#like mon mothma and cassian barely interact with each other in rogue one

[antianakin]

So I went back and watched Rogue One the day after Andor season 2 ended, and what was interesting is that I don't think anything's actually changed for me about it just because of Andor.

I liked Andor, quite a lot, despite my criticisms of season 2, I actually do really like the show in general and there's so much about it that is so intensely compelling.

But I chose to start watching Andor long before the wonderful reviews started coming out because I already liked both Rogue One and Cassian as a character. I was a big Rebelcaptain shipper after Rogue One, and I generally consider Rogue One to be my favorite Star Wars film and had seen it more than once before Andor was released.

And so regardless of how much I like Andor, it doesn't really have any major impact on the feelings I already had for Rogue One. It can't really make me like the character or the film all that much more than I already did. Rogue One existed for years before Andor, it was my favorite Star Wars film without any of the extra context that Andor provided, so it doesn't NEED Andor or its context or its narrative to make me feel a lot of emotions about it. It's also already a tragedy that, in part, banks quite a lot on you knowing that these characters don't die for nothing and that their sacrifices ultimately do lead to the downfall of the Empire and the destruction of the Death Star.

They win. They don't get to see it, but they win. THAT'S where the emotion of the film already comes from, and we have just enough information about everyone in that main group to really feel that (we know what the cause means for Cassian, we know he's "lost everything", we know he feels like he's been fighting since he was a very young child, we know that Bodhi was convinced to turn against the Empire and "do right by himself" and chose to be brave even if it took his life, we know that Baze and Chirrut had to watch everything they'd dedicated their life to be destroyed and figure out how to exist in that world afterward, we know what Jyn lost and how she was abandoned by the person who was supposed to care for her).

So, yeah, I don't know, I don't think my understanding of Rogue One has really changed, the way I feel about it and its characters hasn't really changed. Many of my feelings about Andor DID come from how I felt about Rogue One, but Rogue One came first and so those feelings exist independently of what I feel about Andor, whereas Andor for me has never existed without Rogue One and so a lot of the feelings I have about it ARE tied up in what I feel about the movie.