r/StarWars • u/Embarrassed_Day_1873 • 2d ago
I just love how Andor managed to make one Tie-fighter terrifying. TV
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u/Dolenjir1 2d ago edited 2d ago
I love this scene. The pilot does the fly by only to harass and intimidate them. Simply because he can. That's such a smart way of showing the "silent oppression" of the Empire. They don't have to make speeches citing their evil (I meant "their", as in possessive), they show it
Edit: typo
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u/MWleFylde 2d ago
It is (or at least recently was) a legitimate tactic used by the RAF. Tornado screaming in at low level at a few hundred knots would make a few insurgents think again.
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u/Special-Ad-9415 2d ago
The RAF use to do this to my dad when he was a coach driver doing tours in wales.
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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 2d ago
Gotta keep the Welsh in line somehow
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u/The-Driving-Coomer 2d ago
Well you've got to start somewhere.
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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 2d ago
Step 1: F-22 Raptor fly-bys
Step 2: Install hereditary Marcher Lords to defend the border castles
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u/lesser_panjandrum Sabine Wren 2d ago
The Six Nations wooden spoon isn't enough?
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u/MWleFylde 2d ago
Driving through the Mach Loop?
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u/Special-Ad-9415 2d ago edited 1d ago
Yep. Also we once stayed in barmouth on a holiday, which is at the entrance for the mach loop, multiple times a day we had jets and huge transporter planes flying low past the place we were renting.
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u/nx571 2d ago
I was driving across some insanely empty California desert in 2001 and an F-16 did this to me, came from behind, never saw it, and felt like it was on top of my car, straight down the road. It was... unnerving. The sound came after the shadow.
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u/the-namedone 2d ago
There’s a great video of an American F-16 flying at low level/high speed over an adversarial Toyota as a warning. I forget the context but it’s such an incredible display of force.
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u/Chinhoyi 2d ago
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u/niftynards 2d ago
I bet for a split second the people in that car thought they got bombed. The noise, the vibration, and the dust… that’s pants pooping scared’s what that is.
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u/usr_bin_laden 2d ago
That's the whole point. Prove they could have annihilated you, but chose not to. Don't fuck around and find out a second time.
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u/Born-Entrepreneur 2d ago
I got buzzed by a fighter jet on a two lane highway in the middle of sweet fuck all Idaho, it couldn't have been more than 50 feet off the ground, came out of absolutely no where and rocked the car as it screamed by in a roar. It was rad as all fuck but also very surprising. In a different context it could easily be terrifying.
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u/fenderbloke 2d ago
So it's also a tactic used by the former Empire.
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u/NoNotThatMattMurray 2d ago
Technically Palpatine's empire is the former empire. It all happened a long long time ago
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u/LongKnight115 2d ago
Ah right, where did it happen again though?
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u/FoxSquirrel69 2d ago
It's called a show of force and it's super effective in dry and dusty conditions.
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u/RustyShacklefordJ 2d ago
That’s why the AH-64 apache is like a golden eagle in the sky and all terrorists are prairie dogs with no tunnel. They’d record rotor wash from them to play time to time when they weren’t flying and it’d be eerily quiet because they knew if one was up in the air they’d be dead before they could pull a trigger
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u/Temporary-Bluejay631 2d ago
I was OpFor against an airborne brigade combat team with attached aviation for a training center rotation. My fighting position got harassed by an Apache for a few minutes. Rotor wash blew my 40lb ruck sack back like 10 ft and I swear my hearing is still fucked.
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u/Independent_War_4456 2d ago
The funeral scene gives me chills just thinking about it. The show did a fantastic job of showing how the empire is made up of all sorts of people. Some are desperate some afraid and unwilling to risk going against it and some are true believers.
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u/Jurgepoo 2d ago
And some (like the officer who takes over Ferrix and knocks Bee over) are bullies who may only like the Empire because it gives them an opportunity to power-trip and hurt others without consequences.
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u/chargernj 2d ago
Officer Kicks Bee
And Ferrix took that personally.
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u/CanadianUnderpants 1d ago
When that prick tipped over our precious B, instantly I went from passive show watcher to rabid rebel insurgent.
Nobody lays a hand on our goodest boi
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u/AFalconNamedBob 2d ago
Everything in that sequence is amazing, from the music to the set Fucking love Unto Stone are We Britell killed it as composer, it's perfect for how tense that scene is, absolutely cannot wait for season 2
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u/Independent_War_4456 2d ago
I love that her stone was used as a weapon. She would have approved of that.
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u/Fakjbf 2d ago
It’s also a good way of explaining why Tie-fighters were so loud while other ships were almost silent, the Empire wanted people to know when Tie-fighters were in the area enforcing its power.
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u/Dolenjir1 2d ago
Yes. It was based on the Stuka. A WW2 bomber plane (George Lucas loved war movies and took the Nazis as the main inspiration for the Empire) that had this siren that made a very characteristic sound whenever it dived. The siren served no other purpose besides intimidation. Just look up "Stuka siren" on YouTube. You probably heard it before in other movies
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u/Calikal 2d ago
Literally the sound effect used for any plane going into a nosedive in all forms of media
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u/GravyMcBiscuits 2d ago
Yeah. It's interesting how many of were misled by Hollywood to believe that is just what a diving plane sounds like.
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u/Fakjbf 2d ago
Similar to how almost every bald eagle you’ve ever heard on TV was actually a red tailed hawk, actual bald eagles sound way less impressive.
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u/LeviathansEnemy 2d ago
The Germans also put whistles on their bombs, which also gets used for every "falling bomb" in media.
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u/IchbinDeutscher 2d ago
I was about to comment the Stuka. Its shriek can almost be heard in the TIE-Fighter Sound. Its really interesting that the Stuka isnt known as the Plane.... its known for its Sound...
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u/KilledTheCar 2d ago
Yeah the scene in Dunkirk with the Stuka is real similar to this one. The Jericho horn is intimidating as hell.
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u/LegendaryOutlaw 2d ago edited 2d ago
Right, they hid their guns, but he flew by at a few hundred mph, he wasn't going to spot their weapons. He did the flyby just to remind them who's in charge here. Who has the superior firepower. Who can destroy who whenever the mood strikes. But it also shows the Empire's arrogance. They underestimate, every time.
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u/startupstratagem 2d ago
Gun hiding really shows how fearful of the empire they are. It's possible three pilot could see something was off with the locals just by the weapons even if the pilot couldn't id them as weapons.
It's totally possible for them to stand out among the locals simply by their activity in the fields.
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u/LegendaryOutlaw 2d ago
Totally...'I don't know what you're up to out in this lonely field...but I see you, so whatever it is, knock it off.'
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u/chargernj 2d ago
It's also just smart too hide their weapons. TIEs can also hover and if the pilot really wants to mess with the yokels...
Add to that, the pilot may not see, but they don't know if the TIE may also be recording video that can be reviewed later.
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u/Revolutionary-Swan77 2d ago
Or maybe to spook them into running, or opening fire if they’re jumpy and undisciplined?
There’s that quote from Full Metal Jacket:
“Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who doesn’t run is a well disciplined VC.”
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u/LegendaryOutlaw 2d ago
It all feeds into what makes Andor the best SW show on Disney+. It wasnt all jedi magic and the force, it was just regular people, fighting against an overwhelmingly superior force, against literally all odds. Such a good one, i'm going to have to do a full rewatch soon.
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u/Bored-Ship-Guy 2d ago
Yup. Half the point of that scene was to show the sheer, casual arrogance of Imperial power. The pilot didn't fly over them because he was on a mission to search for possible Rebel cells in the hinterlands- he was just bored, and wanted to scare some indigs on the ground. He probably thought it was funny to watch them run around in a panic as he roared overhead, hurting their eardrums and sending any unsecured equipment flying. And why should he care about their opinions on it? He's a fucking TIE pilot, the apex of the Imperial war machine. You think some podunk herdsmen can do anything to him? That pilot was arrogant and lazy, and it's both cruel, and the Empire's greatedt weakness.
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u/Vallkyrie Qi'ra 2d ago
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u/Dry_Wolverine8369 2d ago
America did this in the Middle East iirc
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u/Sere1 Sith 2d ago
Pretty much any military does this in an area they have control over, a reminder to the people there who is in charge
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u/the-namedone 2d ago
Back in the opening days of the Pacific front of the WWII, the US were actually VERY behind in terms of tech and experience. There’s a story of Japan’s top ace - Saburō Sakai, and his wingmen going rogue to fuck with an American base.
They started doing an air show in front of the air base to show off their skill and coordination, pulling off tight, synchronized aerial maneuvers on the fly.
They were so good that they even got some Americans cheering them on. At the same time though, the Americans knew that they were in some serious shit and it was going to be a difficult war.
Idk why, but the intimidation of the TIE fighter reminds me of Sakai
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u/Dolenjir1 2d ago edited 2d ago
True that. I remember this story from a history class back in the 90-00s where the professor would start this class by showing to the students all the Nazi planes and explaining why they were so impressive and superior to all other technology back in the 40s, and then he would just change slides and show a airfield full of P-47s as far as the eye can see. What won the war wasn't the Allie's technology, but their numbers.
Edit: for all the people pointing out that the Allies had amazing weapons, vehicles and whatnot, I'm aware, and I was simply being hyperbolic (I believe I picked the wrong word). What I meant is that their main advantage were their resources, and among them, their numbers
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u/Bored-Ship-Guy 2d ago
Except our shit was high quality, too. Very sturdy, powerful engines, and with a high survival rate, compared to balsawood bullshit like the Zero. Not only that, but when we had truly talented pilots emerge, we'd rotate them behind the lines to train new pilots, improving the overall quality of our pilot corps. The Nazis started the war with a technological edge, but they sure as shit didn't END the war with one.
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u/moosekin16 2d ago
What won the war wasn't the Allie's technology, but their numbers.
“IJN Majestic Mountain, Strength of the Emperor Personified” sunk by twelve exact duplicate ships all called “USS We Built This Yesterday”
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_ROBOTGIRL 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hilariously towards the end of the war, IJN ships were mostly being sunk by airplanes. You didn't even need twelve duplicate ships, just a few aircraft carriers and one squintillion duplicate airplanes dropping mines and torpedoes everywhere.
The IJN's philosophy was unga bunga build big gun, which truly would be good in ship to ship naval combat, but that doesn't matter when the enemy is overwhelming you with planes. Once they lost their aircraft carriers, it was over. Operation Ten-Go was just two straight hours of humiliation.
I love the Yamato. She's hopelessly cool and hopelessly useless. She only ever got to fire her 18 inch guns (the largest ever of any ship) at an enemy target once, at Gambier Bay during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and her AP rounds kept over penetrating because they thought the ship was bigger than it was. Gamby (EDIT: PROBABLY, WE AREN'T SURE) got brought down by Chikuma, a heavy cruiser with perfectly ordinary 20 centimetre guns.
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u/SJshield616 2d ago
It was numbers AND tech that won the war for the Allies. The P-47 was no slouch in air-to-air combat and made for an excellent CAS fighter-bomber. The P-51 was an absolute beauty of a fighter that could even go toe-to-toe with German jets. The Axis were ahead in only a few military technologies, but were at parity or behind the Allies on most others, and were complete laggards industry-wise.
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u/Firecracker048 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yup. Another key moment was how they placed bars along the way to the ritual spot so most if not all of the pilgrims wouldn't make it so they could then build on top of it.
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u/Embarrassed_Day_1873 2d ago
I always thought it was either him having fun with the locals, trying to take a closer look or just to show dominance.
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u/Dolenjir1 2d ago
Why not all? If you do what you love you won't have to work a day of your life, after all
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u/UtahUtes_1 2d ago
Andor managed to make stormtroopers menacing. Its an amazing show.
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u/Estoye Bodhi Rook 2d ago
And the K2 droids, too. Jesus.
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u/UnemployedAthiest 2d ago
tbf K2 droids haven't had as much of a chance to be ruined by other shows yet
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u/Bespin_Luke 2d ago
God, Andor was fucking sublime.
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u/FremenDar979 Rebel 2d ago
Really can't wait to watch Season 2!
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u/applestrudelforlunch 2d ago
Season 1 was so good that now I’m terrified Season 2 can only disappoint.
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u/Fiasco1081 2d ago
At least they are straight jacketed in by having to align with Rogue one. Can't go too far off.
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u/DoDoDoTheFunkyGibbon 1d ago
Andor survives. Mon Mothma gets shifted away from Coruscant. Luthen probably dies.
I assume the meta tension will be around them hearing about the Death Star, and there's a reckoning of personal cost as they all realise how small they are as individuals. And so the alliance begins to pull together.
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u/Jepordee 1d ago
There’s something to be said about a story that’s unable to add certain twists because future canon is already established. I think it’s forced Andor to get more creative with their storytelling and boy has it paid off
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u/Tarmac-Chris 2d ago
Gods the writing was strong then!
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u/MarkyMarcMcfly 2d ago
Bobby B knows best
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u/HamberderHelper18 2d ago
Fetch me the Beskar plate stretcher!
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u/LiteraI__Trash 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lancel…Gods what a stupid name. Lancel Lannister, who named you? Some halfwit with a stutter?
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u/phelan74 2d ago
That’s Tony Gilroy for you. Michael Clayton is a fucking masterpiece.
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u/MurkyCardiologist695 2d ago
Permission to buzz the tower?
Negative ghost rider the pattern is full
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u/BurningCanMan 2d ago
Fun story: the pilot (excuse me, the Naval Aviator) who buzzed the tower in the film was Scott “Scooter” Altman. He got to do 9 flybys. He was also the commander on STS-109, the last successful mission of Space Shuttle Columbia. (Source-he’s my wife’s cousin)
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u/ussbozeman 2d ago
But can he pick up a mic in a bar and sing at people, play beach volleyball in his jeans, and do a negative 4-G dive on a
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u/sext-scientist 2d ago
F-16 low pass highway show of force.
It’s much more impressive in real life.
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u/Vindicare605 R2-D2 2d ago
This is one of the reasons I love when Star Wars focuses on stories that don't involve Jedi. It gives a nice sense of scale to the rest of the universe.
Rogue One and Andor do a great job of this, and so does Mandalorian so that when Jedi DO actually show up they feel so much more impactful, and you get the idea of what the people of the galaxy actually must think about them seeing them in action for a brief moment when they are just mythical characters otherwise.
When the story is only focused on the Jedi you tend to lose that sense of scale.
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u/bakedpatata 2d ago
The AT-ST scene in the Mandalorian was a great example of this. In the movies and video games they never seemed like much of a threat, but to a village of normal people it was terrifying.
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u/Vindicare605 R2-D2 2d ago
The AT-ST is a funny example too since the AT-ST immediately makes you think about the Ewoks, and how they might be a little more intimidating than you give them credit for.
Those little guys are fearless and even though they lack technology they have the strength and cunning to build weapons that actually can take down a couple of those walkers.
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u/bakedpatata 2d ago
It makes sense when you consider the Ewoks were loosely based on the Viet Cong who were also up against an invading force that had massive technological advantages.
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u/oSuJeff97 2d ago
Yeah exactly. I always thought it was funny that over the years people would talk about the Ewoks as "teddy bears" or something.
Ewoks weren't "teddy bears" they were terrifying MURDER bears.
They were literally prepared to kill and EAT the Rebel team before Luke used the Force/3PO to scare the shit out of them.
Later, they are literally using the helmets of dead Stormtroopers as drums in a celebration song.
Ewoks are terrifying murder machines.
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u/nadajoe 2d ago
Battlefront 2 has an Ewok hunt game mode that is both terrifying and super fun.
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u/SargeanTravis 2d ago
When I played this with my friends and suddenly me or one of them goes completely silent you know you are in deep trouble if you are a stormtrooper
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u/Deggstroyer 2d ago
Or those times when everyone rallies and you feel invincible, but then suddenly shit goes down and now youre alone, knowing those murderers are chasing you down in the dark
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u/SargeanTravis 2d ago
The very start and finish of an Ewok Hunt game are the most terrifying moments, braving the woods to get those rare heavy weapon kits knowing if you are alone you can and will get ganked by a teddy bear if you aren’t careful and the mad dash to the extraction site where the full Ewok horde will be harassing your ass from the cave people typically hid inside all the way to the shuttle
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u/wilsonianuk 2d ago
Never played shadows of the empire then? The at-st in Hoth was a early bugger to beat when I was a kid!
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u/pastrami_on_ass 2d ago
well that's because those little dudes had to worry about the damn Gorax. They didn't set up all those traps for the empire, they already were in place.
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u/JaegerBane 2d ago
The way they did the Dark Troopers in The Mandalorian was incredible.
We’ve seen dozens of episodes about just how badass Din really is, the kinds of odds he can handle, the kinds of opponents he can deal with. But he’s pushed to the edge by a single Dark Trooper, and it’s like fighting the Terminator.
Now the heroes are stuck facing a dozen of them, and Gideon is looking pretty smug.
Then an X-Wing arrives, and everyone is like ‘really? Just one?’… except for Gideon, who’s gone from pleased to shitting his pants because he’s knows full well who is on that X-Wing.
Then Luke gets out, and proceeds to annihilate the entire Dark Trooper contingent without breaking a sweat, like they’re a minor obstacle on his way to the real goal. It’s not even a challenge, it’s like Neo at the end of the first Matrix movie.
Now granted, this was Luke and not some random Jedi survivor… but… while I don’t totally agree with the idea of totally sidelining Jedi in new fiction, I really like it when they depict them from the eyes of a bystander.
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u/Sere1 Sith 2d ago
THIS, this so much. Gideon is shitting himself because The Skywalker has arrived. The man who walked into the throne room of the Death Star, in cuffs, escorted by Darth Vader himself and being brought before the Emperor... and who was the only one to walk out of that room alive. Luke is to the Empire after that what Vader was to the Rebellion. He's their boogieman. He's their nightmare. The instant Gideon realized who it was that was boarding his ship, he knew he was fucked.
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u/nadajoe 2d ago
Your analogy for Luke reminds me of the end of I am Legend. Where the main character realizes that he is their nightmare.
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u/MaxineTacoQueen 2d ago
Which was oddly left out of every single movie adaptation despite being the entire point of the story.
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u/Astralsketch 2d ago
and to top it off, Luke's legend is greater than his actual feats. He didn't kill Vader, he didn't kill Sidious, but no one knows that little detail.
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u/tertiaryunknown Ahsoka Tano 2d ago
That's all I wanted from the sequels. That's it. I just wanted Luke to be a badass, actually train the next Jedi, and have a true noble sacrifice moment.
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u/dapala1 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't even care if he decided to not train or stop training Jedi because he had a revelation. But that shouldn't have meant he had to hide and not be a badass and save his sister and friends. Fucking waste.
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u/tertiaryunknown Ahsoka Tano 1d ago
Yeah, it really was. I'll never forgive JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson for having all four of the original heroes available to be on screen together one last time, and they didn't use it. Now that's impossible.
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u/jayL21 1d ago
It's annoying because after the TFA, all the big movie ips started doing the "original cast returns years later" thing and some (like the 2018 halloween) did it better and actually used it to it's full potental.
Will honestly never forgive them for not giving us that when it was litterally right there.
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u/Vindicare605 R2-D2 2d ago
I'm not saying they should be totally sidelined either, but I just don't think they should be the primary focus all the time since it takes something away from the rest of the series when they are.
I think about how the force was handled in the OT and I see that as the perfect balance.
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u/indoninjah 2d ago
Yeah I think in general Star Wars suffers from weird power scaling (for lack of a better word) where we're mainly seeing fairly evenly matched opponents. We see Jedi vs. Sith, Rebel fighter pilots vs. Imperial fighter pilots, big ass flagship vs. big ass flagship, but very rarely do we see the sheer power of any of these things in more of a vacuum. A single TIE could pull off the equivalent of Vader's hallway scene and more against a ground-based force of soldiers.
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u/Mirkorama 2d ago
Yes, a good comparison I read in a different post is that there are around 40 thousand total Jedi. That is just as much as there are police officers in New York City, just imagine this number spread around a galaxy. Gives you a nice idea how rare it actually was to see a Jedi.
This also made The Acolyte disappointing for me, I expected a "mastermind criminal" story and just got another cop show.
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u/Antonicont 2d ago
This show did so many things right, and that's certainly one of them.
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u/spkincaid13 2d ago
Quality over quantity. You actually feel something in this scene.This is where other star wars media so frequently goes wrong. Yeah the death star was really intense, how do we top it? A bigger death star! A bigger star destroyer! So many tie fighters! A death star but it's a planet that blows up even more planets we haven't ever seen before and don't care about! A lot of star destroyers that can kill planets full of people we've never met! Andor did such a good job of making small moments feel so much bigger and more important from the perspective of interesting characters we actually care about.
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u/Santaflin 2d ago
And the conflicts!!! The conflicts are so beautiful! When Mon Mothma comes home and finds her husband preparing a party full of people she hates... That was one of my favorite moments.
Nothing fancy and splashy. No significance. Just some Expose that isnt told, making Mon Mothma a real human being, with relationship conflicts all while being a powerful Rebel leader...
Most modern scripts would just have her tell someone how she has trouble at home.
Tony Gilroy is such an ace!
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u/spkincaid13 2d ago
Yeah the character development, dialogue, and writing is just so much better than anything else we've seen in star wars. I wish Disney would use andor as the standard for all other star wars projects to be modeled off of
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u/undersquirl 2d ago
Fuuuuuck, i'm watching Andor again i guess... thanks op.
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u/Lindvaettr 2d ago
Something that Star Wars as a whole has tended to go in an increasingly poor direction over the years in most other depictions is making essentially every enemy so unthreatening that there is virtually no tension at any point unless someone dressed in a super scary costume shows up.
In the OT, outside of the Death Star, we usually see Stormtroopers and other Imperial forces as being major opposition. They pretty easily storm ships and take bases. On Bespin, we see Luke hiding even from small pairs of troopers running along. On Endor, Luke and Leia together just barely manage to beat less than a handful of scout troopers (without watching the scene again, I can't remember if there are 3 or 4 total scout troopers). Leia beats the one she's racing against, but Luke only succeeds in beating his by ambushing him with a surprise lightsaber attack. Then, the one Leia knocked off his bike almost gets the drop on her before being killed by Wicket.
It's clear from the OT that Imperial troops are absolutely not meant to be taken lightly, and are a serious threat even against trained rebel fighters. At some point, their role on the Death Star + their role as the overall losers in the war resulted in them being cast as increasingly comically inept fighters who only ever won through sheer numbers (an image not helped by the Clone Wars tactics shown in the PT of massed charges into enemy fire).
It's silly seeing Scout Troopers missing shots with crappy guns, or storm troopers bungling around, but it really doesn't do anything to make any scene they're involved in feel tense at all. You know everything will be perfectly fine. Worse, most of the time, you know they'll achieve some meaningless victory achieved by relying on the troopers doing some comically bumbling thing at the critical moment.
Making individual troopers, TIEs, etc., threatening is one of the best things that can be done for Star Wars. The Empire is a massive military hegemony. One should imagine more a scrappy band of rebels encountering a squad of fully equipped and trained US soldiers, rather than encountering a group of drunk children.
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u/Vindicare605 R2-D2 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is my biggest criticism of Star Wars Rebels. I get why they had to play up the levity in that series considering its target audience, but they turn the Empire into bumbling baffoons a bit TOO often. The show is at its best when the crew of the Ghost are paired against a worthwhile opponent like Vader, Thrawn or even Maul.
When they are facing Troopers or TIEs there's almost never any sense of danger since the show goes out of its way to show them as not a threat. It's one thing for Ezra and Kanaan to be dispatching troopers left and right with ease, but the entire crew of the Ghost is able to do it, including Chopper.
It's not a deal breaker for the series, but it definitely is something I notice about it as a drawback.
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u/dancingliondl 2d ago
Having Agent Kalus be so dogged about catching the crew of the Ghost was a breath of fresh air. He really spent the time and effort to track them down and harass them at every opportunity.
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u/Vindicare605 R2-D2 2d ago
Yea Kalus was one of the best characters in the early seasons of the show because he was an Imperial Officer that wasn't a complete moron and could actually hold his own in a fight.
Just reinforces the point that having a good antagonist is good for making the actions of the heroes shine brighter. If you do what Star Wars often does and make the opposition look like clowns all the time it has the opposite effect.
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u/WEFeudalism 2d ago
Like those two troopers who were guarding the TIE Defender prototype who decided to chase that cat outside their base instead of guarding the TIE, leaving it opened to be hijacked. 🙄
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u/Lindvaettr 2d ago
I'll go a step further and say that I think that Star Wars since the prequels has done itself a disservice by how it has handled Jedi. Making them all so incredibly powerful their effectively their only threat is other powerful Force users undermines almost all other aspects of the universe, and makes the Jedi themselves quite boring, especially when they're consistently presented in media as largely not struggling morally or ethically at all with their incredible, nigh-unstoppable power.
It's another element that removes tension. If you introduce even a barely-trained Jedi like early Ezra into a situation, 100 fully armed and trained enemies might as well be blades of grass in a field for all the threat they pose, and that goes from the prequels, though TCW and Rebels and into modern media. The presence of a Jedi nearly always guarantees a scene is just going to be a lightsaber slicing through dozens of enemies while the Jedi doesn't even lose their breath. A spectacle we've all seen dozens of times by now.
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u/Adventurous_Topic202 2d ago
The problem with the main series, or maybe just everyone having force powers or beskar- is that every enemy they come across feels ineffective. The empire actually feels like a threat in andor whereas in everything else the empire just misses all their shots or they get blocked by lightsaber or beskar.
Idk I liked beskar at first because it gave mandalorians a way to go toe to toe with Jedi but then we get a scene where the mandalorian just absorbs laser fire from stormtroopers and it all feels silly.
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u/indoninjah 2d ago
then we get a scene where the mandalorian just absorbs laser fire from stormtroopers and it all feels silly.
It definitely instantly calls into question why more characters/enemies don't use beskar. And, yes, the answer is that it's rare, but you're telling me the Empire doesn't have the resources to mine for it or find a bunch of old Mandalorian armor?
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u/BlueFishcake 2d ago
I mean, that's exactly what Moff Gideon did.
He was building an army of Beskar clad Mandalorians. Plus the Dark Troopers.
There's also the factor that the Empire seemed to prefer to go wide rather than tall - for the most part. They phased out the clones because they were expensive and invested in cheaper masses of Storm Troopers with shit guns and armor.
Gotta save cash with your infantry to make more Star Destroyers and Deathstars.
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u/Scyths 2d ago
It's for those exact reason that Mandalorian started strong for me and dropped the ball fast and the more it progressed throughout the episodes and seasons, the less I cared for it.
I enjoy high stakes and consequences, but NONE of the shows aside from Andor had them. Not Mandalorian, Not Ahsoka, Not Boba Fett, Not Kenobi.
All of these shows had vast potential to show how brutal and strong the empire is/was yet none of them did anything with it. Kenobi & Ahsoka didn't even come close. At least Mandalorian tried early on and Boba Fett somewhat tried.
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u/crackedtooth163 2d ago
Well. I mean.
What are YOU going to do against a tie fighter, standing on the ground?
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u/MasterFussbudget 2d ago
I'm gonna run away from it and jump over it with a backflip, cutting off a wing in the process.
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u/adamkopacz 2d ago
Yeah that's the problem with a lot of Star Wars vehicles - they seem way to weak. I know that a Jedi should be able to come up with something to survive a fight against a small ground unit or a basic TIE but standard grunts should just be obliterated.
With that being said I remember how an AT-ST shows up in Rogue One and everyone just leaves the area. Another great example.
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u/Audience_Over Rebel 2d ago
Hands down one of the most underrated moments in this show, I was literally gripping my seat over a single tie-fighter
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u/bushwickhero 2d ago
Somewhat unrelated but is there a lore reason why Tie Fighters make that high pitched screaming sound?
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u/WastelandPioneer 2d ago
Yes, it's the noise of their ion engines
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u/tarpit84 Rebel 2d ago
[T]win [I]on [E]ngines to be exact. <pushes up glasses>
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u/Zombiphobia 1d ago
people give nerds a bad rep, but they come in clutch sometimes.
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u/WildConstruction8381 2d ago
I imagine it comes from the twin ion engines that it takes its name from, but personally head canon that its for intimidation.
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u/Eagles_63 2d ago
I always assumed it was similar to the German sirens they used in WWII as a way to intimidate and fear their opposition.
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u/dhaimajin 2d ago
It’s inspired by the sound StuKas made afaik, Germans intentionally designed the noice for their diving bombers
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u/WildConstruction8381 2d ago
That is a very good point, makes sense with stormtroopers and everything else.
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u/lieconamee Imperial 2d ago
Warm troopers are actually from World War. I where they were used as shock troops in an attempt to minimize casualties and break out of the stalemate both sides used some variants of it. The French had what were called rupture battalions The British had Canadians and I forget what the Italians called theirs.
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u/justamiqote 2d ago
Warm troopers are actually from World War.
And Cold troopers are from World War Hoth
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u/Wikinger_DXVI 2d ago edited 2d ago
Star Wars has a lot of inspiration from WWII as well. Especially with the Nazis when it comes to the Empire. An easy example is the uniforms the Imperial Officers wear and you know "stormtroopers".
The TIE fighters are the dime a dozen fighters of the Empire and are ment to move fast and overwhelm. The Nazis had the Stuka dive bomer with the same purpose and any WWII veteran and anyone who's played a WWII based video game or seen a WWII based movie/show instantly knows what a Stuka sounds like when it's diving for an attack. They were designed specifically to make that noise to terrorize those unfortunate enough to be in the target of the Stuka. Psychological warfare is scary and effective. And so, Lucas gave the TIE fighters a similar iconic sound to give the same effect.
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u/schrodingersmite 2d ago
I loved Andor so much; and ironically it's the type of show *Disney said it was going to make in the first fucking place*.
No, I don't need a show where Yoda is resurrected to fight alongside young cross-dimensional good Anakin against Darth Vader and the Darth Maul genetic twins. No, I don't need to have a figure central to the other Star Wars canon to show up 17 times in the series; the galaxy is a huge place.
Don't get me wrong, I do like a decent number of the new shows, but Andor was such a breath of fresh air.
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u/LaunchTransient 2d ago
Andor is the quiet pet project that Star Wars fans quietly build with tacit approval from head office, but no real oversight - much like the Mandalorian was initially - what Mandalorian did wrong was get so good it caught rave reviews and then the execs got interested and started meddling.
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u/dcastreddit 2d ago
I loved this show because you'd forget that it was even a star wars show... and then a scene like this would remind you.
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u/Crotean 2d ago
I get shit on here for saying it, but Star Wars is at its best when its military scifi. Like most of the old EU. The big mistake Disney has made is leaning into the science fantasy aspect of star wars. That not what makes star wars its best, being a grounded lived in universe where militaries are scary makes the fact there are superpowered Jedi even more fascinating when they show up.
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u/blac_sheep90 2d ago
The Mandalorian made the ATST scary and Andor made the Tie-fighter scary. Make the Empire Scary Again! MESA! MESA! MESA!
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u/saibjai 2d ago
Hey cousin, you see the fuckin tie fighter?