Opening a Door to Andor

I still have no internet in my apartment but I was excited enough for the new episodes of Andor that I trudged all the way to the manga cafe to watch them last night. Mostly, I was not disappointed, though nothing in the three episode premiere has approached the highest points of the first season. It's just nice watching a Disney+ show that feels real, like something writers sat down and thought about how to make a good story for rather than something produced by a committee from a venn diagram of corporate and political interests.

The first of the three episodes had my favourite moments. I loved the scene between Cassian and the girl who helps him steal the TIE fighter. I loved how writer Tony Gilroy thought about how difficult it would be to leave one's normal life on abstract moral grounds. When Cassian tells her she's waking up to her true self, it almost sounds like an indoctrination into a cult. Naturally, rebelling against the established order would probably feel that way.

I liked how Krennic was brought in with little fanfare. We all knew he was coming, so he's just there. The top secret meeting was great. I really loved the two propagandists bragging about how they made the galaxy hate the Gormans. The mixture of political intrigue and personal character drama reminds me of Game of Thrones but modern era style propaganda is a topic Game of Thrones couldn't approach.

I enjoyed the scenes of the wedding at the Mothma estate. Geneveive O'Reilly is doing a fantastic job playing Mon Mothma though, in terms of writing, I think it was a little too predictable that Luthen was going to kill that banker guy.

I really didn't like the colour palette. Just when I thought we were done with everything being blue and yellow, it seems to be making a comeback, now in costume design rather than cinematography. Almost everything was blue and yellow on Chandrila and everything was blue and yellow on that farming planet where Cassian's friends were living. I also didn't like the use of so much diegetic orchestral music. I liked in the original trilogy and in the prequels all the orchestral stuff was kept to John Williams' score and the in-world music sounded alien. But George Lucas kind of broke that rule with that silly "Jedi Rocks" routine in the special edition of Return of the Jedi.

These are quibbles though. I'm just happy to have this calibre of writing in the Star Wars universe. Again, Gilroy has written something which makes you feel like, yes, this is how fascism takes hold and maintains its grip.

Andor is available on Disney+.