Ever since hitting the box office in May 1977, Star Wars has proven to be one of the most beloved and profitable franchises in film history. It tells a very simple story of good versus evil but sets it in a galaxy far, far away with aliens, space battles, and Jedi. To create Star Wars, George Lucas drew on a diverse array of ideas such as westerns, World War II dogfights, samurai films, and Joseph Campbell’s writing on the hero’s journey. One of the central themes of Star Wars is resistance against imperialism and the decline of democracy which were inspired by contemporary events such as the Vietnam War and the presidency of Richard Nixon.  

Since Disney acquired Star Wars from Lucas in 2012, they have made billions but their additions to the franchise have been uneven in terms of quality. One of their highlights was Rogue One (2016), which was co-written by Tony Gilroy. Compared to past entries, Rogue One focuses not on the Force or Jedi, but nameless rebels who sacrifice everything to steal the plans for the Death Star. Following the critical and commercial success of Rogue One, Gilroy developed a spin-off series that focused on one of its central characters Cassian Andor. Since its premiere in 2022, Andor has proven to be one of the best entries in the Star Wars franchise. In Andor, Gilroy and his crew have finally realized the often obscured leftist and anti-imperialist themes found in George Lucas’ original vision for Star Wars. 

At the center of Andor is Cassian Andor and his journey from a thief to a dedicated member of the Rebel Alliance in the five years leading up to Rogue One. The first season focused on a single year of Andor’s life, dealing with his radicalization and enlistment into the rebellion. According to Diego Luna who plays Andor: “For me, it’s quite relevant today to tell the story of what needs to happen for a revolutionary to emerge, to exist, to come to life. What gives meaning in the life of someone to be willing to sacrifice everything for a cause? What needs to happen? That journey matters to me…. I think that story matters.” 

Unlike a great deal of the Star Wars franchise which is focused on Jedi and Galactic royalty, Andor deals with ordinary people. Beyond the titular protagonist, Andor details how people from bureaucrats, thieves, industrial laborers, and spies must live under the ever-tightening reign of the Galactic Empire. Andor shows that no heroic Skywalker is going to save people from the Empire, but only a revolutionary hero based on collective solidarity and sacrifice can ensure liberation.

Seasons one and two of Andor made it the most expensive Star Wars show produced by Disney, costing a record $650 million. Despite the show’s steep price tag, Gilroy states that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Disney gave him a great deal of creative freedom: “She backed our play and got everything that we were doing. We’ve been through everything, she and I, on this — all the good and all the bad. There’s no show without her. For all the shit that she takes online, it’s just insane. This show exists because she forced it to happen. What a tough job she has, man.”

The astronomical costs and, initially, low viewership likely affected the production of season two. Originally, Andor was supposed to be five seasons long with each season devoted to covering a single year of Cassian’s life until it reached Rogue One. Instead, the twelve episodes of season two cover four years in three-episode blocks devoted to the most important moments in each year. Gilroy said the following about the season’s structure: “Oh, my God, when we come back, we should only come back for a couple days each time. It should be the most intense three days each time.… And it was one of those problem-solves that just kept energizing itself and then has this knock-on effect all the way through. It energizes the actors. It makes time. You get that, but you get to move, and you get to keep the show.” In effect, Andor’s second season consists of a tetralogy of Star Wars movies.

As a result, the pacing of season two is both slow and fast. Each particular arc takes time to set up before a spectacular denouement. In addition, there is a great deal of what Gilroy calls “negative space“ or unknown stories including romances, character choices, and political developments that take place off-screen. This negative space is not jarring since Andor is written in such a way that the observant viewer is given enough details to piece together what happened.

The second season of Andor continues and deepens the themes of collective struggle and sacrifice. One major theme is Cassian’s maturation as a seasoned rebel leader. By the end of the season, Cassian marches off to his fateful mission on Ring of Kafrene and his ultimate death in Rogue One. He has become a dedicated rebel who is willing to sacrifice everything for a better future. This is given added weight since he has a child with his lover Bix whom he will never meet. Despite the tragic nature of the ending, it reveals the truth behind the line uttered in both Andor and Rogue One that “rebellions are built on hope.” As Gilroy notes: “And finally, ultimately, I was desperate to end on a hopeful note. “Rebellions are built on hope” isn’t just a T-shirt, it’s a legit flame that a lot of people need to see. So hopefully I was ending on something that was upbeat, as it was important for me to do that.”

Another central theme is the development of the rebellion from disparate cells into an organized

The Star Wars franchise has typically been noted for its fantastic elements that include lightsabers, Jedi, and the Force. Part of the mass appeal of Star Wars is that it is a form of fun escapism. Yet Andor turns George Lucas’ formula on its head. Instead of the great heroes like Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa who are central to the galactic civil war, Andor focuses on those people who are often unseen or only briefly mentioned in the opening crawls. As Luna observed: “That’s the secret of the show: You’ve never seen a show about these people, even though they’ve always been there… Andor is about all the people in the chain of command on both sides, the stories of the people no one ever talks about and that history forgets, and all their little sacrifices.”

Not only are Andor’s characters “marginal” but they are not paragons of virtue like Jedi Master Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Rather, they are just scared and determined people who live under the jackboot of the Empire where each day is a struggle for survival. The spymaster Luthen Rael lives a double-life and routinely kills those he deems a liability to the rebellion’s larger mission. The partisan Saw Gerrera is a drug addict who sees traitors all around him and kills without a second thought. The characters make stupid mistakes such as the Ghorman rebel Samm who disobeys orders and accidentally shoots the operative Cinta Kaz during a raid. 

The actors in the show want their characters to mirror the real-life experiences of the audience. For Luna, “We’re supposed to be a mirror for audiences to be able to see themselves… I think it makes sense if we’re talking about a galaxy where there’s so many planets that people come from different places, you know? And if we’re talking about refugees, they come from different places and they gather in one place and they sound different, they look different. And that diversity, I mean, it’s what makes this — the reality I live in — very rich, you know? I celebrate that the stories we see reflect on that.” According to Adria Arjona, who plays Bix: “It gives me hope that a little girl is going to watch it and be like, ‘Oh my god, that girl kind of looks like me.’”

The writing and storytelling of Andor also bears a distinct resemblance to the “epic theatre” developed by the German Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). Brecht believed that when an audience became too emotionally involved with the characters and events on the stage, then they lost the ability to think critically. As he said: “For this audience hangs its brains up in the cloakroom along with its coat.” ²Bertolt Brecht, Brecht On Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986), 27.

Instead of indulging in escapism, Brecht wanted to break down the separation between the audience and the play. He aspired for the audience to remain objective during the performance so they could make rational judgments on the issues raised in his plays. To achieve this end, Brecht employed a number of techniques to remind the audience that they were watching theatre, not life itself. 

Brecht’s techniques included using historical or foreign settings to discuss contemporary issues. For example, the seventeenth century Inquisition in Galileo was used to comment on the Stalinist show trials. His play Mother Courage was set during the Thirty Years War to force the audience to think about the material causes of war. In addition, Brecht utilized devices such as the narrator commenting on the action by talking directly to the audience. Sometimes signs were used to provide information on what occurred, while songs and dancing interrupted the action with commentary. Brecht also added speeches and manifestos to his plays. Moreover, he also developed the “Lehrstücke, or the “learning plays” such as The Measures Taken where the audience actively participated in the play and the performance was followed by political discussion.

He called this repertoire of techniques, the “Verfremdungseffekte” or the “Alienation Effect.” Brecht argued that if something was seen as a given, then one was not capable of understanding it: “When something seems ‘the most obvious thing in the world’ it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.” For Brecht, the “Verfremdung” was the normal made strange so that it can be examined and analyzed objectively rather than viewed as a natural phenomenon:

In other words, the alienation effect attempted to transport the audience out of the play so they could remain objective about political or social issues.

It is not known for certain if Tony Gilroy or the creators of Andor are familiar with Bertolt Brecht’s work. Perhaps unconsciously, Andor utilizes many elements of Brecht’s alienation effect in its storytelling. Even though Andor is set in a galaxy far, far away, we are brought out of its fantasy by acts of brutal realism. For instance, Bix, Brasso, Wilmon, and B2EMO begin the season hiding from the Empire on the agricultural world of Mina-Rau. However, they lack any formal papers and are in danger of arrest if caught. When Imperials begin an audit in search of undocumented workers, one of their members attempts to rape Bix. The Imperial treatment of undocumented workers has clear parallels to ICE and the terror that millions of immigrants in the United States live under.

Another example involves the Ghorman Massacre. When the Ghor protest the Empire, they sing in a language that is clearly modeled on French (who have a long revolutionary tradition) and wear berets. Moreover, the Ghor chant “We are the Ghor! The galaxy is watching!” echoes what was chanted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention to protest against the Vietnam War: “The whole world is watching!” What happens on Ghorman bears a real-life resemblance to both the crackdown by the Chicago police and the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico, where hundreds of students were killed. The Tlatelolco massacre was also a provocation by government snipers to justify the subsequent slaughter (similar to Imperial actions on Ghorman). In addition, the Imperial Stormtroopers descending into the plaza recalls the Odessa steps montage in Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925), itself one of the most revolutionary films in the history of cinema.

The speech by Senator Mon Mothma condemning the Ghorman massacre as a genocide (perhaps the most unrealistic part of the show is a senator doing so) also serves to remind the audience about the dangers of what happens after truth is ignored:

Mothma’s words are not a typical rousing Star Wars speech but commentary on the dangers that accompany the spread of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and “alternative facts.” Once truth is gone, then false narratives can easily be used to justify many crimes ranging from the genocide of Jews, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza.

Perhaps the most shocking example of the alienation effect and Andor involved the cast and crew themselves. In 2023, both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) representing 11,500 screenwriters and the SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) representing 160,000 actors went on strike. The strike involved a multitude of issues such as pay raises and safeguarding jobs against AI technology. Their joint action effectively shut down production in Hollywood studios for months.

The production of Andor’s second season was halted by the strikes. As a WGA member, Gilroy himself stopped writing and directing when the strike went into effect on May 2, 2023. Gilroy was a steadfast supporter of the strike and organized labor action. In August, he delivered a speech on the picket line that could easily have been delivered by Andor’s Kino Loy or Karis Nemik:

While Andor largely focuses on the “bottom up” of the galaxy, it does not shy away from looking at the “top down.” It is clear throughout the series that the elite are far removed from the day-to-day struggle of the rebels and lower class. For the most part, the galactic bourgeoisie enjoy their wealth and privileges without being concerned with increased Imperial surveillance and oppression. Members of the ISB and officials like Orson Krennic – who is in charge of building the Death Star – are regular attendees at elite parties. This is not to say the galactic bourgeoisie is homogeneous in its views. Some such as Tay Kolma show varying degrees of opposition. Yet even the most radical who openly challenge Palpatine, such as Mon Mothma, possess no vision beyond a return to bourgeois democratic rule.

It is through Mon Mothma that we have our clearest window into the lives of the galactic bourgeoisie. A wealthy and seemingly naïve senator from Chandrilla, Mothma wears a mask as she navigates through the opulent and cutthroat world of the elite. A clear example of this occurs in the opening three episodes when Mon Mothma returns to Chandrilla to attend her daughter Leida’s wedding. The wedding is attended by all the denizens of the bourgeoisie who are finely dressed, drink expensive alcohol, and dance in spacious halls. During the wedding, Mothma has to deal with the consequences of her double life as a secret backer of the rebellion while appearing as a respected member of the bourgeoisie. As Genevieve O’Reilly, who plays Mon Mothma said: “[Gilroy] set up the complexity of character – you understand what she has to lose, that there are eyes on her, that people’s lives are at stake. It’s deeply specific and clever writing.”

The wedding itself only occurs because Mothma’s secret funding for the rebellion was cut off. In order to solve her money problems, she turned to the wealthy banker Davo Sculdun for help. In exchange for a loan, Sculdun wanted to introduce his son, Stekan, to Leida in the hopes of a marriage pact. For Mothma, making this dirty deal is a necessary evil in order for her to keep supporting the rebellion.

At the wedding, Mothma learns that her childhood friend Tay Kolma has become a potential liability. A year earlier, Kolma had helped Mothma discreetly fund the rebellion. Now his business was foundering due to rebel activity. Kolma’s personal life was also suffering since he was now separated from his wife. Upon witnessing the opulence of the wedding and contrasting it with his own dismal circumstances, Kolma became resentful toward Mothma and attempted to blackmail her for money: “Do you know, the irony is it’s the rebellion that’s hurt me most. Rebel activity soured my investments. You can see how I might feel… undervalued.”

Kolma himself presents an interesting example of the limits of rebellion from the upper classes. While he certainly is opposed to Imperial policies, he does not have the same material interest in fighting back like Cassian or Bix. Unlike the lower classes, Kolma has more to lose than just his chains. Instead, he stands to lose his fortune and comfortable life if his allegiance is exposed. As long as Kolma is unwilling to commit “class suicide,” then his involvement with the rebellion will always be conditional and half-hearted. As a result, he plans to back away and potentially expose Mon Mothma.

Shortly after leaving the party, Kolma finds that his usual driver has been replaced by Luthen’s operative Cinta Kaz. While not shown, the audience knows Luthen has arranged Kolma’s death.

Until now Mothma feigned innocence about Luthen’s intentions, but dread finally creeps over her. After the conversation she proceeds to get drunk and loses herself on the dance floor. No doubt, she is burdened with how she is responsible for the fate of both her daughter and Kolma.

While Kolma represents an instance of wavering bourgeois opposition, Mothma’s husband Perrin Fertha represents resigned apathy. The two married young due to Chandrillan custom and have a formal and loveless marriage. Throughout the series, Mothma does not trust Perrin and keeps him in the dark about her activities for the rebellion. She is even willing to sacrifice Perrin to Imperial security to maintain her cover.

Perrin is certainly hedonistic, but it is something he willingly embraced. In his youth, Perrin was described as a “firebrand.” Yet the rise of the Empire brought about a change in him and now he is more inclined to enjoy the finer things in life. Even though Perrin avoids outright political commitment, he assists Mothma at high society parties to win support for her various causes. Still, he never goes farther than that. Perrin seems to have resigned himself to living for joy in the here and now. As he said in his wedding toast:

Perrin made a choice by abandoning any interest in politics and focusing on small joys. In many respects, Perrin represents those of the bourgeoisie who would prefer not to think too deeply about the atrocities committed by fascist regimes which ensure their privileges.

Among the bourgeoisie, Mothma herself represents a clearer commitment to the rebellion than either Kolma or Perrin. She works within the system and openly speaks out against the Ghorman massacre in the Senate. This action ends Mothma’s political career and forces her into hiding. Eventually, she becomes the leader of the Rebel Alliance.

For all Mothma’s courage compared to other members of the galactic bourgeoisie, her opposition to the Empire remains fundamentally reformist. The rebellion is basically a popular front led by various bourgeois forces who can envision nothing more than a return to the Old Republic. As we concluded in the review of season one: 

The Galactic Empire in Star Wars has always been an allegory for the United States and other imperialist powers in history (Britain, Rome, France, etc.). The aesthetics of the Empire are also a direct call back to twentieth century fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany. For example, Imperial Stormtroopers share the same name as the Nazi paramilitary wing, Sturmabteilung. In addition, the uniforms of the Imperial Army are modeled upon those of the German Wehrmacht during World War II.

Whereas the Empire of the original Star Wars trilogy often resembled bumbling and cartoonish villains, its portrayal in Andor is far more frightening. For one, the Galactic Empire feels more like a living fascist regime with a powerful military and an ever-present bureaucracy. The presence of the Empire is also everywhere with organs like the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) maintaining a vast system of surveillance throughout the galaxy that recalls the Gestapo. Its enforcers such as Orson Krennic, Dedra Meero, and Lio Partagaz are intelligent, competent, and willing to slaughter millions to achieve their goals. Unlike Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, the Imperials in Andor do not have force powers, but that makes them even more terrifying. 

In other words, Palpatine wanted to create a regime of such total control that even thinking about opposition was inconceivable. This Hundred Year Plan recalls the grandiose vision of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich and Jack London’s dystopia in the Iron Heel (1908) of absolute control by the master classes: “We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words—Power.”

The main mechanism for ensuring Imperial domination over the galaxy in perpetuity is the Death Star – a moon-sized station capable of blowing up a planet. In Andor, the Death Star is a looming threat since once it is completed, Imperial control will be unstoppable since no one would dare oppose an ultimate weapon. As Grand Moff Tarkin said in A New Hope: “Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.”

Throughout Andor, the completion of the Death Star has been constantly delayed due to labor unrest and a shortage of key materials. As we know from season one, Cassian inadvertently built key components for the Death Star at the Narkina Five prison facility. Undoubtedly the prison break slowed down progress. As season two opens, the Empire realized that they would need a rare mineral known as kalkite to ensure the operation of the Death Star. The planet Ghorman is rich in kalkite but mining it would render Ghorman unstable and destabilize the planet’s core.

In order to deal with the “Ghorman Problem,” Director Orson Krennic gathered high ranking Imperial officials from the ISB, Ministry of Enlightenment, and the Imperial Navy for a secret meeting at the Maltheen Divide. At this meeting, it was determined that the Ghorman population needed to be eliminated in order to mine kalkite from their world. At the meeting, Dedra Meero suggests that they encourage the rebel Ghorman Front to resist Imperial rule, so that the Empire would have a legitimate reason to suppress any resistance on the planet.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Enlightenment – responsible for shaping galactic opinion – would spin a narrative about rebellious and arrogant Ghormans in the media to make the public accept their suppression. Ministry official Dee Shambo explained how they crafted false narratives and manipulated public opinion: “We did that. We made the story. We shaped it. We blew it up. We decided when it was over. With the right ideas planted in the right market, in the right sequence, we can now weaponize this galactic opinion.”

Over the course of the next three years, the Empire implements Dedra’s plan to slowly foment rebellion on Ghorman. Ultimately, their efforts culminate in the Ghorman Massacre when hundreds of peaceful protesters are shot by Imperial Stormtroopers. To ensure that it appeared that the Ghormans were instigating violence, the Empire used hidden snipers to fire on their own troops. Inexperienced and trigger-happy Imperial soldiers were also deliberately sent to Ghorman, since the Empire knew that they would respond by firing into the crowd. In the media, the Ministry of Enlightenment portrayed the Ghor as the instigators. In the aftermath of the slaughter, the planet was taken over by the Empire and strip mining for kalkite began.

The Empire’s plan to exterminate the Ghor directly recalls Nazi Germany’s genocide of the Jews. For example, Krennic’s meeting at the Maltheen Divide evokes the 1942 Wannsee Conference, a key planning meeting for the Holocaust. Tony Gilroy noted that the planning meeting was modeled on the 2001 film Conspiracy devoted to the Wannsee Conference: 

One of the highlights of both Andor seasons is the portrayal of the ISB bureaucracy. In the Imperial system, the ISB acts as a law enforcement and intelligence agency charged with matters of internal state security and ensuring loyalty of the citizenry. As opposed to the cartoonish villains normally portrayed in Star Wars, ISB members such as Lio Partagaz and Dedra Meero, are competent and intelligent.

As we discussed in the season one review, the ISB are not examples of Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil: 

The clearest example of this can be found in the case of Dedra Meero. She is a three-dimensional character with career ambitions and a loving, albeit domineering, relationship with Syril Karn. Yet she is also a product of the Empire itself. Dedra was raised in an Imperial orphanage and wholly identifies with the system. As Denise Gough, who plays Dedra observed: “It’s an extraordinary thing to explore this idea of, what does a woman like Dedra, who grew up like that, what does life look like? Someone who finds themselves completely indoctrinated into a system, and she can’t see outside it. It makes sense of every action she takes.”

For Dedra, the Empire’s goals take precedence over everything, even her relationship with Syril. Once her Ghorman Plan is adopted, she recruits Syril as an agent for the ISB in order to feed information to the Ghorman Front. At the same time, Dedra keeps him in the dark about the Empire’s real plans for Ghorman. When Syril realizes the truth, he ends their relationship and joins the protesters. Afterward, Dedra orders Imperial troops to begin firing, indirectly leading to Syril’s death. Even though Dedra is heartbroken over his death, she remains unwilling to break with the Empire.

While Dedra is talented and ruthless, she is also emblematic of the deeper structural problems of the Imperial bureaucracy. As we discussed in the season one review, the Imperial system follows the logic of “Working Toward Palpatine.” ⁴This concept is derived from what Hitler’s biographer, Ian Kershaw called “Working towards the Führer.” Kershaw argued there was no unified government administration in the Third Reich, but different groups scrambling to win Hitler’s favor since he was the only source of legitimacy. Those who wanted to get ahead and advance their careers did not need to wait for Hitler’s orders but could anticipate the Führer’s desires by taking initiatives to realize them. This inner-bureaucratic competition and radicalization helped produce the Holocaust. In order to realize Palpatine’s will, various agencies and ambitious bureaucrats competed against each other to achieve results. Ultimately, this structure created organizational chaos since there was no efficient or unified administration.

The fundamental flaws inherent in this system can be seen at the end of Andor. Throughout the series, Dedra has been hunting the “Axis” rebel network surrounding Luthen Rael. At various moments, Partagaz encouraged Dedra to take the initiative in her search for Axis, even if it went against established rules. Dedra was also willing to read classified files from other agencies in her search. Ultimately, her efforts paid off and Dedra was able to find Luthen. She confronted Luthen alone in his antique shop and he attempted suicide to stop himself from revealing information under interrogation. After, Dedra’s team took Luthen to a hospital where he remained in critical condition. She ordered him to be kept alive for future interrogation. However, Luthen was never interrogated since his assistant Kleya Marki infiltrated the hospital and killed him.

In the midst of this, Dedra herself was arrested by the ISB since her files contained intelligence directly connected to the Death Star. The ISB discovered that this information was leaked to the rebellion through the double-agent Lonni Jung who had access to Dedra’s files. When confronted about the leak by Director Krennic, Dedra tried to defend herself. She insisted that her actions in acquiring classified data was necessary to locate Axis since other leads were buried and valuable sources were killed. During her interrogation, Krennic condemned Dedra as a “scavenger” and she agreed: “Yes, I’m a scavenger. But I’ve had to be… [a] crucial piece of information, rather than being directed my way, was buried, and became something I had to “scavenge” for.”Krennic notes the contradiction inside Dedra of both intelligence and stupidity: “How does one balance such passionate competency with the mindless decision to confront Luthen Rael on your own?” Krennic believes that the only reasonable explanation for Dedra’s actions is treason: “If you’re not a rebel spy, you’ve missed your calling.”

Both Dedra and Krennic are partially correct in their criticisms of each other. Dedra is right that she could only find Rael by “scavenging” since cooperation was not forthcoming from other agencies. Krennic is also correct that Dedra was not authorized to access classified files and was inept in confronting Rael by herself. Yet they both miss the larger picture. “Working for Palpatine” requires ambitious bureaucrats to jealously guard information from other bureaucrats and encourages officials to violate rules and procedures to get ahead. Therefore, both Krennic and Dedra operated exactly as the system required.

Since Krennic could not see this wider structural flaw of the Empire, he could only view Dedra’s actions as the result of treason and clumsiness. While the Imperial system offers great opportunities for advancement to its zealous supporters, it is equally intolerant of failures. In the case of Dedra, it is possible for anyone to rise to great heights but fall from grace just as quickly. Dedra herself ends up being stripped of her rank and sent to an imperial labor camp. Her superior, Lio Partagaz also paid a high price after he failed to prevent the Rebellion from extracting Kleya, who relayed the Death Star information to the rebellion. Rather than face punishment, he decided to commit suicide. Even Krennic is not immune from this logic since he is cast aside by his own superior, Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One. “Working Toward Palpatine” means that even the most ambitious and talented officers of the Empire end up eaten by the system itself. As Qui-Gon Ginn said in The Phantom Menace: “There’s always a bigger fish.”

In the end, the Empire’s cannibalistic logic undermines its own long-term goals. Since Dedra was encouraged to disregard standard procedure, this meant the Empire never learned the secrets of Luthen Rael. Bureaucratic turf wars ensured that the rebellion was able to learn about the Death Star. Talented officers like Dedra Meero, Lio Partagaz, and Orson Krennic ended up being cast aside. In their place, mediocre non-entities and pliant bureaucrats rise to the top. Ultimately, it was this internal logic that set in motion the downfall of the Galactic Empire. 

In order to carry out its Hundred Year Plan, the Empire must undermine its own dedicated base amongst the petty bourgeoisie. This is most clearly exemplified in the case of Syril Karn. In the first season, Syril underwent his own radicalization that mirrored that of Cassian Andor (whom he relentlessly pursued). Unlike Andor who is driven to take up arms for the rebellion, Karn yearns for order. Despite witnessing Imperial brutality, he identifies with their struggle to maintain control. He also becomes obsessed with Dedra Meero and by season two has entered into a relationship with her. Yet Syril’s feelings for Dedra have more to do with what she represents — the Empire incarnate. By season two, he is a dutiful and proud member of the Bureau of Standards, helping the Empire operate more efficiently: “There are no small jobs here at the Bureau of Standards… There’s a future here for those who dare.”Ultimately, Syril represents the petty bourgeoisie who desire a sense of belonging, community, and order promised by fascism.

As discussed above, Syril was recruited by Dedra to the ISB and sent to Ghorman to help bolster the rebellion there. He faithfully carried out this task for several years. Over the course of his time on Ghorman, Syril has grown closer to the populace and doubts the Empire. On the day of the planned massacre, he confronts Dedra about the real plans for Ghorman. After he learns the truth, Syril leaves both Dedra and the Empire to join the protesters.

While standing in the protesting crowd, he catches sight of Andor (sent to assassinate Dedra) and his old obsession kicks in. Syril charges at Andor and the two have a brutal fist fight. At one point, Syril has a gun pointed at a bloodied Andor, who asks him: “Who are you?” Upon hearing this existential question, Syril lowers his gun. He seems to question his identity, realizing that he has been viewed as disposable cannon fodder by everyone. A moment later Syril is shot by Carro Rylanz, one of the Ghorman rebels he had betrayed. In a sense, he broke free of the Empire, but it was too late. As Kyle Soller, who played Syril, noted: 

Yet this petty bourgeois dream was impossible to achieve. Since the petty bourgeoisie was stuck between the main classes of the bourgeoisie and proletariat, it was incapable of ruling in its own right. Due to its declining social weight and weakness, the petty bourgeoisie is destined to align with one class or another. As Leon Trotsky observed, the specific function of fascism was to bring this class under the domination of capital: “Fascism is a specific means of mobilizing and organizing the petty bourgeoisie in the social interests of finance capital.”⁶Leon Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1977), 441.

Therefore, a gap existed between fascist rhetoric and practice. As Trotsky stated, this contradiction became abundantly clear once fascism came to power: “But fascism in power is least of all the rule of the petty bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it is the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital. Mussolini is right: the middle classes are incapable of independent policies. During periods of great crisis they are called upon to reduce to absurdity the policies of one of the two basic classes. Fascism succeeded in putting them at the service of capital.” Once firmly established, fascism must necessarily purge itself of any petty bourgeois “romantics” like Syril in order to serve the bourgeoisie. According to Gilroy: “Inevitably, in every model of fascism that there’s been, it ultimately comes and destroys its early proponents and its footsoldiers and its underclass. It’s all centralized power. It eventually eats its young.”⁷Josh Horowitz Clips. “Tony Gilroy on Fascism in STAR WARS & ANDOR and the Tragedy of Syril Karn.”

At the same time, Luthen struggles to recruit talented agents like Cassian Andor to steal technology and money to fund the growing rebellion. Andor’s stories of the morally gray world of espionage and underground resistance harken back to both the Cold War spy novels of John le Carré and “Life of a Party Member” by Takiji Kobayashi about the clandestine work of the Japanese Communist Party in the 1930s.

By the time season one ends, mass resistance to the Empire is reaching a critical point and the foundation of the Rebel Alliance has been laid. In season two, the rebellion shifts to a more organized guerrilla force and popular resistance grows. The code phrase used by Luthen’s spy network, “I have friends everywhere” also expresses the wider truth — there are supporters of the rebellion found everywhere in the galaxy. One of the most crucial moments galvanizing the rebellion occurs after the Ghorman Massacre when Mon Mothma condemns Palpatine in the Imperial Senate. Afterward, Mothma heads to Yavin Four where she leads the fledgling Rebel Alliance. By the end of Andor, the rebels not only possess dedicated soldiers and a formidable arsenal, but they are ready to open hostilities against the Empire. According to Gilroy, the second season was dedicated to the hard work required to make a revolution:

While the rebels in Andor are all opposed to the Empire, they are not united in their goals. As Saw Gerrera tells Luthen at one point: “Kreegyr’s a separatist. Maya Pei’s a neo-Republican. The Ghorman front. The Partisan alliance. Sectorists. Human cultists. Galaxy partitionists. They’re lost! All of them, lost!” Saw (based in part on Che Guevara) is a self-proclaimed anarchist who keeps his distance from other rebel groups. He is driven to paranoia when he suspects that his organization is compromised and kills suspected traitors. His condition was not improved with an addiction to the fuel known as rhydonium. At one point, Saw stated: “You think I’m crazy? Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane. Look at us. Unloved. Hunted. Cannon fodder. We’ll all be dead before the Republic is back and yet… here we are.”

Whatever else can be said about Saw, he led an efficient and militant organization. The same cannot be said about other rebels such as the Maya Pei Brigade. Cassian encounters them after crashlanding on Yavin 4. Maya Pei is a leaderless group who are constantly bickering and distrustful of each other. According to Gilroy, they represent the real-life experience of many revolutionary groups who are not ready for the reality of struggle: “I immediately realized that I needed the revolution to be stupid, too. It couldn’t just be beautiful.”

Andor shows many of the real-life difficulties and challenges involved in building an insurgent force. At the same time, the rebels have no clear program that they are fighting for. Instead, they seem to settle on the lowest common denominator of a popular front. The closest we come to a program is Karis Nemik’s Manifesto which declares that consciousness of freedom is something that spontaneously arises: “Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction.” This is a nice and romantic idea, but it is far from the historical truth. Whether in France, Germany, or Russia, revolutionaries understand that class consciousness does not appear on its own. An organization needs a coherent worldview and a scientific program that it propagates amongst the oppressed. If one is serious enough about revolution, then it is necessary to be scientific about it. Yet only in the most oblique ways do the rebels in Andor discuss the real-life debates over programs and ideologies that have gripped actual revolutionary organizations.

A revolutionary program and worldview is needed so that soldiers of a red army are conscious of what they are fighting for. A red army is not just composed of soldiers, but philosophers who carry their weltanschauung on their uniforms and their bayonets. This approach has been followed by all the successful revolutionary armies in history from Russia to Vietnam. To quote the Vietnamese General Võ Nguyên Giáp whose people’s war originally inspired George Lucas to create Star Wars: 

Despite its name, Andor is not primarily the story of Cassian Andor. Normally in Star Wars, the focus is on mythical heroes such as Luke Skywalker while Cassian is at best an extra with a few seconds of screentime. However, Cassian Andor represents ordinary people who are normally forgotten in epic cinematic spectacles like Star Wars. Each one — Luthen, Bix, Wilmon, Kleya, Melshi, Cassian, Vel, Cinta, and many others — had their own story that brought them into the rebellion. They were the unsung and unknown militants who fought in the background while other heroes captured the spotlight.

More than that, Cassian and the show’s ensemble stand in for the ordinary people who are forgotten by history. Cassian is very much like most people who’ve ever lived: poor, unseen, no aspirations to royalty or power. They live under wretched conditions and die that way. Yet history is not a simple slaughter bench. Those same nameless people in exceptional moments can join together to take down empires by storming the Bastille and the Winter Palace. Even though it is set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Andor encourages us to think about the dilemmas faced by ordinary people and revolutionaries throughout history.

Andor offers an intriguing example of “A People’s History of Star Wars” in its portrayal of regular people across the galaxy. Yet Andor is not a simplistic celebration of virtuous people fighting the good fight in the vein of Zinn-style populism. Rather, the citizens of the galaxy are shown with all their complexity, heroism, and flaws. Moreover, in the best tradition of people’s history, Andor does not merely show history from the “bottom up” but also provides a critical study of how capitalism, fascism, and other systems of oppression have maintained their domination. While Andor sometimes falls short, it does showcase the existence of revolutionary heroes who strike back at the empire.

Notes