Andor (Star Wars: Andor): Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – Some of the best Star Wars I have seen since the original trilogy.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a Post-Credit scene at the end of Rix Road.

A star destroyer a[[ears over the skies of Aldhani

Andor Review

When I heard that they would do a prequel to Rogue One, which was already a prequel to the Original Trilogy, I was concerned. Add to that, it was going to be based on Andor, a character I wouldn’t say I liked all that much in Rogue One, and concern moved to real hesitancy. However, when I sat down to watch the first episode, Kassa, I knew instantly how wrong I was and what a ride it was.  

So to set the scene, on a dark and rainy night, we see Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) make his way across a boardwalk to the glittering city Morlana One, part of the Preox-Morlana Corporate Zone in the Morlani system. He is going to the ‘leisure district’ to find out any information about his missing sister when two local security forces or Corpos accost him. Taking his leave, Andor returns to his ship when the two Corpos accost him again, not willing to leave him alone. But this time, there are lethal consequences. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.   

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Escape From Pretoria – Movie Review

TL;DR – A exploration of tension when one wrong step can be fatal.    

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Escape From Pretoria. Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

Review

One of the things I like the most about cinema is when they let me know of stories that I have previously been unaware of. As well as this, I have seen a lot of prison break films in my time, some fictional, some real, some ‘we think this is how they did it’, and I have always found them fascinating. Well, today we get to explore both of these with Escape From Pretoria.

So to set the scene, we open in the heart of apartheid South Africa with accrual footage of the time. It is here where we are introduced to Tim Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) who work setting up leaflet bombs for the African National Congress or ANC. One day after a successful campaign, they are captured by the police and sentenced to twelve and eight years in the all-white political prisoner’s prison in Pretoria. While in Pretoria jail they meet Denis Goldberg (Ian Hart) who was put on trial with Nelson Mandela and fellow prisoner Leonard Fontaine (Mark Leonard Winter). They dream of escaping, but how do you do that when you are locked behind several feet of steel?    

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