I'm hoping that, among other things, being farther out from COVID and with showrunners generally having a better understanding of the limitations of Volume-like digital sets, that S2 will feel, just... bigger. It was pretty mid (and I use that term in the "traditional" sense... I liked it but never fell in love with it), but one of the issues was how they were galivanting across multiple galaxies just to constantly constantly find themselves moving within 25m^2^ spaces with 2-5 other people, even when "outside." Kenobi was a far worse offender on this front, but Ahsoka was rough too.

[–] Yorick@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

That's mostly due to the Volume setup they use, to film without green screen, in some/most scenes.

You can clearly see it in kenobi, I guess in Mandalorian Season 1 it wasn't that noticeable because it was brand new.

And that's why Andor feels so much larger and grounded, a lot of on-location shooting, with classic green screens for ships cockpit and others.

Edit: and I re-read your post only now to notice you already talked about the Volume... I need to get a nap

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

No worries! Also, Mando S1 maybe gets more of a pass (I need to go back and re-watch) because I feel like, oddly enough, they used it much more effectively, maybe because they were scared it would just look awful. You have a single main character (or said character and a tiny puppet) often trekking through open but desolate spaces, or to move against a background. It ended up looking quite good, but I think that initial success, combined with Covid rules, it emboldened them to try far too much with it.

For me the peak awfulness is when they tried to cram the entire Kenobi hangar scene into it, with no physical room to allow for suspension of disbelief that their stupid disguise could have worked for even a moment, leading to a terribly blocked action sequence, and culminating in oddly misshapen and undersized snow/air speeders statically hanging in the air while poor Moses Ingram stands there waving her lightstick at nothing.

Ahsoka is a little less egregious, but the dual in the circle felt... artificial and just a little wrong. None of the wasteland scenes out in Far Rockaway or wherever it was at the end of the Space Whale Subway had any cinematic openness to them either. Whether it was the Volume or not, the stairway trooper fight also felt like it had no physical scope. Andor indeed used its budget much better to get a cinematic feel, even while telling a tighter story that ironically probably could have tolerated more Volume use, though it still would have hurt the show.