Andor's opening sequence serves as a sort of mission statement: On Morlana One, a soggy planet watched over by a corporation security agency, the titular shortly freedom fighter Cassian Collaboration and communication (Diego Luna) walks into a brothel and is promptly hassled by Cockney-speaking police. .......? Various accents? It very much wants you to think that this isn't your father's Star Wars tale. And despite all of its glaring, obvious problems, there is still ample time for it to make a lasting impression on the franchise.

The fact that neither Andor nor Cassian are meant to live forever is a major advantage. We are aware that this is a 2 show and that the protagonist is only 5 years away from passing away on Scarif after giving Leia Organa the blueprints for a brand-new weapon known as a "Death Star," which started the entire series of events that led to the second and third film trilogies.

Andor doesn't rush despite the pressure of the clock hanging over the proceedings. We start off on Ferrix, a pleasantly earth planet with the obligatory scrap metal trading business that seems to be popular throughout the Star Wars universe. Andor leads a simple life with B2EMO ("Bee"), a lovely robot who resembles a cross between Wall•E and a Japanese pagoda. Bee, who frequently needs to recharge and periodically repeats sentences like a skipping record, has seen better days.

Andor is a promising watch despite the numerous nods to Star Wars that are present. The guys who had earlier caught Cassian at the pub are the ones who hold him up during the first brothel scene (in which Cassian, the ever gentlemen, is only there seeking for his long-lost sister). He head butted one and knocks the other down before realising that his self-defense blow has accidently killed the other. He fires his own blaster at the other cop before running since he realises that his only choice is to flee. People, mark this day: Star Wars now has a cold-blooded murder and, even more shockingly, a single bullet from a blaster that successfully hits its target.




Disney+ made the right decision to release the very first three episodes of Andor all at once because it takes a while to introduce and wrap up a handful of micro that make for an excellent cliffhanger in the end—but also a quite slog in the process. The first is the corporation security's pursuit of Cassian, which is being overseen the Bad Cop Syril Braun (Kyle Soller), whose manages to mix in just the right amount of fun and silly with his hatred to make for a fantastic mid-tier villain. Even in his attempt to motivate his troops, he begins by saying, "There comes a moment when..." This guy thinks of himself as an action hero, therefore I'm looking forward to seeing him get thwarted at each and every turn as a well-dressed While either.

While Timm (Jimmy McArdle, another Scot!) and Perform the following functions (Adria Arjona), who she "friends" at work, are currently connected with, are the show's other main characters, Soller is currently its standout character. But with those large, sorrowful eyes, is it really possible to resist the urge to flirt with Diego Luna? Even the terse swashbuckler Luthen played by Stellan Skarsgrd appears susceptible to his charms. Although Luna is essential as the primary character, the character hasn't yet been fully developed, and not in a "rough around the edges" type of way. In the first two episodes, Cassian spends a lot of time moving from person to individual while getting his personal qualities explained to them (and to us), but really never giving us a taste.

that his placid stoicism concealed a roguish mischievousness. It doesn't help that Cassian's opposing side, Karn, played by Soller, is having a ball tearing up the scenery. There are already too many powerful, silent characters running Star Wars properties. I hope Andor can take use of the freedoms this format offers to occasionally take some risks. I genuinely love (and miss) the way George Lucas' polarising prequel trilogy leaned into the seemingly limitless potential of a Star Wars galaxy and was not afraid to go off the deep end. Please include a few weird small guys someplace, even though Ferrix is supposed to be a modest area.

There is ample opportunity for Andor to develop, and as every personality study demands, our hero must also have a terrible beginning. We occasionally see brief flashbacks to Grown-Up Cassian's boyhood on Kaneri in between his exploits. (For some reason, the fact that he comes from this hitherto unsaid world appears to be a major secret.) He is a member of the what seems to be a teenage Lost Boys-like tribe that one day notices a spacecraft crash on the horizon while clothed in abandoned rebel and Empire attire. Cassian sets off to find the debris with the elder kids, leaving his sister behind. Strangely, the entire crew

Members have a sickly Simpsons-yellow colour to their skin and are either dead or nearly dead. This form of poison is probably not the last we'll see. But for the time being, nobody knows where it came from.


Young Cassian discovers scavengers while searching through the ruins, headed by a spotless B2EMO with Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw!). Aware that an Empire ship is approaching, the two calm Cassian down and "rescue" him by removing him from his current location.

giving him his name (and the show's) in the process, his homeworld. Although there is undoubtedly conflict with Cassian and his step mother in the current day, Cassian doesn't display his wounded from being removed from Selection of different at Maarva, who is aware of her failure to raise that little boy, however unintentionally.

Both Cassian characters depart from their homes at the end of episode three. Now that little Cassian is about to start his life as just an Andor, Luthen and Cassian PrimeTM are escaping from Ferrix. I anticipate that the series will really expand on this well-earned emotional checkpoint. We already know how Cassian's narrative ends, yet 3 episodes in, Andor successfully argues that it still merits being told.

erroneous observations

Playing "who's taking this serious and who's cashing in that large Disney paycheck?" is entertaining with shows like this. Stellan Skarsgrd is fine, but in her few scenes, Fiona Shaw outperforms everyone. Maarva has a steeliness to her. We'll get to talk about that more, I'm sure.


RIP, Timm. Although you were a meddling moron when you were alive, I still liked you.


I adore seeing the guy as in bell tower bang away on the loud anvil-thing. That man's job is mine.

To be quite honest, I was half expecting Bix's mysterious "buyer" for Cassian's MacGuffin to be an unnervingly de-aged Harrison Ford of some kind similar because I was so tired of the recent fawning inside The Mandalorian as Well as the Book of Boba Fett. I guess what I'm trying to express is that when I saw Stellan, I felt relieved.

Jabba the Hutt was another person I had in my race to be the buyer. Diego Luna has expressed his desire for an Andor-Hutt showdown frequently and passionately, so the sleazy gang leader should be at the pinnacle of his power right about now, right? Disney, please allow Diego to finally touch him.

Tony Gilroy created Andor for television, and he also wrote the first three. In addition, he took over as director of Rogue One's significant reshoots from Garrett Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla). Gilroy was obviously no hired hands hacking & slashing at Edwards' work, and I'm a major fan of the careful pacing and feeling of scale Edwards gave to both modern monster movie & Rogue One. The (short) travels outside planetary atmospheres seem all the more magnificent in this tactile, street-level universe.

I cannot adequately convey how much I like seeing Star Wars broaden the range of acceptable accents and dialects. With Timm, that idiot, and Karn's second-in-command both wearing Celtic brogues, we can safely say that we are in a Scottish quarter of the galaxy. I'll give this thing an A every week if Tony Gilroy will only send me a Scottish droid, sight unseen.

Even though the sequences on Kenari are brief, they do feature speech that was simply marked on my screeners as "(Speaks in Kenari)". Once the episodes are released, I'll be interested to see whether they fill it in and if there's something significant I missed.

To that end, I kindly ask for your assistance. I'm a big ol' Star Wars fan, but this galaxy is enormous with a lot of strange name and a lot of worlds that have just been briefly referenced but have, like, 7,000 line Wookiepedia articles devoted to them. I'll undoubtedly make a mistake. Please treat me nicely.