When they were pitching the idea for what would become Seinfeld, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld called it a show about nothing. I think they used the same pitche when they told Disney-Plus about Andor.
Five episodes in to what is a reported 12-episode season and this show has abosutely nothing going on with it. It’s like a soap opera where people talk about other characters in scenes and then we switch to other characters who talk about other characters or their pasts and what go them here to this moment and blah, blah, blah. To put it in perspective, Andor is what the second season of The Walking Dead was like. Remember that? Remember when it was all set on a farm for a whole season and nothing really happened that wasn’t rellevant to the farm?
Andor focuses on Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) last seen in the Star Wars universe being blown to smithereens at the end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Considering that he was such a boring character in that moive, you’d think the writers would’ve given him something to do except slumped along. Well, no they didn’t.
And I’m just going to get this out of the way. I hated Rogue One. Hated, hated hated it. I hated how much it felt like fan fiction. I hated that you could obliviously see how badly the re-edits and re-shoots didn’t work so well in the overall plot. I hated the fact that most of the stuff they showed in the trailer (which made it look awesome) was gone from the version shown. I hated that they gave us an annoying protagonist in Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) who basically had ther same expression for over two hours. I hated that for the most part all the characters died and this was mainly done to fix a plot point on why the Death Star in Star Wars: A New Hope had an exhaust valve that could lead to its destruction.
So, that movie was released in 2016 and seeing that Andor is set five years before the events, it’s only fitting to do a prequel to a prequel in which an actor looks 10 years older but playing someone who’s younger. At this point it just looks like a cash cow in getting as much out of Star Wars as they can. The Mandalorian pretty much set in motion TV series like The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The latter two divided Star Wars fans, but fans have been divided since the prequels were released 20 years ago.
While Fett and Kenobi were interesting characters and you wanted to know more about them, I didn’t really care about Andor and he doesn’t really come off as an intriquing character. And the beginning of the series doesn’t do anything that makes us care about Andor. I mean, the first two episodes are just boring scenes of people talking a lot. If there is a plot, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. In the first episode in a nod that is more to Blade Runner than Star Wars, Andor is trying to find some information on his missing sister but two jealous security officers mess with him and one accidentally is killed and he executes anoither. So, Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), a high-ranking official, orders Andor to be arrested.
So that’s the story so far for five episodes which cumulatively take up over three freaking hours. There’s also some flashback stories to Andor’s life as a child in a Lord of the Flies setting. There’s too many characters to keep focus on and there’s too many settings that the series never stays in one location enough for us to realize what’s happening.
A lot of people are praising it saying it’s the darker side of Star Wars as if The Empire Strikes Back and The Last Jedi weren’t already dark. And others are saying it’s Star Wars for grown-ups. But that’s insulting to think that adults wouldn’t like the other movies. Maybe it will get better but I doubt it. Hopefully, this isn’t a second season.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 