Erlik_Han

A much more adult take on star wars, with fantastic acting for the most part, a well written story, complex characters, a complex rebel group. They're not the lovable good guys that rebel but somehow never get their hands dirty, never have to do a bad thing, never have to hurt a soul. This is a real rebel group fighting against a fascist dictatorship. The music is absolutely incredible, oh, those 80's sci fi synths and how well they go with this show. I just wish they went even harder on that vibe.

That said, as I've said.. it's not perfect. It's got a confusing tone at times and the acting drops like a rock at certain points. And it's generally when they're trying to show some native culture etc. They look, behave and act ... very disney. E.g. We first start off with Andor's flashback.. it's super confusing, why is there a village of children? How would something like that come to be. Where are the adults? But even more important, why is their acting so horrifically bad? It's cringy. Their language sounds like something a two eight year olds would come up with as a secret language between each other. You might think, "well, they are children" .. but that makes no sense? Did they never have parents that taught them how to speak? How would they even survive etc. They're children .. you think boys that age are going to let a girl take charge?

Same for the heist, the native people look like they're dressed as gnomes for halloween. Their language is cringy. Their dance thing is cringy and sounds like it was made up by the same person that made up that lesbian witch cult dance in the other star wars show that no one watched, but everyone saw on youtube. They also are far too diverse to pass as an ETHNIC group .. they are NATIVE to the planet. Just pick a phenotype and stick with it. Why is this so hard? It creates so much more authentic people. Most ethnic groups have similar phenotypes, esp if these are the natives of a planet that lived there for centuries and developed a whole culture and religion surounding the planet. Even if they were super diverse at the beginning they'd eventually turn into a melting pot. Bro it's just weird to see a supposed native culture but you have a super pale old white lady who looks like a hippie that thrifts a lot and loves crystals. Like that's Carol homie. She's not from some planet countless parsecs away. She's from trader joes. They don't look like a whole .. they don't look like a people. They look like a bunch of larpers having a fun dance and doing a larp ritual.

But other than that, the aesthetics, the planets, the aliens, the tone, the way it's filmed, the characters, the casting .. it's all been fantastic. The writing is incredible. It almost feels like it's just one dude / lady writing this. (Looked it up, seems about right.. at least, I mean there is a clear creative lead and vision who makes and breaks all decisions and that's Tony Gilroy. Who in an interview also claims that Disney largely stayed out of his way .. )

Disney should learn from this .. all studios should. I almost didn't watch this because all other disney star wars shows and movies sucked so much I basically kinda was done with star wars. I am extremely pleasantly surprised with how good this show is so far.

P.s. The world needs more adult star wars. The world needs more 18+ star wars. The vast majority of star wars fans aren't kids .. they're adults who grew up with the movies. We want our kids to like star wars. But we also want star wars that has grown with us. That has an adult tone, subject matter, characters, blood, death, betrayal..

Finally a black mirror episode that isn't some feel good episode, or the horror / non sci fi stuff they tried last season. But an actual, dark, depressing black mirror episode mixing sci fi with a relevant and current commentary on society and technology.

Of course the irony is that this episode, about the scumminess of subscription services and corporations that offer them. Is being offered to you on a subscription service known for its scummy tiers and constant price increases. Netflix mirror has had a surprising amount of meta commentary but none has had as much as this episode.

That said it's not just that, it's also a commentary on the current economy. A family with two working adults barely making ends meet. People degrading themselves on the internet for money. Corpos constantly changing the rules on ua and essentially screwing us over, trying to milk us for every last penny, taking advantage of us and using us. Annoying ads being put on everything and everywhere. Ads that are "relevant to our search / browsing history, our interests etc etc being sold to us as beneficial when in reality it's extremely exploitative. "Buying stuff" that we don't really own because it's actually just a dirty renting scheme, or license, or useless without some service, subscription etc. And will no longer work with the next update when the corpos decide it's too old to keep supporting or the service upkeep becomes unprofitable (not profitable enough). People wanting children but not being able to afford it, young people who have no interest in babies.

But I felt like it just wasn't as good as it could have been. And It's hard to put my finger on why. The acting was great. The idea / commentary is great. So why didn't I like it as much as I should have? Maybe it was that it was actually a bit too real .. or maybe it was the fact that this commentary about subscription services was on a scummy subscription service. Or maybe it was the aesthetic which I wasn't a fan of. Maybe I'm just having a bad day. Even the references to older episodes (like the bees) kinda annoyed me.

But in the end, I did end up enjoying the episode and I want every black mirror episode to be like this .. to be black mirror. Listen, this is what black mirror is about. This is why me and the original fans liked the show, promoted the show and made the show popular. We didn't do it because we wanted feel good nickelodeon tween adventure episodes with Miley Cyrus, we didn't do it because we wanted sweet lesbian grannies having happy endings in vapor wave aesthetic digital heavens. Those are fine, I have nothing agianst that. But go do that in another show, or make a movie out of it. Why is that in black mirror? For the past few seasons the entire show has been garbage with maybe two slightly memorable episodes. And every single season has had at least one or two super light hearted, comedic or romantic feel good episodes, the most popular of these seems to be San Junipero. Which was a super boring "two lesbian grandmothers have a happy ending in a vaporwave easthetic digital heaven" episode. The only way that sh would have worked in black mirror is if it was tied to the same themes as this episodes. E.g. Ever considered what happens to those ladies when the company that is providing their digital heaven goes bankrupt? Who pays their subscription? What happens when they stop paying? Or the upkeep for the servers becomes too expensive or unprofitable for the company?

If this episode was too depressing for you, I'm sorry. This show is not for you. Imagine if someone didn't like horror movies but still insisted on watching a horror movie because it's popular, then got upset and claimed the movie was bad because it was too scary or dark. Demanding a light hearted version of it. That's what you're essentially doing.

Make black mirror dark again.