REVIEW: ‘Andor' ends on defiant, devastating high, is best ‘Star Wars' series
DUBAI: In an era of recycled nostalgia and cookie-cutter franchise television, 'Andor' has stood apart — an unflinching, cerebral, slow-burn rebellion against everything formulaic in 'Star Wars.'
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Its final season — the first three episodes are now available to stream on Disney+ — does not only stick the landing, it embeds itself in the emotional marrow of the galaxy far, far away, delivering arguably the most powerful conclusion to any 'Star Wars' story to date.
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Moving away from the big-picture heroics of the Jedi versus the evil Sith, 'Andor' instead looks at the minutiae, immersing itself in the details of both sides of war: the cold machinery of oppression and the sacrificial cost of resistance.
Even as the rebellion reaches boiling point, audiences are treated to smaller, more personal moments.
There are the intricacies of a political wedding on Chandrila, a lunch scene involving an overbearing mother and her son's new beau, and flashbacks to an adoptive father and his new daughter/mentee coming into their own.
The season especially spends time on the long-anticipated Ghorman Massacre, rendered in chilling, harrowing detail.
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Fans have known about it in bits and pieces — a footnote in the birth of the Rebellion — but creator Tony Gilroy manages to turn it into a gut-punch, a brutal turning point that clarifies the stakes for the characters, and audience.
Written years before current political events, 'Andor' feels eerily prescient. Its exploration of surveillance, radicalization, immigration, propaganda, and the erosion of civilian rights could be ripped from today's headlines.
That is not accidental — Gilroy's scripts are steeped in the rhythms of real revolutions, from the French Resistance and student revolts to modern authoritarian regimes.
The cast, once again, does a stellar job of bringing to life such a weighty script, involving significant time jumps and mounting stakes.
On the side of the resistance, we have Diego Luna (playing the titular Cassian Andor), Genevieve O'Reilly (Mon Mothma), Adria Arjona (Bix Caleen), Stellan Skarsgard (Luthen Rael) and Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau).
The imperial forces are represented by the excellent Denise Gough (playing imperial supervisor Dedra Meero) and Kyle Soller (Syril Karn), as well as Ben Mendelsohn, returning as Director Orson Krennic, a powerful Imperial official who reports directly to Emperor Palpatine.
With 'Andor,' Gilroy and Luna have truly set the gold standard for what future 'Star Wars' can be. Not just a space opera, but real stories of transformation and beauty.
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