Andor is everything I wanted to see out of Star Wars. I’ve talked in the past about how I’m not much of a fan of the franchise, but love Rogue One, and this is precisely what I wanted. If more Star Wars were like this, I would be a massive fan. To be honest, I don’t even know where to start in talking about what I love about it. I could discuss the directing and writing of this show, which was a masterclass in how to do both. The directors in this show should receive a blank check by any studio to make any movie or show they want. I kept waiting for the series to fall off, waiting for a bad or, at least, underwhelming episode, but it never happened. Everything was perfectly paced, you always felt the emotions the directors wanted you to feel. The camera work is so good in this show, to the point I was noticing it because of how good it is. Normally, if I’m noticing camera work, it’s because it sucks. This time, I noticed it because of how in awe I was. Let me try to explain why. To really illustrate what about the camera work I love, let me refer to one scene in particular that will forever be burned in my memory. It’s this shot at 0:12 in the trailer for Andor (I set it so that the video should begin there), that is in episode 7:
You see Cinta Kaz on Aldhani looking up at a Star Destroyer. That’s it, that’s the scene. Why do I find that scene so powerful, though? We’ve seen Star Destroyers before in the movies, and frankly, I never found them to be all that scary. In each of those shots in the movies, you’re either looking at it on an equal level or looking down at it. It just doesn’t feel like a true threat. This time, in Andor, you’re looking up at it with the characters. You see what they’re seeing. It all feels actually real from that perspective, rather than in the movies where you’re looking at it from angles in a video game where you’re controlling the X-Wings (or looking down as if it’s a toy). You actually feel dread at that moment, not only because you see the scale of the ship, but you also realize how the Empire is cracking down. But, let’s get back to camera work, I think this shot really illustrates better than any other what makes the camera work so good. It grounds you in reality. In Star Wars movies, you rarely get to see what the characters are seeing. The camera is usually looking down on them or from far out. You don’t feel grounded in the world in Star Wars movies. In Andor, it feels as if you’re part of the world with the characters. That is my favorite thing about the show, to be completely honest. This is in large part achieved due to how they use the cameras.
Another thing that I must praise the show for is its politics. Star Wars has always been political (sorry Jeremy from The Quartering), and this may have been the peak of good politics from the franchise. It showed the true face of the Empire, what it truly is like to be part of it, to be subjected to it, and what it really means to be a rebel. In the movies, what we see of the Empire is space wizards and a strong military. Obviously, this is important, as you can’t have an empire without a strong military. But this show presents us with another side of the Empire, the bureaucracy side of it. You see what are space cops sitting around in meetings, torturing suspects, investigating, placing traps, and more. All stuff actual cops do. You see overly ambitious cops destroy people’s lives, and then just mark off the damage as a clerical error. You see these people who look at everything going on with a bird's-eye view, who don’t truly understand the messiness of everything. As I’ll get into later, once they themselves are forced to get down in the dirt, and hit the streets, they immediately get exposed as until then, everything was just reports and meetings. It also shows something else: how reactionary governments operate, and why they fail. Let’s look back at World War 2 with the Japanese and Nazi Germany governments. They operated their government as a competition among the members. There was constant fighting between members of different departments of each government. Ruthless competition was encouraged because it was believed that the most skilled and dedicated individuals would rise to the top that way. What happens in reality is this sows division. No longer are you united in one goal, but instead divided in one-upping your co-worker. It creates inefficiencies due to unnecessary secrecy and even, potentially, sabotage to keep the others down. A government built on destroying each other, rather than working towards a common goal (or a company for that matter) doesn’t work. Andor does a fantastic job of showing this backstabbing happen, the resentment it causes and the inefficiencies of it.
We also see how empires deal with indigenous peoples. In Aldhani we see the empire doing everything they can to get rid of the native people there through cultural and physical erasure. They have forcibly tried to move the people to areas that the Empire can control easily. They allowed the people to continue to have their traditions for a price. We see them planning to not allow them to continue to have their traditions in the future. They view indigenous peoples with disdain and want them gone, as they’re not only harder to control, but their traditions aren’t ones of the Empire. The more diversity, the harder it is to have control. The worst thing for a fascist is diversity of tradition, religion, background, culture, etc. Everything must be uniform because that you can control. You can control the narrative, you can control thoughts and beliefs if everyone is the same. If someone comes from a different background and has certain religious beliefs, well, they’re going to have different views, ones that may not align perfectly with the Empire (even if they are mostly aligned). There cannot be deviance. Traditions and cultures must slowly over time be choked out, while also committing genocide against them physically. Just look at how Canada and America have dealt with our native people’s for an example on how all this is done. The writers clearly knew their Native American history and wrote that into this script. The only thing that was missing is residential schools.
You also see the human side of the Empire. Throughout the season, we Dedra as a master tactician. Everything is numbers and reports to her as she tries to stop the rising rebellion. She becomes overly confident in her plans. The moment she actually has to hit the streets and see how her policies are affecting the real world first-hand and the consequences of it: she panics. She’s a desk worker. Everything is a report and hologram. The actual realities of what crime and rebellion is aren’t real to her. It’s easy to not see oppression and evil when it doesn’t impact you personally (or, in this case, when you’re enforcing oppression from behind a desk). This may have been the first time in her life she actually witnessed what life is really like for the average person. She might never have seen violence before. She probably thought everything was nice and neat like her reports, since she never had to witness any of it. This was a waking call for her. She isn’t the only officer that the show focuses on, though. Syril Karn is a former corporate officer who is quite fanatical in his beliefs. He is a wannabe fascist. He is a true believer in fascist ideologies, as opposed to Dedra, who is not. She sees what she does as simply her job to keep order. Syril views himself as a great hero who is destined to keep control over the violent masses. He sees Dedra (and probably everyone who is a cop, for that matter) as someone like him, a fanatic who is just as dedicated to keeping order for the Empire and having control and power. He craves power. Don’t get me wrong, Dedra craves power too, but for different reasons and in different ways. She wants to climb the ranks of the ISB, Syril craves to be a hero. Once he’s stripped of his power, he becomes dejected and feels hopeless. His mother doesn’t stroke his ego at all, which just makes him feel worse. Instead of accepting that his beloved Empire is corrupt and doesn’t have the same values he has and doesn’t care about him, he looks for someone to blame. He blames Cassian. I loved this part of the show so much, as it is true to real life. Fascists crave heroes and power. Look at Richard Spencer and how big of a name he was at the beginning of Trump’s presidency. Then, he got punched in the streets, and now he’s been written off by his fellow Nazis. He can no longer be seen as a powerful mythological hero, and therefore, he is not desirable. In the show, we also see Syril desire after Dedra because he falsely believes that she is like him. He loves the image of her he created in his head. He sees her as someone just as fanatical, driven, craven for power, and as powerful as he once was. Fascists desire a firm hand, and he sees her as that. Not only that, but also the fascist need to blame others for their failures. Fascists cannot accept failure, especially their own, therefore, someone else must be to blame. In World War 2 it was the Jews. In current day America, its trans people and drag queens. A few years ago, it was immigrants from South and Central America. This show did a brilliant job at showing how fascists view the world and what it is they desire, without making us feel sympathetic for them. Props to the writers and directors for that.
Another thing that the show nailed is revolutions, that is, how messy they are and how spontaneous they are. There are always the true believers, those pushing the proletariat towards revolution (in Andor, it’s Luthen, Saw Guerra, and Nemik), aka, those viewed as “extremists” and “terrorists” by the mainstream, these are the people who set everything into place. They help wake people up, even if they’re not ready to realize they need to revolt yet because after all, they have their lives to attend to. It’s better to keep your head down and accept the oppression. The average person needs to be pushed over the edge by the fascistic government enough and there needs to be a base, a revolutionary party (in real-world terms, a communist party) that can help guide the people. Then, one day, it will just happen when enough people realize that the only thing there is to lose is their chains. Once again, there must have been those “extremists” helping push the populace towards revolution, but also a group that helps guide the populace towards freedom so that it doesn’t fizzle out or turn into a reactionary movement. That is how a revolution actually happens and succeeds, and the show recognizes this and allows us to see the beginnings of the rebellion and just how messy it is. Speaking of messy, another thing about revolutions is that they are messy. They’re distasteful. There is nothing glamorous about them. It requires sacrifice and paranoia. You see how terrified Mon Mothma is as she realizes her finances are going to become surveilled, and the tough choices she makes. She allows her daughter to be visited by a young man, she falsely accuses her husband of gambling to throw suspicion off her, and keeps her family at a distance. Luthen and Saw agree to sacrifice Kreegyr for the greater cause. We see Luthen try to have Cassian assassinated. We see innocent people get killed, we see the rebels threaten to kill Empire officials families. None of this is clean or stuff of legend. It’s how real revolutions work. People will be killed, including innocent ones. Some people will have to sacrifice everything, including their families, for the cause of the revolution. People will get found out before they can act. It’s brutal business with the highest stakes imaginable. Andor shows us how dirty starting a revolution really is. It’s not a clean business. This was something I very much enjoyed about the show. There was no glamorizing the rebellion, it looked like something you would see in real life.
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