A Sunrise That I Know I’ll Never See
A few quick thoughts on ‘Andor’
Warning: spoilers ahead if you have not yet finished the Disney+ show Andor.It’s interesting that the executives at Disney seemingly have both no idea how to course-correct with the Star Wars franchise and yet at the same time, have the exact blueprint to do so right in front of them in the form of Andor. That’s my main takeaway having finally finished the Disney+ series.
Yes, I’m roughly 100 days behind seemingly everyone else on the planet. Certainly almost all Star Wars fans. Given the gap, a few folks asked for my thoughts, presumably because I was a Rogue One fan.¹ But given the delay, I’m not sure what else new I can say. So I’ll just give a few quick takeaways from the spin-off series while they’re still fresh in my head.
It was great. But it was also too long. The 12 episodes could have easily been 8 to 10 in my opinion. This was the opposite problem of the last few seasons of Game of Thrones, where the showrunners seemingly couldn’t wrap things up quickly enough, and so they tried to cram way too much narrative into too few episodes. With Andor, it felt like there were a few elements which were drawn out too long and made a few of the episodes weaker as a result. It was ultimately fine because the overall product was very good and even the long bits were helpful for character development. But it wasn’t as taut as it could have and should have been.
Of course, I feel as if this is often my critique these days — of both movies and shows. Too long, too long, too long. Again, Andor was too long but it wasn’t nearly as bad as say, Obi Wan, which was far too long and far from good. That show was so overly long that it probably should have been a single movie. Andor was great as a show, it just would have been better as a ten episode show.
More specifically, the first two to three episodes and the last one to two episodes can clearly be consolidated quite a bit.² Andor is a show where the meat was fully in the middle and I believe peaked with the prison break in Episode 10, “One Way Out”. To be clear, there are great parts of both Episodes 11 and 12,³ but they’re also a bit of a letdown after the action-packed tension of not only Episode 10, but also Episode 6, “The Eye”.
Moving on… I remain most intrigued and interested in the fact that Andor, like Rogue One, work because they’re great narratives and not just great Star Wars narratives. In fact, Andor, far more than Rogue One, downplays the relationship. Yes, there are Storm Troopers and a lot of talk of “rebellion” and the whole plot is staging attacks on “the Empire”, but none of the main characters from the iconic films are here. Unless I’m mistaken, only the Emperor himself, Palpatine,⁴ is referenced (though never shown). Well, okay, yes Mon Mothma is a main character here. But she was an ancillary character at best in the original trilogy. Point is, this all works because Star Wars itself is in the background, not the foreground.⁵
That’s also why I think Andor in particular works as a spinoff of Rogue One. Whereas something like Solo crashed and burned because it tried to create a backstory for Han Solo which we all thought we wanted, but actually didn’t (setting aside the difficulty is re-casting such an iconic character), Andor builds upon a compelling character (but not the main character) from Rogue One. It’s a clever way to build out that narrative from underneath.⁶ And now I find myself really wanting to re-watch Rogue One again. It feels like it will be even better with all of this Cassian Andor character development. I must do that ASAP.
Back to the broader Star Wars universe, hopefully now that Bob Iger is back at the helm of Disney, he quickly hones in on what to do to “fix” one of the crown jewels he acquired and is now a bit tarnished after some bumblefucking around with the most recent trilogy (which, to be fair, was under his previous watch and not Bob Chapek’s). Again, he should know what to do here since it’s right in front of him with Andor. In order to fix Star Wars, they have to let it go a bit. Focus on creating great films without falling upon the IP crutches. And don’t let legacy be an albatross. Stop remaking the same movies over and over again.
Also, maybe, just maybe, focus on great writing.
I’m excited Andor is getting a second season. But I’m arguably even more excited that they already know and are fully planning for this to be the final season, leading directly into the plot of Rogue One. Restraint! Love it.
Published on December 23, 2022 📆
Written from Sydney, Australia 🗺
Written on a 2022 M2 MacBook Air 💻
Enjoying a 4 Pines Pale Ale 🍺¹ Still sort of amazing how good that movie was despite the delays, director swap, and reshoots.
² Perhaps one of the main reasons why they launched the first three at once!
³ The funeral of Maarva in particular is well done — the procession, to her posthumous speech in hologram form, towering over the crowd like Snoke before his knees were cut out from under him in the last trilogy.
⁴ Somehow, Palpatine returned. Again. And again.
⁵ Though yes, the post-credits scene was pretty direct. And pretty awesome.
⁶ Aside: I still would love a Galen Erso prequel…
