this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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It takes place over 4 days what character development are you hoping for? It's a setup for Episode 4, it's about the sacrifice they make. To me it's the connection they make over such a short amount of time barely getting to know each other, and then sacrificing themselves for almost total strangers for a better cause. (It's also why I strongly disagree with the Andor/Jyn romance. It wasn't a romance, they didn't need to shoehorn in a romance story. They were simply connecting as two humans in their last moments) If you only saw "dark" in that then I think you missed the emotional hits.
Also insulting people who do like it while assuming their taste in film says that we should mostly disregard your opinion anyway.
Lmao insinuating that you can't have any character development over 4 days is hilarious. Luke and Han Solo were drastically more compelling characters who we learned a lot more about before they even took off from Tattooine in A New Hope.
Episode 4 was also quite literally a hero movie though, R1 was about the actual soldiers in the trenches. While I love the original, it's not comparable. You're dealing with Jedi who have powers and the heads of the rebellion. R1, and Andor while touching on that are much more in the trenches, getting to know the every man/woman. Maybe that's what is missing from your critique, that these aren't meant to be power-weilding characters, not everyone needs to save the day.
While I love the original - it's an action movie. The heroes are large, there are above-human powers, it's larger than life. R1 is a more realistic movie about the actual people fighting in the trenches. You catch glimpses of the decision makers, but the movie follows some pretty standard soldiers who are pulled into a decision they have to make, and rise to become realistic heroes.
If you find that boring then, well I honestly feel sorry because I found it amazing. Not every story needs to have superheroes and overly charismatic guys and princesses. Sometimes even the "boring" soldiers trying to survive and do their job have a story to tell.
I'm not talking about the whole movie, I'm saying that the opening 30 minutes of ANH have more character development than the entire movie of R1. We're not "getting to know the every man" in R1, we're told a one-line backstory for each character and they are basically static entities until the time comes for their death scene. Also, none of them are "standard soldiers" except for Jyn. Everyone else is clearly supposed to be an interesting character, they just don't do any of the supporting legwork to actually build the backstories or characterization, they just insist upon them.
I disagree, these aren't supposed to be major characters that have big backstories, these are just people in the universe. Fleeting characters who for a brief moment had massive impacts on the galaxy. That's the point, that these people who are seemingly unimportant have one big impact by coming together for this one moment. Again these aren't superheroes, they aren't big characters that have big names like Skywalker or Palpatine, these are just people in the galaxy.
I think that's a question for you. Why do they need a backstory in your mind to make them "interesting"? I see people with this decision thrust on them, and the very fact that we don't know them but they have such a pivotal effect on the galaxy is why it stands out to me.
They are THE MAIN CHARACTERS in the movie you're watching. I think that's a big enough reason to try to make them interesting.
What would make a character interesting? Motivations, conflict, maybe seeing someone change in any way as a result of things that happen in the story?
This is why I said people that enjoy the movie cannot have seen good movies, because some of the defenses are just absolutely ridiculous. "Why do characters need backstories to make them interesting?" Like do I really need to answer that?
Luke at the start of ANH is literally a farmboy with little direction in his life. That's much closer to the "just people" type of character you're describing than anyone in R1, again except for Jyn. Every supporting character in R1 feels like they were designed to be interesting, but everything interesting in their lives happened before the events of the film, and we just get to hear about it a little.
I also think the ending of the movie where we get a big fanservice Darth Vader scene gives the lie to this perception of the movie as a gritty, realistic look at the dark side of the franchise. The movie is pretty transparently just Disney pandering to the adults that grew up with Star Wars and wanted to feel like they could still enjoy it through more adult media. Andor does what Rogue One was trying to do much better, and it's telling that by doing so it barely feels like Star Wars any more.
Just to redirect, you mention Luke, who had no backstory before Episode 4 (and really none anyway).
If R1 is a trope at all it's a heist movie. So let's compare it to something similar, like Ocean's 11. Of the 11, we know the backstory of 1-2 of the members there. Everyone else makes the ensemble who then build together a heist, them working together with their skills ultimately make the movie amazing. I don't know each of their backstory, but it's regarded as the quintessential heist movie. So I stand by my argument, you don't need everyone to have a fully fleshed out character arc just to have a good movie.
Even then many of the characters do show up in prequels and other series. Andor got his own series because people wanted to know more. So, I don't think that's the argument you think it is.
Then finally,
I was born after the originally trilogy. So, swing and a miss there.
And also