would not benefit from bringing back a character like Dedra Meero.  She's a villain, sure... but she's a villainous bureaucrat.  Former bureaucrat, as of the end of Andor.  There's no end of those in Star Wars already.  She lacks the adventure hooks of someone like a Sith assassin (Asajj Ventress), a Sith apprentice turned Crime Lord (Maul), a legendary bounty hunter, or a famously brilliant Imperial admiral (Thrawn) that would fit into a more conventional Star Wars story.  

Dedra Meero's relevance to the story and setting is mostly wrapped up in her connections to the other characters in Andor.  What makes her important is her hunt for Cassian, her self-destructive determination to capture the mysterious rebel organizer Axis/Luthen Rael, and the obsession with justice she shared with Syril Karn.  Those people are dead and gone now.  Even if she weren't rotting in an Imperial prison for mishandling classified materials, a post-Andor Meero would be just another interchangeable sadistic evil Imperial bureaucrat like Minister Tua or Governor Price from Rebels.  The only reason to bring her back would be for the New Republic to put her on trial for the Ghorman Massacre... and war crimes trials aren't exactly the thing Star Wars stories are usually made of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization

Not saying that it should be done, but the material for a post-war spy thriller is right there IMO.

What I found notable about Dedra's character is the the writers and Denise Gough's performance made her earn her triumphs as well as her downfall, which made the audience care for a figure that could have been a mere imperial goon in lesser hands.

I found her dialogue with Syril's mom and her final confrontation with Luthen more entertaining than the majority of lightsaber duels.

 

[Duke Togo]

12 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

Do you mean trope in a negative context?

Of course he does. 

 

21 minutes ago, tekering said:

Dude, I actually watch this stuff.

If you care to contribute to threads like this, perhaps you should as well.

 

Oh look, two examples that aren't anywhere close to being the primary conflicts in their respective series. That's because the primary conflicts in every Star Wars series has been men to men, or men to women.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, tekering said:

I wouldn't be surprised to see Kleya make a return appearance as an agent of the New Republic... probably as a character foil for Elia Kane. 

Two strong female characters in conflict is a trope Disney Star Wars favors nowadays.

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

That's not even remotely true. And don't bring that sort of nonsense here. Go back to X or YouTube or wherever else your kind of fan hangs out.

28 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

Oh look, two examples that aren't anywhere close to being the primary conflicts in their respective series. That's because the primary conflicts in every Star Wars series has been men to men, or men to women.

To be fair, he didn't say two strong female characters as the primary conflict... just "in conflict".

We do see quite a bit more of strong and/or powerful women in conflict with each other in Disney Star Wars stories.  Whether that's authorial intent or simply a consequence of the more equitable gender distribution among main characters in more recent Star Wars titles is anyone's guess.  Most of these conflicts are ideological rather than martial.

For instance, in The Clone Wars there was the ideological conflict between the by-the-book padawan Barriss Offee and the unorthodox Ahsoka Tano which did actually lead to them having an actual fight as Barriss was gradually radicalized by the Clone Wars.  It also had something of an ideological/cultural conflict between the actual pacifist Duchess Satine Kryze and her Death Watch-aligned sister Bo-Katan.  Rebels had a few minor ones here and there like Ahsoka Tano and the Seventh Sister, Hera and Mon Mothma squaring off on the subject of proactive vs. cautious responses to the situation on Lothal, and Sabina vs. her mother Ursa over whether Mandalore should side with the Empire or Rebellion.  The Mandalorian set up a fairly prominent ideological conflict between the religious traditionalist Armorer and the more modern Bo-Katan Kryze, as well as Ahsoka Tano vs. Morgan Elsbeth.  Ahsoka has a repeat of the conflict between Hera and Mon Mothma and also implicitly the same conflict between Leia and Mon Mothma.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

[Duke Togo]

19 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be fair, he didn't say two strong female characters as the primary conflict... just "in conflict".

 

Essentially, "too many women involved in Star Wars." There's no other reasonable way to read it.

Edited 17 hours ago by Duke Togo

[Big s]

4 hours ago, tekering said:

I wouldn't be surprised to see Kleya make a return appearance as an agent of the New Republic... probably as a character foil for Elia Kane. 

Two strong female characters in conflict is a trope Disney Star Wars favors nowadays.

Kleya making a return seems more likely than a lot of other characters.

As far as my goofy Deedra returns theory, it would almost play into a story where post war Kleya tries to bring imperials to justice for their roles in the many massacres that happened. It could be very easy for people to be lost in the shuffle after the power shifts hands and quite a few imperials could try and blend in or like we’ve seen in other cases have gone into hiding 

[Roy Focker]

I don't want them to bring anyone back. Dedra was one of the main characters. What we saw of her in Andor were the most significant events of her life. Narratively her story has been told. There is no good reason to bring her back. You could justify bringing back one of the supporting characters, but do we really want that? If any of these characters are to be revisited, I want those involved with Andor guiding the project. Did you see Kleya made an appearance in Ahsoka season 2? I had no idea how bad that character and her actress was until Filoni got his paws on her. I think they might have ruined Andor for me.

[Duke Togo]

I wouldn't mind seeing some of these Imperial characters back in a "Judgement at Nuremberg" type production.

[Seto Kaiba]

38 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

Essentially, "too many women involved in Star Wars."

He didn't say that either.

The implication I read in it was that Disney LucasFilm has become a fan of the often unintentionally sexist trope Designated Girl Fight as a way to not-so-subtly highlight the more equitable gender balance in newer Star Wars stories.  

With newer Star Wars titles depicting more women in positions of leadership and in combat roles, it's inevitable we're going to see more conflicts between female characters in the franchise.  The writers are naturally going to be a bit gunshy about conflicts involving female characters because it's a delicate balancing act.  If it's not handled well and they show a male character overpowering a female one, they leave themselves open to accusations of sexism and endorsing violence against women.  If they show the female character overpowering the man, then they're accused of character shilling or man-hating.  It's kind of a no-win scenario, especially since there's still a social taboo against a man fighting/hitting a woman even if they're on an equal footing.  The Designated Girl Fight is a kind of narrative safe space and workaround for that.

 

35 minutes ago, Big s said:

Kleya making a return seems more likely than a lot of other characters.

As far as my goofy Deedra returns theory, it would almost play into a story where post war Kleya tries to bring imperials to justice for their roles in the many massacres that happened. It could be very easy for people to be lost in the shuffle after the power shifts hands and quite a few imperials could try and blend in or like we’ve seen in other cases have gone into hiding 

Kleya making a return would make more sense than most alternatives, but I still think it's a terrible idea unless it's handled by the Andor showrunners who know how to handle the more mature and sophisticated characters.

Filoni's people write fanfic-tier fanservice, plain and simple.  They would not be able to do justice to any Andor character.

Given that the political leaders of the Rebel Alliance seem to intensely distrust Kleya on principle simply because she worked with Luthen, a far more effective rebel leader than any of them, I can't really see her returning for any further stories.  The only place she really feels like she'd fit would be a sequel trilogy-era story about the Resistance, but if they did it would mean burying her in heavy makeup to age her 30 years and that would probably adversely affect Elizabeth Dulau's performance.

Edited 17 hours ago by Seto Kaiba

[Big s]

22 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

I don't want them to bring anyone back. Dedra was one of the main characters. What we saw of her in Andor were the most significant events of her life. Narratively her story has been told. There is no good reason to bring her back. You could justify bringing back one of the supporting characters, but do we really want that? If any of these characters are to be revisited, I want those involved with Andor guiding the project. Did you see Kleya made an appearance in Ahsoka season 2? I had no idea how bad that character and her actress was until Filoni got his paws on her. I think they might have ruined Andor for me.

I’m not saying at all that it’s a good idea, but it’s a very Star Wars thing that some cartoon or comic book or lesser show writers could easily try and might actually do. 

[Duke Togo]

26 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The implication I read in it was that Disney LucasFilm has become a fan of the often unintentionally sexist trope Designated Girl Fight as a way to not-so-subtly highlight the more equitable gender balance in newer Star Wars stories.  

There is plenty of male vs female combat in Star Wars, so I'm not buying that at all. That some women occasionally come into conflict with one another is natural. It's not some forced trope.

Hell, him using Ahsoka as an example makes this thinking even more ridiculous. She's fought just about everyone.

Edited 16 hours ago by Duke Togo

[Duke Togo]

34 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If it's not handled well and they show a male character overpowering a female one, they leave themselves open to accusations of sexism and endorsing violence against women.

They have not shied away from this with Ahsoka.

Edit: off the top of my head, she's lost to Maul, Vader, and Baylan. 

Edited 16 hours ago by Duke Togo

[tekering]

8 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

Essentially, "too many women involved in Star Wars." There's no other reasonable way to read it.

Has online fandom become so toxic that objectively acknowledging the existence of a trend must be interpreted as subjective criticism of said trend? 🤨

That's not "reasonable," it's simply "reactionary." 😒

Thankfully, you seem to be the only pessimist to have jumped to such a conclusion.

10 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Do you mean trope in a negative context?

No, or I would've used an inherently negative term, like "cliché."  If "trope," "motif," or "trend" have negative connotations, it's new to me... but as someone who has resided in Japan for the entirely of the 21st century -- and increasingly avoids the social media landscape -- I freely admit my use of language may be a little out of date. ☺️

I apologize for any confusion, and encourage everyone to keep an open mind.