Quarantine Control #139: Roar of the Galaxy Unit

DC Staff | December 1, 2022 | Features, Technology, Television, Videogames | No Comments

Here’s a morbid thought: It will soon be three years since the COVID-19 pandemic started come March 2023, which will arrive before several realize it. An even more morbid thought is the number of people who still don’t know what the best response was to preventing the virus’ spread, a topic that’s returned to conversations thanks to China’s insane overreaction. There are still people who think the United States overreacted, despite the country having an underreaction with the high death number. This is perhaps the hallmark of a doomed society, in case you wanted a fun thought.

Joseph Daniels

It is now December in the Year of the Tiger, and we are getting close to the time of the year where, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, days grow short and nights stretch ever longer. If you’re far enough north, like North Pole north, the shortest day of the year lasts for only three hours and forty five minutes before the sun sets again.

Incidentally, this means that any North Pole set movie or television show that takes place during Christmas and shows a sunrise is likely taking place much later than the script intended. Our perception is that it’s somewhere around six or seven in the morning, but it’s closer to eleven in the morning instead.

One of my favourite things about winter is that, with all the snow on the ground, it makes the long night feel somehow less unfriendly. Everything’s brighter, and not just because of Christmas lights everyone puts up. There’s something nifty about having white snow on the ground instead of dark earth or darker asphalt. This is the time of year where nearly everyone is able to see as tigers do at night. Well, not quite as tigers do, but it always feels like there are less shadows to hide in during winter. The world is not as dark and bleak as it seems when you look out the window at night and everything seems to glow.

It’s the final month of 2022, but not quite the final month of the Year of the Tiger. Stay safe, everyone. Stay warm. And watch out for that icy patch.

Geoffrey Barnes

Andor (2022)
Source: Disney Plus
Episodes: 12

It was clear right from the first trailers that Andor would be a special show. The clips from them relayed how much higher the production values would be compared to other Star Wars shows, thanks to a heavier use of real sets, typically a good sign that the production team put serious effort into a specific work. It similarly helped that it was connected to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the most serious and, in my opinion, best Disney-produced Star Wars film. (The Last Jedi is an extremely close second, a movie harmed retroactively by its pitiful follow-up film.) That said, I still didn’t expect the resulting show to be this great. Incredible, even.

Andor begins five years before the start of Rogue One, and thus about five years before Star Wars: A New Hope. The titular Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) is a big focus, spotlighting his time before becoming a trusted member of the Rebel Alliance. Andor isn’t the entire focus, though. Several other rebels are fighting against the Empire with their own methods, with many of them not sure if they can trust those around them. Witness the early conversations between Andor and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), who make it very clear they’re skeptical as to whose methods are more just despite fighting for a similar cause. Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) is also a big focus, who fights despite the Galactic Senate being barely functional at this point (years before its official dissolution during A New Hope) and how it’s rupturing her family. The series spends its 12 episodes focusing on the buildup of the Rebel Alliance in the shadows of the Empire.

(“Shadows of the Empire,” by the way, would have been a more apt name for this show if it wasn’t already used. Real shame there.)

Andor is a complex show that finds opportunity to develop all its characters, including the rebels and the factions of the Empire. The themes it tackles, particularly those regarding how fascism works and how empires can oppress and rule over the people regardless of where they’re located in the galaxy, the incredible acting, and the direction that gives the character dialogue and action similar heft compared to other Star Wars works, shows how this is truly the first work in the franchise unabashedly for adults. It didn’t need the first use of the word “shit” in Star Wars (and how it could have been the first to drop the f-bomb) to prove that. There are points where it doesn’t feel like a Star Wars show, but that’s for the better.

It also looks damned good while it does it. As I alluded to in the lede, this show’s production values look far above the other Star Wars shows thanks to how it utilizes a lot of sets. It gives the show an HBO-level look and feel, evidence of how the producers took the aesthetic of Star Wars very seriously and wanted to get the cinematography just right. Both the storytelling and cinematography make the likes of The Book of Boba Fett and even Obi-Wan Kenobi look like amateurish efforts in comparison. It all wonderfully accompanies the show’s extremely British directorial style, aided by several British actors.

There isn’t much that I didn’t like about Andor, but one of the ways in which it differs from previous works is how the series is slower-paced compared to other Star Wars works. It’s not a flaw per se, but I’m glad it had a three-episode premiere to ensure that the show wouldn’t take too long to deliver on plot points being built up over the first two episodes, a trend that continues throughout the season. Andor shows how not every Star Wars show needs a constant amount of gun fights and especially lightsaber battles. It’s similarly interesting that Andor pretends that most aliens in the Star Wars universe simply don’t exist despite the overall stories taking place across various planets. Again, though, I don’t consider this a flaw; the rest of the show was so good that I didn’t care.

I think I’ve made it clear that Andor is a great show. I figured the battle for my show of the year would be between House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power before digging into them, but I never would have guessed that Andor would beat both. This show also proves that Rogue One, for as much as I enjoyed it, would have worked better as a TV series rather than a movie, though it’s not necessary for them to redo it. I sincerely hope that Disney and Lucasfilm learn the right lessons from this and realize why it worked so well, because the bar for quality Star Wars has been significantly raised. I feel a little sorry for the likes of The Mandalorian season 3, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, and more, and the announced and rumored movies that may or may not release, that they have to follow this up. Even if any of those go awry, there’s solace in how one more season of Andor is coming, which recently started filming.

Angela Moseley

I do have a buffer of content I’ve been working on for this column, but I’d like to deviate from that content for today.

I’d like to talk about the minor pain that was installing a new GPU or graphics card on Saturday. Remember last month’s Geek Babble where I talked about going to a Micro Center to pick one up? I knew I had about a month on the return policy to make sure I installed and tested the GPU. However, being busy most Saturdays and needing a functioning GPU on Sundays worked against me. I waited until a week before the return window closed to actually install the new card. I expected some problems and boy did I receive them.

First, it took forever to back up my important files to an external hard drive because the backup software decided to fight against me. After that, I realized I had been bad about moving saved Twitch VODs from my computer’s hard drive to a large external drive. I had told myself I’d make this transfer every time I started streaming a new game. I’d forgotten and hadn’t made this second separate backup since the end of March. Needless to say, even with USB 3.0 it took nearly an hour to transfer 340 GB worth of video. Once that was done, it was time to uninstall the drivers from the old video card. Even though I was going from one AMD card (an RX 580) to another (the RX 6650 XT), it is always best to remove software and drivers.

With the software taken care of, it was time to swap the hardware. The old graphics card was easy enough to remove. The new card was a physical pain in the ass to install. It didn’t help that this time around I’d be working on the floor versus a table when I initially built my PC in 2019. The card also required me to free the extra plugs on my power supply that had been tied down because they previously weren’t in use. Once the card was in and powered, I discovered new, strange problems.

First, my monitors weren’t recognized at all. The unhelpful error message “input not supported” greeted me. This happened on my monitor using an HDMI to DisplayPort adapter, though it worked fine with the previous graphics card. On the HDMI-only monitor, the screen remained black until Windows loaded. This actually locked me out of going into safe mode or accessing my motherboard’s BIOS. Spoiler: I still haven’t fixed the issue. My work-around for getting into the BIOS is by using my regular TV as a third monitor (I had intended this for gaming). The TV doesn’t have the same issue. I learned it seems to be an issue with some graphics cards and Acer monitors. As for the black screen, I’ll live with it since both monitors do turn on once Windows is loaded.

Second, I had the presence of mind to test OBS and my capture card. It’s a good thing I did. If I had decided to wait until Sunday, there would have been a good chance of having to cancel my livestream. My system refused to recognize the internal capture card. I eventually learned I could try to solve this problem by either updating the motherboard’s BIOS or physically moving my card to another PCIe slot. Considering the issue with my monitors and having to use a 40-inch TV just to get to BIOS, I opted for psychically moving the capture card. I don’t know how, but it worked. Good enough for me. After a few setting changes in OBS, I was back in business. Though, there was an observation about the audio and the video being slightly out of sync on Sunday’s stream. I don’t know how to fix it or even if it’s a big deal. I couldn’t detect the problem when rewatching my VODs as I prepared them for YouTube uploads.

The only part of the GPU that worked as intended was gaming, amusingly enough. I had no problem running Persona 5 Strikers. Though I haven’t had much time to game, so I don’t know if I’ll run into issues later. Video playback also seems fine. Fortunately, there were no problems running and streaming via OBS either. In a purely cosmetic win, I did find and download the software that controls the RGB lighting of the GPU. I opted for a nice purple over the bright red that was the default color. So other than weird issues, this GPU upgrade was a success.

I’ll still be holding on to my old card, just in case.

It’s getting a little difficult to keep track of all the illnesses swirling around these days. It would be nice if most people knew when it was responsibly safe to visit relatives for the holidays or not, but we, as a society, are still debating whether a country that had a staggering COVID-19 death rate nonetheless went too far in protecting people. That’s depressing, so it’s time to stop. See you all next week.

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