Andor, the latest Star Wars series on Disney+, drops the Jedis and Mandalorians to do something much more interesting than ever seen before in a galaxy far away…
Ever heard of the Ship of Theseus? It’s a thought experiment. Thousands of years ago, an ancient ship was used in a yearly ritual, traveling across the Aegean Sea in Greece to commemorate a great victory. Every year, a piece of the ship would fall to rot, replaced with a new piece. After several centuries, every single part had been replaced. The question asked is, is this still the same ship?
Andor hasn’t had all its parts replaced, but there’s times watching its first season, currently still unfolding on Disney+ in the Middle East, when you’ll ask yourself if this is still Star Wars. While the series, which comes 45 years after the first film’s debut in cinemas, is a prequel to the 2016 film Star Wars: Rogue One, it’s a prestige drama without the rough edges sanded off, tackling themes usually seen in films made by filmmakers like Tony Gilroy.
That should make sense, as Gilroy, the writer behind the Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton, is the one who made it.
“We’re breaking entirely new territory in Star Wars. We took the exit ramp off the highway and we’re taking you into the countryside. It’s a completely different vocabulary, a completely different mindset,” Gilroy tells Esquire Saudi.
The titular ‘Andor’ is not a far-off planet, but a desperate man struggling at the fringes of society—Cassian Andor, played once again by Diego Luna. When we met him in Rogue One, he was a believer in the resistance against the evil galactic empire. Here, he’s still just a punk criminal, yet to find something worth believing in.
“This is a guy who you wouldn’t notice that he’s around. That’s one of his strengths. You don’t look at him and expect anything out of him. He’s done terrible things in his life, but he’s willing to forgive himself, willing to change. It’s interesting to witness his journey, because it’s the journey of a regular person, a man who finds one day that he’s capable of extraordinary things,” Luna tells us.
That, ultimately is what this show is about. It’s a group of people stuck in a horrible situation and have no one coming to save them, who learn to save themselves.
“We don’t want to tell a story about heroes. There are no Jedis. There are no Mandalorians. It’s just people trying to survive, and finding strength in numbers, in believing in each other and articulating something together. Their strength is in community,” Luna continues.
“I love stories about people that sound real to me. Stories that sound possible. And Kassian feels real to me. That’s what makes this show great.”
Andor is streaming now on Disney+ across the Middle East