Andor: A Fitting Prequel
September 21st marked the Disney+ debut of the first three episodes of Andor, a prequel series to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The show follows Diego Luna’s titular character, Cassian Andor, during the beginning stages of the rebellion that becomes the center point of the original Star Wars trilogy.
Rogue One: A Rebellion Built on Hope
To understand the importance of Andor as a series, we must first look at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The Empire had been working on a super weapon to quell an emerging rebellion. The story follows Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor on a mission to acquire the plans to that very weapon, The Death Star. Any Star Wars fan recognizes The Death Star as the center point of The Battle of Yavin from the end of Episode IV: A New Hope. It’s interesting to see that they are building this series around the character, as he ultimately dies on the beaches of Scarif with Jyn. His more gritty, anything goes type of personality more than likely spoke to fans and he was the clear choice for a prequel series.
Andor Sets The Stage
Taking place 5 years before The Battle of Yavin, Andor is more of a spy thriller/espionage type of story that initially feels like something completely different than what we’ve seen in the past with Star Wars side projects. However, this has become a trend. For instance, The Mandalorian is a Space Western, and The Book of Boba Fett is more of a Space Mobster type of show. The Space Spy Thriller feel goes perfectly with where the story of Andor is inevitably going to end up.
So far, in the first three episodes, we’ve learned more about Andor’s origins, which plays a huge part in his hatred for the Empire. We’ve gotten a look at his home world Kenari, which The Empire has quarantined. Because of this, most people in the galaxy don’t even know the planet exists, and those that do believe it was quarantined due to a mining disaster.
Alongside Cassian, we are introduced to a cast of new characters. One of the characters that has captured the hearts of the fan base already is the new droid, B2EMO. B2EMO, or B2 for short, is a groundmech salvage assist unit that has a stammer in its speech that has served the Andor family for years. You can expect this charming droid to be the shining light of the series the way Grogu has been for The Mandalorian.
Hope for The Rebellion and The Show
The first three episodes have done a great job setting the pace for the style of show Andor will be. They were tense and political, with a more serious tone. We’ve seen the more gritty tone in The Mandalorian, albeit with the comedic relief of Grogu. We’ve also seen the political tones explored in The Book of Boba Fett, however it was more of mob boss style than espionage.
It’s no secret that many of the Disney+ series have divided the fan base by trying to throw in fan service that ultimately wasn’t relevant or had incorrect information attached to it. These include the use of, “Hello there” in Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bo-Katan rejecting the darksaber in The Mandalorian, while she accepted it in Rebels, and in The Book of Boba Fett, the titular character uses his armor to escape the Sarlaac pit, yet he goes back in a later episode to retrieve.
However, the show-runners of Andor have implied that they did their best to avoid fan service to allow the series to really shine as its own story. Our hope for Andor is that it sticks true to the idea of founding and strengthening the Rebellion against the Empire, and that we see a more detailed history of the lead up to Cassian’s mission to steal the plans for the Death Star.
The first three episodes of Andor are available to stream now on Disney+ with new episodes airing on Wednesdays!
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