Andor Season 1; A Retrospective Review

I was initially dismissive of “Andor” when it was announced in late 2018. Looking back, I’m not sure exactly why. The debut season of ‘The Mandalorian’ had been out for a while, made the rounds online, and came out on the whole in rather good standing, which goes to show that stand-alone Star Wars spin-offs featuring original characters (or very nearly original in this case) could work. 

Perhaps it had something to do with the other Star Wars series known to be on their way: “The Book of Boba Fett”, “Ahsoka” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi”. These were presumably going to be big shows about even bigger names in the Star Wars canon. Their presence in the universe predating Disney’s acquisition of the franchise, they therefore loomed large over the titular Cassian Andor’s head. The multimedia tenure of these George Lucas-era creations gave a sense of legitimacy that Andor, a creation of the new canon, could never hope to replicate. And whilst “Rogue One” - often regarded as the best, or at least the most consistently beloved, Disney-made movie in the franchise - the idea of any one character originating from that picture being able to sustain a spin-off of their very own seemed unlikely.

So when my brother, my mum and I, through means of our nightly ritual of binge-watching as we eat dinner, committed to go through every major Star Wars property that we deemed worthy, our plan originally was to pass over Andor in favour of what we considered more relevant media: The Bad Batch, Rebels, The Mandalorian and so on. 

But as we made our way through the Clone Wars, the more I began to hear whispers. Whispers about how superb Andor was. How gorgeous its cinematography. How masterful its character work. How intricate its dialogue. How there are, more times than not, real, physical settings that actors can be present in and interact with - a point that was never more shrewdly put than with my brother’s biting observation, made when the narrative brought us to a sprawling, mountainous landscape flush with foliage, verdancy and the intense, plaintive atmosphere of a spiritual home impinged by foreign colonial forces:

“There’s green, but I can’t see any screen”. 

All over the place, other especially well-received Disney shows were being bestowed with the honorable title of “this franchise’s Andor” as an impactful shorthand to indicate their high quality.

Quite frankly, after months and then years of this sustained and uncontested praise, not to mention the reveal of the season 2 trailer, I had to see for myself, so we pencilled it into the schedule as dictated by the (somewhat) obtuse chronology of the series - right in between Kenobi and Rebels.

And what a cruel thing it turned out to be to do to those shows.

Tony Gillroy’s (dir. The Bourne Legacy) Andor is a spectacle,  a delight, a real testament as to what can be achieved by talented artists with a passion for their work. The writing is meticulous and brimming with purpose, the performances are bold, heartfelt and powerful, and the visuals are striking. The camera used not as a tool to assist any single aspect of the programme but recognised as its own dynamic constituent, elevating the final product. Andor stands as a tour de force of filmmaking, a type yet unseen and unreplicated in Star Wars so far. The original movies may have been revolutionary in their time, but Andor is a consequence of the refinement of one’s craft, a thing nothing else in Star Wars has ever really gotten the knack of.

How is this? How could it be that, when all is said and done, out of all those new shows, it would be Andor that came out on top, its compatriots mired in a swamp of mediocrity and cheap, cameo-centric fanservice.

The Mandolorian - squandered by a disappointing third season; Book of Boba Fett - left forgotten as a tepid parody of a gangster show; and Obi-Wan Kenobi - bogged down with shoddy writing, rinky-dink sets and comical chase scenes involving listless bad guys and a child actress whose approximate top speed is that of some of your more high-end roombas. It boggles the mind that this is how it shaked out, with all these legacy characters being treated with such a lack of reverence only to have Andor (the show, not the guy, who shall be distinguished from the former by being referred to as Cassian henceforth) come in and steal their thunder.

Who, in their right mind, even ever asked for a Andor spin-off? More to the point, how did it succeed where the others had, maybe not failed completely, but not stuck the landing quite as gracefully as some would have liked? An under-dog story, if ever there was one.

This is how.

From the moment the show begins, it’s immediately clear how different a beast it’s going to be: gun-metal landscapes swallow dingy, neon-lit backways, elicit dancers entice from behind glass (or some sci-fi equivalent), a truly oppressive downpour showers from above (and the side). You’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve put on Blade Runner. 

Oblique camera angles and rapid lighting differentials serve to bring the audience into Cassian’s POV as he navigates the setting and forces us to share in his unease. He’s haggard, anxious, clearly not supposed to be here…

Having left an appropriately seedy establishment with the information (or lack thereof) he wanted, he’s accosted not much later by two police officers. 

There are many subtle details suggestive of the show's high-quality - chiefest perhaps being the rhythm and intricacy present in its dialogue - but the point at which it properly establishes its well-earned distinction is right here, in this scene. 

The tension is brought to life by the camerawork: the police approach from behind, barking commands, sneering and bantering - typical no-name bad-guy stuff - but it’s framed with their blurred presence in the background, with Cassian’s profile in the foreground, allowing the audience to scrutinize his pained and quietly distressed expressions. The shot doesn’t move until Cassian is physically grabbed - we effectively see the cops as Cassian imagines them to be: hazy, far-off hazards creeping from behind, their most prominent feature being the sharp whine of their laser gun as it’s raised and aimed at Cassian’s head…

The narrative is fascinating. It follows just Cassian initially, introducing us to his home planet of Ferrix and the rural mining town he calls home, along with the colourful cast of friends, family, enemies and robots that make up its community. The narrative in this way is very closed-off, very personal, the first few episodes focusing on the complex relationship Cassian, who’s revealed to be a bit of leech, has with the various members of his social circle as he tries to pull together enough favours to get out of dodge after the situation with the police earlier fails to end amicably. 

The locale is very isolated, very rustic, very rural - the Empire even subsidizes its presence through an authority of corporate owned coppers (a fantastic little metaphor in its own right).

But as events unfold and the situations begin to exacerbate, the narrative grows in kind, organically, to accommodate more and more characters as and when they’re needed, until Cassian himself is no longer even the sole focus. 

And that’s what’s so brilliant. In an ironic sort of way,  it's not really an Andor show. He’s an important aspect, of course, but the strengths of Andor lie in the disparate, almost anthological design of its storylines following its ensemble cast; two highpoints in particular are Stellan Skarsgård as the morally subversive rogue, Luthen, and Genevieve O'Reilly as public political activist and secret financial backer of the rebellion, Mon Mothma (who you can tell is a legacy character from back when Geoge Lucas was writing these things through her name alone). 

Cassian is unimportant by his lonesome, but his journey - wherein he stops merely trying to scrounge and survive, but instead fight for a cause with the devoted, slightly zealous passion he is portrayed as having in Rogue One - is microcosmic as much as it is personal. He assumes the role of a sort of narrative emblem for the gradually turning emotions of the intergalactic layman, initially resigned to a life in which they kept their heads low for fear of having them sheared off by wry stormtrooper fire, to then, after having suffered one more abuses of power they can stomach, striking up and fighting for something beyond their own sight.

It’s a show about many things: the banality of evil, the inorganics of structure, solidarity, humanity, empathy, sacrifice, martyrdom.

Andor is a call to arms. It’s about the struggle for freedom, but seen through the murky lens of reality that the more fantastical Star Wars entries would rather avoid in lieu of levity and lightsaber fights. It’s about the brutal cost of crusading for what you believe in, the hypocrisy implicit in the struggle for peace, and fighting for something beyond yourself in the bitter fullness of knowledge that the day it’s achieved might be one you don’t live to see.

Edited by Cameron Cade