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Andor: A Star Wars Story - Part I

The original 1977 Star Wars' famous opening crawl begins with the following text:

"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet."

Said text served as the inspiration for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Disney and Lucasfilm's direct prequel to Star Wars, complete with a gritter tone and visual aesthetic that resembled a science fiction war movie and relied on more practical effects and sets while attempting to break new ground with computer-generated de-aging effects (with mixed results) to resurrect legacy characters like Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia (originally played by the late Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher, respectively).


Speaking of legacy characters, Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones and performed by Spencer Wilding) returns, and with an incredible lightsaber fight at the end, along with iconic robot sidekicks C-3PO (played by Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (performed by Jimmy Vee), who make brief but shoehorned cameo appearances. That being said, there are a few ingenious uses of fan service to immerse the vast worldbuilding further, like repurposing previously unused stock footage and audio from Star Wars of supporting legacy characters like Gold Leader Dutch Vander and Red Leader Garven Dreis (played by Angus MacInnes and Drewe Henley, respectively) for use during the movie's climactic battle.


However, my primary criticism of this movie is that save for Felicity Jones' character of Jyn Erso; I didn't find myself emotionally invested in the rest of the ensemble cast of characters within the Rebel Alliance. The only other character with any hint of a tangible backstory (delivered through a single line of dialogue) was the Rogue One leader and Rebel Alliance intelligence officer, Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna), who, according to him, had been in the fight against the Empire since he was six years old. That is where Andor (2022) comes in. As usual, spoilers will be discussed here, so with that out of the way, on with the review and analysis.


Season One of the Disney+ series Andor follows, throughout twelve episodes, the titular character five years before the events of Rogue One, beginning from his days as a thief from the home planet of Kenari to his eventual rise as a prominent leader in the fight against the Galactic Empire and all that it stands for.


The performances in this series are excellent, starting with its lead. Luna shines as Cassian Andor, for the audience gets to witness his growth from a self-preserving thief and scavenger to a selfless and born leader of the Rebel Alliance. His backstory of being a child from a tribal village named Kassa, who witnesses an Imperial ship crashing on his home planet with his younger sister, Kerri (played by Belle Swarc), before being rescued from Imperial troops and subsequently adopted by Maarva (played by Fiona Shaw) and her partner, Clem (played by Gary Beadle), is a heartwrenching one, for Cassian spends time throughout the first half of this season searching for the whereabouts of his sister, whom he got separated from after witnessing the downed Imperial ship as a child when the chances of him finding her again appear slim. Cassian is, at his core, a good-hearted man but is constantly thrown curveballs in the form of getting snitched on and caught by the authorities, resulting in him having to either remain on the run or team up with unlikely allies. More on that later.


While this series is essentially a prequel to a prequel, the actors never dumb themselves down to accommodate the younger viewers, given Star Wars' longevity and broad appeal across generations. Such standouts include Shaw, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O'Reilly, Andy Serkis, Kyle Soller, and Denise Gough. Character-wise, Andor has some of the best-written and developed characters from a live-action Disney-era Star Wars project in both the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, from Maarva, Rebel Alliance member Luthen Rael (Skarsgård), Imperial Senator Mon Mothma (O'Reilly), and the prison floor manager Kino Loy (Serkis), to local deputy inspector of security Syril Karn (Soller) and Imperial Security Bureau supervisor Dedra Meero (played by Denise Gough).


Maarva is the emotional heartbeat of the series, for even in the face of her ailing health, she finds a new life purpose by quietly joining the Rebellion and gives the best and most powerful speech in the series so far via hologram in the season finale. The fact that it resonates incredibly well with the audience for its inspiring and passionate call to action against the Empire speaks to the sad but brutal truth about how, repeatedly, ordinary people find themselves forced to rise to the occasion to stand up to oppressive regimes and totalitarianism.


Luthen Rael's double life as a fully committed member of the more militant side of the Rebellion and his public persona as an antique dealer who interacts with and shares information with sympathetic politicians like Mon Mothma, is a morally compelling one, for he, at one point, admits that while his methods are considered extreme, he is fighting for a future that he may ultimately not live to see. Also, the shared interactions between Cassian and a small battalion of rebels assigned to pull off a heist of Imperial payroll from a highly-guarded supply hub that Luthen has him join amidst a rare natural occurrence in the night sky known by the planet's locals as the Eye remind me of those seen in Akira Kurosawa's movies, which were an undeniable influence on the development of the original Star Wars.


One of the series' few legacy characters includes Imperial Senator Mon Mothma, the wealthy establishment politician trying to maintain her public image while secretly funding the Rebellion. Her side plot involving close relatives, old acquaintances, and political dealings that highlight the social and political tightropes she must navigate as a public figure experiencing an increasing level of paranoia is fascinating. This side plot provides excellent insight into how common and interconnected the cause of fighting the Empire is across the galaxy and how it spans all levels of the social ladder.


While introduced in Episode Eight, "Narkina 5", the tough-as-nails Kino Loy is played by Andy Serkis with full conviction and is ultimately a better utilization of his acting skills than in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (2015-2019) as Supreme Leader Snoke. He becomes this season's scene-stealer, for just about every scene he shares with Cassian is worthy of a separate standalone series. Loy's character progression from a no-nonsense leader to an eventual ally of Cassian in the prisoners' mass escape plan upon witnessing the former's natural leading skills and compassion towards his fellow man makes me want to see what happens to him, especially given that the audience doesn't know his fate after the prisoners begin swimming away.


Moving on to the series' villains, the initial villain appears to be a local deputy inspector of security named Syril Karn, who is highly ambitious in achieving personal goals of rising himself up the ranks within the Empire by capturing Cassian, but ultimately gets knocked down several pegs after failing to catch him at the end of Episode Three, "Reckoning". Yet luck finds its way as he gets reassigned to another Imperial job and meets his match in Dedra Meero, who is easily one of the most menacing (and intelligent) live-action Star Wars villains in recent memory. The way she is just as ambitious as Karn and elevates herself up the Imperial ranks by methodically retracing the steps of Cassian and the Rebels while proving to her male counterparts with her investigations into targeting and calmly interrogating key people who are close to Cassian, like the local mechanic and black market dealer Bix Caleen (played by Adria Arjona). Meero doesn't resort to shouting or barking orders, unlike other villains who constantly do so at their lackeys to appear threatening.


This series' action sequences are all well-directed, staged, edited, and consistently engaging on both emotional and narrative levels. The infiltration of and the robbery of and subsequent escape and chase from the facility's vault while the Eye (a stunning feast for the senses in its own right) appears in the sky in Episode Six, "The Eye", is the most tension-filled and white-knuckled sequence I have ever experienced in a Star Wars production, or any other big-budget television production I have seen so far. That is a testament to this production's creative and technical freedom to create something more cinematic than the previous Disney-era Star Wars series.


Speaking of the production values, Andor's overall visual aesthetic also resembles less like that of a Star Wars production but more like that of a Stanley Kubrick movie like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), complete with as many large in-camera sets and effects as possible, with technology that have an analog quality to them, including computer monitors and graphics that look like those from the 1960s and '70s. In addition, the way the said computer graphics and monitors' lights shine against the actors' faces in places like dark control rooms further confirm the film's influence. Also, the series title card shares uncanny similarities to that from 2001, from the sun's eclipse of the logo akin to the eclipse against Earth, with the theme music growing louder in the background.


The visual aesthetic contributes significantly to this series' narrative themes when Cassian is sentenced to six years inside a maximum security prison surrounded by water. He finds himself (throughout several episodes) forced into manual labor under the strict watch of Kino Loy, who is initially resistant to Cassian's plan to escape before joining forces with him in Episode Ten, "One Way Out". The prison's all-white colored interior and the prisoners' all-white jumpsuits, combined with the numerous guards armed with tasers and the sensory lasers within the floors that are automatically turned on after the prisoners go to sleep, ensuring that nobody escapes alive, make for a highly anxiety-inducing atmosphere. Through the claustrophobic direction and visuals throughout these episodes, the audience understands why the Empire is so evil and feared by those around it.


On a side note, the mysterious pieces of machinery the prisoners are forced to assemble are later revealed in a post-credit scene after the season finale to be small parts of the firing dish for the Death Star. This reveal makes Cassian's sacrificial death with Jyn Erso via the Death Star's laser blast at the end of Rogue One all the more poetically tragic in retrospect. Simultaneously, I told myself repeatedly throughout the season's run, "All [this] character development just to get killed off." Perhaps the second season will present more depth to Cassian's character than we already know.


In conclusion, Andor is a highly riveting drama within the Star Wars universe. It also serves as both a warning cry and a call to action against the rising fascist and authoritarian movements worldwide within the last decade. It is also critical to remember that when speaking out against fascism and authoritarianism is considered by some to be divisive, brave leaders, great courage, and collective resistance are some of the most potent tools of civil disobedience out there. The cast's powerful performances, propulsive direction, stunning visuals, and gripping action sequences make this first season a memorable viewing experience, and I genuinely cannot wait for more.

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