In Andor, which you can see on Disney +, the tension is palpable. From the very first episode — a brilliant side-by-side narrative of past and present — the ambition of the script is evident. Creator Tony Gilroy wants to tell more than just the story of Cassian Andor, a rebel turned tragic icon. Also tries to explore the perception about power, corruption and the gigantic apparatus of violence that is the Empire.
For the first time, starwars allows himself to delve into the structure of the authoritarian regime that subjects a galaxy far, far away. He does so with a construction of disconcerting tension, to distance himself from any other vision of the George Lucas universe. And if that wasn’t enough, he creates a story with its own weight and substance that dazzles with its neatness and, especially, with the precision of what he wants to tell.
The series, which begins subtly, focuses on Andor (Diego Luna), a man with no past who ends up, almost fortuitously, in dire straits. But the premise, which might seem cliché in hands less skilled than Gilroy’s, quickly turns into an atmospheric and violent plot.
Andor
One of Andor’s highest points is its interest in narration from the eyes of its central axes. The story goes through all the characters and ends up sustaining a solid and concise choral story. Cassian, more than a common thread, is a silent witness to something much bigger and more brutal. The Empire is a monster that voraciously devours planets, peoples and cultures. He does it with the violent impunity of a totalitarian regime supported by complicated layers of power.
A story of suspense, pain and tension in the Star Wars universe
with the rhythm of Contact in France by William Friedkin — from which he inherits the dirty and dark aesthetic — the series is built with careful pieces. Unlike the timeless atmosphere of The Mandalorian or the naive staging of Obi Wan Kenobi, Andor opt for the dark. The production takes place in the same stratum as the previous productions, but in an extreme so wounded, broken and devastated that the difference is radical.
It is the first time that Star Wars abandons the sense of humor. Also, his little nods to entertainment in its purest form, almost childish. In fact, if something defines the series, it is its severe and introspective air. From the wild and ephemeral beauty of the planet Kenari, to the desert Ferrix. The plot reinvents starwars from a tour of the devastation of a recent war, of the silent violence that invades every known place.
Andor is the new phenomenon of the Star Wars universe that comes exclusively to Disney +
For Andor, it is of considerable importance to deepen the resignation. A feeling so total and pessimistic that it makes the first two chapters a study on collective pain. At the same time, he makes brilliant choices that are completely new to the franchise, incorporating a sense of belonging into the story he tells. In Andor, all the characters are somehow refugees looking for a home. Beings destroyed by the weight of a large-scale injury that they cannot overcome.
Gilroy, who already proved his knack for tortured characters and settings in the Bourne Saga, imbues the series with an understated melancholy. The Republic fell, life changed forever, and the unnamed victims try to survive as best they can. They succeed, in the midst of rubble, of the terror of knowing they are besieged and persecuted by a type of power from which no one can escape. A certainty that weighs on every dialogue, scene and narrative thread.
The rigors of corrupt power are displayed in all their horror in Andor
If something impresses Andor, is the deconstruction of Empire as a partially efficient corporate system. One with all kinds of bureaucrats trying to tweak and refine sophisticated methods of domination.
But the notion of the militia is limited and restricted to guards and poorly trained troops. For the first in a series of starwarsstormtroopers are absent. Instead of their familiar presence in white armor, there are loosely organized raiding parties trying to keep up with a newly established system.
Gilroy allows the series to build its own codes and a sense of reality so powerful as to be claustrophobic. He does it from his first scenes. Cassian, who finds himself involved in a circumstance that will lead him to persecution and fear, shows the region of the saga survivors.
Little by little, the story narrates the painful past of his character, but, in turn, defines the rest. With an impeccable narrative pulse, the series manages to assemble the story about Cassian as a character with that of the society in which he grew up. The dilapidated Ferrix, a mining enclave, is also a space of silent and anguished solidarity.
Andor moves away from the map of the epic. But he does not abandon the ideal and the heroic. Instead, he takes him to a painfully human, fallible stratum shattered by an ancient tragedy of which he shows the aftermath. The series is much more focused on small stories than on big tragic deeds. Which could be a dilemma — it is, after all, a hero’s origin story — were it not for his clever script.
Andor, hostages of a violent power
Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) is perhaps the character that best displays and embodies the ability to Andor for duplicity. The opening scenes show him as a veteran of cheating, deception, and survival. The following, as an alien character, inexplicable, although after amazing solidity. The actor creates a bridge between the atomized and slightly chaotic rebellion and other more powerful and better organized regions..
In that transit Andor it finds all the nuances it needs to become a mature, brilliant, agile production with a spirit of its own. At the other end of the spectrum is Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), the now iconic Star Wars character. This time, she is the center of her own tragedy.
The senator is caught between two extremes of power. On the one hand, she is a victim who carries the guilt, who shows Coruscant elegant and with the air of an emblem of power. On the other hand, she is also the woman who wants a goal, who looks for a way to sustain her conviction. “I take risks every day”says Luthen Reed. “But they are necessary, unavoidable, nobody would run them for me”Add.
Time and fear, elements of great interest in Andor
During its first few episodes, the series uncovers its secrets carefully. The siege of the Empire is total, brutal, impossible to avoid. A system that extends its networks in spies and constant surveillance. With the paranoid atmosphere of the great thrillers of the 1970s, the series explores conspiracy from its extremes. The way information is transmitted, the way survivors must deal with the constant risk of dying.
The story of Cassian, who is recruited into the rebellion almost by accident, is based on desperation and fear. The character is one of the many anonymous victims that a fascist system, without limits or opposition, destroyed. The boy who was Cassian saved his life from a total cataclysm. Death marked him, left him wounds that he, as an adult, shows through disdain for any cause.
But Cassian knows that the Empire must be destroyed. Also, that his contribution will be little, perhaps not too significant. With sensitive deference to the iconic rogue one, Gilrey announces to the martyr of his principles that he will immolate himself for a conviction without duplicity. That is when the series reaches its best moments. Cassian’s slow transformation is not apparent, obvious, or rushed.
For most of its early episodes, the titular character is a renegade, an outsider among outsiders. A silhouette without a future that also knows the cost of losses. The brilliant script takes just enough time to outline a tortured man, crushed by disenchantment.. But he doesn’t make him a victim, or even a renegade blinded by rage. In reality, he is a subversive spirit, needing only the momentum of a target to continue.
Andor, the first sign of rebellion in the galaxy
One of the highest points of Andor it is his interest in narration from the eyes of its central axes. The story goes through all the characters and ends up sustaining a solid and concise choral story.. Cassian, more than a common thread, is a silent witness to something much bigger and more brutal. The Empire is a monster that voraciously devours planets, peoples and cultures. He does it with the violent impunity of a totalitarian regime supported by complicated layers of power.
In the middle, resistance begins to form. But, for the moment, it is only about independent and disordered cells. “They’re all the same,” the cynical Cassian complains quietly. However, the resistance is much more elaborate than just an instinctive opposition to the power that crushes.
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Soon, it is revealed as a link between all the points of discontent in a careful map of relationships and a dangerous complicity that is precariously sustained. The greatest promise Andor will try to fulfill in its final chapters and that it is likely to make it the most powerful production in the franchise starwars.