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.
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.
And Disney just reset it again by stopping Andor at season 2.
I pressured a friend of mine into watching Andor; they were reluctant because they knew very little of Star Wars, but they loved it. Andor pulls off the impressive feat of making something that’s enjoyable to Star Wars fans and casuals/non-fans alike