Cassian Andor

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Community dedicated to Diego Luna's character in Rogue One and Andor

For discussions of the film and the TV series, as well as projects by any of the creatives involved.


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From an article by Melissa Heikkilä


Hans Zimmer, 1; AI, 0.

When Gareth Edwards, the director of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, was thinking about the soundtrack for his upcoming movie about artificial intelligence, The Creator, he decided to try composing it with AI - and got “pretty damn good” results.

“The cheeky part of me thought it’d be even better if we didn’t tell anyone—and we did the soundtrack and we kept it secret, like we invented a person’s name or something, and then when it was all done … ‘Haha, it was actually AI,’”

Edwards had asked an unspecified AI music company to use the tech to create a soundtrack in the style of Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer.

The AI system generated a track that was maybe a “7 out of 10,” Edwards said.

“But in the back of my head I was like, ‘But the reason you go to Hans Zimmer is for 10 out of 10,’” he added.

Edwards, who ended up using the real, flesh-and-blood human Hans Zimmer for the soundtrack of his movie, said he played the AI-generated track back to the composer. Zimmer, he said, found it amusing. Zimmer wasn’t reachable for comment.

Edwards’s experiment speaks to an issue at the heart of one of the biggest fights facing Hollywood today. Artists and creatives are up in arms over generative AI. Hollywood is currently at a standstill as actors and writers are striking over fairer labor conditions and the use of generative AI in the film industry. There is also fierce pushback from authors and artists who argue that tech companies steal their intellectual property by indiscriminately scraping the web for images and text. Prominent artists such as comedian and author Sarah Silverman have sued AI companies for copyright infringement.

It’s still early days for music-generating AI, which might explain why Edwards got the results he did, says Henry Ajder, an expert in generative AI.

“From my experience, some quite simple AI music is pretty convincing. It’s difficult to tell the difference between an AI-generated composition and a human performed composition,” he says.

But a longer piece in the style of Hans Zimmer is significantly more complex to generate than a simple piano melody with one instrument, he adds. AI systems are limited by what is in their training data, whereas human Zimmer has his imagination and the whole surrounding world to draw inspiration from.

Crucially, Edwards said, AI systems lack a fundamentally crucial skill for creating good art: taste. They still don’t understand what humans deem good or bad. For that reason, he believes that rather than fearing AI, creatives should use it. “Everyone’s very aware it’s coming. It’s a tool,” Edwards said. “The people that are going to be okay are the people who don’t deny this breakthrough is happening, and embrace it and learn it, and try to use it as a tool.”

Edwards drew parallels between today’s AI boom and the invention of the photo editing software Photoshop.

When Photoshop came out, he said, the public discussion was about how the software “was sacrilegious.”

“We got over that eventually. Now Photoshop has created so many opportunities for so many people doing art … I wouldn’t want to go back,” he said.

Artificial intelligence will seismically shift the industry in the same way the invention of the camera or the digital visual effects in Jurassic Park did, Edwards said: “It’s just another one of those, I hope.”


Taken from an interview with MIT Technology Review

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Hi Reddit! My name is Gareth, I am from Nuneaton, a small town in the midlands of England, where from a young age I dreamed of becoming a film director.

My breakthrough film was “Monsters,”a sci-fi thriller about an alien attack on Earth and its effect on a cynical American journalist, played by Scoot McNairy. “Monsters” was a huge critical success, drawing the attention of Hollywood and leading to the opportunity to direct Legendary’s epic rebirth of arguably the most recognized monster of the 20th century—“Godzilla.” My dream job came knocking in May 2014 as I was offered to direct a Star Wars motion picture, the incredible Lucasfilm franchise that inspired him to make movies.

Hey Gareth! Big fan of Rogue One, Godzilla, and Monsters, so glad you decided to do this! My question is: was there anything cut out of Rogue One that you'd like to put back in?

There are millions of things that I would like to have put in the film... unfortunately films are only 2 hours long, so many ideas fall away before the final release... I guess if we had another 10 years to finish the film, the final version would evolve even more. The goal is to make sure the version that goes out into the world is the best possible version. So in that sense, no real regrets :)

What lessons did you learn from doing Godzilla that translated over to when you did Rogue One? Btw, I'm a huge fan of Godzilla. You did a fantastic job!!!

Thank you. I guess there are many lessons. Visually, I wanted to have a team of concept artists working on Rogue One ALL the way through the film. Typically on a big movie, the artists only work during the script writing phase, but you end up always tweaking and improving everything, so having designers and concept artists work and redesign and keep pushing things all the way until the last month of the process was something we did on Rogue that wasn't on Godzilla so much.

Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

No, sorry, I hope he gets well soon.

Did you feel like you were under a lot of pressure with this story considering how different it was to all the rest of the saga?

The biggest thing was trying to figure out what the film would be. The initial idea was it's like a heist movie. But I feel that Star Wars is not just one genre, it's a whole load of different genre's mixed together, like fairy tale, war, western, samurai, biblical epic etc... Even though our story was not going to involve the Skywalker story, it was important to me that it had all the emotional and mythical ingredients of the sagas... god, that was a long answer.

Hi Gareth, If you had to add an opening crawl to Rogue One, what would you have it say?

Gary Whitta actually wrote one in the first draft. You'll have to pester him for it ;) ...I do believe that those opening crawl words are actually floating out there in space somewhere. We just have to fund NASA well enough so their deep-space telescopes can find them, lets crowd fund it and make it happen.

Will we ever find out what the changes and reshoots were behind the scenes of Rogue One? From the first promotional material to the final cut of the film, it's pretty clear a lot changed during production.

Lots of great shots were grabbed during filming, some of them were specifically designed for a sequence, others were just opportunistic. Marketing end up falling in love with things that might fall away during the post production of a film, and also might help strengthen others. I'm just glad they found a way to get into the world.

Would you rather fight a Godzilla sized Darth Vader, or a Darth Vader sized Godzilla?

It's got to be a Godzilla sized Darth Vader... in fact, that visual is probably the coolest thing anyone could ever put in a movie... Will keep my fingers crossed for this after the Han Solo spin-off!

Loved Rogue One and how bold it was. Couple questions
How did it feel knowing that George Lucas approved and really enjoyed your adaptation of the star wars universe.
Do you plan on doing any more sci-fi in the future, or are you soon going to be branching out on more genres?

  1. The biggest relief in the world. George Lucas is GOD. Without him, no of this would exist. I would have traded his positive review for everyone else in the world if I'm honest.
  2. I definitely want to do other genres, but if I had to be trapped in one, sci-fi would be it!

What inspired you to become a director?

I saw Star Wars, found out it was a lie called filmmaking... figured the second best option in life would to become a liar, and make films... Then you learn about the job called directing, mainly from Steven Spielberg's success, so all those late 70's early 80's films are to blame for me getting into this crazy industry.

How did you feel the first day you were directing Darth Vader on set?

You kind of get nervous. Even though you know it's an actor inside, once that helmet goes in, it's DARTH! and as strange as it seems, it's really hard to tell him what to do, no-one tells DARTH what to do. So you find you have to talk with the actor and figure it all out before the helmet goes on, as once he's in character, Darth is in charge, and if you screw up the shot, he is not that forgiving.

What's your favourite Star Wars movie, besides Rogue One?

My favourite is not Rogue One, but thanks for assuming it might be, my order would be:

  1. A New Hope
  2. Empire Strikes Back
  3. Return of the Jedi

If you had another opportunity to work with on a classic franchise, what would you pick and what would you like to bring to the table?

Yeah, but I fear if I say it out loud it won't happen... so will avoid this answer for a while if that's ok!?

What was your favourite Easter egg that made it into Rogue One, and did you have any input on the inclusion of them?

I'm very bias... But my cameo would be my favourite... I don't want to give it away, but let's just say he was probably the saviour of the entire rebellion ;)

Who's the funniest cast member behind the scenes on Rogue One? Any stories?

Alan for sure... with Riz a close second... and perhaps Toby the Assistant Director third. He kept me smiling the whole film, which is quite a task.

How many of the decisions that will probably influence the rest of the anthology films did you yourself take part in? Like, the lack of the opening crawl, or not having John Williams score...things that separate them from the core "episodes." Were those decisions you made?

We knew from the start that John Williams would not be available for our film... The opening crawl decision was made before we started filming.

Hello Gareth. How do you feel about Michael Giachinno's score for Rogue One? What was he like to work with? Have a good one mate

Michael is a massive Star Wars fan, and a great human being. He had very little time to write the music for the film, and I think there are moments within it, especially Jyn's theme, where he smashed it out the park, it's perfect for what we needed at that point in the film. Everyone had massive smiles on their faces during the recording sessions.

Hello Gareth, Loved Rogue One! If you could pick one character from your spinoff movie to do a spinoff about them which would it be?

Mads and Ben... Galen and Krennic
or Baze and Chirrut
or maybe it would be cool to see what happens to the Death Star plans, and if the rebels manage to actually blow-up the Death Star, that would be a cool movie!!!

Any advice for young aspiring filmmakers?

DON'T DO IT!!!!
if you're still reading this, well done, you're gonna make it!!!

What was the most surprising part of doing this movie?

It's so weird seeing things you and a friend designed in a room 2 years ago, appearing on T-shirts and boxer shorts and socks.... I want to make a joke about the closest me getting to girls underpants, but I won't, as Disney are standing over my shoulder. Literally.

What was the hardest thing you've ever pulled off in a film that doesn't look that hard to an audience?

finishing without having a nervous breakdown.

Could you tell us a bit about what George Lucas said to you after seeing Rogue One? And did you meet with him at all before filming?

He came to visit Pinewood before we started filming.... to take the pressure off us, I had posters in my room of the previous 'Star Wars spinoffs' - 'Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure' and the 'Star Wars Holiday Special'... my main goal when he came in was to try and stop him seeing these... my second goal was him liking the film.

Who are some of your biggest inspirations in life that didn't work in the entertainment industry?

Bill Hicks... the comedian, if you haven't seen him, check out Revelations.


Thank you Internet. It was nice meeting you. We must do this again sometime!... but don't call me, we'll call you.

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From an article at THR by Etan Vlessing


Gareth Edwards’ The Creator, starring John David Washington and Gemma Chan in a sci-fi epic about a world at war with artificial intelligence, is set to open the Beyond Fest in Los Angeles.

The action thriller from 20th Century studios also stars Allison Janney and newcomer Madeleine Voyles and will screen at the Aero Theatre. The closing night film is Kristoffer Borgli’s comedy satire Dream Scenario from A24 and starring Nicolas Cage.

James Cameron, Michael Mann and Guillermo del Toro are set to headline L.A.'s biggest genre film festival with retrospective classic movie screenings. James Cameron will be at L.A.’s biggest genre festival for a special screening of The Abyss from 1989, Michael Mann will host a screening of his 1986 film Manhunter and actor Malcolm McDowell will be on hand for a special screening of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut.

Elsewhere, Joe Dante will host a screening of his 1978 thriller Piranha, Roger Corman will be in attendance for a special screening of The Raven from 1963 and Guillermo del Toro will present in-person his 2013 tentpole Pacific Rim.

Beyond Fest’s 11th edition will also give a world premiere to It’s a Wonderful Knife, introduced by director Tyler MacIntyre, as the festival is set to run from Sept. 26 to Oct. 10. Other titles this year include two starring Paul Mescal, Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers and Garth Davis’ psychological drama Foe; Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall; and Kitty Green’s outback thriller The Royal Hotel.

“With over 19,000 attendees in 2022, our goal this year was to go bigger while also exposing audiences to new filmmakers who represent the future,” Beyond Fest head of programming Evrim Ersoy said in a statement

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Announcement link: https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/16iqr80/hi_im_gareth_edwards_director_of_rogue_one_and/

Looks like it'll be on /r/movies at 19:00 UTC

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From dicebreaker.com


With the recent release of Andor, the newest television series slicing a vertical piece out of the Star Wars universe, fans are witnessing the origins of one of the Rebel Alliance’s unsung hero. He begins as a cynic and a who’d rather toe the line to stay out of trouble, and the series will explore how the scales fell from his eyes and led him to join the cause.

It’s the sort of backstory that comprise tasty tabletop RPG characters, and indie designer Jess Levine would agree - her new title going rogue 2e uses the Star Wars story, along with the Rogue One film from 2016 as the foundation for spinning yarns about heroes forged from the stuff of common folks.

Just released, this second versions updates an expansion originally meant for Riley Rethal’s galactic 2e. That game is now its own 32-page book that can be used on its own for a group of two to five players eager to wage anti-fascist war against and pay the ultimate price for what they believe is right.

If you recall Dicebreaker’s coverage of Rethal’s own dip into the Star Wars inspiration bucket, the game adopts the Belonging Outside Belonging system created by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum. That means no dice and no facilitators (GMs, DMs, etc.) are needed - just a group of friends and several tokens to act as fuel for drama and storytelling.

The playbooks in going rogue 2e all draw from the main cast of Rogue One: The Spy, The Leveraged, The Knight Errant, The Convert and The Loyal can be traced fairly directly onto the characters of Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, the pairing of Baze Malbus and Chirrut Imwe, Bodhi Rook and K-2SO, respectively. A special pseudo-playbook entitled The Bond personifies the link between The Loyal and one other player in the group, which will be a boon but also an obligation to uphold.

Each has their own moves to use during play that stretch across three categories and interact with the token system in specific ways. Strong moves require spending a token, lateral moves allow players to give a token to someone else, and vulnerable moves grant that player a token. The story plays out in scenes as characters narrate what happens, calling on moves when appropriate and using their tokens to shift the story in a direction that suits their characters motivations, fears and agendas. The token economy forces players to interact in different ways to afford moves that can upset the status quo in their favour - whether they achieve this through teamwork or manipulation can only be discovered during play.

Levine’s own twist comes from the addition of a clock mechanical called Fates. The typical example used in promotional material describes The Sacrifice, a countdown to the ultimate fate for all characters. The boxes are filled as the collaborative story reaches certain thresholds, granting everyone involved access to some choice moves that ultimately end in narrating their pivotal final moments. Are they able to transfer the Death Star plans before the base explodes? Do they hold off the enemy’s advance long enough to collapse the bridge? Do they have any poignant final words?

Different elements of the setting also have their own moves that players can embody and exert. Both sides of this galactic-wide war are not inert powers, and the characters will need to navigate political obstacles, operational security and probably more than one security checkpoint to win the day.

Rogue One’s story of resistance against rising fascism found quite an audience in 2016’s North America, and it's no surprise its premise is still inspiring creators a few years later. Direct and radical action might not be as de rigueur these days, but it can still inspire us to search for the spark of something similar within ourselves. Plus, the heroic but anonymous sacrifice is prime dramatic fodder any day of the week.

More information about going rogue 2e can be found on the game’s Itch.io’s page. Anyone looking for more Star Wars-inspired tabletop content will be happy to know Levine is also the author behind the excellent I Have the High Ground, which explodes the dramatic exchange of words before the duel between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi into a deadly game of back-and-forth posturing that ends the moment someone draws steel.


If you have a spare 5 hours, you can listen to the "A More Civilised Age" podcast hosts have a play-through

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From: https://www.thewrap.com/the-creator-beirut-explosion-footage/

“The Creator,” the new sci-fi film from New Regency and Disney’s 20th Century Studios directed by “Rogue One” filmmaker Gareth Edwards, blurs the line between reality and fantasy by including footage from the 2020 Beirut explosion in its tale of A.I. waging war on humanity.

Footage from the 2020 Beirut explosion, which happened at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon and led to 218 deaths and $15 billion worth of property damage, appears in the trailer for the film. It was first noticed by an eagle-eyed Reddit user on July 17. It was further elevated when popular YouTube channel Corridor Crew brought up the situation on their “VFX Artists React” series.

Like most big-budget effects movies, “The Creator” employed several vendors to bring its otherworldly landscape to life including Folks VFX, Industrial Light & Magic, MARZ, Misc Studios, Fin Design + Effects, Supreme Studio, Outpost VFX, Crafty Apes, Jellyfish Pictures, VFX Los Angeles, Frontier VFX, Outpost VFX and Clear Angle Studios.

It’s unclear which vendor worked on the controversial shot in question, and who made the decision to include the real-life footage in “The Creator.”

Video: The Creator vs. Beirut Explosion

Disney did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

“The Creator,” previously known as “True Love” and set for theatrical release on Sept. 29, comes from Edwards, who directed 2014’s “Godzilla” and the micro-budgeted “Monsters” before “Rogue One.” The film, written by Edwards and Chris Weitz, is based on an original idea that envisions a future where man and machine are locked in bitter combat.

John David Washington plays a human freedom fighter who is sent to destroy a source of ultimate power for the robots. Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Allison Janney, Ralph Ineson and Sturgill Simpson (in a role originally meant for his “Righteous Gemstones” co-star Danny McBride) are among the supporting players.

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Special screenings set at IMAX theaters in major U.S. cities of exclusive first-look footage from the upcoming sci-fi thriller, followed by a live Q&A with the director/producer/co-writer; film hits theaters next month.

Gareth Edwards (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Godzilla) will lead an interactive live Q&A following a special screening of The Creator: IMAX Live Exclusive First Look on Tuesday, August 29 at 5:00 pm PT/8:00 pm ET, at selected U.S. theaters. Edwards’ new film, The Creator, which he directed, produced, and co-wrote, opens in theaters September 29.
The sneak peek fan event takes place at the AMC Century City IMAX Theatre and features exclusive footage from the upcoming sci-fi action thriller and an in-person Q&A with Edwards, which will be shown at the other theaters.

The screening event is at 10 participating IMAX theatres in Los Angeles; New York; Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Toronto; Seattle; Washington D.C.; and San Francisco. All attendees receive a commemorative lanyard and mini poster from the film.

Tickets for the sneak peek are available on a first-come, first-served basis: here

The sci-fi action thriller set amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, The Creator stars John David Washington; Gemma Chan; Ken Watanabe; Sturgill Simpson; Madeleine Yuna Voyles; and Allison Janney.

PlotIn the movie, Joshua (Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Chan), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war…and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory, only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child (Voyles).
Trailer

From 20th Century Studios, the film is directed by Edwards, with a screenplay by Edwards and Chris Weitz from a story by Edwards. Edwards, p.g.a., Kiri Hart, Jim Spencer, p.g.a., and Arnon Milchan serve as producers, and Yariv Milchan; Michael Schaefer; Natalie Lehmann; Nick Meyer; and Zev Foreman are executive producers.

VFX Studios include Atomic Arts (VFX Supervisor: David Simpson); Crafty Apes (VFX Supervisor: Nicholas Daniels); Fin Design + Effects (VFX Supervisor: Stuart White); FOLKS (VFX Supervisor: Phil Prates); ILM (VFX Supervisors: Jay Cooper); Jellyfish Pictures (VFX Supervisor: Simon Kilroe); MARZ (VFX Supervisor: Justin Bunt); MISC Studios (VFX Supervisor: Edward Hawkins); Outpost VFX (VFX Supervisor: Joseph DiValerio); Territory Studio (VFX Supervisor: Luca Zappala); and VFX Los Angeles, Inc. (VFX Supervisor: Charles H. Joslain).


(Not sure about that poster though - Washington's character looks a bit strange)

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Yoinked from Tansy Gardam (from the "Going Rogue" podcast)

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Just watched The Last Castle, a Robert Redford/James Gandolfini movie from 2001 and thought it interesting to compare the similarities and differences.

Both feature older guys who are natural leaders, but are determined to just see their sentence out, until they realise how rotten the system is. The inciting incident is the death of an inmate, with the prison doc unable to do anything due to a lack of supplies. Both feature a charged assault on guards who are picking them off from an elevated vantage point, until they eventually overcome them with improvised missiles. Both end a little ambiguously regarding the fate of the leader, who - it turns out - was mostly doing it for his fellow inmates.

Obviously there's plenty of differences, and many of the similarities are just tropes of the genre. The big difference, I thought, is that there's no Gandolfini character on Narkina 5 - no tyrannical warden making everyone's life a misery. The sadistic-seeming dude who welcomes Cassian isn't seen much of again, and when they finally reach the top, it's just some guy (who I like to imagine died his hair grey to try to look older).

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Cast

Andy Serkis
Diego Luna and Duncan Pow
Fiona Shaw
Kyle Soller and Adria Arjona

Directors

Ben Carron
Toby Haynes

Editor

John Gilroy

Show runner

Tony Gilroy
Tony Gilroy (post finale)

Interviews are from The Playlist Podcast (with all the cruft edited out)

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The only problem - for mash-up artists as well for Tony Gilroy - is how many characters in Andor there are!

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I can see how it uses many of the same tricks as Monsters (2010) to keep costs down - using TV and phone footage, shooting like a documentary - but is this really the film I've heard good things about?

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Some UK-filmed shows (like House of the Dragon and Industry) are keeping going through the SAG-AFTRA strike, because most of their cast aren't SAG members, and they were able to film scenes with American actors up-front.

I'm assuming actors like Diego Luna, Kyle Soller and Forest Whittaker are SAG members, but I don't think they would have been able to use the same tactic, because of the way they film in 3-episode blocks (with different directors), and how much their characters are interwoven with everyone else.

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