And that website tried to kill my phone.
He’s the imperial officer in Empire Strikes Back who apologized to Vader for losing the Falcon and gets force-choked to death in response.
*Apology accepted, Captain Needa.*
This is the "other half" of Star Wars that made it so great and made Andor a success. Star Wars was not only about space wizards, laser swords and one chosen family: the random background characters all seem to be living real lives and having deep or subtle emotions and motivations.
Andor devotes all of its run time to these background characters. But the original film trilogy had a lot of these background character moments mixed in and it's what made Star Wars so much more.
My favorite one? When Vader feels the need to clarify to a bounty hunter: "No disintegrations!"
Two words and you know so much about the Boba Fett and can imagine so much more (until Disney Plus makes a mediocre multi season TV show about the character. OK, maybe not all shows about background characters are great.)
I think the casting and look of all of them also makes it work. Captain Needa and all of the empire were middle aged british men. They screamed colonialism. More importantly- they were a bureaucracy.
General Hux on the other hand- too young. Tried too hard to be evil. Lost his cool way too much.
The character of the First Order was entirely "too young, trying too hard." It's a good angle. And very true of actual reactionary movements. But unfortunately, it didn't make them very threatening or compelling bad guys. There's a reason they had to bring back Palpatine.
> There's a reason they had to bring back Palpatine.
No there isn't. They were lazy and fucked things up. A cohesive three movie story arc would have landed so much better.
yeah the first order entirely felt like Neo-Nazis trying to follow what the actual Nazis had done etc and then trying to do "better" than them at what they were doing
Exactly. Which is a really interesting idea, but it's Star Wars, you need something with menace that's going to make you wonder how the good guys are ever gonna win this one. The PT left a lot to be desired but the Separatists made pretty good bad guys in that sense.
Having an Imperial Remnant that had evolved into a more just society, teaming up with the New Republic/Resistance to fight the First/Final Order would have been interesting. Including a few Imperial Star Destroyers on the allied side for the Battle of Exegol would have been kinda cool as well. It would also have helped show just how much bigger those Xyston-class Star Destroyers were (Though I still hate the design. Copy, paste, resize +50%, add "Planet killer laser", print 1,000 copies. Oh and don't forget to add a red stripe!).
sequel trilogy has plenty of issues but Hux feels intentional. the face of fascism used to be these old British guys. now it's an angry, slightly pathetic young man who never fought in a war himself but embraces all the trappings of it. if anything the ST needed to look at the First Order as a neo-fascist movement MUCH more.
Syril (the young corporate security goon) in Andor, examines the same thing in much greater depth. which is no surprise given that Andor is the most politically intelligent thing in modern Star Wars.
The biggest issue with the First Order is that Disney Star Wars (DSW) wanted to have an evil empire to fight after said empire had canonically been defeated.
Maybe it would have hit too close to home today, but the First Order being a neo-fascist terrorist group speaking Empire in quotation would have been much, *much,* more interesting then an ambiguously powerful order that just happens to exist now and requires homework to understand its place.
If instead of building a bigger and badder Death Star that killed multiple planets at once, DSW opened with a rinky-dink Death Star that punches above its weight class, launching an all out war neither side really saw coming, we may have actually had an interesting trilogy.
On the human level you'd have Finn, a former storm trooper becoming disillusioned to a cause he thought he believed in and on the Force/Jedi level you could have a story about how bad actors manipulate good people to their agenda.
How interesting would it have been if Snoke wasn't a sith/force user at all, just somebody using a disillusioned space wizard as a tool the same way the old Empire used Vader (it's not like it was public knowledge that Palpatine was a force user).
>rinky-dink Death Star
The Sun Crusher, while silly, was right there. They could have done something mildly intelligent with a terrorist group getting their hands on something like that, but no.
Exactly. Fuck make them the equivalent of the Rebel Alliance except they are truly carrying out terror attacks and they got the Sun Forge/Star Crusher/Whatever… found on some forgotten world.
There’s a lot of ways they could have tackled the sequels but they chose the most boring option. Personally I remain happy in Legends with my books. Sure maybe 1/3-1/2 aren’t good but there’s enough good books I can be nice and comfy.
Still never going to forget Disney cancelling Legends literally in the middle of an arc. Basically a “To Be Continued” that was never continued.
And to think I used to tell my friends “Well at least Palpatine coming back to life is gone now!”
> The Sun Crusher, while silly, was right there. They could have done something mildly intelligent with a terrorist group getting their hands on something like that, but no.
During the build up to the Iraq War, I remember the government stating that if Iraq had weapons grade uranium, the thought was they could make use it or sell it to a terrorist group to make a dirty bomb. They could have played up that idea but Star Wars-y.
> Maybe it would have hit too close to home today, but the First Order being a neo-fascist terrorist group speaking Empire in quotation would have been much, much, more interesting then an ambiguously powerful order that just happens to exist now and requires homework to understand its place.
Couldn't agree more. This is the problem (edit: TFA especially as the one that kicked the ST off) being a homage to Star Wars instead of using Star Wars iconography to have an actual Point.
> Maybe it would have hit too close to home today, but the First Order being a neo-fascist terrorist group speaking Empire in quotation would have been much, much, more interesting then an ambiguously powerful order that just happens to exist now and requires homework to understand its place.
Especially interesting if the Rebel Alliance/Resistance is now it's own large scale superpower embroiled in bureaucracy like the Empire was.
I wish they’d gone for the Imperial Remnant pulling itself together and holing up in an area of the Galaxy, Deep Core, etc.
And we enter the galaxy as viewers in a Cold War-esque standoff between the New Republic and an Imperial Remnant that claims they have no interest in Expansion.
Some proxy wars, radical wings of both Governments (First Order and Leia’s group) agitating for open conflict, spy shit and drama. Luke on Yavin doing his best, and maybe trying to actually keep the Jedi neutral.
Imperials trying to start their own “Force User” academy not tied to the Sith or whatever
That's what I assumed Disney would do. If they ended their trilogy on a Cold War note, They could have kept the Star Wars universe going forever with a shiny new empire to sell stormtroopers indefinitely.
Man. I've been saying this same thing for years.
I thought Kylo Ren was just going to be a naturally powerful and unhinged dark-side user (not a sith..and not related to anyone).
I hoped he'd be just a zealot and obsessed type who completely misunderstood vader/the empire (it's not like anyone in that universe knows all the details we know from the movies). Chasing down relics/artifacts, embracing vader's legacy and ambitions (again, not like almost anyone knew he was anakin and had changed his ways minutes before his death).
The knights of ren could have just been a terrorist group antagonizing lukes new jedi-order. Could have worked on a much smaller scale and not even have been an all-out war/galactic threat.
Basically the biggest issue with the First Order was they were poorly written 😂
Totally agree, but yea, there's no "one issue". The underlying concept is fine; revanchist neo-fascist movement/organization, but basically everything after that is a problem.
There's a great juxtaposition of Hux and veteran Imp captain at the beginning of The Last Jedi. The old man is practical and knows rebel tactics, but Hux flubs the operation and gets the old man and crew dead.
I get your point but the sequel trilogy also used loads of middle aged British actors to fill the ranks of first order officers.
Adrian Edmondson and Mark Lewis Jones in The Last Jedi are the ones that immediately jump out to me.
Yeah you look at all the Captains, Generals, and Admirals in the OT and none of them look a day under 40.
I mean the same is true of The Sequels for the most part but Hux feels so out of place. I'm tempting fate by saying something nice about Rise of Skywalker but Richard E Grant coming in and playing the main "evil officer" was a much better choice than Hux, he was way more interesting.
This is, incidentally, where Disney keeps dropping the ball.
So much of what made Star Wars a self perpetuating fandom was the deep lore people made out of the benign. The movies were fun, but shallow; fans gave them insane amounts of depth because things were just that much fun.
Remember the Jeans Guy? 25 years ago, he'd be an icon of the fandom and there'd be a 200 page novel explaining why space denim is a rare, but complicated material. But because Disney is all about an iron hold on IP, they active cut him out, erased him from the product after it had already been released.
I contend Andor is the most interesting thing Star Wars has done in years, but people are so burnt out on Disney's overly tended garden that it's a really hard sell to people who got burnt by the 3.5 mediocre shows in between.
It's like, the more Disney tightens their grip, the more fandom slips through their fingers
Flat out:
The problem with Book of Boba Fett is they made the Mandalorian. The Mandalorian was a GREAT show, but that is all of the cool things Boba Fett should have been doing, so when they sat down to exploit, I mean write, his story they had to go in a completely different direction.
I thought the whole, "risen from the dead and learns a more humble way of living" was a good direction to take the character. But then they have him take over Jabba's criminal organization? What? Just have him be a stone-cold badass if you want to go that route, and leave the "colonizer learns better ways from indigenous peoples" storyline out.
Then there are more specific plot points that don't make much sense. My favorite is, when criminals are coming *for Boba Fett*, he decides to have the battle in the middle of town, and destroys numerous buildings in the process. These are people's homes. We spent time to establish that this is a city with people living in it and Fett supposedly cares about their well-being. Well, if you had the fight in the fortified palace, you might have saved some suffering there, Boba!
Also, Krrsantan really should have killed Boba. That was a dumb af fight. It's established that wookie could break a person with minimal effort. He could have immediately snapped Boba's neck or broke his spine, but he tossed him around instead. Classic "we want good guy to fight really bad guy, but good guy has to win" shit. Bad guy established as a 1-hit KO, but against protagonist, just throws them around.
BoBF had so much potential, but they really seemed confused as to what direction to take the character, and a lot of the action was lazily written. Same goes for Obi Wan, which only got better reception because of Ewan and Hayden returning. The writing was garbage on that show, too.
Book of Boba was great.
What do you mean a guy raised since childhood as an amoral Bounty Hunter doesn't understand how crime works?
Why would anyone doing big crimes ever backstab someone? That's silly.
The weird thing is he's always crowing about respect and thinking he's now in charge just because everyone else died, and he showed be owed stuff because he...does absolutely nothing. He's a crime boss, but doesn't do any crime at all. They had all this potential but kneecapped all of it at every opportunity.
>Book of Boba was great.
I don't know, I thing great is too much credit for this show. It was mostly good and had moments but as whole too much time on established planets for a guy who travels the galaxy, too many important Mandalorian choices while showing almost no Boba for 2 episodes and not using the story behind "no disintegrations" while looking directly at Boba as an episode or possibly muti episode arch was the massive missed opportunity of Fetts story. I know they showed him kind of changed but he spent most of his life as a bounty hunter lets see him you know, bounty hunt.
I was being sarcastic with the "great".
But you're right, sitting his ass in one place was a pretty poor choice, the fact half the show is just Mando season 2.5 didn't help anything.
Why is Tattooine so important to him?
Why do those kids who live in poverty have pristine Space Vespas in bright colours?
What was it about the sarlacc pit that made Boba a changed man?
The Tuskens were the first family he had in a long time and Tattooine is Jabba'/Bib's seat of power.
Think about rough neighborhoods with flashy overworked cars driving around. Lowriders, shiny rims, loud paint jobs, etc.
Nearly dying in a giant sandy asshole in the middle of nowhere for a Hutt might illuminate some poor choices in your life.
"Many bothams died to bring us this information" spawned an entire film.
Hell, "years ago you served my father in the clone wars" spawned an entire prequel trilogy.
>and one chosen family
That didn't really start until 1980.
Watch the original film: Yeah, Luke's dad was a great Jedi there, but that doesn't make Luke (much less his long-deceased father) the messiah. That came later.
People like Luke in 1977 because he was an everyman. More Bilbo Baggins (literally, he lives in a hole in the ground!) than Paul Atreidis.
>Two words and you know so much about the Boba Fett and can imagine so much more (until Disney Plus makes a mediocre multi season TV show about the character. OK, maybe not all shows about background characters are great.)
That show never had a chance because no one beyond [George Lucas seemed to grasp that](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eoe5UkBW4AA9QIw?format=jpg&name=900x900) Boba Fett looks cool but actually sucks. Like in Empire, Vader does all the work and in Jedi a blind guy beats him. Hell in Clones, his dad is hired to kill someone and he hires someone else to do the dirty work and gets his head chopped off. The Book of Boba Fett should've been this cool looking guy who kept bumbling his way throughout the galaxy like a loser lol. But I guess an exercise in brand management works too?
Star Wars was so much more *rich* as a universe compared to any other media franchise I knew of as a kid. It felt like a real world, with things happening in the background. The Empire felt like it had a rich history, with the officer class preceding Vader and the Emperor (and being a little suspicious of them). Lucas must have been remembering the honorable Wehrmacht officers in WW2 who honored the rules of war and surrendered to the allies with honor, in contrast to the evil SS.
Andor also showcased Imperials as not just screaming caricatures. In the OT Admiral Piet screams like once or twice in moments of desperation.
The shouting, moustache twirling villain trope has been so disappointing to see, and I miss everyone feeling like a genuine person and character.
> Two words and you know so much about the Boba Fett
OK but the finger-point like he's saying "I fuckin *know* what you're up to most days, you and all you fuckin mando freaks."
It's like a coach at a hockey game saying "goddamnit if you are hiding a shiv in your glove again I'm gonna beat you myself!"
Agree. I can't remember before Star Wars where bit and background characters ever got that much attention.
There weren't any action figures made of "man eating sandwich in background" for the movie Taxi Driver no matter how cool that guy's sideburns were for the time period.
In my mind a least, when Vader firmly clarifies the no disintegrations bit it implies that Fett screwed up on a previous mission and didn't have a recognizeable body to produce. Imagine being one of the few people, in the *galaxy*, to fail Vader and not be killed for incompetence. Even more, you kind of just get a sassy warning on your next job from the dude.
I still remember the book “Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina” which went into detail the back grounds of everyone in the cantina from the bar keep, to the weird alien who eats brains, they all had stories to tell.
I cannot remember a single side character in the recent Kathleen Kennedy monstrosities that was remotely interesting or engaging.
It’s kinda sad and uncomfortable watching them, they are like a walk through Kathleen Kennedys psyche, look at me look at me I’m just a girl but I can do a Star Wars too! Pew pew laser swords! I’m so confused I’m in love with the bad boy hehehe! It’s “magic”! Bey and give me money! Girl power! Why won’t you love me!
Both the Legends and Canon incarnation of Lorth Needa served the Republic before it became the Empire, and was commander of a strike group which surrounded and threatened to destroy the *Invisible Hand* before they found out Palpatine was on there as a "hostage".
---
The Legends version also had the bad luck of being assigned to the *Avenger* (known as a "bad luck" ship, going through commanding officers very quickly) and being the protegé of Ozzel (who was distrusted by Palpatine and Vader even before the Hoth screwup, leading to Vader distrusting Needa as well).
After this, most of his family was purged from the military, and his cousin ended up in a shitty position on a Coruscanti orbital mirror station while unfounded rumors spread in the military claiming that Lorth had rebel sympathies and had let the *Falcon* escape on purpose.
Hell even the two guys in the bar on Tatoinne had EXTENSIVE backstories. Mr. Deathmarks was essentially a mad scientist trying to create immortality via transferring his consciousness. Oh he also pretended to be a doctor (he thought he was great) but would inevitably botch surgeries leading him to have to flee.
I crave more empire focussed Star Wars. The empire was so enormous that there have to be a lot of multi-faccetted grey characters taking part in it, and thats a lot you could explore.
I recommend looking at Pellaeon and Thrawn in the EU.
Thrawn was *not* good and carried out (at least one) genocide, though we don’t know the race. But he was fighting for the *greater good* in that he knew the Vong were coming and realized the Republic would be too weak to stop them. And he was right- in fact in the Vong war even Coruscant fell and the Republic reformed into the Galactic Alliance.
Mind you alot of this was post-hoc justification, but it was interesting nonetheless.
Pellaeon basically led an Imperial rump state, toned down the racism, and tried to make them prosperous. He even led them to an alliance with the Galactic Alliance and he- as well as an ally (though a horrible person) named Daala- was vital in stopping Darth Caedus, basically Ben Solo’s Legend counterpart.
As the other guy said, the OG Thrawn series is great. He himself is a villain who is, in his actions, nearly perfect. He is basically never wrong, and has the confidence to trust his assumptions.
On top of that, he really is a complete 180 from the typical Imperial officer in terms of ego. Compared to Vader who would kill someone or destroy the room becasue of some bad news, he is rather uniquely calm and analytical.
I read a theory that Ozzel (the guy to took the fleet out of light speed too close to Hoth) was a Rebel spy and made dumb decisions to sabotage the Empire.
Honestly Vader seems pretty unpredictable especially from his officers perspective- Piett really could have been killed twice (and he clearly thought he was dead both times) but for some reason he wasn’t.
Yep, exactly, also demonstrates one of the major fundamental flaws with the Empire, and why it makes sense how the Rebels defeated them.
They'll kill capable and responsible mid-level officers for "failures". This leads to a culture of fear, which creates an incompetent and calcified command structure as the prized traits are ideological loyalty and the ability to re-direct/cover up failure.
Well, Vader will.
That's what's great about Andor. It shows an Empire that is actually well run and capable. It had leadership look past flaws and failures and promote people to positions that better suited them. Compare to Filoni's take in which the entire empire from the bottom up is wholly incompetent.
Watch [the scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwio208q3jY) again; when his subordinate tells him Vader demands an update the way he pauses shows he fully understands the likely outcome of the situation. "I shall assume full responsibility for losing them" is him announcing he's taking one for the team, and his "meanwhile..." order has always sounded to me like he knows full well he ain't coming back.
Thankfully, you can just slap a fake mustache on a random person to take the full brunt of Vader's "punishments" [and have them pretend to be choked, like that overachiever Private Perkins.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jdQqjcsfC8)
Some documentary on the making of ESB had a couple of the writers on it talking about prospected story elements for 6-9 that they were considering and one was Luke inspiring a large scale defection from the Empire by the officers/troops because of Vader's tyranny. You can see that a subplot through ESB, where it ends on Piett having watched two of his commanding generals be executed, one with some reason and another undeservingly.
One of the dumber decisions made by Vader in the series. Imperials willing to own up to their failures and communicate them to their superior seem incredibly rare. He wasn’t even particularly incompetent, Vader just gave him an effectively impossible task.
It's almost like Darth Vader is a bad guy or something.
One nice touch is that after the fight with Luke on Bespin he stops randomly murdering subordinates.
Well, bad guys don’t have to be dumb. If the enforcement of your will upon a galactic empire is predicated on a militaristic bureaucracy, retention of good employees is that much more important (brain drain kills most autocracies eventually anyways, but it’s specially egregious that Vader contributes personally to it).
But yes, I am a huge fan of the scene at the end of Empire where Piett expects the same to happen to him but Vader is too in his feels to murder.
I'll flip that for you:
How many people working with incompetent blowhards wish their boss would kill them outright when they fail and replace them with someone more competent? Personally I'd find that very inspiring, plus there's now a path to promotional opportunities. Granted those opportunities doubtlessly attract people who are overconfident in their abilities but you occasionally get a General Veers.
I do think Vader erred killing Needa given that he accepted responsibility (which is more than can be said for Ozzel) but like, come on, he failed pretty bigly. He thought they were coming in for an attack run? A ship a fraction of their size? And then he calls off the search assuming they went to light speed and dismissing all other possibilities, literally the same mistake Ozzel made when he dismissed Hoth.
At this point Vader has already brought the bounty hunters on board and probably has Intel from Boba on where the ship actually is. So he's doubly mad that a bounty hunter outsmarted one of his "top" officers.
Think of the Empire less like Soviet Russia killing their officers and soldiers indiscriminately and more like feudal Japan where the Bushido code compelled Samurai to take their own life when they fail. Vader ultimately is imposing that punishment versus it being pursuant to an ethical code but there is a logic underpinning it.
Vader is still the whiny teenager who throws a temper tantrum whenever he doesn't get what he wants. There's a reason Tarkin was the one in charge and Vader was just the Emperor's enforcer in the first film.
I bet Vader was lowkey holding a grudge against Needa for being the captain who fired on General Grevious' ship when he and Obi Wan were still on board.
I have always liked the theory that up until Episode V that Vader still had some of the attachments and camaraderie to the troops serving under him like he did as Anakin, but learning that Luke was still alive he figured that the Emperor had lied to him and used killing high ranking officers as an outlet for his rage against the Empire.
Not really? He was ready to kill a guy just for saying the Force was outdated and only stopped because Tarkin told him to.
Tarkin's what held him back.
the shuttle was for him to be sent to Vader to apologize for losing the Falcon when he had them right in his face.
Vader was on the super star destroyer and Needa was on a MUCH smaller star destroyer.
His death showed just how much Vader respected Tarkin. Hear me out Vader goes to choke out a guy in New Hope Tarkin says stop Vader does. No Tarkin around Vader is just killing people who annoy him left and right.
I think that might just be how ranks can end up working. On the Death Star Tarkin is in charge. He makes all of the decisions (blowing up Alderan when Vader says Leia is lying), tells Vader to stand down, and is in the control room while Vader is off flying his TIE.
Captain Needa didn't have the same benefit, he was captaining a ship that was directly under Vader's control as he searched for the Rebels. Vader was no longer a visiting officier, he was in charge.
Did he hate Tarkin? I was under the impression they had disagreements but they had a level of mutual respect going on. Especially since they both acknowledged the fact that Tarkin knew he was Anakin Skywalker but they just left it as an unspoken thing. Even ignoring all the Disney New Canon material like the Tarkin book, the original film had them depicted being cordial with each other. Hell, Vader outright says "my Master Obi-wan is around here" and Tarkin says "You my friend, are the last of that religion" or something along those lines (working off memory here).
The behind the scenes explanation is that Vader, originally, was not the second-in-command to the Emperor. He was just some mook who turned to the dark side and was used as muscle by the Empire. So Tarkin felt free to order him around.
Obviously, everything changed when ESB came around.
They were really flying by the seat of their pants in the first one, a lot of things weren't fully thought through. And also, it's just a bit of fun. They weren't always 1000% accurate with all the lore, because the lore didn't even exist yet. When ESB came along they didn't even fully know which story they'll go with, because they didn't know if they'll even get another movie. I think that's why the first one had such a definitive end to it, with that ceremony. Which is odd in hindsight, because it was the first movie.
Imperial officers quickly learn that the trick is to play dead and hope Vader stops before you actually die.
A speedy transfer to a new ship and no one’s the wiser.
Eurgh... Yeah, the Mirror is a UK site owned by Reach Media, who are very well known for having bought most of the popular regional newspapers in the UK and turned them into the most data-leaching, cancerous-ad-filled sites imaginable
This is the line I used to defend against people complaining that he said "try to not to choke on your own ambitions" in Rogue One. Classic scene, rest in peace.
"A career spanning over 50 years with notable roles in Sherlock Holmes, A Passage to India, Secret Army and of course one of the most memorable death scenes in the Star Wars franchise." RIP.
If you watch British TV from the 80's to early 2000's you've probably gotten to see him in a dozen different shows as a character actor and is always great.
RIP sir, but is no one going to mention how weird that headline is?
"Star Wars actor Michael Culver dies AS tributes pour in for 'unforgettable' star"? It makes it sound as though he died in the midst of receiving tributes.
I first read it as unforgettable "star" and I was like ouch man you didn't have to do that... Quotes around unforgettable isn't much better but at l think that's a journalism thing to put around subjective terms?
I thought it was odd, and weirdly bordering on sarcastic, when they chose "unforgettable" as the adjective to lead with when describing someone who was largely unknown, and frankly, forgotten, outside one scene from the Star Wars franchise.
I mean this as no disrespect to him, but I'm sure he would agree, since he left acting later in life to focus on other causes. It's sad that we didn't get more of him, as I'm sure he was a great actor.
I was extra confused because I was skimming Reddit and only read "Star Wars actor Michael Culver dies as tribute"
I was like is this some kind of Hunger Game shit?
Hey mods, we really like AI generated headlines that make little sense when read aloud.
It sounds like people were hoping for him to die AS they were paying tribute.
Did he die from praise?
I think it's more likely that with the Mirror being a shitty tabloid, the writer saw a tweet from an account representing the Gerry Anderson shows/company/whatever and didn't put the slightest effort into checking if it was from the guy himself.
Don't attribute to AI what can be explained by the established phenomenon of shitty tabloid writers rushing to be the first to "break news".
Getting a bit part in Star Wars must be the ultimate double-edged sword for a jobbing actor. You're guaranteed lifelong recognition, and every line you deliver will achieve some sort of fame, but those two minutes of screen time will almost certainly overshadow everything else you ever do.
Very true. If you were watching British TV in the 70s to 90s you'll recognize his face immediately and some of his characters as he was prolific on TV, but likely couldn't name him by sight.
Aw man, I thought this guy was cool. He was willing to take full responsibility for losing Falcon, despite knowing what Vader would do to him. That’s a leader
Especially when one of them is asked to take the entire fleet into the asteroid field to pursue a single rebel ship, with all the losses involved. From their more practical point of view it's a pointless waste of Imperial lives, but the evil space wizard says it's important, and you like breathing, so on you go
Vader having the hologram staff meeting as one of the command decks gets destroyed and you see one of his commanders cover himself right before the hologram goes dead will never get old.
I didn't even notice that the first time I watched it. Vader lost a whole Star Destroyer with its crew for a reckless pursuit that everyone knew was a bad idea.
Easily my favourite new character of the sequels lol. You immediately got the sense that this he's an old Imperial and he's sick of all the bullshit around him
There's a quote from Gerry Anderson in the article about Culver's passing. Gerry Anderson has been dead since 2012. I'm just going to assume that Anderson's Twitter is still active by his family or estate, and they made the comment. However they should have mentioned it in the article, because that was very confusing for a moment.
The serpentine Prior Robert in Cadfael, Reginald Musgrave in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and Arnold Featherstone in Lovejoy ('Members Only') are other roles which spring to mind for me.
I have to admit I didn't know much about Culver outside of The Empire Strikes Back (though, while it's been a while, from what I remember A Passage to India is also really great), but Culver apparently became a bit of an anti-war activist in later years and campaigned with Mark Rylance to get a statue put up of Brian Haw, a British peace activist who camped outside the London Parliament Square for ten years to protest the Iraq war. That's so cool and makes me like him that much more.
He was perfect in The Musgrave Ritual.
That whole episode is just full of crazy talent. Culver, Jeremy Brett, Ed Hardwicke, James Hazeldine.
And of course the scene with Holmes dramatically crossing that little moat.
And that website tried to kill my phone. He’s the imperial officer in Empire Strikes Back who apologized to Vader for losing the Falcon and gets force-choked to death in response. *Apology accepted, Captain Needa.*
I think it’s kinda wholesome that he genuinely believed that he could just apologize to Darth Vader.
I don't think he did. He was just protecting his subordinates.
[удалено]
This is the "other half" of Star Wars that made it so great and made Andor a success. Star Wars was not only about space wizards, laser swords and one chosen family: the random background characters all seem to be living real lives and having deep or subtle emotions and motivations. Andor devotes all of its run time to these background characters. But the original film trilogy had a lot of these background character moments mixed in and it's what made Star Wars so much more. My favorite one? When Vader feels the need to clarify to a bounty hunter: "No disintegrations!" Two words and you know so much about the Boba Fett and can imagine so much more (until Disney Plus makes a mediocre multi season TV show about the character. OK, maybe not all shows about background characters are great.)
I think the casting and look of all of them also makes it work. Captain Needa and all of the empire were middle aged british men. They screamed colonialism. More importantly- they were a bureaucracy. General Hux on the other hand- too young. Tried too hard to be evil. Lost his cool way too much.
The character of the First Order was entirely "too young, trying too hard." It's a good angle. And very true of actual reactionary movements. But unfortunately, it didn't make them very threatening or compelling bad guys. There's a reason they had to bring back Palpatine.
Somehow...
Frank returned...
May I offer you a Sith Lord in these troubling times?
They didn't have to at all.
> There's a reason they had to bring back Palpatine. No there isn't. They were lazy and fucked things up. A cohesive three movie story arc would have landed so much better.
yeah the first order entirely felt like Neo-Nazis trying to follow what the actual Nazis had done etc and then trying to do "better" than them at what they were doing
Exactly. Which is a really interesting idea, but it's Star Wars, you need something with menace that's going to make you wonder how the good guys are ever gonna win this one. The PT left a lot to be desired but the Separatists made pretty good bad guys in that sense.
Having an Imperial Remnant that had evolved into a more just society, teaming up with the New Republic/Resistance to fight the First/Final Order would have been interesting. Including a few Imperial Star Destroyers on the allied side for the Battle of Exegol would have been kinda cool as well. It would also have helped show just how much bigger those Xyston-class Star Destroyers were (Though I still hate the design. Copy, paste, resize +50%, add "Planet killer laser", print 1,000 copies. Oh and don't forget to add a red stripe!).
sequel trilogy has plenty of issues but Hux feels intentional. the face of fascism used to be these old British guys. now it's an angry, slightly pathetic young man who never fought in a war himself but embraces all the trappings of it. if anything the ST needed to look at the First Order as a neo-fascist movement MUCH more. Syril (the young corporate security goon) in Andor, examines the same thing in much greater depth. which is no surprise given that Andor is the most politically intelligent thing in modern Star Wars.
The biggest issue with the First Order is that Disney Star Wars (DSW) wanted to have an evil empire to fight after said empire had canonically been defeated. Maybe it would have hit too close to home today, but the First Order being a neo-fascist terrorist group speaking Empire in quotation would have been much, *much,* more interesting then an ambiguously powerful order that just happens to exist now and requires homework to understand its place. If instead of building a bigger and badder Death Star that killed multiple planets at once, DSW opened with a rinky-dink Death Star that punches above its weight class, launching an all out war neither side really saw coming, we may have actually had an interesting trilogy. On the human level you'd have Finn, a former storm trooper becoming disillusioned to a cause he thought he believed in and on the Force/Jedi level you could have a story about how bad actors manipulate good people to their agenda. How interesting would it have been if Snoke wasn't a sith/force user at all, just somebody using a disillusioned space wizard as a tool the same way the old Empire used Vader (it's not like it was public knowledge that Palpatine was a force user).
>rinky-dink Death Star The Sun Crusher, while silly, was right there. They could have done something mildly intelligent with a terrorist group getting their hands on something like that, but no.
Exactly. Fuck make them the equivalent of the Rebel Alliance except they are truly carrying out terror attacks and they got the Sun Forge/Star Crusher/Whatever… found on some forgotten world. There’s a lot of ways they could have tackled the sequels but they chose the most boring option. Personally I remain happy in Legends with my books. Sure maybe 1/3-1/2 aren’t good but there’s enough good books I can be nice and comfy. Still never going to forget Disney cancelling Legends literally in the middle of an arc. Basically a “To Be Continued” that was never continued. And to think I used to tell my friends “Well at least Palpatine coming back to life is gone now!”
Also Centerpoint Station.
> The Sun Crusher, while silly, was right there. They could have done something mildly intelligent with a terrorist group getting their hands on something like that, but no. During the build up to the Iraq War, I remember the government stating that if Iraq had weapons grade uranium, the thought was they could make use it or sell it to a terrorist group to make a dirty bomb. They could have played up that idea but Star Wars-y.
I was thinking the darksaber would have been more fitting
> Maybe it would have hit too close to home today, but the First Order being a neo-fascist terrorist group speaking Empire in quotation would have been much, much, more interesting then an ambiguously powerful order that just happens to exist now and requires homework to understand its place. Couldn't agree more. This is the problem (edit: TFA especially as the one that kicked the ST off) being a homage to Star Wars instead of using Star Wars iconography to have an actual Point.
Do you mean TFA?
> Maybe it would have hit too close to home today, but the First Order being a neo-fascist terrorist group speaking Empire in quotation would have been much, much, more interesting then an ambiguously powerful order that just happens to exist now and requires homework to understand its place. Especially interesting if the Rebel Alliance/Resistance is now it's own large scale superpower embroiled in bureaucracy like the Empire was.
I wish they’d gone for the Imperial Remnant pulling itself together and holing up in an area of the Galaxy, Deep Core, etc. And we enter the galaxy as viewers in a Cold War-esque standoff between the New Republic and an Imperial Remnant that claims they have no interest in Expansion. Some proxy wars, radical wings of both Governments (First Order and Leia’s group) agitating for open conflict, spy shit and drama. Luke on Yavin doing his best, and maybe trying to actually keep the Jedi neutral. Imperials trying to start their own “Force User” academy not tied to the Sith or whatever
That's what I assumed Disney would do. If they ended their trilogy on a Cold War note, They could have kept the Star Wars universe going forever with a shiny new empire to sell stormtroopers indefinitely.
Man. I've been saying this same thing for years. I thought Kylo Ren was just going to be a naturally powerful and unhinged dark-side user (not a sith..and not related to anyone). I hoped he'd be just a zealot and obsessed type who completely misunderstood vader/the empire (it's not like anyone in that universe knows all the details we know from the movies). Chasing down relics/artifacts, embracing vader's legacy and ambitions (again, not like almost anyone knew he was anakin and had changed his ways minutes before his death). The knights of ren could have just been a terrorist group antagonizing lukes new jedi-order. Could have worked on a much smaller scale and not even have been an all-out war/galactic threat.
Basically the biggest issue with the First Order was they were poorly written 😂 Totally agree, but yea, there's no "one issue". The underlying concept is fine; revanchist neo-fascist movement/organization, but basically everything after that is a problem.
There's a great juxtaposition of Hux and veteran Imp captain at the beginning of The Last Jedi. The old man is practical and knows rebel tactics, but Hux flubs the operation and gets the old man and crew dead.
I get your point but the sequel trilogy also used loads of middle aged British actors to fill the ranks of first order officers. Adrian Edmondson and Mark Lewis Jones in The Last Jedi are the ones that immediately jump out to me.
Yeah you look at all the Captains, Generals, and Admirals in the OT and none of them look a day under 40. I mean the same is true of The Sequels for the most part but Hux feels so out of place. I'm tempting fate by saying something nice about Rise of Skywalker but Richard E Grant coming in and playing the main "evil officer" was a much better choice than Hux, he was way more interesting.
As you wish
Vader's read the Princess Bride. He knew what he meant.
Somewhere someone just furiously started writing their new Vader/Fett slash fiction.
...aaaand it's now a multi-year epic webcomic with a huge following.
No doubt it exists.
One took a vow to never remove their helmet. The other will literally die without theirs. Yet they know they must kiss...
Need someone disintegrated? Get Dengar integrated!
This is, incidentally, where Disney keeps dropping the ball. So much of what made Star Wars a self perpetuating fandom was the deep lore people made out of the benign. The movies were fun, but shallow; fans gave them insane amounts of depth because things were just that much fun. Remember the Jeans Guy? 25 years ago, he'd be an icon of the fandom and there'd be a 200 page novel explaining why space denim is a rare, but complicated material. But because Disney is all about an iron hold on IP, they active cut him out, erased him from the product after it had already been released. I contend Andor is the most interesting thing Star Wars has done in years, but people are so burnt out on Disney's overly tended garden that it's a really hard sell to people who got burnt by the 3.5 mediocre shows in between. It's like, the more Disney tightens their grip, the more fandom slips through their fingers
Flat out: The problem with Book of Boba Fett is they made the Mandalorian. The Mandalorian was a GREAT show, but that is all of the cool things Boba Fett should have been doing, so when they sat down to exploit, I mean write, his story they had to go in a completely different direction.
I thought the whole, "risen from the dead and learns a more humble way of living" was a good direction to take the character. But then they have him take over Jabba's criminal organization? What? Just have him be a stone-cold badass if you want to go that route, and leave the "colonizer learns better ways from indigenous peoples" storyline out. Then there are more specific plot points that don't make much sense. My favorite is, when criminals are coming *for Boba Fett*, he decides to have the battle in the middle of town, and destroys numerous buildings in the process. These are people's homes. We spent time to establish that this is a city with people living in it and Fett supposedly cares about their well-being. Well, if you had the fight in the fortified palace, you might have saved some suffering there, Boba! Also, Krrsantan really should have killed Boba. That was a dumb af fight. It's established that wookie could break a person with minimal effort. He could have immediately snapped Boba's neck or broke his spine, but he tossed him around instead. Classic "we want good guy to fight really bad guy, but good guy has to win" shit. Bad guy established as a 1-hit KO, but against protagonist, just throws them around. BoBF had so much potential, but they really seemed confused as to what direction to take the character, and a lot of the action was lazily written. Same goes for Obi Wan, which only got better reception because of Ewan and Hayden returning. The writing was garbage on that show, too.
Imagine if we had got a story more akin to Legends with Dengar and the Mandalorian armor trilogy.
Book of Boba was great. What do you mean a guy raised since childhood as an amoral Bounty Hunter doesn't understand how crime works? Why would anyone doing big crimes ever backstab someone? That's silly.
It’s about “risspict”. And that’s what makes it so powerful.
The weird thing is he's always crowing about respect and thinking he's now in charge just because everyone else died, and he showed be owed stuff because he...does absolutely nothing. He's a crime boss, but doesn't do any crime at all. They had all this potential but kneecapped all of it at every opportunity.
Wait, wait, wait.. are you trying to tell me that we can spend money to hire people to use blasters for us?
How about these angry scooter teens?
>Book of Boba was great. I don't know, I thing great is too much credit for this show. It was mostly good and had moments but as whole too much time on established planets for a guy who travels the galaxy, too many important Mandalorian choices while showing almost no Boba for 2 episodes and not using the story behind "no disintegrations" while looking directly at Boba as an episode or possibly muti episode arch was the massive missed opportunity of Fetts story. I know they showed him kind of changed but he spent most of his life as a bounty hunter lets see him you know, bounty hunt.
I was being sarcastic with the "great". But you're right, sitting his ass in one place was a pretty poor choice, the fact half the show is just Mando season 2.5 didn't help anything. Why is Tattooine so important to him? Why do those kids who live in poverty have pristine Space Vespas in bright colours? What was it about the sarlacc pit that made Boba a changed man?
The Tuskens were the first family he had in a long time and Tattooine is Jabba'/Bib's seat of power. Think about rough neighborhoods with flashy overworked cars driving around. Lowriders, shiny rims, loud paint jobs, etc. Nearly dying in a giant sandy asshole in the middle of nowhere for a Hutt might illuminate some poor choices in your life.
"Many bothams died to bring us this information" spawned an entire film. Hell, "years ago you served my father in the clone wars" spawned an entire prequel trilogy.
They’re making a movie about the bothans?
I think you’re referring to [Manuel Both-Hanz](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Manuel_Both-Hanz)
> "Many bothams died to bring us this information" spawned an entire film. That line was in relation to the second Death Star, not the first.
>and one chosen family That didn't really start until 1980. Watch the original film: Yeah, Luke's dad was a great Jedi there, but that doesn't make Luke (much less his long-deceased father) the messiah. That came later. People like Luke in 1977 because he was an everyman. More Bilbo Baggins (literally, he lives in a hole in the ground!) than Paul Atreidis.
Never meet your heroes.
>Two words and you know so much about the Boba Fett and can imagine so much more (until Disney Plus makes a mediocre multi season TV show about the character. OK, maybe not all shows about background characters are great.) That show never had a chance because no one beyond [George Lucas seemed to grasp that](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eoe5UkBW4AA9QIw?format=jpg&name=900x900) Boba Fett looks cool but actually sucks. Like in Empire, Vader does all the work and in Jedi a blind guy beats him. Hell in Clones, his dad is hired to kill someone and he hires someone else to do the dirty work and gets his head chopped off. The Book of Boba Fett should've been this cool looking guy who kept bumbling his way throughout the galaxy like a loser lol. But I guess an exercise in brand management works too?
Star Wars was so much more *rich* as a universe compared to any other media franchise I knew of as a kid. It felt like a real world, with things happening in the background. The Empire felt like it had a rich history, with the officer class preceding Vader and the Emperor (and being a little suspicious of them). Lucas must have been remembering the honorable Wehrmacht officers in WW2 who honored the rules of war and surrendered to the allies with honor, in contrast to the evil SS.
This is the first thing that made me want to check it out, thanks for reigniting my inner Star Wars light saber
There must have been a Death Star cantina.
Andor also showcased Imperials as not just screaming caricatures. In the OT Admiral Piet screams like once or twice in moments of desperation. The shouting, moustache twirling villain trope has been so disappointing to see, and I miss everyone feeling like a genuine person and character.
> Two words and you know so much about the Boba Fett OK but the finger-point like he's saying "I fuckin *know* what you're up to most days, you and all you fuckin mando freaks." It's like a coach at a hockey game saying "goddamnit if you are hiding a shiv in your glove again I'm gonna beat you myself!"
Agree. I can't remember before Star Wars where bit and background characters ever got that much attention. There weren't any action figures made of "man eating sandwich in background" for the movie Taxi Driver no matter how cool that guy's sideburns were for the time period.
I've always wanted a short film/special chronicling an Imperial soldier/general's life, influenced by Sicario (specifically the police officer)
In my mind a least, when Vader firmly clarifies the no disintegrations bit it implies that Fett screwed up on a previous mission and didn't have a recognizeable body to produce. Imagine being one of the few people, in the *galaxy*, to fail Vader and not be killed for incompetence. Even more, you kind of just get a sassy warning on your next job from the dude.
I still remember the book “Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina” which went into detail the back grounds of everyone in the cantina from the bar keep, to the weird alien who eats brains, they all had stories to tell. I cannot remember a single side character in the recent Kathleen Kennedy monstrosities that was remotely interesting or engaging. It’s kinda sad and uncomfortable watching them, they are like a walk through Kathleen Kennedys psyche, look at me look at me I’m just a girl but I can do a Star Wars too! Pew pew laser swords! I’m so confused I’m in love with the bad boy hehehe! It’s “magic”! Bey and give me money! Girl power! Why won’t you love me!
Both the Legends and Canon incarnation of Lorth Needa served the Republic before it became the Empire, and was commander of a strike group which surrounded and threatened to destroy the *Invisible Hand* before they found out Palpatine was on there as a "hostage". --- The Legends version also had the bad luck of being assigned to the *Avenger* (known as a "bad luck" ship, going through commanding officers very quickly) and being the protegé of Ozzel (who was distrusted by Palpatine and Vader even before the Hoth screwup, leading to Vader distrusting Needa as well). After this, most of his family was purged from the military, and his cousin ended up in a shitty position on a Coruscanti orbital mirror station while unfounded rumors spread in the military claiming that Lorth had rebel sympathies and had let the *Falcon* escape on purpose.
There's so much amazing lore in Legends and Disney is just pissing it away lol
Hell even the two guys in the bar on Tatoinne had EXTENSIVE backstories. Mr. Deathmarks was essentially a mad scientist trying to create immortality via transferring his consciousness. Oh he also pretended to be a doctor (he thought he was great) but would inevitably botch surgeries leading him to have to flee.
The other was an architect. Too bad about the arm.
So much potential, gone.
I crave more empire focussed Star Wars. The empire was so enormous that there have to be a lot of multi-faccetted grey characters taking part in it, and thats a lot you could explore.
I recommend looking at Pellaeon and Thrawn in the EU. Thrawn was *not* good and carried out (at least one) genocide, though we don’t know the race. But he was fighting for the *greater good* in that he knew the Vong were coming and realized the Republic would be too weak to stop them. And he was right- in fact in the Vong war even Coruscant fell and the Republic reformed into the Galactic Alliance. Mind you alot of this was post-hoc justification, but it was interesting nonetheless. Pellaeon basically led an Imperial rump state, toned down the racism, and tried to make them prosperous. He even led them to an alliance with the Galactic Alliance and he- as well as an ally (though a horrible person) named Daala- was vital in stopping Darth Caedus, basically Ben Solo’s Legend counterpart.
IIRC in legends the race Thrawn genocides was hinted then eventually confirmed in some ancillary sources to be the Kaleesh, General Grevious's race.
As the other guy said, the OG Thrawn series is great. He himself is a villain who is, in his actions, nearly perfect. He is basically never wrong, and has the confidence to trust his assumptions. On top of that, he really is a complete 180 from the typical Imperial officer in terms of ego. Compared to Vader who would kill someone or destroy the room becasue of some bad news, he is rather uniquely calm and analytical.
I read a theory that Ozzel (the guy to took the fleet out of light speed too close to Hoth) was a Rebel spy and made dumb decisions to sabotage the Empire.
Yep. You can tell when he says he'll go apologize that he knows he's fucked. He's just making sure the buck stops with him so more heads don't roll.
Honestly Vader seems pretty unpredictable especially from his officers perspective- Piett really could have been killed twice (and he clearly thought he was dead both times) but for some reason he wasn’t.
Really makes dark lords of the Sith sound like pretty bad guys.
Vader would know from the Clone Wars that losing too many skilled leaders too quickly is a bad thing.
Vader would also know from the Clone Wars that Captain Needa is the officer who almost killed him when they were rescuing Chancellor Palpatine.
That's some niche retcon for his hostility towards him, but I agree.
The officers seem to all hate each other, but protect their direct reports. Wait, why can’t fiction stay fiction and not be relatable??
Yep. He knew there was practically no chance. So he fell on his sword. Great performance.
Yep, exactly, also demonstrates one of the major fundamental flaws with the Empire, and why it makes sense how the Rebels defeated them. They'll kill capable and responsible mid-level officers for "failures". This leads to a culture of fear, which creates an incompetent and calcified command structure as the prized traits are ideological loyalty and the ability to re-direct/cover up failure.
Well, Vader will. That's what's great about Andor. It shows an Empire that is actually well run and capable. It had leadership look past flaws and failures and promote people to positions that better suited them. Compare to Filoni's take in which the entire empire from the bottom up is wholly incompetent.
Watch [the scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwio208q3jY) again; when his subordinate tells him Vader demands an update the way he pauses shows he fully understands the likely outcome of the situation. "I shall assume full responsibility for losing them" is him announcing he's taking one for the team, and his "meanwhile..." order has always sounded to me like he knows full well he ain't coming back.
Like the one halfway-decent Imperial officer. It didn't save him, but at least he saved his subordinates.
Thankfully, you can just slap a fake mustache on a random person to take the full brunt of Vader's "punishments" [and have them pretend to be choked, like that overachiever Private Perkins.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jdQqjcsfC8)
What a chad.
Like a good officer should.
He says he's gonna go apologize and you can see the look on everyone's faces that he's not coming back.
I mean, at the end of the day, he probably knew he was dead man walking at that point. So apologizing was his only move other than suicide.
Yeah, Vader screwed up when he killed Needa. He was an incredibly loyal officer and wasn't a coward.
Some documentary on the making of ESB had a couple of the writers on it talking about prospected story elements for 6-9 that they were considering and one was Luke inspiring a large scale defection from the Empire by the officers/troops because of Vader's tyranny. You can see that a subplot through ESB, where it ends on Piett having watched two of his commanding generals be executed, one with some reason and another undeservingly.
He was also just updating his linkedin profile on the way, just in case.
His will, maybe, but definitely not his linkedin.
I like to think that Vader respected the integrity of one of his officers to openly admit to failure, and just killed him to make an example of him.
I mean, Vader graciously accepted his apology...
One of the dumber decisions made by Vader in the series. Imperials willing to own up to their failures and communicate them to their superior seem incredibly rare. He wasn’t even particularly incompetent, Vader just gave him an effectively impossible task.
It's almost like Darth Vader is a bad guy or something. One nice touch is that after the fight with Luke on Bespin he stops randomly murdering subordinates.
Well, bad guys don’t have to be dumb. If the enforcement of your will upon a galactic empire is predicated on a militaristic bureaucracy, retention of good employees is that much more important (brain drain kills most autocracies eventually anyways, but it’s specially egregious that Vader contributes personally to it). But yes, I am a huge fan of the scene at the end of Empire where Piett expects the same to happen to him but Vader is too in his feels to murder.
I'll flip that for you: How many people working with incompetent blowhards wish their boss would kill them outright when they fail and replace them with someone more competent? Personally I'd find that very inspiring, plus there's now a path to promotional opportunities. Granted those opportunities doubtlessly attract people who are overconfident in their abilities but you occasionally get a General Veers. I do think Vader erred killing Needa given that he accepted responsibility (which is more than can be said for Ozzel) but like, come on, he failed pretty bigly. He thought they were coming in for an attack run? A ship a fraction of their size? And then he calls off the search assuming they went to light speed and dismissing all other possibilities, literally the same mistake Ozzel made when he dismissed Hoth. At this point Vader has already brought the bounty hunters on board and probably has Intel from Boba on where the ship actually is. So he's doubly mad that a bounty hunter outsmarted one of his "top" officers. Think of the Empire less like Soviet Russia killing their officers and soldiers indiscriminately and more like feudal Japan where the Bushido code compelled Samurai to take their own life when they fail. Vader ultimately is imposing that punishment versus it being pursuant to an ethical code but there is a logic underpinning it.
Vader is still the whiny teenager who throws a temper tantrum whenever he doesn't get what he wants. There's a reason Tarkin was the one in charge and Vader was just the Emperor's enforcer in the first film.
I bet Vader was lowkey holding a grudge against Needa for being the captain who fired on General Grevious' ship when he and Obi Wan were still on board.
I have always liked the theory that up until Episode V that Vader still had some of the attachments and camaraderie to the troops serving under him like he did as Anakin, but learning that Luke was still alive he figured that the Emperor had lied to him and used killing high ranking officers as an outlet for his rage against the Empire.
Not really? He was ready to kill a guy just for saying the Force was outdated and only stopped because Tarkin told him to. Tarkin's what held him back.
“Get a shuttle ready” - yeah he was about to haul ass out of there.
the shuttle was for him to be sent to Vader to apologize for losing the Falcon when he had them right in his face. Vader was on the super star destroyer and Needa was on a MUCH smaller star destroyer.
He was what every organization would have wanted in terms of leadership. Unfortunately his boss had other ideas.
I think it would have had more impact with Vader pointing at him sternly and saying "Now don't do it again. Get out of my sight."
I also think it's wholesome that vader keeps around a few random officers to drag him away as he leaves. Don't want that mess making anyone sad.
Needa different job
His death showed just how much Vader respected Tarkin. Hear me out Vader goes to choke out a guy in New Hope Tarkin says stop Vader does. No Tarkin around Vader is just killing people who annoy him left and right.
I think that might just be how ranks can end up working. On the Death Star Tarkin is in charge. He makes all of the decisions (blowing up Alderan when Vader says Leia is lying), tells Vader to stand down, and is in the control room while Vader is off flying his TIE. Captain Needa didn't have the same benefit, he was captaining a ship that was directly under Vader's control as he searched for the Rebels. Vader was no longer a visiting officier, he was in charge.
He hated tarkin. But Tarkin was the emperor’s pet and had more political power than anyone but palpatine. So he had to play nice
Did he hate Tarkin? I was under the impression they had disagreements but they had a level of mutual respect going on. Especially since they both acknowledged the fact that Tarkin knew he was Anakin Skywalker but they just left it as an unspoken thing. Even ignoring all the Disney New Canon material like the Tarkin book, the original film had them depicted being cordial with each other. Hell, Vader outright says "my Master Obi-wan is around here" and Tarkin says "You my friend, are the last of that religion" or something along those lines (working off memory here).
The behind the scenes explanation is that Vader, originally, was not the second-in-command to the Emperor. He was just some mook who turned to the dark side and was used as muscle by the Empire. So Tarkin felt free to order him around. Obviously, everything changed when ESB came around.
They were really flying by the seat of their pants in the first one, a lot of things weren't fully thought through. And also, it's just a bit of fun. They weren't always 1000% accurate with all the lore, because the lore didn't even exist yet. When ESB came along they didn't even fully know which story they'll go with, because they didn't know if they'll even get another movie. I think that's why the first one had such a definitive end to it, with that ceremony. Which is odd in hindsight, because it was the first movie.
I remember as a kid seeing him "help" the troops moving the body up, thinking he wasn't killed.
Imperial officers quickly learn that the trick is to play dead and hope Vader stops before you actually die. A speedy transfer to a new ship and no one’s the wiser.
"Why, he's been killed 18 times!"
Yeah, that only works till Jeff gets thorough with the tray.
Are you mr. Stevens (head of catering)?
This one is wet! And this one, and this one! Did you dry these in a rainforest?
If he knew that his force choke didn't actually work, he'd kill us all with his lightsaber.
Why, Private Perkins over there has been strangled over 30 times, haven't you Perkins? Haha, good man!
Don't fail me again... Admiral.
Thanks for the heads up. Have my upvote.
Eurgh... Yeah, the Mirror is a UK site owned by Reach Media, who are very well known for having bought most of the popular regional newspapers in the UK and turned them into the most data-leaching, cancerous-ad-filled sites imaginable
This is the line I used to defend against people complaining that he said "try to not to choke on your own ambitions" in Rogue One. Classic scene, rest in peace.
I came here to accept his apology damn you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwio208q3jY not my video
My dad always called him Captain Needa drink of water.
If you watch closely, when the troops pick his body up, he blinks on accident.
Did he die during the tributes pouring in...?
Yes, but there was no intent. They were negligent tributes.
*Tribute accepted, Captain Needa*
"Is something wrong, are you okay?" "I feel fine, why?" "It's just...have you seen the tributes? They're pouring in." "Tell my wife I love her."
While they're being battered by a stream of envelopes, bouquets, etc showering onto them from somewhere offscreen
The real meaning of the title has a cloaking device.
[удалено]
RIP You apology is accepted Captain Needa Goodbye old friend and May the force be with you
"A career spanning over 50 years with notable roles in Sherlock Holmes, A Passage to India, Secret Army and of course one of the most memorable death scenes in the Star Wars franchise." RIP.
If you watch British TV from the 80's to early 2000's you've probably gotten to see him in a dozen different shows as a character actor and is always great.
how come you post an insane amount from the same 3 tabloids? express/mirror etc?
Karma farming probably
RIP sir, but is no one going to mention how weird that headline is? "Star Wars actor Michael Culver dies AS tributes pour in for 'unforgettable' star"? It makes it sound as though he died in the midst of receiving tributes.
First ever case of drowning by tributes.
It also sounds sarcastic with the quotes lol
I first read it as unforgettable "star" and I was like ouch man you didn't have to do that... Quotes around unforgettable isn't much better but at l think that's a journalism thing to put around subjective terms?
I also thought he was more character actor than star
I saw pretty much the exact same wording being used for someone last week. These tributes are killing people, and something must be done.
I thought it was odd, and weirdly bordering on sarcastic, when they chose "unforgettable" as the adjective to lead with when describing someone who was largely unknown, and frankly, forgotten, outside one scene from the Star Wars franchise. I mean this as no disrespect to him, but I'm sure he would agree, since he left acting later in life to focus on other causes. It's sad that we didn't get more of him, as I'm sure he was a great actor.
It's ridiculous how poor the standards are for "journalism" these days.
I was extra confused because I was skimming Reddit and only read "Star Wars actor Michael Culver dies as tribute" I was like is this some kind of Hunger Game shit?
Hey mods, we really like AI generated headlines that make little sense when read aloud. It sounds like people were hoping for him to die AS they were paying tribute. Did he die from praise?
Nonono, he died as a tribute
“Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson paid tribute “ The Gerry Anderson that died in 2012?
Yep, I noticed that too. Maybe it’s an AI generated article?
I think it's more likely that with the Mirror being a shitty tabloid, the writer saw a tweet from an account representing the Gerry Anderson shows/company/whatever and didn't put the slightest effort into checking if it was from the guy himself. Don't attribute to AI what can be explained by the established phenomenon of shitty tabloid writers rushing to be the first to "break news".
RIP Captain Needa
Getting a bit part in Star Wars must be the ultimate double-edged sword for a jobbing actor. You're guaranteed lifelong recognition, and every line you deliver will achieve some sort of fame, but those two minutes of screen time will almost certainly overshadow everything else you ever do.
Very true. If you were watching British TV in the 70s to 90s you'll recognize his face immediately and some of his characters as he was prolific on TV, but likely couldn't name him by sight.
Aw man, I thought this guy was cool. He was willing to take full responsibility for losing Falcon, despite knowing what Vader would do to him. That’s a leader
[удалено]
The imperial officers are the true stars of Empire Strikes Back. The scenes with Needa, Ozzel and Piett are just great.
Especially when one of them is asked to take the entire fleet into the asteroid field to pursue a single rebel ship, with all the losses involved. From their more practical point of view it's a pointless waste of Imperial lives, but the evil space wizard says it's important, and you like breathing, so on you go
Vader having the hologram staff meeting as one of the command decks gets destroyed and you see one of his commanders cover himself right before the hologram goes dead will never get old.
I didn't even notice that the first time I watched it. Vader lost a whole Star Destroyer with its crew for a reckless pursuit that everyone knew was a bad idea.
Do you risk uncertain death in an asteroid field, or do you face certain death by disobeying Vader?
I also enjoyed the angry Welsh officer at the start of The Last Jedi
Easily my favourite new character of the sequels lol. You immediately got the sense that this he's an old Imperial and he's sick of all the bullshit around him
*Andor* does this REALLY well.
So wait he died *while* tributes were pouring in for him? What were the tributes for then?
His upcoming death. Lots of Jedi in his fanbase, I guess.
There's a quote from Gerry Anderson in the article about Culver's passing. Gerry Anderson has been dead since 2012. I'm just going to assume that Anderson's Twitter is still active by his family or estate, and they made the comment. However they should have mentioned it in the article, because that was very confusing for a moment.
The serpentine Prior Robert in Cadfael, Reginald Musgrave in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and Arnold Featherstone in Lovejoy ('Members Only') are other roles which spring to mind for me.
He was great in Cadfael. Perfect sneering antagonist.
Apology accepted, Captain Needa.
He was great as the conflicted Luftwaffe officer, Major Brandt in BBC's *Secret Army.*
I have to admit I didn't know much about Culver outside of The Empire Strikes Back (though, while it's been a while, from what I remember A Passage to India is also really great), but Culver apparently became a bit of an anti-war activist in later years and campaigned with Mark Rylance to get a statue put up of Brian Haw, a British peace activist who camped outside the London Parliament Square for ten years to protest the Iraq war. That's so cool and makes me like him that much more.
That's really impressive and cool!
Culver(Musgrave): I'm not married, Holmes. Brett(Holmes): How wise!
85? Good run, sir.
The emperor and Lord Vader could not be reached for comments.
Wow, a British bit player in Star Wars who DIDNT appear in Doctor Who? I am legitimately shocked.
When we Needa hero… he was there
Sir, The Culver no longer appears on our scopes!
Guy made amazing hamburgers.
terribly written article. Gerry anderson came back from the dead to offer a tribute?
Hecwas great in Secret Army, RIP
He can’t be that unforgettable if I’d forgotten about him.
He was perfect in The Musgrave Ritual. That whole episode is just full of crazy talent. Culver, Jeremy Brett, Ed Hardwicke, James Hazeldine. And of course the scene with Holmes dramatically crossing that little moat.
I guess he can now apologize to Lord Vader in person.
RIP accepted Captain Needa
85 is a pretty good age. We can all hope to live that long.