I mean this as the highest compliment: watching Andor was like watching Star Wars as a 10 year old. I felt the same thrill, the same excitement and desire to be part of it. But I wasn’t turning off my 42-year-old tastes and attendant capacity. Andor does not need the nostalgia. It just does the thing.
Amazingly, it does so without being boringly adult. It isn’t super violent or slow or sexual or yes-I-know-there-are-spaceships-and-aliens-and-we’re-sorry-about-that-but-we-want-to-make-a-point-about-capitalism. There are some tougher themes present, but as part of Star Wars. There’s high politics and spycraft and brutality and not a little wrestling with moral ambiguity. Of course there are: it’s a rebellion. And there are droids and Tie Fighters and star destroyers. Of course there are: it’s Star Wars.
It’s just all the things you want a story to be. It’s serious enough to be exciting, and open-hearted enough to be fun. What happens is as important as how it happens: you’ve seen a thousand blaster standoffs, but oh my god how are they going to get out of this one?! It exists as a coherent entity. The Senate matters, the spaceships matter, the characters are somehow actual family, and you’re seeing a slice of a universe that clearly exists outside of the frame.
Just a ridiculous thing to pull off.
I rewatched Rogue One afterwards and had altogether too many feelings. I already thought Rogue One was pretty good, but Andor really ratchets up the emotional heft1. The third act – already peak sci-fi – is a cardiac wrecking ball.
I have rarely been so enthralled. I am still not over it ending: four months later I still catch myself feeling sad about it.
- A friend noted that Andor also deepens the end of Return of the Jedi: the Empire falls, and goddamn right is the galaxy going to celebrate ↩︎