Andor • Season 2
Andor
TV-14
97%89%
In season 2, Cassian Andor transforms from soldier to leader to hero on the way to his epic destiny. His story has activated an ever-widening ensemble of allies and enemies. These relationships will intensify as the horizon of galactic war draws near.Everyone will be tested and, as the stakes rise, the betrayals, sacrifices, and conflicting agendas will become profound. Who will live to see their dream realized? Who will realize what that dream cost?
Brolaire reviewedMay 15, 2025
Star Wars as a franchise has a complicated history. For many of my generation, it stood as peak Sci-Fi - the original movies were crowning achievements not only in special effects but also in characters and world-building. When word got out in the nineties that Lucas was returning to produce prequel movies, we were jazzed to put it lightly. Unfortunately, those movies for the most part critically fell flat at release, and only many years later, after the excrement of the Disney "final" trilogy, would we finally look back at how good we had it. Christopher Lloyd quit acting altogether because of how much he was made fun of. Hayden Christiansen got endless amounts of shit for how he portrayed adolescent Anakin - only very recently receiving the recognition he deserves.
The mainstream of Star Wars always was rather simplistic thematically. Lucas famously said that he wrote these stories for his children. But with the Extended Universe content developed through the books, and later, some of the games, would Star Wars as a galaxy truly begin to flesh out and explore more realistic adult themes, characters, situations, and play in the grey much more than Lucas himself dared to.
This is the era of Star Wars I loved that Disney killed.
To say that I considered Star Wars dead is an understatement. The Mandalorian briefly rekindled hope for a time, but in many ways remained safe. Only Rogue One began to introduce this more gritty Star Wars some of us knew to the mainstream. Ask many non-fans what their favorite movie in the franchise is and they'll likely say Rogue One.
Why? It leaned into themes of loss, sacrifice, and doing the right thing even when it's difficult. The ending, [won't spoil it here] is a bold narrative choice rarely seen in big-budget blockbusters, let alone Star Wars. It felt more like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down than a space opera, which appealed to more mainstream audiences. The lack of the iconic and fantasical elements of the franchise, namely the magic space wizards, are nonexistant, making the production more relatable and the protagonists feel more grounded.
The movie was also largely self-contained. You didn't need to know anything about the franchise to understand and enjoy the movie.
Like Rogue One, Andor doesn't require its audience to know Star Wars. It explores topics like authoritarianism, rebellion, propaganda, and what it means to resist evil from within a flawed system. It provides much more backstory to the events that led to Rogue One, and by extension, the original trilogy. Unlike Rogue One, it has so much more time to breathe, having and spending way more time introducing, developing, and intermingling its themes, its universe, and its complex characters.
What appeals to me so much is, despite being a fan of the franchise, is that this story could exist in any other setting. It's objectively a great story - it just happens to be told using Star Wars as a backdrop. Given our current events and recent history, its story is all the more impactful and the gravitas of what happens that much more profound. Every single performance is exceptional, making it all the more incredible.
"The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest [...] the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we’ve helped create, the monster who will come for all of us soon enough."
Never in my wildest years would I ever have expected Star Wars to hit quite like this.
E x c e p t i o n a l.