The Candor of Andor

I'd just about given up on getting a Star Wars show like Andor from Disney. What a lovely surprise. The younger viewers may have been bored to tears but I was delighted by writer Tony Gilroy's thoughtful world-building and characters who weren't screaming their motives every two seconds.

Gilroy and other people working on the show have said Andor was quite intentionally political. But unlike Rings of Power and other badly written shows of recent years, Andor is not, so far, a crude ideological allegory. You could watch Andor as a liberal or conservative, as a Twitter Socialist or one of the people who stormed the White House in January. The show takes no sides with our Earthly politics. It uses the inherent advantage of Fantasy and Science Fiction by placing issues in an isolated environment where you can contemplate them directly. It's not unlike what George Lucas claimed to have done with the prequels. I remember when Revenge of the Sith came out and people said there were obvious references to the Bush administration. But while Lucas was obviously no fan of Bush and even contributed to that impression of Episode III with appearances on The Colbert Report, I think he was telling the truth that the politics of the prequels were based more generally on reading the histories of collapsing governments.

Andor is the first live action Star Wars output to really give a sense of the working class. I think Solo made some attempt at this, being set on Corellia and giving Han Solo a father who'd lost his manufacturing job. The town we're introduced to in Andor takes time mustering a group of characters whose lives are wrapped up in metalworks, whose standard of living grows narrower to make room for a pervasive, corrupt and paranoid bureaucracy.

I love how Gilroy and actor Kyle Soller managed to make Inspector Karn into someone we sympathise with while at the same time making him slightly scary and a threat to the protagonists. In doing so, this show really gives an impression of how the Empire achieved life not by Clone Troopers massacring people but by an evolving professional culture.

Meanwhile, we have Cassian's lovely relationship with his surrogate mother, played by Fiona Shaw, and maybe the sweetest, most hard luck droid we've ever seen on Star Wars.

He was giving me some Wall-E vibes.

I'm so happy this show exists. Gilroy has described the series as a novel and that's just what it feels like. In a very good way.

Andor is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1624

Impressive skulls remind the mind to stop.
To make a point, the sharpest pen can write.
Without the bubble, naught can ever pop.
So put the cap above the child's height.
Requested ghosts were busy haunting pine.
The timing storm was set to happen late.
A zombie answer broke the living line.
With frizzy yarn we stuffed the zealot's bait.
The mirror box awaits in mining towns.
With clarity the problem split to six.
A pretty day was pushed for pocket gowns.
The metal sounds announce a gathered fix.
The gift of rust relieved the silent steel.
At least the rodent served a decent meal.