Introduction and Andor Season 2 Trailer
00:00:00
Speaker
We are talking to me about the Andor Season 2 trailer, and we're doing it quick. Stay tuned. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short?
00:00:11
Speaker
Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper? Welcome back to Short for a Stormtrooper, and today is going to be a fun day. To be honest, I had an idea of what I wanted to do today, but then the Andor trailer dropped. So I kind of pivoted on the original plans, and I thought, let's talk about the brand new, hopefully final trailer for Andor Season 2.
Host Dynamics and Interview Plans
00:00:40
Speaker
I dropped a note into our Learning Geeks chat to see if Jake and Data wanted to join me, and Jake is... What's he doing? He's like building shelves or cabinets or something. He's got a day off and he's doing the honeydew list.
00:00:52
Speaker
He's doing the honeydew list. And, you know, his his dream in the future is to be a carpenter. I'm pretty sure, you know, my dream is to be a Disney tour guide. I'm doing that on Wednesday, but that's a whole nother story.
00:01:04
Speaker
Um, Dana said he would love to come on and join, but also he thought maybe he could be the one asking the questions of me and interviewing me. And I thought that sounds like a fun idea. So with that, I am going to turn the reins of short for a storm trooper over to my good friend, Dana cock.
00:01:22
Speaker
And, uh, the floor is yours and I am your Guinea pig. All right, Bob, I got a whole bunch of questions i want to ask. We'll try to get them done in about 12 or 13 minutes.
Andor's Mature Themes and Social Commentary
00:01:32
Speaker
So given all of the Star Wars spinoffs, Mandalorian, Ashoka, Boba Fett, Acolyte, Skeleton Crew, why are you so excited about season two of Andor?
00:01:43
Speaker
Why am I so excited about season two of Andor? I almost put... Andor in a different, I'm going to say Andor and Rogue One, although especially Andor in a different class of Star Wars experience. It's almost like its own sub genre for Star Wars. So while i I still love to varying degrees, I love all of the other properties.
00:02:08
Speaker
I think all of the other Star Wars properties are still designed for 10 year old boys and you know, a lot of depth to them, but at the heart of it, it's a fairy tale for 10 year old boys to help them become wonderful young men, which hopefully that worked for me.
00:02:25
Speaker
so how is Andor different? Andor is different because I think the target audience for Andor actually is the adults. It actually is the grownup. It's very mature and it is really tackling some of the seeds of really interesting political, social upheaval seeds that Lucas just kind of planted in his story.
00:02:53
Speaker
It's building on those and addressing them in a very adult way, which for that reason, I'm excited to just see where that goes. But also in many ways, I think that this might be exactly the show that we need right now with the way the world is today.
00:03:10
Speaker
So I like it because it's a spinoff of a spinoff. Yeah. like Right. I mean, it's, and you really liked ro it's Rogue One. Yeah. Rogue One is ah one of my favorites. So the battle scene, I would argue that that's the best battle scene on all the Star Wars.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah. um All right. So reflecting back on season one, what are some of the, give me two or three of the the key moments or the key highlights that come to your mind?
Key Moments and Character Highlights
00:03:35
Speaker
Of season one? Yep. Um, The first highlight that comes to mind, I'm actually going to because, yeah, you did not feed me these questions ahead of time. So this is all brand new right off the cuff, which I love.
00:03:47
Speaker
um As soon as you said that, the first thought that came to mind was Luthen's speech ah that he gives to you know that the the imperial mole guy.
00:03:59
Speaker
And he is basically, i don't have it memorized, although maybe someday I will. He is basically saying, i have i am literally sacrificing my life for this and I'm not going to get to reap any of the benefits, but I'm doing it because I want a better future.
00:04:13
Speaker
That to me is the is the number one thing. ah The number two thing, very similarly, is the end of the Narkeena V prison arc,
00:04:26
Speaker
when Kino says, I can't swim. And yeah, you know it's like, i almost well up just thinking about that moment. It's so impactful because it's it's very similar.
00:04:40
Speaker
It's really kind of a very similar point. He, I believe, he knew fully well, he was never going to be able to get out of that prison because he knew that they were surrounded by water and that there was no other alternative.
00:04:53
Speaker
But he still... His decision to kind of change sides and do a face turn and work to overthrow the the prison, knowing he wouldn't be able to reap the benefits of it.
00:05:06
Speaker
Super impactful. And I would aspire to be a person like that someday. So one last question about season one, and then we'll yeah start talking about ah season two. So going back to the island, what did Andor's stay on the island due to his character?
00:05:23
Speaker
Oh, that's a really good question. Because throughout the whole season, we saw him evolve, didn't we? Yeah, from a thief to a... Yeah, yeah. I think that was really his first taste of leading people.
00:05:40
Speaker
You know, because previously when they did the um the Aldani raid, he participated and you know, he he wasn't really a leader leader. He led in the fact that he probably knew more about how this should actually go down than the other ones did. But he was a little passive aggressive in how he got that across. And he was motivated more from the fear of, hey, if you guys don't do it this way, we're going to crash and burn.
00:06:08
Speaker
Whereas when he got to Narkeena V, especially there at the end, he was actually able to lead the group of prisoners in this revolt. And so I think we saw that ingredient added to his character.
00:06:21
Speaker
In some ways, I wonder too, if his stay there kind of solidified his ah character as ah as a rebel. Oh, yeah. It kind of put a stamp of, yes, I am definitely against um but You know what? I think that the very last ingredient in that was then going back home and seeing his mother's funeral and hearing her speech, which I would say is the third most impactful thing.
00:06:46
Speaker
You know, I watched it again, getting ready for our for our rewatch podcast. So I watched it again just a couple of weeks ago. And. still watching that last episode, like it just does not let you go.
00:06:59
Speaker
It grabs you from the beginning and it just keeps building and building and building. And ah what an um mean amazing moment that was in Star Wars history. Okay. Season
Trailer Insights and Viewer Intrigue
00:07:07
Speaker
two. They always put out these trailers, which have a whole bunch of teasers in there.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah. What part of the teasers ah did you not expect or are you most interested in seeing play out?
00:07:21
Speaker
My first answer to that was realizing that this TIE fighter, that it seems like he steals, which I originally thought was TIE interceptor, which is the classic...
00:07:34
Speaker
pointy TIE fighter that we first saw in Return of the Jedi is actually a TIE Avenger, which was created for the X-Wing versus TIE fighter video game. And I just, oh my gosh, I love those type of things. So that that was the first thing that really surprised me about it. there was tie-in.
00:07:52
Speaker
it It was the tie-in. And, you know, that's one of the things about Andor that has been really interesting is Tony Gilroy, the creator and the showrunner, is pretty clear. He he is not a passionate Star Wars fan. He's not been in this for the Star Wars. He's in it for the story that it is.
00:08:08
Speaker
Nonetheless, he has done an amazing job of kind of, I'm guessing, outsourcing the lore components, probably to like Pablo Hidalgo and other people in the story group.
00:08:18
Speaker
If you go back in season one to all of the contents of Luthan's shop, the antiquity shop, like all of those, you can find lots of videos from even nerdier people than me talking about what what each of those items were and where they come in the history of Star Wars lore and all that kind of stuff.
00:08:35
Speaker
I'm sure Tony was just like, Pablo, fill this room up. you know make it Make it stuff that's important. And I think that type of thing is something that he does here. And so I do love that, that that I think Tony not being beholden to the franchise. Like if I came in and ever got to make an official Star War.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, you'd want to hold close to the franchise.
00:09:00
Speaker
By holding up the legacy and not messing anything up. Whereas I don't think Tony Gilroy really cares about that, but also he's able to to balance that and make it make it work. So I love that aspect. All right. Another season two question.
Character Relationships and Speculations
00:09:13
Speaker
What character dynamic are you most interested in seeing evolve in season two? Yeah. Yeah. That's hard to pick. I'm really interested just from what we've seen in the trailer yeah in seeing how Bix and Cassian.
00:09:29
Speaker
So Bix was his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend. Remember last we saw her, she was still pretty numb from the torture yeah that she underwent. ah And he he got her sent off to safety.
00:09:42
Speaker
We see scenes of her on the on the last podcast. I called it the Illinois planet. It seems to be the the planet that's full of wheat. Maybe that planet turns out to be Lothal, which is kind of where Star Wars Rebels is oriented, which seems to have a lot of...
00:09:59
Speaker
of grain. We'll see. We'll see. But, you know, she it seems like she's there, but then we see pictures of her definitely with Cassian and part of the, of the rebellion.
00:10:12
Speaker
And so, and we see an evolution in their relationship. So that's going to be really interesting to see how she winds up evolving from kind of a shell of a person into some sort of a freedom fighter. So we'll see where it goes from that. Any other dynamics between the other players?
00:10:27
Speaker
ah Yes, the dynamic between Deidre, Mira and Cyril. So, you know, our female Imperial ah agent who who is the villain that we all love, Deidre.
00:10:44
Speaker
And then Cyril, who is kind of the villain that I love to hate, um you know, the smarmy guy and what their relationship is. We're seeing interesting scenes in the trailer of Deidre Definitely kind of panicking. It looks like she's panicking, or especially in this last trailer.
00:11:02
Speaker
Something very, very weird happening to her. So I'm interested to see what happens to her, but also their their interplay and how their relationship grows or completely devolves. It could go either way.
00:11:16
Speaker
Okay, lightning round. Yeah. I'll say a character you share your quick reaction. Yep. Cyril. Smarmy. Hate him. Bix. I love her.
00:11:29
Speaker
Most gorgeous woman in all of Star Wars. Lucien. He is probably my favorite character in this. why ah I love his passion and his heart, and I love his ability to ah to evolve from being the no-nonsense leader into the shopkeeper personality.
00:11:49
Speaker
So great. Mon Moshma. She is right now. i love my Mothma as well. I think she is too reserved. And so I'm hoping this season we get to see her get a little bit more of her spark lid under her.
00:12:03
Speaker
Okay. Last question. Yep.
Future Anticipation and Closing Thoughts
00:12:05
Speaker
What aspects of the Andor story arc are you hoping will be told in season two?
00:12:13
Speaker
Well, we know where it ends. That's the interesting thing, right? We know that it ends right at the beginning of Rogue One. So there's a lot about Cassian that we already, you know, we already know, we kind of know where he's going to evolve to.
00:12:27
Speaker
So I'm really interested to see what happens to Luthun, because I imagine he's not going to survive the end of this. Probably not. Or he goes into hiding. ah Interested to see what happens to to our Imperial friends slash enemies.
00:12:41
Speaker
um I am interested to see what happens with like Brasso, his friend, ah Wilman, the the the young boy who threw the bomb, you know, yeah who was with them on the the Illinois planet.
00:12:56
Speaker
what happens to those guys. ah Interested to see how he reconnects with Melshi, who he escaped the prison with, but also he was in Rogue One. So we know somewhere along the line, those two are going to reunite. They're going to get that. Yeah, they're going to get together. Yeah. But probably the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is the origin story of K2SO.
00:13:17
Speaker
Oh. We didn't get any K2SO in season one. But you saw it and and saw yeah in the trailer. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay, Bob, done with the interview. I'm tossing back to you. Thank you so much. That was super fun.
00:13:30
Speaker
Hopefully everybody liked that. ah We should do that again sometime, Dana. That was great. do again sometime. All right, good. All right, thanks again to Dana for jumping on at last minute's notice and doing that with me. That was a lot of fun. And yes, it's true. I am so excited about Andor season two coming out.
00:13:49
Speaker
I am, well, you know what? I gotta be careful not to get my hopes up too high. But I have probably been spoiled by Severance Season 2, which I thought was absolutely epic.
00:14:00
Speaker
Could probably do a podcast about that. ah But I'm not going to right here because this is a Star Wars podcast. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed that. And I hope that you are looking forward to Andor Season 2 as much as i am.
00:14:14
Speaker
We will be back next week. And in the meantime, be sure to number one, tell all your friends about Short for a Stormtrooper. Number two, like and subscribe if you haven't done it already. Number three, leave us a review. And number four, join our discord. I will put the link in our show description. May the force be with you. We'll see you next time. bye. Star Wars is your favorite unit, let's chat for 15 minutes Aren't you a little short?
00:14:42
Speaker
Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a smorntroover? Aren't you a little short for a smorntroover?