Commentary: ‘Andor’ Success Highlights The Failure Of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’
by Frank Martin
When a franchise becomes as vast and expansive as Star Wars, the canon starts to provide new context for already-existing mythology. There are new details surrounding characters and events that shine a different light and allow fans to look at things from a new perspective. In terms of Andor, a big part of the series dealt with the construction of the Death Star, a weapon first shown in the very first Star Wars movie. However, focusing so heavily on the key item/location has further revealed a weakness in Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ plot.
Focusing on the theft of the Death Star plans began with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which featured on a band of Rebels risking their lives to find a weakness in the Empire’s ultimate weapon. Andor expanded upon the Death Star’s mythology by focusing on Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), a spymaster hellbent on learning the Empire’s secrets. Ruthless, Luthen stopped at nothing in order to learn the Empire’s endgame. He risked his life and the lives of others to accomplish this goal. In the end, he eventually learned of the Death Star’s existence by linking together seemingly unrelated events. It was impressive coordination on the Empire’s part to keep the Death Star secret, which Luthen ultimately uncovered.
There’s an aura around the Death Star. It was meant to be an unstoppable weapon that could destroy planets with ease. It was meant to be the Emperor’s strong fist he could use to rule the galaxy unchallenged. A lot of emphasis was placed on its destruction, but its construction was just as important. As seen in Andor, the Empire went to great lengths to hide the Death Star, and it was a massive feat of engineering to build it in secrecy. The Force Awakens upped the ante, though, by creating Starkiller Base, an even bigger super weapon that could be more devastating than the Death Star. By featuring Starkiller Base, the film minimizes the Death Star’s impact. But more than that, if the original required an unbelievable amount of coordination and secrecy to construct, it’s almost unfathomable to imagine the First Order doing the same for Starkiller Base, which could be considered a weak spot in The Force Awakens’s story.
Andor is now streaming on Disney+.