This week’s Fetch comic is inspired by the Andor series on Disney+, but I decided to set it in the other Star franchise. The debate about both Trek and Wars has been roughly the same since either of them rebooted in 2015: how much original storytelling are we getting versus fan service to nostalgia.
Other franchises also run into this problem — which recent Ghostbusters movies do you want to argue about? — and a whole cottage industry of fan anger has emerged to exploit and exacerbate divisions among the fandom. I have touched on the hostility to “diversity casting” in a couple of strips this year. This time I was more inspired by the strange complaint going around about Andor: It’s boring, because there are no legacy characters, Easter eggs, or anything else to pin your nostalgia on. The series has the lowest viewership of the recent Disney+ Star Wars shows, despite positive reviews by critics and certain segments of the fandom who have been craving something new.
I am definitely in that small fan camp. What I have enjoyed about Andor is similar to what I enjoyed about shows like Better Call Saul. Character development, coherent storytelling, increasing stakes, reflections of social problems in our real lives mediated through fiction, thoughtful cinematography and film making — these are a few of my favorite things (“and then I don’t feel sooooo baaaaad.“) These are really interesting characters, the acting is top notch, the world building is deeper and feels real, and everyone is trying to figure out how to deal with a highly repressive and fascistic system. This show makes for poor copaganda.
It also avoids a lot of Star Wars cliches. There are no light saber battles, no Skywalkers, no Jedi at all. No pointless battles. When violence happens, the consequences are meaningful. Ordinary people confront extraordinary problems and have to solve them without the aid of ersatz magic; they have to think, use the resources available to them, and work together en masse to overcome powerful forces aligned against them. You can’t make toys out of this stuff. Well, maybe the one cute droid, but he’s really sad and lonely and makes you think a bit about the slavery problem this franchise has always had but ignored. I would like to see Andor address that if the series gets another season. And not in the patronizing way Solo treated droid liberation.
Hey! Don’t leave! They were just about to discuss the Little Mermaid re-make!