‘Star Wars’ Month — Why ‘Andor’ Is Some Of The Best The Franchise Has To Offer

Star Wars has existed across various media incarnations through the decades, many offering different versions of the franchise’s simple theme. Good versus evil, often with a chosen one or chosen heroes at the core, centered around fights against fascist forces who represent the darkness.

Jedi and Sith, with lots of lightsabers and Force powers, tends to be the default for most things Star Wars. For good or ill, depending on your personal feelings and the mileage that the concept appears to have.

One of the best pieces of Star Wars media though, leaves many of those trappings behind. Yes, I’m here to speak about why Andor (also known as Star Wars: Andor or Andor: A Star Wars Story) is one of the greatest things to come from a galaxy far, far away.

Look, I love me some lightsabers and wildly changing Force power sets. I grew up on that stuff, both the films and shows but also devouring the former expanded universe set of books. One of my favorite novels, from the Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights series, is called Lightsabers.

Alongside all that though is usually very special characters who are heroes in the galaxy headlining a thriving rebellion or New Republic. They’re swishing around fighting the good fight because they were chosen by destiny or the Force or whatever else. In the background are all the people doing the grunt work that keeps the Rebellion running.

We see some of that in shows like Star Wars: Rebels where we follow the early cells of the Rebellion forming against the Empire. Andor takes so many more steps forward. It casts aside any of the laser swords or destined heroes and showcases something more raw and all too familiar in history and the present — regular people under the boot of fascism trying to survive and trying to make a difference.

Some of them fighting hard from the shadows, others in the system trying to change it from within, and others who didn’t even want to be part of the fight at all.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story began the thread in live action of showing us the people that did all the hard work that the big heroes were able to stand upon. Not that Luke (Mark Hamill), Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Han (Harrison Ford) didn’t do difficult things. They were heroes in their own right, but the way the films framed things they were standing upon the work of others who went unseen.

Through Andor and Rogue One we got to see those people and the sacrifices they made. Some of them with their own blood and lives.

“What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!”

Those words are spoken by Luthen Rael, played magnificently by Stellan Skarsgård, in a larger monologue from Andor’s first season. It puts into light the sacrifices that himself and his spy Lonni Jung (Robert Emms) are making to give the Rebellion life.

This is where Andor as a series truly excels. Every character, no mater how small or large in the narrative, has depth and development and purpose to them. Whether we see them for a bit of one episode or they play a throughline from start to finish, they are compelling and real in every aspect. It allows us to root for, hate, cry for, and mourn them all respectively in different ways.

In the same episode featuring that Rael quote, there is a whole monologue from Kino Loy played by Andy Serkis. Imprisoned alongside the series lead Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Loy is given a pivotal moment to stir up the rebellion of prisoners as they attempt an escape. While playing Supreme Leader Snoke in the sequel films first brought him to the franchise, it is Loy that allowed Serkis to be at his most actor gloriousness. It reminds us of those wonderful Planet of the Apes films that he dominated and brought dense emotion to.

We only knew Loy for a few episodes, his ultimate fate unknown, but those moments resonated. The words “One way out” rang across social media and beyond for some time.

So did the words from the manifesto of one Karis Nemik (Alex Lawther), speaking of how brittle and fragile tyranny is. Why it’s so easy to break. Not through massive moves but through small cuts that eventually send everything tumbling down.

These are the moments we see in this series. The series of a thousand paper cuts that one day allow the heroes of the Rebellion to strike the blow that leaves the Empire reeling. Of the destruction of the first, and then the second Death Stars. Without the work that Andor, Rael, Nemik, Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau), Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay), Wilmon (Muhannad Ben Amor), and so many more those triumphant moments which sent fascism into the pit might never have occurred.

Tony Gilroy, the mind behind Andor, and much of Rogue One, speaks openly about not being a Star Wars fan. While some would think that’s a poor fit, it’s actually a perfect fit. There is something compelling about a person having a vision within a sphere they are not a devoted fan and executing that vision. Touching on the world itself without binding themselves to the world for Easter eggs or hitting extreme fan service levels.

I’m not saying that others who are fans always do that while creating in these franchise spaces. Some really do and others are compelled by a corporate voice that wants to play in those waters. Sometimes tapping people that are not in enamored love with something is the best move possible.

With Andor, and the tight 24 episodes it lasted, this was absolutely the case.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and I respect that, but there is little denying the impact and importance that Andor has on the franchise. Showing that there are ways to play in the sandbox without the usual trappings and all too familiar faces. There is a way to really put the reality of war into the War part of the series title. The Ghorman episodes of season 2 are some of the most chilling Star Wars things I’ve ever seen, and it still resonates to this day.

Don’t mind me, I’m about to go watch clips of the bad ass posthumous speech of Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw) about waking up early and “fighting these bastards from the start.” We’re waking up, all around, and these beautifully crafted fiction moments are becoming far too real.