M. Weald

Imagine a typical Star Wars movie or TV show. It probably has both a Jedi and a Sith in it, one or both members of the Skywalker family. Or perhaps these days it contains a reserved yet eminently capable bounty hunter with a heart of gold and a young, green Yoda-like creature in their care. But let’s not focus too much on The Mandalorian yet (quite enjoyed the first two seasons, haven’t watched the third). Instead, let’s think of the mainline movies, and in particular that not so stellar trilogy put out most recently.

The recent trilogy’s flaws were many, but I think the most egregious of them began with the first of the three, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Its biggest failure was its unabashed copy paste of Episode IV: A New Hope, the 70’s movie that started it all, and how that choice plagued the rest of the trilogy. I recall walking out of the theater with my family after first seeing The Force Awakens back in 2015, my Dad wondering why they would put out the same movie yet again with updated graphics. It seems to me the idea behind this was to reintroduce Star Wars to a new, younger audience with a supposedly tried and true story made shiny by a modern veneer. But while the original film’s adherence to the hero’s journey in the context of an innovative space opera was good at the time, it isn’t the 70’s anymore. Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero’s Journey, came out in 1990 and its techniques old hat now in most any context. So the powers that be at Disney tried to pivot from J. J. Abram’s direction in episode 7 to Rian Johnson’s in episode 8 where Ren was a nobody (by parentage at least, I did actually appreciate the attempt to shift away from Star Wars’ over dependence on bloodlines as a story tool), and then back to J. J. Abram’s direction in episode 9 where Ren was a Skywalker again. To put it plainly, the initial attempt to rehash the old went poorly, and the pivot was too little, too late. And herein lies the issue: the tendency to play it safe, to rest on past laurels and succumb to lazy writing. This coupled with a misunderstanding of what draws fans to the Star Wars universe. This is where Andor, and to an extent The Mandalorian before it, bucked the trend. They gave us something different in the context of Star Wars, yet familiar in the context of storytelling at large. The Mandalorian drew inspiration from spaghetti westerns and samurai films to give an adventure of the week type format, though I’ll admit the show progressively shifted to incorporating more and more storylines to setup the Star Wars TV universe at large. Disney needs its money after all. Andor gave us a heist and its fallout, a tightly written political spy thriller with a mature tone. A, gasp, limited series.

So, on to Andor‘s strengths and how to keep an IP fresh. I enjoy a long running, complex story with many characters and places interwoven throughout as much as anyone. However, I’ve come to appreciate how a limited series can lend a conciseness and coherence to a story, something Star Wars stories too often lack. I at first wondered if Andor would struggle with its ending in a sense already known, with its characters marching steadily towards the events of Rogue One. It didn’t. It gave them boundaries. It gave them a known end prior to which they could play. It allowed them to tell a more narrow story, and plumb the depths as a result. It’s a lesson Hollywood needs to learn at large. From Cassian Andor’s backstory as a child taken from Kenari, a planet ravaged by the Empire and an ill-fated mining project, to a cynical thief, to a dedicated revolutionary, we come along for the progression step by step. We see his loss, the overwhelming oppression by the Empire and the morally grey manipulation of him by the rebellion. We see human complexity, not the unrealistic simplification of light and dark. We see a compelling story willing to take a risk set in the Star Wars universe. Is it really so surprising it should succeed? It is the Star Wars universe after all, not the hero’s journey itself, that drew me in in the first place.

All the best,

M. Weald

P.S. Particular props to Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, Stellan Skarsgard as Luthen Rael, and Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma. They all absolutely crushed it. Also to all the writers on Andor, big fan. Compare Luthen’s use of warp jump to evade the Empire to any other usage of the deus ex machina that is warp jump in the Star Wars universe and you’ll see how much better they are at creating tension. Excited to see the second and final season bridge the gap to Rogue One.

P.P.S. My novel’s fully edited and formatted! All I have left is the book cover, and I couldn’t be more excited to start working with the artist I’ve hired. I’m looking forward to sharing the final results here in a couple months. More details to come.