Andor finds new things to see in the Star Wars universe, even while covering familiar ground
We know how Cassian Andor’s Star Wars story ends, but that doesn't mean his beginning isn't worth watching closely
TV Features Star Wars
When Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor first appears in Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, he’s speaking with an informant who tells him that the Empire is making some kind of weapon that can destroy planets. When the informant’s erratic behavior attracts the attention of Stormtroopers, Cassian shoots them … and then the informant. It’s an explicit “Han shot first”-type moment to quickly let the audience in on what kind of man Cassian Andor is: the kind of who is so ruthlessly devoted to his cause—the nascent Rebel Alliance—that he’ll kill for it. The rest of the movie, thanks to the begrudging optimism of Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso, is partially about him breaking down his shell and becoming someone who won’t just kill for what he believes in but will die for it as well.
It’s arguably as complete and well-realized an arc as any Star Wars character has ever had, save for Darth Vader, so it seemed a little puzzling when Lucasfilm announced that it was working on a Rogue One prequel for Disney+ that would be all about Cassian and his transformation from “a self-serving nihilist into a selfless martyr.” Diego Luna is great, and Cassian is a cool guy, but that’s literally his storyline in the movie. Would the show just be about Cassian becoming the guy we always knew he was? And wouldn’t that just end up being as much of a waste of time as The Book Of Boba Fett?
Well, credit goes to Lucasfilm and Andor creator (plus Rogue One screenplay writer) Tony Gilroy for outsmarting us: The show may be about Cassian becoming a selfless martyr in the macro sense, but it’s about more than that. Five episodes in, it’s also about Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) secretly supporting the Rebellion while dealing with her Thrombey-ass husband; it’s about Stellan Skarsgård’s suspiciously well-connected insurgency expert Luthen; and it’s about a supreme Imperial dorkus named Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) who is definitely going to become A Problem sooner or later.
Multiple compelling journeys
Cassian may be the titular character, and he’s an engaging presence, but this journey he’s going on will probably be the least compelling one in Andor. Meanwhile, we’ve seen Imperial stooges in Star Wars before (Ben Mendelsohn’s Director Krennic from Rogue One seems like an obvious inspiration), but nobody who is both completely full of himself and completely a nobody like Syril. And this being a prequel, he likely doesn’t stand a chance of making it out of this series intact.
Similarly, Luthen is so competent and careful that it seems like he can handle himself, but we know where even the most competent and careful mentor-types in Star Wars tend to end up (with the blade of a red lightsaber somewhere where a lightsaber is not supposed to be). Is there more going on with him than we know about? Given how quickly he can switch between “jovial antique dealer” and “hardline insurgent,” the answer is probably “probably.”
But Andor’s real secret weapon seems to be Mon Mothma and the ragtag Rebels that Cassian is working with. Mothma is the only person in the show so far who is actually in George Lucas’ original trilogy, but to call her a “character” in those movies is overselling it. She’s only slightly more of a character than the wolfman in the Mos Eisley Cantina in those movies, but we know she’s an important figure in the Rebel Alliance who gets a slightly meatier role in Rogue One and survives through to the end of the original trilogy (at least!), which means Andor can actually do or say something with her that it might not necessarily be able to do with even Cassian himself.
These Rebels come with backstories
The other Rebels also present an opportunity to do something interesting. Led by Faye Marsay’s Vel, the team all have their own backstories and personalities, perfect for a complex heist mission and perfect for making you feel bad if/when they all get slaughtered. That would, again, be treading similar ground as Rogue One, but the more low-key nature of Andor’s team versus the more dramatic action-hero status of Rogue One’s doomed Rebels (A cool robot! A guy with a big gun! A blind warrior monk!) feels like an expansion of what the movie was going for rather than simply doing it again. Maybe if Ebon Moss-Bachrach were playing somebody cooler than the sad brother of a dead farmer, but the Rebel Alliance hasn’t made enough of a foothold in the galaxy to attract that kind of toy-worthy Star Wars character type yet.
There’s still time for Andor to lose its way and fall into the trap of repeating the already somewhat-barebones beats of Rogue One, or to have Cassian’s character go through too much growth and undo the arc he goes through in the movie, but—at the very least—the first half of its season hasn’t been as much of a slog or an eventual waste of time as … other Star Wars TV shows featuring characters from the movies. If nothing else, it has already introduced us to a larger variety of Star Wars characters who respond to the rise of Imperial fascism in different ways: Some choose to live in a picturesque valley and plan elaborate heists; others become total losers who suck.
26 Comments
Much of the reason it is better than Boba Fett is that Diego Luna is a better actor then Temuera Morrison. Or, at least, that they aren’t asking him to do things that he clearly can’t do anymore.
I really don’t know that I agree with that. Temuera Morrison had basically nothing to work with in Boba Fett; it’s tough for an actor to believably sell a character whose actions are completely nonsensical. I understand why Andor is looking for his sister, wants to live, needs money, and doesn’t really like the Empire; I do not understand why Fett wants to be a crime boss that doesn’t do any crime, doesn’t hire any muscle besides people he randomly runs into on the street, and then lets practically all of those random people he met on the street tell him what to do. Well, I do understand it, it’s because some Disney exec said “Crime bosses are cool like bounty hunters, but doing actual crimes would make the character unlikeable, so he can’t actually do any crime.” I mean yeah, he’s not as young as he used to be, and I don’t recall seeing him in much else, but I thought he did pretty well considering that the script was just incredibly bad.
“Crime bosses are cool like bounty hunters, but doing actual crimes would make the character unlikeable, so he can’t actually do any crime.”You literally see him running a protection racket.
Except he doesn’t since he attempts to refuse the monetary tribute that the purpose of the racket is to collect, never authorizes violence against people, and seems to think it’s his job to actually provide protection (whereas a racket provides no protection and actively assaults its “customers.”)
He’s not a crime boss, he’s trying to be a daimyo – a leader – who is not corrupt in the way the Fetts were.
I think you meant the Hutts.
D’oh! I did mean the Hutts. Is there any way I can blame this on autocorrect?
I remember back in The Dark Ages of elementary school, when I first read Romeo and Juliet, that my English teacher’s first words about it were this: “You will find out everything that happens in the story in the first couple of paragraphs. The point is the story, not the ending.”That was over forty years ago and I still remember that moment vividly. I remember it every time someone bitches about prequels. Not to say that prequels are thus automatically good – the Star Wars prequel movies generally suck, while The Clone Wars ran inconsistently between great and mediocre, for instance. But goddamn, Andor has been one of the best prequel series I’ve seen, not just in Star Wars but generally. I’m really enjoying the ride.
I think the aspect of Andor I appreciate most is how it repudiates the depiction of “evil” that has dominated Star Wars in both the prequel- and sequel-era films. Any shot at drama in those six movies was undone by bad guys that amounted to Saturday morning cartoon characters that had no motivation to be evil other than simply enjoying being evil so much.Andor eschews that version of villainy in favor of an insidiousness wrapped in endless bureaucracy and corruption. The first big bad of the series wasn’t a faceless goon squad blindly following the orders of an evil space wizard, but rather middle managers skimming a little off the top at every in a corporate hierarchy. It’s like what Joel Hodgson says in Mystery Science Theater 3000, “Hell works better when it’s a lot more subtle.”Similarly, the good guys all have their own motivations instead of being cardboard cutout Lovers of Freedom and Niceness that monologue about hope and family. In the tiny Aldhani cell alone, you’ve got motivations ranging from idealism (Nemik) to vengeance (Skeen) to hired gun (Cassian), each carrying their own strengths and weaknesses.At the most basic level, what separates Andor from The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi and the second season of The Mandalorian is the effort. It’s not a lazy show that coasts on knowing a few million people will watch every week just because it’s the latest iteration of More of That Thing You Like.It’s all of that work that creates not only believable characters, but a believable motivation for why a galaxy would want to rebel against the Empire that makes Andor a story worth telling, even if we know the ultimate outcome.
Wow, you’re laziness comment is so spot on. Especially with Favreau’s shows, Mando and BOBF. They’re just an endless parade of diminishing return references meant to tickle the nostalgia bone while offering almost nothing that is new and novel, let along challenging or thoughtful. Andor is infinitely better on every level.
So far it’s been okay. Slow-slow-action-slow-slow-action… But I don’t exactly understand all the praise it’s getting.At least we don’t have Taika Waititi and Robert Rodriguez directing. Thank the Maker!
Because you choose your favorite characters & storylines and bide your time through the others, the broken-code name of the series is really “And/or”.
“AND OR “ always reminds me of logic gates .There’s also NAND gates and NAND/OR which would probably involve vampires.
But not you Nemik.
I feel a mention is deserved for Dedra Meero – the imperial intelligence officer who is piecing together evidence of the existence of coordinated rebel activities – along with her colleagues. They’re essentially the Empire’s Gestapo and as the series seems to be taking its inspiration from WW2 spy thrillers, they’re probably going to be playing a bigger and more important part as we go on.
I really enjoy amoral star wars. It’s almost as if they’re creating it for people who enjoy actual, real storylines.
Not sure I’ll say it’s a great show, but it’s definitely better than any Star Wars media I’ve seen in quite some time. And I’m certainly enjoying it far more than Rings of Power! I’m genuinely excited to watch each new episode and really luxuriating in the slow build, well-crafted character building and engaging story. A well-written show. Who would have thought it could be this magical?? I’m even sympathizing with the “villains”! Absolutely love it and remarked to my sister how amused I was at the relatability of the office politics going on in the imperial ranks. And the Mon Mothma stuff is layered and intriguing (and beautifully shot!). I’m not entirely sure where this show is going and if it’s going to be one that will stick the landing, but I’m certainly enjoying the journey for now. Not a show I was expecting to enjoy, yet it’s my favourite of any genre show I’ve watched for a long time.
They should do a show about the Imperial Inspectorate. Have Inspector Tanoth be the boss and introduce characters like Magna Tolvan before she meets Aphra.
Not everything has to be shown from the side of the Rebels. What about those Imperials who believe that the Empire is a good thing and actually want to serve the Galaxy by bringing order to chaos.
No.
Yes.
Well your argument was very persuasive.
There’s a school of thought nowadays that says , “oh the Empire are basically Space Nazis, and therefore anything other than portraying them as one dimensional moustache twirling bad guys equates to trumplike “fine people on both sides” thinking..”Which is bullshit , forgetting about it from a writing point of view* , from an ethics point of view , evil organisations/movements were mostly made up of people who saw themselves as good people, so assuming that only monsters are capable of evil doesn’t allow for the idea that good people can be swayed to do horrible things, and think its the right thing to do which means its harder to guard against it . Theres a quote from Terry Pratchett’s novel Small Gods thats sums this up better than I can Early in the book Pratchett offers a scene in which he describes the palace cellar where Vorbis’s *((an evil ‘Spanish Inquisition style leader ) orders for torture are carried out by a group of men called inquisitors.
There are many aspects of their workspace that are like the those of pretty much most clusters of employees:“The mugs, for example. The inquisitors stopped work twice a day for coffee. Their mugs, which each man had brought from home, were grouped around the kettle on the hearth of the central furnace which incidentally heated the irons and knives.They had legends on them like A Present from the Holy Grotto of Ossory, or To the World’s Greatest Daddy. Most of them were chipped, and no two of them were the same.There were postcards on the wall and a letter from a former co-worker, giving thanks for the great retirement party his friends threw for him.And it all meant this: that there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”______________________
*(from a writing perspective ,fleshing out the ‘bad’ guys as actual people can be a goldmine of ideas)** (if you’ve used an Ogg audio file , those were named Ogg Vorbis after this actual character , and another of Pratchetts :Nanny Ogg***)***(reading Terry Pratchett books infected me with the need for footnotes , just like these)
Maybe if Ebon Moss-Bachrach were playing somebody cooler than the sad brother of a dead farmer, You….probably haven’t seen the new episode then…
At the very least the reviewer turned it off before the last 5 minutes
Barsanti is so lazy he couldn’t be bothered to build a time machine so he could include references to an episode that’s half a day away from being released.
This show is so damn good Favreau and Abrams should feel nothing but embarrassment and shame over their contributions to the SW franchise.