Star Wars should learn from Andor and stop making Disney Plus shows that are so obsessed with the Jedi

You mean like The Mandalorian? 🤔

Also Boba Fett which, sadly, proves that focusing away from the Jedi stories doesn't guarantee a good story.

What Disney should do is focus away from the ~100 years that take place during the Skywalker saga. Theyre coming out with an old republic show, finally, after owning the property for over 10 years now. Its a big ass galaxy, fill it with something.

But of course, obligatory Tatooine plot
- Of course. Everything important that ever happened has to involve a far-off backwater that nobody's even heard of.
  (I actually like Tatooine's inclusion in KOTOR purely because it makes the planet an even more transparent Dune ripoff)
Old republic isnt less sith and jedi, its many many more.
Nah, it's the High Republic era, aka Disney fanfic because they can't figure what to do next with their nostalogy sequel era.
I've been saying this forever, the games and expanded universe figured this out decades ago. It let's you do whatever you want because you don't have to deal with accidentally retconning something or making sure it fits the existing timeline.

As a longtime (read: older) Star Wars fan, I feel like completely eschewing Jedi is a mistake. What I’d love to see is more exploration of the world from the perspective of people who aren’t Jedi and aren’t directly involved in the mystic struggle, but are present to bear witness to what happens when literal gods play politics around them.

The Jedi should always be a central theme to Star Wars. They’re what make the universe what it is. Without them, it’s just another space opera, and sci fi needs its MacGuffin. But it would be super interesting to see stories told from outside of that central narrative, reacting to, interacting with, and otherwise existing around the Jedi.

I know this has been explored to some extent with Mandalorian and Andor, but the latter - while a great show - still felt like it would be improved with more direct involvement of the central theme of the universe.

IMO talking about Jedi, Sith and the Force too much dilutes their importance.
They're indeed central to the story, but they're also extremely rare, to a point where most people in the Star Wars universe believe the Jedi are a myth which may not even be real. Seeing a Jedi in action would be like seeing the Messiah in the flesh.
- That's in large part due to the machinations of the Emperor, though. They were a para-military policing force throughout the galaxy before the fall of the Republic. Those planets who don't get a lot of interaction with the Republic (like Tatooine) are probably going to have less direct interaction... but they'll still have some familiarity with the overall concept that doesn't lean heavily into grandiose myth.

Disney needs to re-learn the concept of the Disney Vault, and use it.

I don't want any more star wars this decade, thanks. Games, books, sure. But TV and film absolutely not.

Take a break, let the audience build nostalgia and long for it, and sweet Jesus have a fucking plan next time.

Nope, they're doing a trilogy of Rey movies.

Nope, they're doing a trilogy of Rey movies.
They're doing fucking what?
- https://nerdist.com/article/three-new-star-wars-movies-announced-including-daisy-ridley-return-as-rey/
  I only see one Rey movie in here, but Mandalorian and Grogu is going to be horrible, calling it now.

Let me go against the grain here: I see a lot of people saying "we need a show like this, we need more of that", but we don't really need more Star Wars. We need good Star Wars, not more Star Wars.

Most people want the occasional movie and show about the central Star Wars story, not a multitude of spin-offs about not-Star Wars which happen to be set in the Star Wars universe. They should develop more original stories and settings. "Go out and make your own Star Wars" in the words of George Lucas.

The only problem is the central movies have turned out to be absolute dogshit under Disney.

Yeah, hard agree. "Andor was great because it wasn't about Jedi" is the wrong lesson to take.
Andor was great because it was made by people who were deeply passionate about what they were doing. They took the set dressing and the context that Star Wars offered and they used it to tell an incredibly powerful story of resistance against fascist oppression, everything that means and entails and what it costs. They created something powerful and vital that deserves and needs to exist.
We need more media that was created out of passion. We need artists to be set free to make art, not shackled to producing whatever a studio thinks is popular. That doesn't mean it all has to be high minded, subtle or complex; John Wick was a work of artistic passion and it shows. The art is "Look how cool it is when Keanu Reeves shoots people", but that can be art too. Subtle, complex morality plays or guns and explosions, or Jedi having lightsaber duels. It doesn't matter. What matters is that people creating it really, really give a shit about what they're making, and are allowed to make it the way they want to.
- Or in short: we need more things that were made because someone wanted to tell that particular story, not because someone needed to fill a slot in a release schedule.
- I think everything you said here is great, but I've been in the "stop making Jedi shit" camp since Rogue One, maybe before.
- And funnily enough, AI powered tools will help with this. It'll allow more singular or low number group creatives to take on works that would have required full studio teams (and the money to back said teams) in the past

I really feel like somewhere along the line they forgot that what made Star Wars cool was the gritty 'Han shot first' scifi spaghetti western stuff. The Jedi are an important piece of that but it's so sanitized now - ain't nobody suddenly finding their bloody arm laying on the ground anymore.

"Sanitized" is the best way to describe everything Disney puts out these days, whether it's Marvel, Star Wars, or even Pixar.
They feel designed-by-committee, unassuming, uncontroversial, flat, easy. There's little experimentation in story-telling, filming techniques, dialogue, and pacing. It's always the "conversation, action, witty remark between characters, action, conversation, witty remark" formula.
It's all so predictable and boring.
I loved the franchise when I was a kid for exactly those reasons, and then Star Wars started talking about failed trade negotiations and midi-chlorian counts. I haven't paid too much attention since then, but I get the impression I haven't missed much.

Andor had one heist arc, amid a broader story about radicalization and the creep of authoritarian power. It's a damned ambitious show. I'm so glad it exists.

They should leave the Skywalker saga. There’s thousands of years & a whole galaxy to fill with stories, and they keep dancing in the same 100 years & the same planets.

Man if I see Saw Garrera appear in some obscure corner of the galaxy with a band of proto-rebels again I'm going to be mad, Cad Bane too, fun for a bit but how do we keep running into the same characters in a whole galaxy? I'm sure there were more but I always noticed how they kept appearing.
- Well that's because they keep killing off all the compelling characters they could follow.
  I'm not still bitter about Rogue One at all...
Or...and hear me out...come out with a newer, shittier trilogy every 20 years
- Only if we ruin the characters from the previous trilogy with every new one we make.
There's the High Republic initiative. The Acolyte is part of that.
I haven't paid much attention to the High Republic stories, but the response seems to be mixed at best.

Wrong (in my opinion), jedi aren't the problem, writing and creativity is.

It’s important to remember that the vast majority of the galactic population has never seen a Jedi in real life, and doesn’t even know anyone who has. The Jedi are nearly mythical figures, surrounded by rumor, speculation, and misinformation.

Well, by now they've probably seen all the films.
If it happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away and has made it to our backwater planet, then it must be pretty widely popular.
- George Lucas created the Star Wars movies after R2D2 and C-3PO crash landed in an escape pod in his backyard, and they told him the story of the Empire, the rebels, and the Jedi. Earth is the only planet that has Star Wars because it's where R2 and Threepio ended up.
- The dumbass writing would make more sense if it were a documentary.
The space marine effect

They are not obsessed with jedi, they are obsessed with making money. Wait what that little shit yoda is trending on twitter? Throw everything away, we need more baby yoda.

I don’t have an issue with Jedi. I am tired of the Skywalker family.

Yeah, I'm sick of everything being connected to what came before. It feels pretty eugenicsy when everyone who is powerful and of note seems to be descended from someone who was powerful. Something something midichlorians.

But you can't have merch if you don't have a popular story and they're jeopardizing the popularity of the whole franchise. I just saw an article talking about the 5 least profitable films from 2024 and 4 of them were from Disney. They make sport of beating dead horses until the world collectively. They've already killed Marvel and Star Wars is bound to be next.

I actually don't want any more Star Wars content. I'm seriously bored now. Perhaps if any of it was good it would be different but so much of it is so bad.

Same. I recently found out there are Star Wars shows I wasn't even aware of and I have no desire to even find out what they're about.
- I watched "the bad batch" cartoons because I liked clone wars some millennia ago. It was ok, ::: spoiler and luckily the protagonist is not secretly a jedi :::

I think the Jedi/no Jedi debate isn't useful. I believe the major difference is whether or not the writing is good or not. Andor felt like the best star wars material ever written, a whole different league. Mandalorian season 1 felt like fresh, fun star wars. Season 2 felt messier and more corporate with it's connections to the greater universe. Season 3 felt bad. Ashoka felt bad. Boba fett felt bad.

They feel worse the worse the writing gets, Jedi or not.

I agree that seeing a wider range of stories from different time periods (other than the ones Disney has already fucked up - looking at you FO and the rehash of 4-6) would be great. But that's not what will predict the quality - well paid writers with a vision and a team around them interested in that vision is what we need.

I just want smaller scale stories where the stakes are high not because of some galactic consequence but because we become attached to the characters and their small worlds.
Andor felt tense because the world was small so smaller scale crises seem larger. I felt more when >!Kino said he couldn't swim!< than I did when the Death Star obliterated everyone on Scarif.
The only reason why I want less Jedi in my star wars is because I want them to feel special. Star Wars has a massive Galaxy where Jedi were a rarity even before the purge so give me more of that. Don't blow your load every 10 seconds by shoehorning lightsabers into every story.
Give me a film noir set on Nar Shaddaa or a heist set on Alderaan. I'm tired of the overuse of Jedi like I'm tired of the overuse of Tatooine. That planet is supposed to be a backwater with nothing going on hence Obi Wan choosing to hide there but instead we visit it every other Tuesday because executives think people want sand and brown doors.

I think we can look at the Marvel shows to see some good examples of what works and doesn't work. Star Wars, like Marvel and in some ways moreso, also has the problem of being expensive. Exotic locations, costumes, CGI--these shows cost as much as $250 million a season. You'll probably make your money back, but the production on something that feels like it "fits" in the bigger SW canon can easily carry a lot of risk.
And I think that's the real issue: for the price tag, I want Andor--a show that has something to say about the human condition and says it in a way that's beautiful--but it's very easy to just get "just more Star Wars" instead (and see also: superhero fatigue).
There's room for light sabers in good stories, but the stories have to be good themselves. I think there's an incentive to start from light sabers and then try to fit a story in, and that's working backwards. Some stories are going to want space wizards--but a lot aren't.
- That's an excellent point about front-loading a light saber into the story is not a guarantee. Andor's prison break arc - we only get to reap the the excellent tension and planning and loss because there's no deus ex machina. Adding a light saber or even force-sensitivity to that story beat would take that juicy tension and make it, "super easy, barely an inconvenience."

Andor is not the first lesson to do Star Wars without Jedi.

The MMO Star Wars Galaxies is.

There is nothing wrong with Jedi-centric stories ... if the stories would be any good.

Acolyte trailer certainly looks repetitive/derivative.

That's a very polite way of saying it looks like an extremely expensive pile of hot dog shit, and I agree with that sentiment.
Acolyte trailer certainly looks repetitive/derivative.
Still trying to keep an open mind to it, but from the trailers it does have a feel of being written by people who don't get Star Wars.
I'm hoping it's more of them just trying to grow Star Wars in a certain new direction. Hopefully a direction that fits the Star Wars universe.
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For all the shit that Lucas gets, I have to say that his vision for Star Wars has not been replicated. And when you grow up watching those films, you become hyper-sensitive to anything that doesn't "feel" Star Wars. I honestly believe that's why the Sequel trilogy wasn't received well, and why the TV shows fall flat for the most part.

So glad I bailed on Star Wars when they announced 11 new projects all at once.

I think you can do a bunch with jedi/sith, but you have to use the force for something more interesting than pushing things and jumping pretty high. The extended universe novels had all sorts of cool shit force users could do with it. They should lean in to that kind of stuff.

It helps too when they're not over used. You have to think how genuinely frightening force users must be to the average person. They don't need to go full-on "The Boys" levels of trope subversion, but showing the force as it might appear to your normie citizen might be interesting. I would think most people feel a mixture of awe, fear and mistrust.
We got a little bit of that when CGI Luke showed up at the end of the Mandalorian season to take away Baby Handpuppet. Seeing the mandalorians, who train to fight their whole lives, struggling so hard to get through the ship and deal with the droids, and then a Jedi shows up and just kind of breezes through them. It's that kind of perspective that makes the jedi and sith seem impressive.
It's a similar reason people responded so well to Darth Vader's scene at the end of Rogue One, he just seems genuinely superhuman when seen from that kind of bottom up perspective.
- I completely agree - force users should be few and far between, but if you're going to put a Jedi Master or Sith Lord onscreen they should be goddamn impressive. It would be something you became creative with while mastering, but all we see them do is hop around and shove stuff.

I want something that explores and expands in the sentinels, probably the coolest form of Jedi to me.

Workplace comedy about Jedi temple guards.
- I hear your great idea and offer this in tribute:
  https://www.somethingawful.com/news/nardo-design-empire/
How about a Mockumentary on the existential crisis of being a sentient droid?

A well-written opinion, but I can't agree.

Jedi/Sith are central to Star Wars, everything else is just the support for that story.

Having said that, I have no problem with seeing other parts of the Galaxy and how they interact and react to the Jedi/Sith struggle, etc.

But to focus on that exclusively, no.

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for that story
that story got told, over 40 years ago, by the first three star wars films
trying to continue to tell the same story over and over—trying to continue feeding the same meat into the same grinder—is what gave us episodes 7-9, and to a lesser extent 1-3
but there's still plenty of life in the world building and universe those films created
But to focus on that exclusively, no.
have you watched andor?
- I don't disagree that there should be more non-jedi focused stories... but I do have a problem with this:
  that story got told, over 40 years ago, by the first three star wars films
  A story was told. That doesn't mean every story that could involve jedi has been told. Just the same one rehashed multiple times. Different stories, focusing on different aspects of that same mythos without retreading the same ground (again), can still be told. It just requires more risk, which is why it hasn't been tried as much.
  It doesn't help that, because of forty years of history, people are attached to these characters and stories. They want to explore more of that. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing... unfortunately there is a lack of focused direction that has made it difficult to continue it with any kind of stable quality.
- but there’s still plenty of life in the world building and universe those films created
  The flip side of that though is just you end up with detective shows and spy shows and soap operas, in space, with a splash of sci-fi paint thrown over them. Been there, done that.
  Jedi and Sith are a unique storytelling point, and there hasn't been enough about their conflict with each other, and by that I mean whole organization versus whole organization wise, and them manipulating the larger politics of the various systems and so forth to their cause, etc. Not just the singular Darth Vader versus Luke Skywalker fight kind of conflict.
  The Sith as a large organization hasn't been seen in movies or tv, only in games.
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- Hey, 8 tried to tell a different story. It's a story about how the legend of "Luke Skywalker" is overblown and doesn't do justice to the man himself or to anyone around him. It's a story about how war has a big negative effect on the rest of the world, even places far away from the war. It's a story about how sometimes the world doesn't work the way myths do, with awesome magic powers and heroic sacrifices. It's a story about how everyone is important, and the "great man" idea of history is false. Those are stories that Star Wars hasn't told before.
  8 redeemed the mistakes of 5 and fixed Star Wars.