New Star Wars series Andorprequel to the 2016 movie Rogue One, is a dramatic examination of the early days of the Rebel Alliance. Science fiction author Matt London was impressed by the show’s intricate description and dialogue.
“There are too many hidden meanings in Andorand there is a lot of information conveyed in silence,” said London in Episode 533 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy audio file. “It is not passive viewing. I think it takes an active mind to participate. It’s not a kid’s show.”
television writer Andrea Kail agree that Andor is a mature, complex narrative. “In every other Star Wars, there’s black and white,” she said. “There is no crossover. Everything in this show is about moral ambiguity. It’s about gray tones in every situation. And that, for me, is why this is an adult show. Nothing is black and white in the world. Everyone makes choices, and some of those choices hurt others. That is the way of life, and that is the way of war.”
Andor largely shies away from many of the Star Wars staples, such as wacky creatures and humorous cyborgs, focusing instead on the realities of power and violence. fantasy author Erin Lindsey, who worked for many years as a United Nations aid worker, found the film’s political depiction to be entirely believable. “I think there are obviously people in the writing group who are students of spy novels like [those by] John le Carre and people who are politics students and history students who are really looking at how revolution happened here on Earth and what that looks like,” she said.
Despite its high quality, Andorrating of yes fall behind Star Wars shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Palestinians. Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley hope that Andor will attract a larger audience in season 2. “It’s great,” he said. “It deserves a higher rating than it has achieved so far. And I definitely want to see more shows like this. This is the kind of show—especially the kind of Star Wars show—that I’ve come to expect all these years. So please let’s all support it as much as we can.”
Listen to the full interview with Matt London, Andrea Kail and Erin Lindsey in Episode 533 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (on). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.
Andrea Kail on Obi-Wan Kenobi:
I hate the nimble little girl characters. thing about Leia was she a smart woman, and the child they described as a spoiled little girl who ran away because she didn’t want to do what she had to do, and in the process, she killed a group of people. And that was never resolved. She is just a cute little girl and everyone has to love her. I’m sorry. She was a spoiled child who killed a lot of people just because she didn’t want to get into something with her parents. … When you have a lot of money and a great cast, and then you put your central character as a spoiled brat, it drives me crazy.
David Barr Kirtley on characterization:
There’s a description I’ve heard about a character that’s profound, and that’s it’s a character that can do something that takes you completely by surprise, but it fits perfectly with everything you know about them. . And [Andor] full of poignant characters. In a lot of sci-fi and Star Wars shows, the characters are one-dimensional in the sense that in every scene they have identical personalities and you never see how different they were from the moment. But you see these characters in these private, vulnerable moments, where you see different but completely consistent sides of them.
Erin Lindsey on Syril Karn and Dedra Meero:
What makes a government of any kind work are technocrats, bureaucracies, and bureaucrats, and they have many different motives. And one of the things that they have [in Andor] do these two characters show very clearly the extent to which personal ambition is the most important and ultimate type of motivation for these characters. What I hope we see in the future is that at least a few characters are doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Because imperialism is largely a project carried out by a group of people who think they are doing the right thing legally.
Matt London on Andor Last season:
I think I was expecting more in terms of rewards in the last episode. A lot of people will be like, “What? There are a lot of amazing things that happen in the final episode. It’s true, yes. But I think there’s a message in the show that to defeat an empire you have to be a terrorist, and to defeat an empire, people will have to die — there will be sacrifices. And so I feel in a way, perhaps, in the spirit of realism, that the body count should have been higher. … We already know how this story ends, don’t we? People die in a fireball. So why do we keep some of these characters? Can’t we give them more definitive conclusions?
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