Star Wars ruined its reputation for 3 years and now Andor is one of the best series of the year

The implementation of a Star Wars real series seemed impossible for a long time. Even George Lucas, the creator of the star saga, failed with such a project. The Coruscant series planned in the late 2000s Star Wars: Underworld never saw the light of day. Too expensive. Too expensive. It wasn’t until a decade later that Lucasfilm reached the milestone that few dared believe. Appearance: The Mandalorian.

Where Lucas pushed the limits of his resources and traditional television, The Mandalorian found himself in one radically changed series landscape again. Buoyed by the power of streaming services, modern technology and the Baby Yoda hype, the space adventure morphed into a pop culture phenomenon and became Disney+’s flagship series. But then Star Wars stopped.

Andor finally shows what Star Wars can be as a series

As groundbreaking as The Mandalorian was in November 2019, three years later, the part of the Star Wars universe created by Jon Favreau has changed not further developed. From a cinematic as well as a narrative perspective, the Mando cosmos turns in circles. The low point was the extremely sloppily executed offshoot The Book by Boba Fett, which even rendered Luke Skywalker insignificant. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the most recent live-action series, also caused mixed reactions.

You can watch the trailer for Andor here:

A breath of fresh air was urgently needed. Now he comes from the project of all things laughed at for years became: Andor. Evolved from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the Star Wars series follows the backstory of Rebel Captain Cassian Andor – a name long forgotten by the general public.

After all the returning Star Wars characters of the past few years, Andor seemed like the most redundant. Twelve heart-pounding episodes later, however, there’s no doubt we’re dealing with the creative freedom blow of the franchise have to do. Showrunner Tony Gilroy (known for Michael Clayton and the early Bourne films, among others) has created a stunning series that expands on Star Wars while still standing on its own two feet.

Andor starts small and gets bigger with every scene

A Double Murder in the Dark marks the beginning of the best Star Wars series yet. Shortly thereafter, they escape through the pouring rain that covers Cassian Andor’s (Diego Luna) tracks. The story could end at this point, but Gilroy has created a character who is haunted by the event: Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), an inspector who works for the security company Preo-Morlana.

Syril shuffles files, studies notes, and is just as obsessed with detail as Gilroy’s writing team as they progress through three arcs to a phenomenal finale. Before we know it, the dark alley turns into a complex universe shaped by corporate structures and power imbalances. We witness constant ascents and descents here. Every detail is in motion.

We experience this on a small scale with Syril. Despite his enthusiasm for the Empire’s cause, he loses his job and literally descends into the depths of Coruscant. On the whole, we can understand the movement at the originally independent Preo Morlana group. After a failed mission, he becomes taken over by the Empire – just like numerous other planets.

The Empire has never been as threatening as in Andor

It doesn’t need the shadow of the Death Star to cast across the galaxy far, far away. Andor documents the creeping spread of fascism, until the moment comes when the Emperor simply takes as much power and control as he wants. Specifically, this is illustrated by the growing influence of the Imperial Security Agency – ISB for short.

Haggling and arguing about areas of responsibility in the ISB rooms. One word meets the other at the table with razor sharpness. Meanwhile, the real place of exchange in the galaxy: the Senate falls silent. Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) unsuccessfully appeals to reason. Every dialogue in Andor is a treat that sets the world and characters in relation and transports an ocean of information.

Entire narrative threads are turned upside down with just one sentence several times in Andor, but not in the sense of a lurid twist that turns the plot around. Rather, it is about inconspicuous sentences – such as the hint that a character can not swim – that tell us the fates of characters from a completely new perspective demonstrate. Andor is rich in attentive observations.

Andor shows living Star Wars worlds instead of cameos

Gilroy examines four places in particular: The dystopian Coruscant, which, with its concrete buildings and labyrinthine levels, approaches the sci-fi model Metropolis. The workers from the city divided into two classes later find themselves in the THX 1138 version of Star Wars when they are on the prison planet Narkina 5 tools of their own oppression assemble.

Even a planet dominated by nature like Aldhani suffers under the rule of the Empire. The locals are driven out with insidious methods, robbed of their history and tradition. The spark of rebellion, which every second of Andor is about to ignite, cannot suffocate the Empire. We have never experienced the view of the starry sky as glowing as on Aldhani.

And then there’s Ferrix, riddled with barren landscapes and where the remnants of the old war lie. A street is enough to junkyard of the galaxy to bring it alive, to give it a story of pain and suffering – but also to tell of the community that comes together and resists in the face of oppression.

Andor is the first Star Wars series masterpiece

Andor begins and ends on Ferrix. In between, Gilroy presents us with various theses on the nature of rebellion. However, they cannot be easily combined. Even hardcore rebels like Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) pursue different goals and resort to questionable methods. Nevertheless, the series ends in Ferrix on the Rix Road, where evil no longer just lingers as a guest. It’s here to stay.

At this point at the latest, Andor reveals itself as a masterfully written series. All events in the final for dramatic drop Andor has been carrying worries in the form of raw ideas since the first episode. On Aldhani, Coruscant and Narkina 5 they will be sharpened before we find ourselves back on Ferrix. Here we see crystal clear how the Empire is poisoning the galaxy.

From the ringing of bells to the alarming rattling to the Funeral march including brass band: The impact of Andor does not only result from outstanding screenplays. The experienced implementation of the material makes the presented destroyed worlds and ambivalent characters tangible. We have never experienced such a content, emotional and cinematic depth in any other Star Wars series.

Andor doesn’t need Luke Skywalker’s return, that’s how robust Gilroy’s series is built. Rich in themes and conflicts, sometimes shocking, sometimes poetic, especially with regard to the Tragedy of Cassian’s career. At the end of Rogue One he will die. We know this. And yet Andor is as exciting as if we were meeting the character for the first time. Hopefully Cassian never faces the Death Star directly.

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