Andor is Star Wars Being Political. And that’s what makes it great!

Andor is receiving tons of praise for making Star Wars more mature. But in my opinion, what is making this show so great is the first time in the Disney era that Star Wars has been overwhelmingly political.Regardless of what the dude bros on twitter say, George Lucas’ Star Wars has ALWAYS been political. The original trilogy was modeled after the french resistance against Nazi Germany in a way. And like many pointed out, while Lucas’ writing is dogwater, the story and the politics in the PT built a nuanced and layered perception on how some the world’s greatest democracies end up failing. And imo, aside from the lack of planned story, that’s why the sequels (and other Disney properties outside the Mandalorian) felt flat. There wasn’t a complex backdrop, and pure nostalgia will only take you so far.Andor reintroduces Lucas’ politics and then takes it a step further by introducing new elements that make Star Wars feel like a political thriller. And it’s brilliant while also frightening. For example, the prequels showed how a democracy ultimately accepts a strong man. Andor shows how those dictatorships ultimately go from authoritarianism with a lowercase “a” to full blown fascism. You start off with socialites and oligarchs getting special favors and running security teams, while political enemies (“undesirables and people who have something to hide”) are the only ones persecuted. But as the empire gets increasingly paranoid by the budding backlash to their oppression, they overreact and violate even basic fundamental rights (ex: Andor’s ridiculous faux prison sentence going from 6 months to 6 years without just cause). Ultimately, the oppression gets so bad, it leads to more uprises. And that it leads to the Empire no longer hiding their atrocious behavior as a perception of “strength” (I.e, destroying Alderaan, eliminating the placeholder senate). We’ve seen this story played out time and time again in history and Tony Gilroy & Co are using those examples with a Sci-Fi backdrop. Just like George Lucas did with his story.So to conclude, Andor is going back to the roots of Lucas’ original themes, and building on them with more nuances and stunning real world analogies. Lucas based these ideas of real world politics. And unfortunately, we’re seeing a lot of both his, and Gilroy’s, scenarios play out again in real time. Perhaps more than ever, we need more properties to follow Andor’s model and be political in this sense. via /r/StarWars https://ift.tt/X1DsYBj