Andor Has Broken My Ability to Appreciate Regular Star Wars

🖐 The Friday High Five #120

No mullet version of the Friday newsletter this week.

• Business in the front: The 5 things I loved this week, free for all to enjoy.

• Party in the back: A deeper exploration of something on my mind, for supporters.

My daughter graduated from high school yesterday. Graduation stuff occupied much of my free time this week, so today's post is sans the party in the back. Which is fitting because I'm not super in a partying mood. I'm still processing the fact that both my kids are no longer kids.

Business in the front

Revenge of the Sith

20th Century Fox

Vibe: The Chosen One is an idiot.

Deets: In honor of its 20th(!) anniversary, I decided to rewatch Revenge of the Sith. It hasn’t been that long since I’d last seen it—I covered it last year on the podcast—but I thought I might get an article out of it. Though I generally don’t come into a Star Wars rewatch with an objective other than to try to find the kid who grew up loving these movies. He’s in there somewhere, buried under existential dread and memes.

Here was the main takeaway this time: Watching Revenge of the Sith with Andor fresh in my mind is a bad beat.

Revenge of the Sith is not a great movie in the best of circumstances. There are parts I really enjoy—Palpatine seducing Anakin, Palpatine vs Jedi, Palpatine unmasked—but the sum of those parts is not enough to lift the whole. My fear now is that Andor’s singular brilliance will make it difficult to appreciate bog standard Star Wars.

Oblivion: Remastered

I’m a terrible shot. Took me 6 arrows to bring down this random bandit. | Bethesda

Vibe: Open world heroism has never looked so good.

Deets: I mentioned this game several weeks ago. I’m mentioning it again because I can’t stop playing it.

Oblivion is the fourth game in the Elder Scrolls series and the first I fell in love with. It evokes the fantasy D&D landscape I cherish. A landscape that has never looked better thanks to modern technology.

Typically when I play these games, I put off the main story in favor of exploration and side quests. For some reason I’m sticking to the main quest this time. I don’t exactly know why. The story is fine but not exactly riveting. You don’t play these games for the prepackaged story—you play for the one you tell yourself.

Parks and Rec

NBC

Vibe: Amy Poehler + Nick Offerman = gold.

Deets: One of the joys of parenting is introducing your children to the good stuff. I’m something of a pop culture sommelier.

A few years ago we started a rewatch of The Office with our teenage son. From there we dipped into Parks and Rec, a mockumentary about the employees of an Indiana Parks and Recreation department. We’re wrapping up the seventh and final season. Up next: Ted Lasso.

There’s some debate about which is better: The Office or Parks. I come down on the side of The Office. It’s funnier, and that's basically my bar. Parks is more heartfelt and sentimental, while also quite funny. You really can't go wrong with either.

My son was a high schooler when we started this sitcom journey. He graduated from college a few weeks ago.

Time is weird. Not a fan.

Thunderbolts

Walt Disney Studios

Vibe: Super-powered freaks and geeks.

Deets: The best MCU movie in years harkens back to the franchise’s peak, channeling films like Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy in a soft reset of the Avengers heading into Phase 6. A necessary step, since the upcoming Avengers duology headlined by Doctor Doom predisposes there are actually Avengers to fight, and most of them are now dead or retired.

I already wrote about the film in some length, which was really just a ploy to talk about Bucky.

Thunderbolts is a fun ensemble led by Pugh’s strong performance and buoyed by Harbour’s levity, but the film notably kicks into a higher gear once Bucky enters the picture. The filmmakers seem to understand this, giving him an incredible introduction (not the political stuff, but a motorcycle pursuit that feels reminiscent of the Terminator films). Thunderbolts seems to be as awe-struck by Bucky as the other characters. And for good reason. Bucky has been part of the MCU since 2011. He’s an elder statesman. This comes through in his completely detached nonchalance while doing superhero stuff. If ‘been there, done that’ was a character, it would be Bucky Barnes in 2025.

Andor: S2 Episodes 11-12

Vibe: I've run out of superlatives to describe this show.

Deets: Even though I went out of my way to make Andor last, I've now run out of episodes. The show is over.

What a ride.

I wasn't sure where the show could possibly go after the soaring highs of the Ghorman climax. Instead, Andor did the smart thing because of course it did. They went smaller, drawing inward, and gave us things we didn't even know we wanted. A Luthen Rael and Kleya origin story wasn't on my radar but I'm so glad we went there.

The triumph of this show—apart from it's brilliance—is how it has given color and texture to all the background extras who were only ever there to cheer on our heroes. The Rebel Alliance exists now as a living, breathing thing, with a blood-soaked and ultimately tragic legacy. It will completely recontextualize movies that are almost 50 years old. That's nuts. And also kinda funny.

I do wonder/worry that it will also shade the films. As I found out revisiting Revenge of the Sith this week—it’s really hard to come down from Andor’s heights. Once you've gotten used to exquisite dialogue, how do you go back to this?

Anakin Skywalker: You are so... beautiful.

Padmé: It's only because I'm so in love.

Anakin Skywalker: No, it's because I'm so in love with you.

Padmé: So love has blinded you?

Anakin Skywalker: [laughs] Well, that's not exactly what I meant.

Padmé: But it's probably true.

I'll have longer and hopefully more evocative thoughts to share next week. Frankly I'm still reeling a bit. I want to rewatch episode 12 again, and immediately queue up Rogue One after.

Streaming on Disney+.