Andor Season Premier Was Fantastic!

Finally, some new life in the Star Wars franchise. The 3-part series premiere of Andor was fantastic as the feel, characters, locations, plot, and mystery of the story has given Star Wars a whole new identity.

This franchise was absolutely desperate for a fresh perspective and story. The Mandalorian Season 1 provided that after the catastrophe that was The Last Jedi as that show gave us new characters (Mando, Grogu, Moff Gideon, etc.) and new story that has never been seen in the Star Wars universe (in the movies, at least) during a time that had little to no exploration (right after the fall of the Empire).

However, the following season of the show, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi unfortunately all followed a similar, copy-and-paste formula to The Mandalorian Season 1, which removed some of the magic/uniqueness that the show once brought to the universe.

Thankfully, Andor has bucked the trend of its predecessors as it has introduced up a whole new genre into the Star Wars franchise: a political and spy thriller.

It was so refreshing to watch a show focus on the criminal, spy, and ‘working class’ (if there even is one in the Star Wars universe) elements of society, while also dabbling into some of the early politics of the newly formed Empire.

I was a little skeptical about Andor to begin with as we already knew the titular hero, Cassian Andor…(spoiler alert) dies at the end of Rogue One. So, I wasn’t sure how the show would create a compelling, original storyline that would not only be exciting to watch, but also help me forget that Cassian Andor’s story ends rather abruptly only a few years after the show’s end.

Yet, it did more than just ‘be exciting’ as it featured a plethora of new, interesting characters that have a stake in bringing down the Empire, such as Adria Arjona’s Brix Caleen, Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael, and Fionna Shaw’s Maarva.

Each of these characters had a fleshed out, interesting backstory (or just persona in the case of Luthen Rael as he’s still very mysterious) that made the Outer Rim worlds of Ferrix, Morlana One, and Kenari feel alive and mysterious.

Plus, there was also just as many fascinating characters on these worlds fighting to keep the Empire alive and thriving…some more than others. Kyle Soller’s Morlana One Trade Sector Officer Syril Karn is one of those select few.

He’s every office worker’s nightmare boss: a stuck-up, arrogant, high standards fool that is obsessed with authority and order.

And when Cassian Andor broke his order by killing two of his soldiers, he became hell-bent on bringing him the Kenarian to justice and the early antagonist for our show so far. He’s just such a fool that I can’t help but kind of sympathize for him (just a little bit).

Speaking of Kenari, I really liked the concept of Kenari being a remote, undeveloped tropical world that even the Galactic Republic, Separatists, and later the Empire dared not inhabiting apart from a few, small mining operations.

Just like how there are remote, undeveloped tropical areas in our own world, it makes sense that a form of that would appear in Star Wars…just on a galactical scale.

Adding Kenari and the people of Kenari into the Star Wars universe just really worked for me as it was nice not seeing a new planet being inhabited by the carbon copy of aliens/humans we’ve already seen just under a different name and design. It was also neat to see how Cassian Andor left Kenari and became the man we saw during the series premiere.

Moreover, I also really enjoyed the grittiness of the Outer Rim.

Yeah, the underworlds of Coruscant, Tatooine, Nal Hutta (home world of the Huts), and Obi Diah (home world of the Pyke Syndicate) had dark, criminal-esque elements to them, but the Outer Rim in Andor just felt different.

Maybe it’s because Andor is a live action series, whereas the Clone Wars was animated, but everything just feels more realistic and depressing in Andor. And I really like it as it’s so different to the Original, Prequel, and Sequel trilogies.

Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to seeing how Cassian Andor and Luthen Rael start fighting the Empire as a team, while Mon Mothma (who we haven’t seen just yet) begins scheming her way to the top of the Empire just to cause it to self-destruct from within.

Also, I wonder how Brix Caleen will play into the story now that her lover is dead, and Cassian fled off world? I hope she comes back because I thought her actress, Adria Arjona, was great.

As for the one negative I have for the series so far, I felt that they kind of introduced too many characters in the beginning. There are at least 4-6 people who were on screen for a minute talking to Andor that I was just starting to recognize, but the camera cut away from them too quickly before I could pick up their names/personality.

Thus, when they rejoined the story latter on, I was confusing who they were or what their relationship to Andor was with other people. This is a small criticism, but I would recommend that the show slows down just a bit to allow the audience to become more engaged with the new characters introduced.

Anyway, due to this being a 3-part Series Premiere, I can’t really get into the plot of all of the episodes without this ending article ending up becoming a college-level essay. So, I’ll start writing up reviews for individual episodes come Episode 4.

Nevertheless, I’d give the series premiere of Andor a solid 9.0/10. There’s room for improvement with the pacing, but everything else was so great and unique that I can’t help but give the show a 9.0 so far.

Here’s hoping the rest of the series lives up to the early expectations set on it now.

Images Source: Featured Image: (Disney/Star Wars) (Andor | Teaser Trailer | Disney+ – YouTube)

In Text Image 1: (Disney/Star Wars) (Andor | Teaser Trailer | Disney+ – YouTube)

In Text Image 2: (Disney/Star Wars) (Andor | Official Trailer | Disney+ – YouTube)

In Text Image 3: (Disney/Star Wars) (Andor | Teaser Trailer | Disney+ – YouTube)