Better Late Than Never: Andor

 

Before I begin this review, I will need more of an introduction than usual.

Unlike most of my fellow critics, I have never been the type to argue that because a film or TV series is part of a mass franchise, it is automatically horrible or without artistic merit. Sometimes I believe this even without knowing the source material. While I am in complete agreement that most franchises are milked far beyond their expiration dates – this is Hollywood, after all – it does not meet that some of them do not have value in the new century.

I’ve never worshiped the MCU with the same fanaticism that some of my closest friends have, but I don’t deny that many of the movies do not provide entertainment value and that some of them  - The Winter Soldier or Black Panther among films; Wandavision in TV series – don’t have value that has true merit in film and television. I see far less value in the DC universe, primarily I mind most of the characters less interesting and mainly because there have never been a series of movies in that universe that are anywhere near the creative or critical magnificence of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight series. (I intend to write about that in a separate article.( I’ve mentioned my problems with the James Bond movies and I’m made it clear that Daniel Craig’s portrayal of him has resolved most of the issues I’ve had with them and led to cinematic excellence among even the greatest ‘serious’ films of this era. And while I would never consider myself a Star Trek fan, it doesn’t mean I don’t see the quality in several of the more recent films and the potential in the streaming series. (Getting another streaming service simply to see them, however, is a line I have no intention of crossing.)

There is, however, one franchise that I have never been able to understand so much of the criticism from its fanbase over the last quarter century, which is mildly ironic considering its the most successful one of all time.

For more than twenty years I have heard from so many friends of mine that every new development has ‘ruined’ Star Wars. Jar Jar ruined Star Wars. Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen ‘ruined’ Star Wars. Then in the last ten years, Daisy Ridley and Rian Johnson ‘ruined’ Star Wars. Solo ruined Star Wars.  Star Wars is becoming woke…I could go on and the internet will do so if you need a sample.

Now I get why some people might object to their favorite comic books or action movies being changed, but as I either know little about them or am indifferent to them, I can regard with detachment. But every time I hear someone say the newest movie or TV show or animated series or breakfast cereal has destroyed Star Wars, I always am bemused.  I realize it is canon for a certain section of society to compare something from their childhood as something sacred such as a Bible or The Mona Lisa or Hamlet.  But every time they talk about it, I keep wondering: have these people seen the same movies I have?

This remark may be considered the kind of blasphemy that may get me excommunicated from the Internet, but Star Wars isn’t MacBeth or Alice in Wonderland or Citizen Kane. It’s not The Godfather or Apocalypse Now or Breaking Bad. All of these works are classics because in addition to their brilliant prose or camera work, they were about something deeper and meaningful. Star Wars is…not.

Hell, have you listened to the stories told by some of the actors in it? Alec Guinness thought it was the weakest work he ever did. Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford basic threatened to leave unless they could rewrite the dialogue. Ford wanted Han Solo – that beloved character – killed off as early as Empire Strikes Back. When George Lucas’ colleagues – minor figures such as Coppola, Spielberg, DePalma and Scorsese saw the first cut, they thought it was incomprehensible and Brian De Palma said the only way to make it work was to insert the famous prologue. 

None of the holy trinity are an epic saga the way that Lord of the Rings  or the first three Indiana Jones movies are.  Star Wars basically tell a story that is, famously adapted from a brilliant Akira Kurosawa films that basically been lifted into a space opera. Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi are better films at least technically and some writing elements (the fact that George Lucas only co-wrote both but directed neither speaks a lot as to why they are considered superior films) but at the end of the day, they’re just more of the same. I fundamentally think that if Star Wars had just been a standalone no would care much about it. But at the end of the day, none of these ‘classic’ films are about anything more than some vague terms.  It’s a bunch of movies that have things being blown up and sword fights in space and some complicated family dynamics. Godfather III is a better film than any one of these movies.

 And while every franchise that I listed before at least tries to make some adaptations to its story to make it palatable to a modern audience in the entire saga Star Wars seems to be about nothing more than…Star Wars. Now I realize there’s a built in nostalgia factor that makes people want to automatically argue that ‘it was better than’ but for forty years Star Wars has essentially had nothing new to say except reshuffling of the old elements.

Now as someone who has been fine with his indifference to Star Wars and has not seen a single movie in the franchise since Phantom Menace and is proud of that fact, I could cheerfully have lived the rest of life ignoring these ‘controversies’. But as we all know since the age of streaming began, Star Wars has been making inroads into my particular field.  Three years ago when The Mandalorian was about to be nominated at the Emmys, I forced myself to watch the first three episodes. Left to my own devices, I would have stopped after the first. I am told by reliable sources it gets better after that, fine, in my opinion it’s basically another Star Wars video game put on television. I haven’t watched another episode since and I couldn’t be more grateful that the series has apparently dropped so dramatically in quality that it is unlikely to contend for Emmys this year.

I was not entirely thrilled when last year around the time of the end of 2022 awards shows Andor started showing up on the roster. It was nominated for Best Drama by  the Critics Choice awards and Diego Luna was nominated for Best Actor by that group and the Golden Globes. It has received recognition from the usual Guilds – Visual Effects, Sound Editing, Art Directing – but the WGA gave it two nominations and it was short-listed for a Peabody. I remained reluctant to get involved even after this – The Mandalorian has had a similar group of nominations – but the WGA nominations convinced me I had to least look at it. (Star Wars is known for many things; great writing is not one of them.) I got a copy of the DVD for Season 1 of the show several months ago and finally this last week began to watch it. Three episodes in I do see why so many critics and audiences love it. And perhaps the most essential reason for it is contradictory: it may be set in the universe of Star Wars, but it is nothing like it. Because unlike every movie or TV show I’ve seen about it, Andor is about something other than the Force or Jedis.

The opening involves Cassian Andor, superbly played by Diego Luna, entering a brothel on an imperial planet. He’s looking for his sister and he attracts the attention of the wrong people both in their case and his. They attempt to shake him down after he leaves. There is no question not only who shot first, but who shot second and when it’s over Cassian knows he has a price on his head.

The Empire we are introduced too in Andor is not the one we have become familiar with over the past forty years: when the soldier who reports these deaths to his superior, his initial reaction is to bury them. “Two of our soldier were in a place they weren’t supposed to be, doing something they weren’t supposed too.” He dismisses them as meeting the fate of someone with ‘dark skin’ and orders the officer to bury it. Syril (Kyle Soller) does not let it go and we don’t know yet whether because he believes in some form of justice or because he is holding deep prejudices.  When he ends up recruiting a supervisor who is impressed by his initiative, we get a very clear message as to why he’s agreeing to lead a team to a planet under imperial rule. For more than forty years, we’ve been told the Empire forces are ‘storm troopers’ and basically ignored the darker implications. Andor makes it very clear of that, particularly because no one is wearing a white clunky uniform.

On his planet of Ferrix, Ander is making  plans to lie low and to sell something that he stole a long time ago and now has value. He has a conversation with his adopted mother (the always welcome Fiona Shaw)who tells him that his connection with a planet that we already know is part of the shooting down of an imperial ship in Andor’s childhood has risen to the knowledge of the Empire. Cassian has made contact with a ‘friend’ who he thinks has contact with the black market, but whom he is unaware is actually responsible for something far darker.

In the third episode we are formally introduced to that contact, Luthen Rael. Stellan Skarsgard has been one of the great actors of film and television for a very long time but I don’t think I’ve ever been as impressed with him as his role in Andor.  When Cassian and Luthen have their first meeting, it quickly becomes a standoff. There is a discussion, perhaps as an Easter egg, that Luthen knew Cassian’s father but no one would mistake Luthen for a jedi knight or even an ancestor of Han Solo. Luthen’s attitude is cool and controlled and is very aware of the danger that Andor is involved in and what he may soon be facing. He reveals two rules that immediately save Cassian’s life, despite his efforts.

While this going on an imperial crew has come ostensibly to arrest Cassian but they always want to do as much destruction as possible. Both Syril and his superior clearly look upon everyone on this planet as beneath and incapable of putting up a fight. It is clear from the start that they have underestimated the people of this city and Cassian himself.  I’ve seen countless battles like what follows in ‘The Reckoning’ throughout the Star Wars franchise but this is the first one I actually gave a damn about because it had a human element and you were aware of the carnage that unfolded as it happened. I have little doubt Industrial Light and Magic earned their moneys worth; this is the first time I’ve seen a battle and have been more impressed by the human performance than the visual ones.

Yes I am aware of what Andor represents in the Star Wars universe. Yes there are scenes with comic droids and aliens with rubber suits. Yes, I am aware that this series takes place even more long, long ago in that galaxy far, far away. But none of this bothers me one bit because Andor is the first series I’ve seen connected to Star Wars that seems to be about some kind of broader theme then a mystical force or some battle between the Skywalkers or masked bounty hunters.

I understand why Andor has been embraced by critics for far more than just the usual visual and technical aspects. Star Wars films have always been capable of getting extraordinary actors but in almost every film or TV show I’ve seen them it, they basically seem to be slumming it. Diego Luna has played this exact character before on Rogue One and it you saw someone who was capable of rising himself above the typical mediocre material. In a sense Andor is a prequel to a prequel and because we all know where it ends Luna has no trouble tearing in the role with the same ferocity. The fact that Tony Gilroy, the co-writer of Rogue One is at the helm of this series actually helps it more because Gilroy has always been capable of delving into dark material particularly when it comes to action heroes. He has been the head screenwriter between the Jason Bourne movie, was Oscar nominated for his script of Michael Clayton, delved into the darkness of the Middle East with Beirut. All of which is to say he had a handle of how to deal with characters who live in the world of subterfuge and hidden their true selves before he even picked up a pen for Rogue One.

By delving into the fundamental corruption and darkness of the empire among the rank and file in a way that Star Wars has more or less avoided for forty years (we usually were much higher up the chain of command)Andor looks a lot deeper into the Star Wars universe and finds a world that is far more dystopian than George Lucas or his followers ever truly implied.  Nuance has never been something that this franchise has ever been good at or even tried that hard for; it’s all about gun battles, cool light sword fights and chases on big ships. In Clerks there was a famous discussion about whether the constructors of the second Death Star deserved to die. I imagine in Kevin Smith has more or less gotten confirmation to that hypothetical he famously posed.

It is likely Andor will be nominated for Best Drama, Luna and Skarsgard are favorites for Emmy nominations, and other members of the guest cast such as Shaw and the still unseen (at least to me) Andy Serkis will be nominated too. The thing is, that might not make a difference to me because this is the first series connected with Star Wars – really the first anything ­connected with this franchise – that I’ve actually wanted to finish now that I’ve started. Perhaps because I know infinitely less about this franchise that those who have been following it for decades, I may actually be capable of enjoying it more because it will have the capability to surprise me with plot developments and that there are characters here whose fates I actually give a damn about.  Andor is many things, but it is not about itself and so far, it’s as much about plot and character than it is about gunfights and battles. That is a triumph for any sci-fi series and a revelation from a franchise that I have expected nothing from my entire life.

My score: 4.75 stars.