So Andor s wrapped up, and it s left every Star Wars fan, or at least the ones that watched
it, wondering what s next for the franchise, wondering how Lucasfilm s planning to follow
this tour-de-force up, and wondering how this show s - let s be honest, surprising level
of quality might change future plans for that galaxy, far, far away. I know there s a few
shows, maybe a movie or two, in production, but others look to be in development hell.
It s looking like an increasingly risky bet that we ll ever see previously teased projects
like Rian Johnson s trilogy, that Lando show, and plenty others besides. Point being the
future s uncertain. There s space for new projects to fill these potential voids especially
since this prequel nobody asked for to a prequel nobody asked for has turned out to be the
best Star Wars project in maybe forever. And I think there s something Lucasfilm need to
do now, in this period of relative uncertainty, to guarantee this franchise stays fresh, stays
exciting, and stays able to tell stories that matter, ones that go beyond Glup Shitto and
friends. And that is Give Tony Gilroy, showrunner of Andor, a show
set before the Sequel Trilogy, exploring the shadowy rise of the First Order. Just, like,
throw money at him until he says yes. That s it, that s, the pitch. Now let me tell
you why this needs to happen. The sequel trilogy wasn t great, and a huge
part of the reason for this was the First Order. It s no secret that the First Order
s a pretty lousy faction. They are, for all intents and purposes, a reskinned version
of the Original Trilogy s Empire. They look the same, their ships look the same, their
leadership seems pretty similar, and they do the same things, both in-universe, and
from a narrative perspective. To be honest, I d call this copy-pasted quality one of the
sequel trilogy s biggest conceptual flaws. From the start, the villains are just a stand-in
for the bad guys we saw way back when, so not only does this undermine the Rebel victory
against the Empire, probably more significantly, it pins down what this trilogy can do, what
it can represent, what stories it can tell, to this same, now-stale, area. What s more,
the Empire, their aesthetics, their defeat in the OT? George Lucas didn t exactly create
those films alone, but there s a comparatively singular purpose there, a clarity of vision,
when compared to the kind of designed-by-committee nature of these sequels swapping in and out
writers and directors as they did. All these factors combined to give us a fairly faceless
antagonist in the First Order, more the loose idea of an enemy than any enemy in particular,
whose history, ideology or politics were barely visible and never differentiated. As suggested
above, that s unsatisfying from a narrative point-of-view, but it also made Rey, Finn
and Poe s enemies meaningless. Star Wars isn t exactly Das Kapital, but at the very least
it had always been politically charged, right back from Lucas anti-imperialist overtures
in A New Hope. If the Empire, if Palpatine were purely, transcendently, cartoonishly
evil then it wouldn t have been scary, or threatening, but as dark mirrors to the way
obedience, blind belief in hierarchy, and the theatre of perpetual threat can make men
think and act, they became more than mere archetypes of villainy. It s true, a lot of
this symbolism was grandfathered into the First Order by virtue of the way that whole
faction was again just a photocopy of the Empire but it s explored even less here, and
it just feels incongruous that Star Wars understands a newly ascendant, revivalist faction that
seized power near-identically to the way it understands the Empire, the result of an already
dubious Republic s slow, rotting, decay. Andor showed us that taking up this latent
political charge around the Empire s characterisation and developing it could result in a fantastic,
resonant story as well as a broader shift in how we understand the Empire throughout
this franchise. Just think about what a similar project could do for the First Order, could
do to expand on the ideas these sequels limply gestured toward. Imagine a series like Andor
five or ten years before the Force Awakens. The First Order may have been a small splinter-group
before that film, but I ve always thought their seemingly instant ascent to galactic
dominance throughout the sequels suggests the new republic was failing long before this
point, that some semblance of this imperial ideology of obedience, submission and military
glorification had already risen again and spread across the stars. This show would explore
that. It wouldn t depict the brutal mundanity of the fascist system, as Andor did, it d
depict the way these systems come about. Not from a macro level, not from the eyes of the
high and mighty, as the prequels attempted to do, but from the bottom up. We d see the
banal, blind indifference of those in power, as they deluded themselves and the galaxy
that things were going fine, that the Empire and its ideals were gone, dead and buried,
that their democracy was strong enough to withstand challenges, yada yada yada. Throughout
the course of this show, the First Order, their ideals, their rhetoric, their methods
would finally be differentiated from those of the Empire we d see the rebirth myth, we
d see them style themselves as returning to the values of some long-forgotten, stronger
time, we d see a First Order that wasn t just re-skinned stormtroopers. We d see the insidious
rise of fascist revivalists, and what s more timely than that? Tony Gilroy could do this
he s got plenty of experience working on complex, politically charged stories from his time
consulting on House of Cards, and just look at what he was able to do with Andor.
So that s why a project like this is rich with potential and potency. Next, let s think
about why this makes sense from Disney s perspective, because, yeah, it s not exactly a secret that
Andor didn t smash streaming records. A lot of people didn t bother watching this so why
would this hypothetical Gilroy sequel prequel be any different in this regard? Well let
s put on our boring, soulless, capitalistic thinking caps, and ponder the business end
of all this. There ve been some rumblings recently that Lucasfilm s looking to revisit
the sequel era, maybe even bring some sequel characters back, possibly in a movie helmed
by Damon Lindelof. As far as I can tell, we re a good way away from that project even
getting a release date, so honestly who knows if we ll ever see it, but what this does tell
us is that there s corporate interest in going back to that well, that Lucasfilm anticipate
a return to the sequel era would generate interest, and hype, among the fanbase. I m
sure that d be true and that particularly the first couple of projects returning to
this setting would benefit from a viewership bump. But numbers are only half the battle.
That s why this new era fizzled out so completely after the Rise of Skywalker. No, it seems
to me that from a studio perspective, the ideal return to Star Wars future would get
good views and good re-views. If you go to the trouble of digging up this now-fossilising
brand, only to use it as the backdrop of a mediocre project, that s going to suck for
the viewer, but it s also going to suck for the studio, because it stunts the potential
for further success revisiting this setting going forward. Star Wars wants popular and
well-received shows, and a Gilroy-helmed sequel prequel, touching on the rise of the First
Order, the fall of the New Republic, and possibly other aspects of that now-maligned trilogy
would generate way more fan interest than Andor, while having the potential to be just
as good, if not better. That s a win-win for everybody.
And here s the part where a bunch of you click off the video, because you ve been deluded
into thinking there s some sharp, metaphysical line existing between stories people tell
and the people who tell them, or the world those people live in, but we need stories
like this, stories like Andor, stories like this hypothetical series, more than ever.
Stories which look unflinchingly at the way fascism operates, how it rises, how it digs
its hooks into a populace, what the warning sings are. More and more of our culture and
society is being co-opted by fascists and fascist sympathisers, and most people aren
t aware. Most of you watching this won t believe me, you ll think I m being alarmist, you ll
think fascism s some dead idea that only applies to the baddies we beat in the war, or you
ll think that, I don t know, climate change activists and vaccinated sheeple are the real
fascists. The details of this problem are.. complex, and I m planning to make a video
going into that specifically at some point, but for now, let s just say that popular fiction,
even franchises like Star Wars, becoming aware of this problem would be a step in the right
direction and an Andor-type show set before the sequels, a show which looks at these fantastical
enemies and sees the real within them? That d be great television, but it could also be
a lot more than that. I know there s a faction of online users who
scoff at the idea that a Disney project could have any genuine spark of resistance within
it, who act like there s nothing remotely special about Andor, but I think that s a
bit simplistic. Yeah, Andor probably isn t truly anti-capitalist, very few commercial
products can be, and yes, I ve seen that Disco Elysium screenshot too, you guys, but it s
definitely anti-fascist, fiercely, at times, and if that isn t enough to pass muster with
some of you then I think that s your L to take.
So if anyone from Lucasfilm is watching this, get that checkbook out and get Gilroy on board.
Or, y know, anyone from the Andor team. There were plenty of other writers and creatives
involved here, so make sure you keep them on the payroll. Obviously the better option
is that you pay these guys to explore these themes in whatever stories, whatever settings,
franchised or otherwise, they choose, but hey, I know how the world works, and this
hypothetical series is a good compromise. It d be a good fit for the franchise-building
Star Wars seemingly wants to do, the reclamation of the sequel era, and it d also have the
potential to, y know, be a really good show, a show that differentiates the First Order,
a show that continues the brilliance and potency of Andor beyond that second season. If you
agree, make sure you like and share this video cause if it blows up, who knows? Maybe they
ll actually listen. That s it from me, though. I am working on another Andor video, with
the working title of Andor and Kafka which ll be done when it s done, so subscribe if
you wanna stay tuned for that. And special thanks as always to all my Patreon supporters
onscreen now!