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Lucasfilm’s foray into making Star Wars shows for Disney Plus has yielded mixed results, to say the least. Obi-Wan Kenobi brought back Ewan McGregor’s Jedi Knight, delivering the showdown of the century and reminding everyone how terrifying Darth Vader can be. And yet, the series was not without its missteps; pacing issues led to moments of logical hoop-jumping that became harder and harder to ignore
Kenobi fared better than The Book of Boba Fett, a forgettable "mob drama" set almost entirely down one street of Tatooine. The fact the series was single-handedly saved by an hour without Boba – I’m talking, of course, about The Mandalorian episode – underlines just how mishandled the character was. Meanwhile, the adventures of Baby Yoda and his Daddy have been brilliant, though the well of potential cameos has surely dried up.
Now comes Andor, the spin-off to the spin-off about a character who, frankly, did not seem all that interesting in Rogue One. Conversely, the reviews for Andor have been stunning, the show quickly becoming the singular Star Wars property the entire fandom can get behind. Writer Tony Gilroy has done a wildly impressive job creating a grounded series, rooted in fantastic performances and sturdy character work, that still feels a part of the wider galaxy that George Lucas created. There are no Jedi in Andor, but there are real stakes, real villains, and real questions of mortality, sacrifice, and grief. Andor’s not just a great Star Wars series, it’s a great TV series – one that should be taken as seriously as the other prequels recently released, such as House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, Better Call Saul.
However, a refrain that seems to be doing the rounds on Twitter is that not enough people are watching Andor – something Gilroy has himself addressed. "I thought the show would go the other way, that we would have this gigantic, instantaneous audience that would just be everywhere, but that it would take forever for non-Star Wars people or critics or my cohort of friends to get involved in the show," he told Variety. "The opposite happened. We ended up with all this critical praise, all this deep appreciation and understanding from really surprising number of sources, and we’re chasing the audience."
Cynically, you could say that a corporation like Disney doesn’t exactly need more people watching its output. That’s not the point. Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, and The Mandalorian have all made waves on streaming charts, meaning Disney will heavily invest in those types of shows – AKA bringing back iconic characters and relying on Star Wars iconography. If no one’s watching Andor (“no one” in comparison to those other shows, that is) then Lucasfilm will take fewer risks and instead start putting down huge paycheques to guarantee the elusive Donald Glover returns as Lando for his new show.
I’m not exactly against Glover’s Lando returning for a series (it will probably be excellent, let’s be real), but I do want Lucasfilm to continue making bold series about unknown characters. My most anticipated upcoming Star Wars series is The Acolyte, from Russian Doll’s Leslye Headland, which is set hundreds of years before the prequels. What’s more, I thoroughly believe the Skywalker Saga era, for the most part, has been played out. There are maybe a handful of characters I want to see more of (Vader, Poe) and some periphery characters linked to the Saga that would suit a series (Darth Plagueis) but sticking to this part of the timeline is proving more and more constraining for storytelling.
After all, we know how Andor ends – we’ve seen Rogue One. Likewise, we knew Obi-Wan Kenobi would survive his encounter with Darth Vader. Should a young Lando return, or a young Han Solo, or even a young Leia, we know what happens to them. And that, unfortunately, makes for less gripping television. Move away from that dense era of the Star wars timeline and, suddenly, the possibilities open up. For the most part, The Mandalorian pushes the story into an unknown area – although cameos from Luke remind us that we do know that, eventually, he will train Kylo Ren and the First Order will rise from the Empire’s ashes. The upcoming Asoka series is an equally unknown quantity with a few strings attached, as it similarly takes place between episodes six and seven.
Now, imagine for a minute that Andor was set a few hundred years after the Skywalker Saga – imagine if we didn’t know that Diego Luna’s Cassian will die on a beach; that Mon Mothma will become a leader of the Rebellion; that the Death Star’s being quietly created in the background. How exciting would that be? The theories would be endless and we would all be talking about how brilliant this new Star Wars era feels.
This is arguably an inherent problem of doing a prequel, and there are some great prequels out there. One of the best has been Better Call Saul, which suffered equally when it came to pure word of mouth – how many people do you know who loved Breaking Bad but are still waiting to get around to watching Better Call Saul? House of the Dragon has the benefit of being based on source material yet still changing things up; events in the show happen differently to George R.R. Martin’s books, which adds even more intrigue. The Rings of Power has been built very differently to Andor, with mystery boxes at its center.
That’s all to say Andor is great, but it’s still stuck within the confines of a known period, and about characters whose fates are sealed. For the world to start talking about a big, new sci-fi series like this – even when set in that famous galaxy far, far away – it needs to push out into the unknown; so we can theorize and gasp as heroes perish and threats grow to unknowable heights. (And if your counter argument is that going beyond the Skywalker Saga should be saved for the movies, then I partly agree, but Lucasfilm is intent on releasing so much Disney Plus content, and not much in cinemas, that it needs to start sooner rather than later.)
If the next Star Wars project wants to make a truly big impact, it needs the quality of Andor and the bravery to stretch the Star Wars timeline to new limits. Let’s explore the unknown – it’s exciting and fresh and where the franchise needs to go next. If Andor were set in a different time period, it would be the most exciting – and most talked about – Star Wars project in years.
For more on the future of Star Wars, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows heading your way soon.
