STAR WARS De-Infantilized (It Works)

When the Christmas season comes I have this tradition that I am sure many of you also have to rewatch some of my favorite sagas Harry Potter the Rings Back to the Future Jurassic Spider-Man this year I watch Star Wars the original movies and the prequels are obvious, They make me feel like a kid again. I experience excitement, anticipation and joy just by watching the title, only this time I continued watching all the Disney Star Wars content and I have to confess that these movies were difficult. They don't make me feel like a kid, they made me feel like a kid Walt Disney agreed to pay $4 billion for Lucas movie wow, we can make a lot of money, biggest opening in Jedi film history now, if you do something, It is not a sequel or not to a television series, they will not do it and it really shows a huge lack of imagination.

Let's be honest, the original Star Wars movies are not without their flaws, but this feeling was new to me at first. I thought maybe it was just me. maybe I've outgrown Star Wars over the years. I thought that just as the prequels were silly movies that I enjoy, the sequels were probably the same for a new generation and I just didn't get it, but even while watching other content like the acclaimed The Mandalorian series I couldn't shake this feeling from the back of my mind. and as the show went on it became more and more clear to me what that feeling was.

Strangely enough, if I had to describe it, I guess it's the same feeling as you. When you are watching Dora the Explorer, you get that the show is designed for children and it is a brilliant show because it engages the audience by asking them to identify things on the screen and point them out to Dora. Could you check the map for us? and figure out how to get to the big hill, in essence, this is the kind of media that assumes you need hand-holding to enjoy it and that it needs to give you constant stimulation and explanation to keep you going. hooked, otherwise you will lose track of things and subsequently lose interest in each problem.

There is a ready answer for every challenge. An almost immediate solution. If the characters need something done, then all I have to do is yell at the screen and Bam, it happens in moments. This is something that happens over and over again in Kenobi and the new Ahsoka series and I never thought I'd say this, but I only got to watch Impervious Heroes go through bland bullies so many times before returning to the only spin-off that seemed like I'll be moving away from the usual Star Wars formula we're going to get. I'll tell you what happened.

I remember how surprised I was when I first saw it. I felt different. Ruthless espionage without loose threads. Fallible smuggling gorilla tactics. morally ambiguous. emotionally exhausted people, all of this has made me firmly believe that Rogue One and Andor do a better job of showing the nature of the Galactic Civil War than any other Star Wars media to date, it's no secret that one of the characters by excellence. The irony of the original Star Wars is that it's not a war movie, it's a space opera inspired by the cheesy sci-fi magazine series and movies that preceded it.

I mean SP, we call it a space opera, but people don't realize it's actually a soap opera. opera and it is about family problems and of that type it is not about spaceships an adventure where a chosen hero rescues a princess and obtains a metal at the end as beloved as the film is its narrative reads like a children's story in words from director Irvin Kersner Star Wars is more like a fairy tale than a conventional science fiction story and it's okay to be clear that Star Wars being accessible to kids is not a criticism, this is and always has been by design Contrary to most science fiction. which uses technology that challenges distant futures and imagination to offer information on philosophically charged topics such as transhumanism, the limits of scientific knowledge, and the human condition across time and space.

Star Wars has always chosen to keep its core narrative beats accessible to people of all ages, for example normally. In science fiction, the existence of artificial intelligence allows adult themes to be explored in films like BL Runner or shows like Battle Star Galactica. Intelligent machines serve as mirrors for humanity and make us question the very idea of ​​sentience and free will, meanwhile in Star Wars robots. Rarely are they more than light comic relief and guilt-free wank for Our Heroes to navigate through the infinite narrative possibilities provided by the alien species explored in franchises like Star Trek or Warhammer 40,000 who ultimately end up sidelined and the non-humans seem mostly exist.

For aesthetic purposes or also for comedic purposes, some may accuse Star Wars of being a superficial piece of science fiction due to the conscious choice not to delve deeper into these basic science fiction elements, but I think this is an unfair expectation because, For humans in this distant galaxy the concerns remain the same as the ones we currently have, which is probably why we can identify with them much more than anything else. The Star Wars story is human-driven and at the heart of the story there. They are always human themes and ideas, the most fundamental of which is the conceptual battle of good versus evil;

In other words, there is no place for any other science fiction theme in Star Wars because the war in question has always been the war between the light and dark sides of the force between the Jedi, the Sith and those who fight alongside both these are the themes of an Epic Fantasy translated into a Science Fiction setting and in a universe torn by the perpetual struggle between good and evil there is little room for other themes besides those involved in this battle and this is never clearer than during the Galactic Civil War, but Rogan and Andor confirmed intuitions we didn't know we had, like that the Rebellion couldn't afford to sit back and wait for some hero of the Prophecy to bring down the Empire or that opposing the empire didn't necessarily make someone into a hero or even a good person.

This is what makes Tony Gilroy's Rogue, and especially Andor, so different from other Star Wars media and what makes them so refreshing in casual themes. The cold, indifferent oppression of compromising one's morals for a greater cause of abandoning one's future for that of others fits within the conflict of Good and Evil and at the same time expands it, and this is partly what does That a show like Andor is more adult than it can be accused of. Tony Gilroy of losing the spirit of Star Wars by alienating the part of his audience that is more enamored of the fantastical aspect like lightsabers, Jedi and the force, which while more attractive to children than dramatic narratives, They are also loved by adult fans, including myself for That's why I want to discuss what I think is what made the original Star Wars so good and successful and before we can move on to that, we need to address the elephant in the room. room, which can only be done by answering a very simple question of why.

Does Star Wars just feel childish now if it was always meant to be accessible to kids? I'm quite the Jedi to say that Star Wars is accessible to all audiences does not mean that it is childish, but to pretend that Star Wars was always intended for children is reductionist, even in the original films we can already see glimpses of something more. The Empire Strikes Back is a very different film from the original, a sequel that clearly sought to expand the universe and at the same time make the characters more complex, most importantly, the decisions made in this film unequivocally infantilizes the world of Star Wars there. things that don't just have a space battle there's more to it than that in the initial battle of hath we finally get to see what a ground war looks like in this universe and that the rebels are fighting an unfair fight where even after destroying the Death Star They are still at a disadvantage in terms of logistics budget and military technology.

This theme of overwhelming and unfair odds translates into the film's narrative beats that it has no problem taking its time showing. For us, the triumphant heroes of the previous film at their best but also at their worst, this in turn allows us to better understand the characters. We realize that the characters do not act like fairy tale characters but rather like human beings with whom H alone does not see. the good ones because he believes in the cause of the Jedi or in the justice of the Rebellion, the reason why the Smuggler does not dare to leave is that his friend Luk needs him and, most importantly, he is in love with Leia, his decisions They are based on fundamentally human emotions, he is not playing a role in the story, but rather acting as a living part of a world.

In the same way, we empathize with characters like Admiral Pit, a man who

works

for the evil empire and who is hopelessly subordinate to Darth Vader and forced to play. Along with the cruel Sith Games, the film takes its time to show us the empire's perspective to highlight that there are people working just as hard as the Rebels on the other side and that despite their loyalties they are also other human beings. What's deliciously real about this movie is that for the first time we get to see the unexpected moments of downtime and preparation for these characters, we see Luke eating his rations, we see Han repairing his ship, we see Leia briefing the pilots before takeoff , we even see Vader.

By dealing with the banal inconveniences of the chain of command and taking off your helmet, not to mention the plethora of background characters doing the background stuff well, between the lightsaber battles, space dogfights, and escapes from Scenic Planet, we glimpse moments that make the Galaxy feel alive. and making the characters feel real, this could be argued to be what separates Star Wars from other similar Blockbusters and what gives it an edge over the competition and of course they all went out and made spaceship movies and all They were horrible, you know, there's more to do. Beyond that, you can't just go out and make spaceships, even if the narrative is very simple to keep it accessible to audiences of all ages, there is a depth to the world and its characters that keeps us wanting more and this depth is what which kept Adults Return when kids were mostly concerned with funny robots, cute aliens, and lightsaber fights;

However, when I see Star Wars in Disney-era media, I feel like these elements are the ones that are being prioritized at the expense of deeper narrative and characterization of what we see. instead, it's a constant effort to build up the IP by injecting cameos, Easter eggs, and taglines almost as if to distract us with Nostalgia. I like this, the truth is that most of the time the plot advances in a pre-planned artificial way and the dialogue mainly serves to drive the plot forward rather than being organic interactions, which has the unintended consequence of making the characters sit stiff and unnatural.

The pathfinder's location has been inscribed on this dagger. Sometimes it feels like there is an empty space planned. in these stories so that we can laugh, cry or otherwise intervene, this turns the story into a fairy tale and a fairy tale, although it is not necessarily a bad story, it is clearly not real, so what makes a story seems real to me, there are two essential things. What Andor does to capture us within his world, make us feel invested in the story, and make the character's experiences relatable first is visual storytelling, the choice to do over-the-shoulder camera angles, almost always in an overhead position. human skin, the decision.

Filming on location and the main environments being a limited number of carefully constructed pieces, the painstaking attention to detail and the subtle world building in the set design, all of these things come together to create synergies in such a way that it is not difficult to believe. that each location we see is as real as the characters within it, it seems like the show took the lessons of Empire Strikes Back and applied them across the board. Andor is not abandoning the spirit of Star Wars, but rather taking iconic elements of the franchise and recasting them in a new way, let's take a look at some scenes from Andor and compare them to other existing Star Wars media to prove this point: there is a immediate difference in the feeling of danger transmitted by these scenes that does not calculate the wait.

He said no, no, no, no, no, it means a lot. The droid's naivety can be used as comic relief, but it can also be used to turn him into a terrifying machine with no empathy or common sense. Director Benjamin Karen isn't just laying the groundwork for The Future Emergence of Kso here he wants us to feel powerless in the face of the Empire's indifferent violence. The sameIt can be said of the Tie fighters, when you are lucky enough to pilot the Millennium Falcon, they die like flies, but once you are on the ground. with nothing to his name but a couple of blasters and John Williams' soundtrack not playing in the background.

The Tie fighters become much more menaced, especially when Susanna White directs the shot to be almost horror movie-like. These are just two examples, but the same logic applies to directing, editing, and cinematography choices throughout the entire show. The second key element that makes Andor so special is the dialogue. Andor doesn't just tell us a story. The interactions between the characters in Andor do not feel convenient or forced to advance the plot, the conversations feel real and subsequently make the characters feel real and make us connect with them, make us understand their motives, their emotions, their place in this universe, the guiding principle in Andor is always this spectacle.

It doesn't tell us, it shows us the characters in their daily lives, right down to the logistical conversations they have and the unexciting personal decisions they make. Seeing Dedra popping pills and working overtime tells us more about her than any amount of exposition he can do on her. See Cassian's reaction. Valentin Teran's ignorance regarding the charging clutch and the Box freighter makes it obvious that there is a difference in practical experience between him and them. By watching Sill's conversations with his mother, we understand everything there is to understand about his insecurities and where they originated, show us but don't tell us.

Exposition It may clarify things, but it could never give us such real and real information. an intuitive understanding about these characters that we can gain from watching them eat, walk, talk, live while watching Andor, the showrunners make us look for the story threads that these characters weave instead of offering them to us on a platter, this is so much more. An effective trick to keep adults interested in a television show. If we look at some of the most acclaimed and influential television shows of the last two decades that were created for adult audiences, we will find that they all have one thing in common: they are all shows. where, regardless of the quality of the main narrative, what kept audiences coming back for more were the characters and the world they lived in, more specifically the way the world they live in and the experiences they go through affect them and they change them in some way. that feels real through these characters, we can understand why the story is told to us and why it is told through them.

Andor's cast of characters is one of its greatest strengths as a medium, not because they are iconic or memorable, but because they are fundamentally tied to the key ideas explored by the series. They are multidimensional characters and this not only makes them more interesting but also allows the show to tell us its messages without needing to rely on exposition. This is because these characters. Not only are they telling us a story as if we were children who didn't know any better, their words carry weight because they remind us of the hardest truths we have known throughout Our Lives, they resonate with their words because, just like us These characters They are just people at the end of the day and only people can experience something real.

There is a wound that does not heal at the center of the Galaxy. We are healthcare providers. We treat diseases. The Empire is a disease that thrives. darkness there is a growing list of things we have known and forgotten things that pushed us to forget things like Freedom, the Empire has been suffocating us so slowly that we are beginning to not notice that many things are going wrong, there is a lot to say in everything that happens The pace of oppression so quickly surpasses our ability to understand it. You put a series of options on the table and they are so absorbed in choosing that they don't realize that you haven't given them anything they thought they wanted in the first place.

The arrogance is notable. It is not like this? They don't even think about us. They are so proud of themselves. They don't even care. They are so plump and satisfying. The way they laugh. The way they push through the crowd. The sound of that voice. Tell me to stop to know how to move I need to die it's in the air pre been moving away from the truth I didn't want to face we were sleeping Kasa kasaa Kasa I just need you to wake up can you stand to see the rain of the imperial flag cross the galaxy it's no problem if you don't look towards up it is better to go better eat sleep what you want not die being careful if there are heroes brave enough to face an entire imperial garrison.

I'm great, they let us out. from here people are standing random acts of insurrection occur constantly throughout the galaxy and even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward remember the Rebellion Frontier is everywhere do you really think the rebels care the lines we draw on maps? Security is an illusion the new public order ruling directive is the next step in an all too predictable march towards complete and indisputable authority authority is fragile pressure is the mon of fear I need fear I need them to come down hard I want everything here show a force immediately you realize what you said that people will suffer that is the plan depression bre Rebellion don't you really want to fight these ba

star

ds and what do you sacrifice?

I wake up every day with an equation I wrote 15 years ago for which there is only one conclusion. Be okay I am condemned by what you are willing to burn I am condemned to use the tools of my enemy I burn my decency for another person's future I burn my life I make a dawn that I know I will never have seen that there is no way to get out alive That, you must be sure, so what should I sacrifice everything? Tell him he knows everything he needs to know and feels everything he needs to feel when the day comes when those two come together, he will be an unstoppable force forever.

I mean, all the heroes I can understand, what have we done, friend, we've chosen a side, we're fighting the darkness, we're doing something with our lives, this is what the Revolution looks like, playing right into your hands, in whose hands are the rebels? We are treating what happened as a robbery. What would you call it an advertisement? They call it War. The real shock will be when they discover how ready and eager we are to respond. We make a fist. They just killed 100 men to keep them quiet. call it power power power don't panic if the Empire has this kind of power what chances do we have what chances do we have the question is what option J there will be times when the fight seems impossible just insecure married by the scale of the freedom of the enemy is an idea Pure happens spontaneously without instruction Do you think someone is listening Someone is out there What have they sent us How will the day come when all these scares and battles These moments of challenge will flood the nonsense of the Empire Authority and then there will be one to many one thing alone will break The siege remember these fry there comes a time when the risk of doing nothing comes the greatest risk of all maybe fighting is useless maybe it's too late but I'll tell you this if I could do it again.

I would get up early and fight these ba

star

ds from the start. I would fight against anger.