Call me an idiot, but I’m a huge fan of escapism through fantasy and sci fi, but even in escapist content we deserve meditations on human nature, human cruelty, and human capacity. All good stories are built on such deliberation, and Star Wars, like the Lord of the Rings or Star Trek deserves stories that aren’t just about the setting, but about people.
Andor is often said to be the first Star Wars project that shows us how terrifying the Empire is for normal folks. While I could point to a few others, that’s a mostly fair assessment, which is another reason Andor is perfect in the world it’s set; it does the heavy lifting even for the Original Trilogy, 40 years later.
I love escapist stuff, and I love Sci Fi -- when the Star Wars franchise is good, I think it's great! I just also think it's strange that this gritty, realistic show exists in that fun, fantasy universe.
While Andor is, as you've stated, more adult, it's not alone in being gritty. Though the examples I'll give you aren't that well known for older (sorry!) fans, they are better known amongst late millennials and early zoomers.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the 3D-animated show, not the 2D-animated cartoon) has really gritty arcs involving the deep personalities of the clone troopers, rebels against the Confederacy, underworld infighting, betrayals amongst the Sith, and terrorism along with framing friends for such acts. The show also has Jar Jar Binks, Jedi-children doing things, and lots of cutesy droid episodes, so it's different from Andor in the sense that it's inconsistent tonally. Yet us younger adult Star Wars fans are used to things being dark and gritty at times.
Rogue One: this one is an obvious comparison, as it's the spark behind Andor, and it's not as dark and gritty, but shares a lot of that DNA.
The Star Wars Jedi games (Fallen Order and Survivor), get quite dark, quite grimy, quite betrayaly, and frankly pretty depressing.
Then there's the recent publishing initiative "Star Wars: The High Republic", which gets incredibly dark at times, with important characters dying brutally left and right.
I get Andor being unique amongst live action Star Wars, but while its impeccable quality is above the others, its tone and serious nature is far from unique in the rest of Star Wars media and literature.
Maybe you didn’t mean it, but one thing I love about your writing is how Arrested Development completely dominates your subconscious and leaks into at least 87% of your articles. Hence “Star War.”
Rare hard disagree from me, the nice thing about a fictional setting is that you can explore politics without being political.
If it was set in the US, even with fictional characters, people would be straining to draw parallels to real life; so you couldn’t explore themes like “leftist infighting facilitates the rise of authoritarianism” without people arguing if the Mon Motha character was Hillary or not. And if it’s a historical setting people would tune out as soon as they need to reach for a history book; as much flak as Star Wars gets for gratuitous cameos and least you don’t have to know who Tito is if it’s set in post-WW2 Yugoslavia.
Apparently Andor cost 600M dollars, and it shows in terms of the sets, lack of over reliance on CGI and the size and quality of the cast. That’s the major factor underlying the excellence of the cast and sky high production values (and possibly the tightness of the plot and superbly writing?). I don’t think any streamer will take such a massive financial risk nowadays on a limited 24 episode run unless it’s underpinned by gold plated IP such as Star Wars (and the equivalents like LoTR which are also fantasy/sci-fi). If they think they’re setting up a new screen IP that can run forever like Game of Thrones then they might take the risk, but that can’t have the tight focus and momentum that made Andor special (actual stakes for characters who face irreversible consequences for their decisions!). Also Andor has space Miami (Niamos)
Yeah I think that's exactly right -- this only happens if it has the Star Wars brand on it. So, in a way, all the space lasers and shit were the cost of getting this well made cat-and-mouse thriller to the screen.
I kind of see this as similar to when McDonald's tried to rebrand itself as not being exclusively for kids (did you notice that no McDonald's these days have a big creepy clown statue when you walk in?). A lot of Star Wars fans are grown-ups, but the franchise has recently been chasing grown-ups away with its idiocy, and I think this is Disney saying "Okay, adults, here you go: It's still got the Star Wars trappings but is decidedly meant for you. And all the CGI stuff is for your kids."
Regardless of my personal opinion, this is definitely something you should double down on. I look forward to your next post, “Fuck you haters: Dune and Dune 2 should have been set in Scottsdale, Arizona”.
If humanity does become a Star-Wars style multiplanetary species, we may all have funny haircuts and take the hyperport to the Flurgon System. That's the point, things change but they stay the same. I think this sort of writing helps people overcome unreasonable fears of exploring space.
It's also more entertaining. 'Andor' works for the same reason 'A Knight's Tale' worked - it's makes strange situations & people relatable. I never could relate to the characters in the Canterbury Tales, but when Chaucer is portrayed as a whiny writer, full of complaints and the knights are rocking out, it makes some sort of sense.
I’ve actually been saying that the sci-fi is totally incidental to Andor. It’s one of the reasons I like it so much. The sci-fi stuff is Really in the background which is wonderful because, paradoxically, it makes it easier to feel immersed in the world. It’s fundamentally a human story that could be told in any setting.
I am also watching this one recently for the first time and I agree with this take. I'm a huge science fiction fan so I am always surprised when a film or show comes out that has broad appeal to non-fans. Too often these shows are just lazy because they know they have a guaranteed fanbase of people like me who will watch them no matter what.
So if the fundamentals of the production are solid the setting matters less, can Disney/Lucas please-for-the-love-of-Yoda make some good films again? The sequels were truly awful...
Side note: I've always thought the the three elements of storytelling miss the core experience in some cases. As you said: jokes in comedy. Scary in horror. Steamy make-outs in romance (I assume). Sometimes there's a core visceral experience that the audience wants, and you can provide it without worrying about rules like "Every scene must do at least two of the following: advance the plot, develop the characters, or explore the themes."
(I was tempted to include "sex in porn", but there is exactly one element to porn and we all know it.)
Sexy scenes generally are exploring themes. Scary in horror is enhancing mood and exploring themes, and often advancing the plot ("scary thing just yoinked someone" -- next scene is your Private Eye looking for Barbara.)
"I’m not sure that any movie deserves to self-replicate more than Nick Cannon…"
Nick Cannon isn't even close to Star Wars levels of offspring! I would have said the movie replicates more on the scale of Cecil Jacobson, the crazy sperm bank owner who was caught using his own sperm to impregnate clients, leading to possibly 75 offspring. When his exploits hit the news here in the USA, it inspired a brilliant "Saturday Night Live" sketch with John Goodman (March 14th, 1992) in which Cecil Jacobson was sentenced by a court to have to star in a sitcom with all of his children, the sitcom's name being "My 75 Kids."
I would think that Jeff knows this, but you’re not gonna get a lay audience to watch a meditation of the limits that you should go to to oppose fascism if it’s not wrapped in a fun space adventure from a known property
Call me an idiot, but I’m a huge fan of escapism through fantasy and sci fi, but even in escapist content we deserve meditations on human nature, human cruelty, and human capacity. All good stories are built on such deliberation, and Star Wars, like the Lord of the Rings or Star Trek deserves stories that aren’t just about the setting, but about people.
Andor is often said to be the first Star Wars project that shows us how terrifying the Empire is for normal folks. While I could point to a few others, that’s a mostly fair assessment, which is another reason Andor is perfect in the world it’s set; it does the heavy lifting even for the Original Trilogy, 40 years later.
I love escapist stuff, and I love Sci Fi -- when the Star Wars franchise is good, I think it's great! I just also think it's strange that this gritty, realistic show exists in that fun, fantasy universe.
While Andor is, as you've stated, more adult, it's not alone in being gritty. Though the examples I'll give you aren't that well known for older (sorry!) fans, they are better known amongst late millennials and early zoomers.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the 3D-animated show, not the 2D-animated cartoon) has really gritty arcs involving the deep personalities of the clone troopers, rebels against the Confederacy, underworld infighting, betrayals amongst the Sith, and terrorism along with framing friends for such acts. The show also has Jar Jar Binks, Jedi-children doing things, and lots of cutesy droid episodes, so it's different from Andor in the sense that it's inconsistent tonally. Yet us younger adult Star Wars fans are used to things being dark and gritty at times.
Rogue One: this one is an obvious comparison, as it's the spark behind Andor, and it's not as dark and gritty, but shares a lot of that DNA.
The Star Wars Jedi games (Fallen Order and Survivor), get quite dark, quite grimy, quite betrayaly, and frankly pretty depressing.
Then there's the recent publishing initiative "Star Wars: The High Republic", which gets incredibly dark at times, with important characters dying brutally left and right.
I get Andor being unique amongst live action Star Wars, but while its impeccable quality is above the others, its tone and serious nature is far from unique in the rest of Star Wars media and literature.
This just makes me think The Wire should've been in space
Wasn't that movie Solo?
Solo was a masterpiece of "fixing by cutting" so I don't think you can call it anything other than a hodgepodge of "really, we filmed that???!?"
Maybe you didn’t mean it, but one thing I love about your writing is how Arrested Development completely dominates your subconscious and leaks into at least 87% of your articles. Hence “Star War.”
Glad someone noticed that! T'was not subconscious at all.
Rare hard disagree from me, the nice thing about a fictional setting is that you can explore politics without being political.
If it was set in the US, even with fictional characters, people would be straining to draw parallels to real life; so you couldn’t explore themes like “leftist infighting facilitates the rise of authoritarianism” without people arguing if the Mon Motha character was Hillary or not. And if it’s a historical setting people would tune out as soon as they need to reach for a history book; as much flak as Star Wars gets for gratuitous cameos and least you don’t have to know who Tito is if it’s set in post-WW2 Yugoslavia.
Apparently Andor cost 600M dollars, and it shows in terms of the sets, lack of over reliance on CGI and the size and quality of the cast. That’s the major factor underlying the excellence of the cast and sky high production values (and possibly the tightness of the plot and superbly writing?). I don’t think any streamer will take such a massive financial risk nowadays on a limited 24 episode run unless it’s underpinned by gold plated IP such as Star Wars (and the equivalents like LoTR which are also fantasy/sci-fi). If they think they’re setting up a new screen IP that can run forever like Game of Thrones then they might take the risk, but that can’t have the tight focus and momentum that made Andor special (actual stakes for characters who face irreversible consequences for their decisions!). Also Andor has space Miami (Niamos)
Yeah I think that's exactly right -- this only happens if it has the Star Wars brand on it. So, in a way, all the space lasers and shit were the cost of getting this well made cat-and-mouse thriller to the screen.
I kind of see this as similar to when McDonald's tried to rebrand itself as not being exclusively for kids (did you notice that no McDonald's these days have a big creepy clown statue when you walk in?). A lot of Star Wars fans are grown-ups, but the franchise has recently been chasing grown-ups away with its idiocy, and I think this is Disney saying "Okay, adults, here you go: It's still got the Star Wars trappings but is decidedly meant for you. And all the CGI stuff is for your kids."
Very cool! I didn’t know that. Maybe the real sets and large cast are also why the world feels to normal.
Regardless of my personal opinion, this is definitely something you should double down on. I look forward to your next post, “Fuck you haters: Dune and Dune 2 should have been set in Scottsdale, Arizona”.
Um, so you liked when Snow Crash was set in LA?
(This is Grand Theft Auto, by the way).
Someone needs to make a movie of out of the drama that is the Colorado River Compact, but with giant space creatures and more religion, for sure.
Dave Q Galaxy was part of the literature of the EU but when Lucas messed with the universe for the sequels he's now just canonically Dave Galaxy.
If humanity does become a Star-Wars style multiplanetary species, we may all have funny haircuts and take the hyperport to the Flurgon System. That's the point, things change but they stay the same. I think this sort of writing helps people overcome unreasonable fears of exploring space.
It's also more entertaining. 'Andor' works for the same reason 'A Knight's Tale' worked - it's makes strange situations & people relatable. I never could relate to the characters in the Canterbury Tales, but when Chaucer is portrayed as a whiny writer, full of complaints and the knights are rocking out, it makes some sort of sense.
I’ve actually been saying that the sci-fi is totally incidental to Andor. It’s one of the reasons I like it so much. The sci-fi stuff is Really in the background which is wonderful because, paradoxically, it makes it easier to feel immersed in the world. It’s fundamentally a human story that could be told in any setting.
The current setting is pretty cool though.
I am also watching this one recently for the first time and I agree with this take. I'm a huge science fiction fan so I am always surprised when a film or show comes out that has broad appeal to non-fans. Too often these shows are just lazy because they know they have a guaranteed fanbase of people like me who will watch them no matter what.
So if the fundamentals of the production are solid the setting matters less, can Disney/Lucas please-for-the-love-of-Yoda make some good films again? The sequels were truly awful...
Side note: I've always thought the the three elements of storytelling miss the core experience in some cases. As you said: jokes in comedy. Scary in horror. Steamy make-outs in romance (I assume). Sometimes there's a core visceral experience that the audience wants, and you can provide it without worrying about rules like "Every scene must do at least two of the following: advance the plot, develop the characters, or explore the themes."
(I was tempted to include "sex in porn", but there is exactly one element to porn and we all know it.)
Sexy scenes generally are exploring themes. Scary in horror is enhancing mood and exploring themes, and often advancing the plot ("scary thing just yoinked someone" -- next scene is your Private Eye looking for Barbara.)
"I’m not sure that any movie deserves to self-replicate more than Nick Cannon…"
Nick Cannon isn't even close to Star Wars levels of offspring! I would have said the movie replicates more on the scale of Cecil Jacobson, the crazy sperm bank owner who was caught using his own sperm to impregnate clients, leading to possibly 75 offspring. When his exploits hit the news here in the USA, it inspired a brilliant "Saturday Night Live" sketch with John Goodman (March 14th, 1992) in which Cecil Jacobson was sentenced by a court to have to star in a sitcom with all of his children, the sitcom's name being "My 75 Kids."
For my money, the funniest Maurer post. Epic. Start to finish. Kudos, sir.
Burned down Old Navy? Diana Ross, Kid-n-Play? Bay City Rollers? Subtle Brit Bashing? SAG hardship pay? What the? Was rolling
I would think that Jeff knows this, but you’re not gonna get a lay audience to watch a meditation of the limits that you should go to to oppose fascism if it’s not wrapped in a fun space adventure from a known property
Not to be pedantic, but I thought footnote 1 was going to cite Dennis Miller for his joke on German reunification way back when