“Andor” has ended, a cold fact that has me bummed on this gray Wednesday morning.
I’ve been with the Star Wars universe from the beginning, and I like to think we grew up together. I was four year old when my Grandma Lange took me to see it at a suburban Cleveland movie house in 1978, when it was still in some theaters after debuting the year prior. I mostly recall the seats having flop-top metallic cigarette ashtrays built into the arms, but I still have the vague sensory memories of this loud, vivid space movie unfolding on the big screen.
It was over the next couple of years, culminating with 1980’s critically acclaimed “The Empire Strikes Back” and the mass proliferation of Kenner Star Wars toys – the Christmas season Sears and JCPenney’s catalogs were a big deal to Gen X kids – that launched me into being a Star Wars fanatic.
But that faded. There was “Return of the Jedi” in 1983 but by then Transformers and G.I. Joe had overtaken Star Wars for me. Then soon it was music and girls and sports and teenage appetites. Yet when the original trilogy was retooled and re-released by George Lucas in the late 1990s, I happily saw them again in the theater.
The announcement of “The Phantom Menace” thrilled me. A new Star Wars flick! And I covered opening night at a local theater in 1999 for my newspaper job – one of my first successful efforts to get my personal pleasures legitimately reimbursed. I was a month shy of turning 25.
The next two prequels I saw, respectively, in a mid-Michigan theater that was among the first in the state to show digital films, and the other I saw in London. Unlike so many others, I do not have strong thoughts on the quality of those films. Same with the subsequent films, which I do prefer over the prequels. I do not mind all the fan service, and I certainly do not engage in the reactionary whining from the nasty clowns that take this shit way too seriously.
Star Wars, to me, was always a fun campy space opera meant mostly for kids. It was a foundational, load-bearing element of my formative years. I feel extremely fortunate to live my life with Star Wars beginning, expanding, and eventually maturing alongside me. Those of us just becoming aware of the world as Star Wars began are a lucky age cohort. Sure, the original trilogy, looking back almost half a century later, is a bit hokey even though it was all ground-breaking sci-fi at the time. I loved it all, even if I didn’t get into the more recent animated shows or into all the novels and comic books and the wider universe.
Then came “Rogue One.” This was adult Star Wars. No Force, no Jedi or Sith or lightsabers. The movie was the genuine origin story of the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. It was a legitimate war movie, and it was human, gritty, and existed in the grayer areas of life rather than the stark and easy blacks and whites of the rest of Star Wars.
“Rogue One” immediately, for me, ranked No. 2 in the Stars Wars universe after only “Empire Strikes Back.” Disney’s announcement of a live-action “Rogue One” prequel series intrigued me. I watched all the other live-action Star Wars series and enjoyed them to varying degrees, but I kept that beloved fictional universe in context.
Then Season 1 of “Andor” delivered like no other. The creators, actors, and crew produced something that was not just a great Star Wars show, but excellent television. It showed us how rebellion is born among regular people, incited by small things. It was identifiable. It intentionally reflected our own troubled times, but not an in-your-face bludgeoning political polemic about 2022 America – which was George Lucas’ original semi-subtle intent with “A New Hope” 48 years ago. The message was there for those willing to receive it. Or to get angry about seeing an uncomfortable reflection.
Like the movie it was setting up, “Andor” delivered performances and high quality production. The episodes were a single movie in 12 parts. I couldn’t wait each week. Star Wars was genuinely exciting for me again, and it rivaled only Season 1 of HBO’s “Westworld” among my favorite shows of all time.
Season 2 of “Andor” exceeded my expectations. Just … wow. It was written and filmed before Donald Trump returned to the White House, but the second season felt as if it had in mind him and his regime’s brand of open corruption and greed, sinister and mendacious cruelty, formalized injustice, his racism and sexual assault, his thirst for power and adulation, his bungling brand of techno-fascism. “Andor” also showed us the banality of evil and how it grows in ways large and small that corporatist oligarchy and totalitarianism need as its fuel.
The second season opted to release three episodes at a time over four weeks (each week a year closer to the original film), which I think was the correct choice for a powerful, thrilling, and topical limited streaming series like this. I won’t spoil anything – if you’ve seen “Rogue One” then you know the fate of many of the characters, and you certainly know how well that blended into the 1977 film ( I nearly lost it in the theater seeing Princess Leia handed the Death Star plans and say “Hope” at the end of “Rogue One”). We know that after a tragic struggle, freedom and democracy prevail, but it’s a long way off and the cost is high. “Rebellions are built on hope.”
I will say this about the final episode of Season 2: Listen to the end credit music. You’ll recognize it shift into a very familiar John Williams score. Again, tearing up.
The politics of “Andor” as I mentioned above are obvious. The kiddie space opera has come into its own. It grew up. We grew up. It’s not escapist. It’s a warning, but it’s also more than a warning. “Andor” is guidebook for rebellion.
For me, and many others, this was the right series, at the right time, done the right way. I am grateful to those that made it, and I am genuinely sad it’s over. But our struggle in the real world goes on.
I’ll leave you with this, Nemik’s manifesto from Season 1.
There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy.
Remember this: Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause.
Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
And remember this: the Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks; it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.
Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.
Remember this: Try.
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Unpaid Bills 
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