Viewinder Reviews

Review: Andor (season 1, 2022)

Andor (2022) Andor (2022)

The best Star War since Empire – and far, far better than we had any right or hope to expect.

Further Viewing

Far wilder than the video’s clickbaity title is how the entire scene was set to music, which was performed live on set, and thus required meticulous planning and timing by pre-shooting (on a phone) and pre-editing the scene “to massage this thing into the beats we need”, as Andor show runner Tony Gilroy explains. “We knew by the time we got there, where we were gonna be for every single moment of it… that kind of mechanical engineering, if you will, about time” (via Variety):

Even more detail about the design of Ferrix (full video on the story page on Indiewire):

It seems wild that it still needs to be said, even in 2023, but Star Wars has always been “political” – specifically, anti American imperialism. Don’t believe that the Ewoks were the Viet Cong? Take it from no less than George Lucas himself (via AMC):

If 1977’s Star Wars was analogous to the Vietnam War, 2022’s Andor bears reading through the lens of its contemporary geopolitical landscape (not least while bearing in mind that Andor show runner Tony Gilroy’s pedigree is of political thrillers, not of Star Wars fandom). In describing Andor as “a political drama for our moment“, broadcaster Mehdi Hasan asserts that, from Ukraine’s defiance of the Russian invasion, to demonstrations for women’s rights in Iran, “the dominant story of us, of much of humanity right now, is of resistance.” Particularly in the landscape of more recent Star Wars media, which has become increasingly lost in its own self–reflexive feedback loop, Sage Hyden (Just Write) argues that Andor‘s bold writing is more in line with the ballsy politics of Lucas’ original films:

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