Official: STAR WARS THREAD. These are the droids you're looking for. **WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

[hpreston]

Wow, Andor is really, really good. Puts the last few Star Wars shows to shame.

Also caught up on LOTR. Love it but it’s getting more than a bit soap opera-y.

Really liked the first three episodes of Andor, cant wait to see where this goes (I mean, I know ultimately where it goes.... but the rest of the journey)

Enjoyed the "street level" view of life under the Empire and their $hitty surrogates.

I haven't really paid attention to casting or pre-release news/rumor (other than the return of a R1/ROTJ character) , so I am in the dark about who the "buyer" is, excited to see that play out.

 

[otc]

Enjoyed the "street level" view of life under the Empire and their $hitty surrogates.

One thing I was wondering about the other day was like...where's the Star Wars suburbia?

Where's the angsty upper middle class teen who joins the rebellion not because their planet was destroyed and their parents starved in poverty...but because they read a lot of space-Marx, listened to music on the University of Alderaan radio station and just wanted to tear down down the establishment.

Like, yeah, good to see the street level view in yet another desert world where most people seem to make a living by tearing up scrap from old ships...but we've never really seen the middle class of the galaxy.

I guess that's where the Deputy Inspector is from. He's got that college-boy brought in as an officer with no real-world experience vibe to him. Probably joined the Young Imperials club while at Corellia University.

 

[Kaplan]

Where's the angsty upper middle class teen?

Spoiler

 

[otc]

Nah, he's part of the elite. Of course they have their own kind of angst and whatever, but Star Wars has already showed us some level of stories involving the rich and powerful.

I'm just looking for that middle ground. Like I suppose Finn *could* have been some random middle class kid who ends up taking a military job...but no, he was a child conscript forced into service (and his military role was being a janitor).

Alderaan seems like a world that would have a burgeoning middle class, but all we ever see from there is a PRINCESS and her adoptive family.
Ditto for Corellia, But Han is orphaned young and grows up in the criminal underworld.

 

[otc]

Maybe Wedge Antilles?

Corellian, made it through imperial flight school before defecting, so probably kind of looking at the right sort of middle class upbringing.

But he's not a featured character so unless you dig into all the backstory (which at a curory glance varies quite a lot between "Legends" and "Cannon") you'll probably never even think about his upbringing.

 

[mhip]

Maybe Wedge Antilles?

Isn't that a sex pillow?

 

[Texasmade]

Probably because middle class ppl end up doing middle of the road stuff. We always hear stories of really poor or rich ppl doing great things IRL but not too often we hear things about middle class ppl doing great things.

 

[otc]

Eh, that's just confirmation bias. The poor people you remember because they started out poor which makes the story stick out and get retold as inspirational.

But plenty of middle class kids do all kinds of ****. They get on the supreme court or join congress or become president. They pursue acting careers. They take every job under the sun, some become rich, some end up poor. You hear their stories, you just don't remember their background because it is less interesting than their actual accomplishments.

And if you're expanding the star wars universe, a **** ton of content is based upon the middle class family for obvious reasons. Most teen comedies take place at an upper-middle-class high school. Unless being rich or poor is an important plot point, drama and romcom protagonists live in a middle-class neighborhood and have some generic job like "architect" where everyone kinda knows what they do, but it still sounds interesting while allowing the writers almost complete narrative freedom (because nobody actually knows what they do day to day).

Best I can come up with is that middle class suburbia is mostly a 20th century post-war creation so it doesn't factor in to the space western genre. And while you can have whole plants that are poor, you'd never have whole planets of middle class, and trying to capture what "average life" is like on Coruscant is less fun than exploring either the the seedy underbelly or the political intrigue.

Real answer is of course that it is way cheaper and easier to shoot "poor villagers living in some sort of wasteland" and occasional opulant palace shots and sound-stage/CGI fancy future interiors than it is to somehow come up with vibrant middle class landscapes that match the star wars aesthetic.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

You're all assuming the class structure of the Star Wars universe parallels our own contemporary class structure, but why would it? If there is any analogy, Star Wars is basically a feudal society. Despite being necessary, the merchant class is relatively small (and/or 'foreign') and despised by the elite, who rule over a vast sea of impoverished subjects. There isn't really even a bourgeoisie in the Earth post-Industrial Revolution sense and certainly not a Middle Class in the American sense.

 

[smittycl]

I feel like I’m back in High School. Not in a bad way but in a “some things never change” kind of way.

My take on the new Lieutenant is that he is out of his element there with the Plebs but his motivations were honest as two of his men were killed, right? Star Wars trying to break from all Imperials being sneering ladder climbers.

Since Andor spared him that scene will repeat itself and the wannabe Imperial will turn out good but get killed. Vegas odds?

 

[Texasmade]

Eh, that's just confirmation bias. The poor people you remember because they started out poor which makes the story stick out and get retold as inspirational.

But plenty of middle class kids do all kinds of ****. They get on the supreme court or join congress or become president. They pursue acting careers. They take every job under the sun, some become rich, some end up poor. You hear their stories, you just don't remember their background because it is less interesting than their actual accomplishments.

And if you're expanding the star wars universe, a **** ton of content is based upon the middle class family for obvious reasons. Most teen comedies take place at an upper-middle-class high school. Unless being rich or poor is an important plot point, drama and romcom protagonists live in a middle-class neighborhood and have some generic job like "architect" where everyone kinda knows what they do, but it still sounds interesting while allowing the writers almost complete narrative freedom (because nobody actually knows what they do day to day).

Best I can come up with is that middle class suburbia is mostly a 20th century post-war creation so it doesn't factor in to the space western genre. And while you can have whole plants that are poor, you'd never have whole planets of middle class, and trying to capture what "average life" is like on Coruscant is less fun than exploring either the the seedy underbelly or the political intrigue.

Real answer is of course that it is way cheaper and easier to shoot "poor villagers living in some sort of wasteland" and occasional opulant palace shots and sound-stage/CGI fancy future interiors than it is to somehow come up with vibrant middle class landscapes that match the star wars aesthetic.

TL;DR

 

[SixOhNine]

I haven't watched yet, and I'm having a tough time caring enough to try. Book of Boba Fett really broke me, I guess. Anyway, I have one question- how much of the show is on yet another desert planet?

 

[otc]

I haven't watched yet, and I'm having a tough time caring enough to try. Book of Boba Fett really broke me, I guess. Anyway, I have one question- how much of the show is on yet another desert planet?

Nah, this **** good

 

[smittycl]

I haven't watched yet, and I'm having a tough time caring enough to try. Book of Boba Fett really broke me, I guess. Anyway, I have one question- how much of the show is on yet another desert planet?

No deserts so far. Just junk planet and flashbacks to lush Central America-like place. Show is the best Star Wars so far IMO. Bits of Mandalorian are good but that show has gotten silly.

 

[Jr Mouse]

I still prefer Mandalorian, but Andor is very good. It's been a pleasant surprise.