12h ago

Andor Has a Message for the Left: Act Now

STAR WARS HAS always been political, no matter what the MAGA types who cosplay as Imperial agents and scream about Disney shoving diversity into “their Star Wars” say.

The original trilogy showed a band of anti-imperialist fighters going up against a vicious pan-galactic state — based, according to its creator George Lucas, on the Vietnam War, with the Viet Cong “rebels” going up against the United States “Empire.”

The prequels showed the transformation of the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire of the original trilogy. In 2018, during Donald Trump’s first administration, James Cameron interviewed Lucas about Star Wars’ anti-authoritarian messaging, highlighting a line spoken by Senator Padmé Amidala as Emperor Palpatine declares that the Republic is now an Empire: “So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.”

Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney in 2012 and hasn’t been involved in production since then, but Andor, the new series set in the universe, doubles down on its anti-authoritarian roots, focusing on the creation of the revolutionary Rebel Alliance. In the process, it gives us a glimpse into the messiness and conflict that often accompanies building a movement on the left, as activists fight over which political philosophies and strategies work best.

37 comments

I fell into the category where I just stopped caring about all these Star Wars projects and never watched it. When the 2nd season came out, I realized a lot of friends had said it's actually really good and decided to give it a shot. I absolutely loved it. I loved the themes and thought this did a way better job portraying just how dire the times were in this universe. I am also a sucker for spy and espionage movies, and this was up there with the best.
I am so glad I ended up giving it a shot, and I'm sad that I think there's a lot more people like me who won't end up watching it due to not trusting the content coming out anymore.
- I also almost skipped it. Glad I didn't. I enjoyed season 1 very much so far, haven't yet started season 2. Andor is great because it's much different from "normal" Star Wars. It's simply a great story with good acting and doesn't have much of the "cringe" or high fantasy stuff from Star Wars and is full of great writing with lots of relatable references to today's political issues. It's also much more mature than classical Star Wars which appeals more to kids. It kind of stands on its own as a great sci-fi story of the beginning of a rebellion against an evil and almighty empire. And even if Andor should become worse over time, season 1 at least is very good and can be watched in isolation from the rest. "The Mandalorian" is also decent but I enjoyed Andor even more. I'd say Andor is the best output from Star Wars in existence today, by a big margin. Trailing behind that are "The Mandalorian" and the movie "Rogue One". If you normally don't like Star Wars, you can still safely watch Andor and/or these two and just ignore everything else from the franchise. IMHO of course.
- It's great because it hardly resembles Star Wars. There's no chosen one (OK, season 2 sort of makes Andor into someone chosen by The Force, but it's vague enough that maybe it's just saying it's around him because of what he's done/become), no lighsabers, barely any of The Force, there's mass murder of civilians on screen, and I'm pretty sure they even included an anologue for Walt Disney himself as a master of propoganda assisting The Empire, just like the real Walt and Fascists.
  It's good because they have a passionate team, and they seem to have been given almost complete freedom. Disney isn't breathing down their necks telling them what to or not to include. They just want to tell a story about rebellion in our world, but use the Star Wars backdrop to trick people into watching it and agreeing with it when they maybe wouldn't initially if it were using imagery from our world.
  
  BTW this is why us old lore fans got so pissy when Disney reset everything. While Andor is probably an improvement on its old lore equivalent there are entire books and comics dedicated to this type of shit.
- I ended up finally giving it a shot last month, and I recall having seen stuff about season 2.
  I finished season 1 in 2 days, and then found out season 2 hadn't quite come out yet.
  Then I did what I always do and waited for all the episodes to come out.. I got halfway through season 2 before my last month I'm paying for streaming services ran out.
  So now I will indefinitely be halfway through season 2.
  I should have started season 2 the day the last episode was released.
  
  Yar harr fiddeldy dee, matey 🏴‍☠️
  On a completely unrelated note, have you ever looked at the communities on https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/ ?
  
  HYDRA has many HeaDs.
  
  I've lost my sea legs, unfortunately. It's been about a decade since I set sail and at this point I'm paranoid about any online interactions.
  I wouldn't even know where to start with VPNs.
  Is this what getting old feels like? Can I go back to limewire?
  
  It's thankfully far easier and less dangerous than the limewire days of yore, and no VPN required as long as you stream it instead of plundering the booty to your cargo hold ^^
  
  No idea about the VPN stuff but I just don't have the brain cells to spare for watching a Star Wars TV show. I watched the first 3 movies (Luke blows up the Death Star twice) and the first of the prequel movies (the one with Jar Jar) and gave up on the whole franchise after that. I only recently found out from Wookiepedia the amount of spin-offs and sidehows the thing has spawned. I still love this though (music video compressing the whole prequel series to 6 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpvlTVgeivU

37 comments