Andor Review: An Immersive Prequel Offers Star Wars A New Hope

Andor has all the scruffy charm and boundless raw potential of its eponymous main character.

Andor
Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd.

In the decades since the original Star Wars trilogy, the galaxy far, far away has come to feel smaller and smaller. Prequels and sequels alike have seen the fate of the entire cosmos revolve relentlessly around a dozen individuals, half of whom are blood relatives. But now, the Disney+ series Andor seems like it might finally be making good on the promise of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, telling a story that takes us to new parts of the galaxy and explores the lives of those who aren’t the subjects of heroic prophecies and magic bloodlines.

The series, created by Tony Gilroy, begins on eponymous character, Cassian Andor. Diego Luna reprises his role from Rogue One with the same rough-edged, soft-spoken charisma, but this is a very different man than the dedicated freedom fighter of the film. Five years younger, this Cassian is wearied from a hard life and wary of anyone promising anything better. He lives a humble existence in a ramshackle industrial town along with his adopted mother (Fiona Shaw) and their droid, B2EMO (voiced by Dave Chapman). He makes his living selling stolen goods and seems to owe either a payment or an apology to everyone in town.

From the start of the four episodes made available to press, the show’s lived-in production design suggests that this is a very different Star Wars. It emphasizes practical effects and constructed sets over sweeping digital backdrops, and alien characters conjured through elaborate makeup and costuming more often than CGI. In doing so, the galaxy here is more beautiful and believable than in many past Star Wars properties. And the further we travel—to rolling green highlands, thick-packed jungles, and glistening white cities—the richer it all feels.

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The series opens with Cassian moving through a rain-soaked night and into the buzzing neon of a seedy nightclub in search of his missing sister. He doesn’t find any answers but does incur the wrath of two local officers. One thing leads to another and pretty soon Cassian is a wanted man. Andor then splits neatly into two narrative strands, between Cassian’s attempts to secure an escape route and the Empire’s effort to capture him. In the latter, we meet a fastidious young officer named Syril (Kyle Soller) who dedicates himself completely to Cassian’s arrest, going about his duties with the frowning dedication of a high school hall monitor.

Given how closely Andor yokes itself to Syril’s perspective, viewers get an intimate look at the bureaucracy and petty office politics that keep the Empire from running off the rails. From jurisdiction disputes to arrest quotas, The series at times comes to suggest The Wire, only set in the cosmos, or a George R.R. Martin-style space opera, underscoring the mundane immorality of the imperial servants who spend their days filling out reports rather than battling Jedi.

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Whichever plot we’re following, though, Andor is a very talky series. Most of its runtime so far is spent in dense, intense conversation as Cassian plans his escape and the authorities plot his capture. (The entire second episode, in fact, comes and goes without a blaster being drawn.) Star Wars properties have used the emotional investment viewers have in the IP to offer fans something comfortably familiar, Andor spends this capital to take risks with a slow-burning, dialogue-driven thriller and trusting viewers to stick with it.

Which isn’t to say that it’s averse to action. The plot kicks into higher gear with the introduction of the mysterious Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), who offers Cassian the chance to turn his criminal talents to something bigger. Meeting Rael feels like seeing Ben Kenobi or Qui-Gon Jinn for the first time all over again, with Skarsgård exuding that same mixture of mystique, compassion, and latent power. He even has the same way with an epigram, reminding Cassian to “always build your exit on your way in” before detonating a few cleverly placed explosives.

That explosion leads to an intense firefight that’s skillfully staged inside an abandoned mill, with great rusted metal chains swinging dangerously through the air as the creaking structure is battered by torrents of laser fire. Andor’s tactility lends it a sense of actual, physical danger that’s rarely been on display in the Star Wars universe, as in a scene shortly after where a character is treated for a burn from a blaster shot. Jokes about Stormtrooper aim aside, the world of the show is one where getting shot with a laser actually seems to hurt.

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This sense of danger also begins to point toward an emergent theme: the incredible value and immense cost of trust when living under an oppressive regime. We’ve seen and felt how hard life is in Cassian’s part of the galaxy, and how bruised and battered this whole world is. Under the Empire’s watchful eye, a brutal death is only ever one small mistake away. Which is why, when we first meet him, Cassian is so unwilling to join up with any kind of revolutionary cause. Trusting anyone in such circumstances requires an almost religious act of faith—the kind that Star Wars’s most powerful moments have always been built on.

In its first few episodes, Andor has established an exceptionally immersive world and put the pieces in place for a tense, thrilling story underpinned by big ideas. By returning to some of the series’s core principles rather than merely recycling old parts, Andor might be the most exciting new beginning the Star Wars universe has enjoyed since those giant yellow letters first crawled up the big screen to invite us into the galaxy far, far away.

Score: 
 Cast: Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Fiona Shaw, Kyle Soller, Genevieve O’Reilly, Adria Arjona, Denise Gough  Network: Disney+

Ross McIndoe

Ross McIndoe is a Glasgow-based freelancer who writes about movies and TV for The Quietus, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Wisecrack, and others.

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