The original Star Wars is a weird movie. You’ve got a pair of silly robots bumbling about a desert and a young man finding the charred remains of his caretakers. An old man and a half-robot man fight with laser swords until the old man disappears. A farmboy flying a fighter jet uses space-magic to aim a missile that destroys a planet-destroying weapon. There’s a lot going on and yet somehow it works.
That flexibility of Star Wars permeated the old Expanded Universe of books, comics, and games. There were ones like Heir to The Empire and Jedi Outcast that focused on the romantic adventuring of the franchise, or the New Jedi Order series that pushed at the edges of science-fantasy while the Republic Commando books and game were much closer to hard military sci-fi. There was room for all sorts of stories but they all worked together.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the wake of Andor’s brilliant conclusion. Andor is a political thriller of a show, interested more in questions of fascism’s rise and how to oppose tyranny than it is in space wizards. It’s excellent, as I’ve spoken about before, and remains one of my favorite works from this new era of Star Wars — right up there with The Last Jedi (which is high, high praise from me). One thing I find absolutely remarkable about Andor is how it shows off that flexibility of Star Wars, even as it hands off its narrative to very different stories.
Mon Mothma leaves the Imperial Senate for the Rebellion across two shows: an episode of Andor and an episode of Rebels. One’s the aforementioned gritty thriller, the other’s a CGI cartoon — and yet it’s able to feel like part of the same narrative. Part of it is because Mon’s character feels the same despite it being wildly different shows and I’d argue that in turn each show highlights a different part of the story. Rebels is about the derring-do of escaping the Empire while Andor is about the intrigue and danger of it all. Same story, different aspects.
As Andor collides with Rogue One and then A New Hope we see it again — Andor’s focus on spycraft gives way to Rogue One’s war movie and then the adventure of A New Hope. But the remarkable thing is the story it tells is consistent and each installment focuses on a different aspect of it. The politicking of Andor is present on the fringes of A New Hope’s scenes with Tarkin and the Moffs, The Scarif raid is Andor’s Aldhani raid amped up, Obi-Wan’s duel with Vader is a payoff to Chirrut’s faith in the Force. Each story focuses on what’s needed. The horrors of the Death Star can be abstract in A New Hope but Andor lets its characters feel the implications. Through all these different narratives, though, there remains that hopefulness at the heart of Star Wars, the belief that people will make the right choice and the Evil Empire will fall. It takes different forms, but it’s all still Star Wars.
Essays, Not Rants! 