Andor: Star Wars FINALLY Grows Up!

Andor picks up where the best of Star Wars left off. This writer will put Rogue One as the 2nd best Star Wars, the best Star Wars being The Empire Strikes Back. Please use the comment section below to voice your displeasure or agreement. Star Wars at its core is a fantasy story for all ages. In its most profitable forms, it is geared towards 10-12-year-olds but has been able to find its way into the hearts of older people. It doesn't go into great emotional or political depth. The prequel trilogy made a stab at telling the political angle of the story,

Critics would deride these scenes as slowing down the movie. In The Phantom Menace, this scene, is awkward in a movie that is otherwise punctuated with Jar Jar Binks falling over stuff and a prepubescent destroying a starship the size of Manhattan. Scenes like these have found a home in Andor. While the prequel trilogy flirted clumsily with this sort of sophistication, Rogue One got its feet wet, and Andor dives headfirst into the deep end. The greatest folly of the prequels is that it ends, somehow, on a high note with the birth of Luke and Leia. It doesn't delve into the pain and tragedy of the main characters fighting and winning a war, but losing everything. Andor and Obi-Wan get into the pain of that. If Star Wars was going to meet up with The Wire, it would be in the shape of Andor. Andor is the story of a clumsy, yet brutal bureaucratic system attempting to mercilessly squash a movement in the most inefficient way possible. THE EDGE With a total of 12 episodes in the first season, Andor is a slow burn, much slower than we are used to in the Star Wars Universe. Andor tells the story of not only the journey of the title character and others, but it undertakes a study of the banality of evil. A much more sophisticated story than any other in the Star Wars aside from the last season of Clone Wars. We see the world go from a tolerated corporate fascist state with sprawling hints of rebellion, to a galaxy under the jackboot of a centralized autocracy and organized insurrection beginning to form. Every rebellious act that the protagonists take leads to the misery and loss of individual freedom by in society as a whole. This leads to the cost, which is best outlined in this scene between Rebel leader Luthan Rael and his double agent inside Imperial Security:

If you were a Star Wars fan from the very beginning, you are in your 50s by now. Andor presents Star Wars for grownups. Which is the best, and probably the worst thing about it. Andor doesn’t lend itself to other products in the market the way the rest of the franchise does. You are unlikely to see many children running around with a Luthan Rael action figure. Andor does not have the over-arching happy-go-lucky broad appeal that the rest of Star Wars does. Andor does not seek to appeal to children, this could lead to it’s premature demise, despite its greatness. THE LOWDOWN Andor was shot in the UK which is nice. Unlike us masochists in North America, they don’t usually aim for 14-hour minimums in their working days. Don’t get me wrong, there are some big scenes here that would have called for some long hours, but generally speaking, they don’t put in the same hours as we do here. As an Assistant Director working on the floor. I would love to have worked on the Narkina prison scenes. Working with large numbers of extras is always challenging, but when you have roles as specific as these BG players have, it’s easier and frankly more fun to build the action. If you’re shooting a scene in a restaurant, office or another familiar location it can get so boring. When you get to build a scene where the players get to join in on the action of the protagonist, it’s very special and doesn’t happen every day.

The downside of these scenes, however, is that the outfits they are wearing are super uncomfortable. After a while, that would wear down the players. THE JIST Andor might be the best of Star Wars, it may even edge out Rogue One and Empire Strikes Back. But it’s dark and brooding motifs could also spell it’s downfall. Streamers from large corporate entities are cutting shows like it’s going out of style at this moment in history. Shows that buck trends like Andor might not last, we should enjoy this one while we can. George Lucas explained it years ago: