Andor Is About To Ruin Star Wars

There has been a prevailing narrative for many years that Disney doesn’t know what to do with Star Wars thanks to the failure of the Sequel Trilogy and lackluster shows like The Book of Boba Fett and The Acolyte. The primary exception to this narrative is Andor, the political thriller prequel series that many agree is the best thing the franchise has created in decades. But that means Andor may very well ruin Star Wars because it proves how much Disney is dropping the ball with Star Wars even as it intensifies endless fan debates about what Star Wars is supposed to be.

None of this is meant to directly criticize Andor, which has established itself as one of the best television shows ever made. It’s so good, though, that fans can’t help but ask why we haven’t had more Star Wars TV shows and movies of this quality. And the only answer that makes any sense is that Disney has consistently failed to hire directors and showrunners who both love Star Wars and have a singular vision for the story they want to tell.

Clumsy Efforts At Star Wars Storytelling

For example, nobody can deny that both J.J. Abrams and especially Rian Johnson love Star Wars, which is why movies like The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are filled with so many clumsy attempts at fan service. But the Sequel Trilogy suffered from what Palpatine would call a lack of vision: each subsequent movie went in a completely different direction than the one before, and even on an individual level, the movies oscillated between being sloppy homages to the Original Trilogy and being a confusing jumble of contradictory plot points. The Rise of Skywalker, particularly, felt like nothing more than a big-budget parody.

That extends to the Star Wars TV shows, some of which have been good (if not great) like Ahsoka and Obi-Wan Kenobi and some of which have been pretty bad (like The Book of Boba Fett and The Acolyte). Andor easily blew those other shows out of the water because showrunner Tony Gilroy effortlessly delivered more than just a fannish devotion to the franchise. He went the extra mile and delivered a series that would have been must-see TV without the Star Wars license, something no other franchise showrunners have managed to do.

Andor Proves Disney Could Make Good Star Wars Content, They Just Don’t Want To

Andor was a hit with audiences and critics alike, rightfully earning prestigious plaudits like the Peabody and a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy. But my cynical theory is that this show’s success could effectively bite the franchise in the butt because fans will start increasingly asking why we can’t have more shows and movies that are this good. Andor’s success destroys the typical narrative that Disney just can’t make good Star Wars content, confirming instead that Disney spent $4 billion to acquire the rights but has almost entirely failed to hire creators who can do this franchise justice.

Making matters worse is that Andor’s success is going to intensify already-bitter fan debates about what this franchise is supposed to be. Since the prequels, a cry among many disillusioned fans has been, “This isn’t my Star Wars!” Those cries intensified after the sequels came out, which is ironic because they tried to shift away from the goofy tone of the prequels to the more serious tone of the Original Trilogy. Both prequels and sequels tried to channel the high adventure spirit of the OT, but Andor went in a different direction, delivering the kind of political thriller you’d normally only find on HBO.

What Is A Star Wars?

Now, fans are debating whether Star Wars should be funny or serious, epic or simplistic, political or apolitical, and so on. Andor’s the best thing the franchise has given us in decades, and its success comes from the fact that Tony Gilroy threw out all the old rules for what Star Wars could be and decided to simply tell a great story. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, but that success may just ruin Star Wars altogether because the fandom may not be willing to wait a few more decades for another good show or movie and will simply move on to other franchises.

Thanks to Andor’s award-winning storytelling, Star Wars will die the same way that Amidala said that democracy died: with thunderous applause.