56 minutes
THERE is little denying the polarity of reception for the resurgence of Star Wars on the silver screen ever since the ‘Sequel Trilogy’ began with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Each subsequent film seems to be received worse than the one before it, particularly by fans.
However, on the television front, Stars Wars media has been thriving with each new release.
The Mandalorian came a month before the Sequel Trilogy’s finale The Rise of Skywalker in the back-end of 2019, and continued to eclipse the latter in terms of popularity with fans and critics.
Spinning off from it, The Book of Boba Fett was released, and most recently, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Just as how the other Disney+ Star Wars series differentiated themselves from the films, either thematically, through direction or writing, so did Andor.
However, unlike the previous series, Andor succeeds as a story within the Star Wars live action universe without a single Jedi, Sith or lightsaber making an appearance, making this all the more impressive.
A larger rebel backdrop
Set five years before the depressing events of 2016’s Rogue One: A Stars Wars Story and the original Star Wars from 1977, Andor is centred on Rogue One’s Cassian Andor (Diego Luna).
The first season reveals the beginning of Cassian’s life as he goes from being a lowly thief to being embroiled in what would become the Rebel Alliance.
As the series wouldn’t be able to float purely on Cassian’s story, Andor showrunner and creator Tony Gilroy smartly weaves in the stories of other major characters that would play important roles in the rebel formation with Luthen Rael/Axis (Stellan Skarsgard) and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly).
And like mentioned earlier, the Siths aren’t present, but the Galactic Empire does, and in Andor, the series antagonists are in the form of Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and Syril Karn (Kyle Soiler). Each are hunting “Axis” and Cassian for their own reasons.
Andor’s larger cast of supporting characters form the rest of the ensemble, and its impressive just how much Gilroy is able to do within the series’ 12 episodes.
On Cassian and Rael’s plotline, Andor is focused on the intrigue and action Star Wars is known for, and on Rael and Mothma’s side of the story, Andor effectively pivots into espionage and political intrigue.
Maturity beyond the norm
The shades of politics and morality in Andor is what truly sets it apart from the rest of Star Wars’ live action media.
Anyone who has enjoyed the storytelling within the Matt Damon-led Bourne trilogy which Gilroy wrote will like what he does with Andor, which also fills in a major part of what was lacking in the franchise; the lack of not clunky, mature dialogue.
Case in point; Andor’s 10th episode, “One Way Out” features two amazing monologues by Rael and Kino Loy (Andy Serkis), separately.
One is seethed in venomous, all-or-nothing anarchism against an authoritarian dictatorship, and the other is a desperate call-to-arms for unified liberation.
Both eclipse almost every other line ever said in any live-action Star Wars film or series.
That said, anything good that Gilroy and Andor’s writers room churns out would instantly fall apart if the performances are not up to par, which thankfully, is not the case with the series’ exceptional casting.
After being underutilised in Rogue One, Diego Luna turned in a career-high, powerhouse performance in Narcos: Mexico as the drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo.
In Andor as its lead character, Luna would employ the same amount of gravitas and performative selfishness as the somewhat morally-grey Cassian.
There is no denying the character’s heroic actions in Rogue One, but the Cassian in Andor is very different from who he would eventually become.
Who knew Luna’s casting six years ago would pay off this way?
Though the inevitable is coming for Cassian and the other characters with the second season currently filming, it’s impressive the interest and reception the first season of Andor has generated in regards to where it is headed.
Andor is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
