Disney Not And Or

Do you remember how Qui-Gon Jinn died? He was skewered by Darth Maul and–as is to be expected when impaled by a lightsabre–he died within minutes. When Sabine Wren was skewered by a lightsabre in exactly the same way, and survived, Meursault stopped watching Ahsoka; he abandoned the Obi-wan series when Kindergarten Leia outran three bounty hunters sent to kidnap her; he abandoned the Acolyte during the cringey Power of One, Power of Two, Power of Many sequence.

“The protagonist is a strong female character fighting the Jedi patriarchy. How can you not like the series?”

Commendable! But is that enough for a viewer? The dialogue is clumsy, the plot ignores established canon, the protagonist does not evolve, the acting is so wooden that the characters may as well be dummies sitting on the knees of a ventriloquist. I applaud the message but the story sucks. Also, Disney’s (and Marvel’s) screenwriters have an unhealthy obsession with escalation as though higher stakes automatically translate to deeper engagement. A story doesn’t need a galaxy-wide catastrophe to feel urgent. When stakes must be measured in gigatons on the Richter scale, any hope of character development is lost.

Now, I cannot walk out of the room–I am literally rooted in place, but Meursault can, and he often does. Both he and I enjoyed the first season of Andor, so we waited for all twelve episodes of the second season to be released, and settled down for a weekend Andor binge. It didn’t begin well… As Meursault watched Mon Mothma dancing at the post-wedding rave party, he was almost poised to abandon yet another Star Wars series. Thankfully, the drinkies that evening had mellowed his mood, the next episode began and we watched the rest of the season all the way to the end!

Where Obi-wan Kenobi, the Rey Skywalker Trilogy, the Acolyte, and Ahsoka failed, Andor triumphs. And it does so with no light sabres, no incorruptible Jedi, no omnipotent Sith… There are no epic space battles, no marquee actors, no goofy aliens destined to adorn the lunch-boxes of kindergarteners… Andor thrives because it doesn’t inflate its stakes beyond recognition even though it is set to the ominous background of the construction of the Death Star. It recognises that meaningful stakes yield better stories than massive ones; that meaningful stakes motivate characters in believable ways. It doesn’t attempt any overt social or political messaging–and yet it conveys a powerful message: Even a galaxy-spanning dictatorship can crack beneath the weight of ordinary people who simply refuse to kneel all the time.

Rebellions are fought simultaneously in the open, with declarations, diplomacy, and public defiance; and in the shadows with deception and guerrilla warfare. The rebellion in Andor is shaped by two leaders who embody this duality—Mon Mothma, the politician, and Luthen Rael, the spymaster–one standing in the light, the other lurking in the dark. Mothma fights with words, navigating the treacherous political landscape of the Galactic Senate. She must appear respectable and measured, while quietly funnelling resources into the rebellion.

Luthen, by contrast, sees politics as a game that the Empire always wins–so he plays the game like the empire does: he schemes, manipulates, deceives, blackmails, steals, and generally orchestrates chaos and destruction. He does the work that Mon Mothma cannot, or will not do, including discretely killing a guest at her daughter’s wedding. He wages war knowing that he will never see victory.

What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. No, the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything.

The Empire isn’t represented by a single lightning-zapping, heavy-breathing villain. Instead, it is portrayed as an oppressive system whose will is enforced by millions of ordinary people trying to advance their careers. Similarly, the rebels aren’t selfless warrior-monks—they’re scared, desperate, and often at odds with one another. Unlike traditional Star Wars protagonists, there are no predestined heroes and villains in Andor. This forces audiences to engage with Star Wars in a way they may never have before: as a story about ordinary people, rather than destiny.

Take for example the arc that links Syril Karn, an Imperial police officer, to Cassian Andor. In season one, Karn identifies Cassian as a suspect in a murder case on Morlana One; he trails Cassian to Ferrix and almost apprehends him. Cassian escapes, and Syril is shunted out to a lowly desk job for his failure. Four years pass, and yet Syril remains fixated with Cassian. He has an obsessive-compulsive nature: order is not just his guiding principle, it is his entire existence. Syril is convinced that the Empire gives order and structure to a chaotic galaxy. Cassian’s freedom, his defiance, his refusal to come to heel—these things are not just offences against the Empire, but offences against Syril’s very reality. So when fate finally grants him an opportunity to act–he spots Cassian, quite by chance, on Ghorman–he seizes it. He fights and overpowers Cassian. As he stands over Cassian, ready to fire, Cassian looks up, bewildered, and asks, ‘Who are you?’ Syril dies seconds later–shot in the head–while the question hangs in the air, unanswered. No closure, no grand realization—just an abrupt death. Andor doesn’t just reject destiny—it actively dismantles the idea that every character’s arc must lead to profound fulfilment. Sometimes, people just die, and their struggles never amount to anything. No one cares about pawns on the chessboard; even pawns don’t care about other pawns. Syril’s motivation is meaningful to him, and the audience understands why he does what he does…

All the relationships in Andor end in loss. Kleya and Luthen’s platonic bond is built on trust and shared purpose. In the end, faced with an impossible choice, she kills Luthen to prevent the Empire from extracting information about the rebellion from him. Andor and Bix start the series as ex-lovers who grow closer as they spend time together. Bix leaves Cassian after sensing that the rebellion would fail if Cassian were not a part of it–the only whiff of the Force in Andor. Dedra and Syril’s relationship is hesitant, awkward, mechanical, and is distilled into a single, simple line of dialogue by the brilliant Denise Gough in their spartan bedroom, ordering Syril to “turn off the lights.” Syril dies while trying to kill Cassian who, incredibly, never learns why Syril is obsessed with killing him. Mon and Perrin’s marriage—a rare depiction of mature love in Star Wars—fractures when she is forced to flee Coruscant; he cannot follow and, in the end, we see him with another woman. The lesbian relationship between Vel and Cinta is handled poignantly: there’s no forced spectacle, no political subtext, and none of the self-righteous moral posturing such as we saw in the Acolyte—just two people who love each other, and find a moment to express it hours before Cinta’s accidental death. Andor treats all these relationships with equal weight. Love is woven into the fabric of the story, shaping motivations, decisions, and sacrifices.

This is properly superb storytelling. John Le Carre meets Robert Ludlum, with a dash of Jane Austen thrown in for reasons I cannot understand–the first troika of episodes featured an hour-long wedding scene with choreographed rituals and dances, including that rave party which nearly threw Meursault. Andor’s style of storytelling is exactly the kind that Star Wars needs to grow beyond its fanbase. Grounded, character-driven, without needing the crutch of prophecy or lightsabres. Well done, Disney! More like this, please.

Editor’s Notes:

• Interested? Watch Andor on Disney+ This is not an affiliate link.

• Albert’s disparaging comments about Star Wars needing to “grow” was aimed specifically at one member of the Star Wars fanbase–me. I liked Andor too; I also care about established canon, including the physical properties of a lightsabre. Apparently, in modern Star Wars, getting skewered by a lightsabre isn’t necessarily fatal. Reva the Inquisitor survives being shishkebabed by Darth Vader himself; a lightsabre boils the insides of Sabine Wren for a full four seconds (’tis but a scratch); but Jedi Trinity is killed by a tiny dagger in the Acolyte… I suppose ones survival depends not on the weapon being wielded but upon whether or not one is wearing Plot Armour.