“Andor” or the sleep of the Force



HASclose The Mandalorian, The Boba Fett Book and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor is the fourth stage of a rocket that we think may not need to be launched to reach the moon on its own. If we trust the latest announcements from Disney, the series should indeed continue to pile up at a frantic pace, which moreover led us to let our initial impression infuse somewhat in front of the first episodes ofAndor. As we had anticipated for some time, and as confirmed by the last Star Wars convention in Disney’s Californian stronghold in Anaheim, the arrival of a new feature film is absolutely not in the pipeline. It will therefore be necessary to be satisfied with the continuous deliveries of series, just to feed the platform of the venerable house and to continue to show the teeth in the face of the Netflix urchins and others.

Andor presents itself, according to the terminology now in use, as the prequel to the spin-off RogueOne (phew!), feature film released in 2016, so a century ago on the new Covid scale. Hailed as Disney’s big-screen success since buying the franchise from George Lucas in 2012, RogueOne chronicled the theft of the Death Star plans by a group of rebels, including the so-called Cassian Andor (not to be confused with Endor, the bucolic planet of the Ewoks teddy bears), with an elegiac and quite heartbreaking climax ending – a sensation rarely experienced since the original Lucas trilogy.

Unlike the aforementioned series, which were built around heroic-magical figures (fallen Jedi, mystical Mandalorian, legendary bounty hunter in search of redemption) and more or less assertive cinematographic codes (the spaghetti western in the case of mandalorianthe Jon Favreau key), Andor opts for a heroism of proximity, in line with RogueOne.

False rhythm and indolence

The painting of the imperial administration in a softened and corrupt bureaucracy in the Kremlin style of the XXIe century is not uninteresting – it is even one of the highlights of the series. We can scan the screen, no immaculate Stormtrooper helmet is on the horizon, a great first. In Andorthe Empire has less the face of overtrained shock troops or extremist ideologues than that of opportunistic civil servants or paunchy apparatchiks, who prefer to bury a case that would threaten their position and attract the attention of the central administration.

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In this banality of evil for dummies, the scullery of Sith totalitarianism proves less flamboyant, but potentially just as thrilling as the psyche of its pop icons, Darth Vader and Palpatine in the lead. The problem is thatAndor espouses the indolence of this small-scale power management and works on a slightly sticky false rhythm, from which it is very difficult to get out. It takes the zeal of an Imperial technocrat for the action to finally pick up speed, as two hours have nearly passed trying to weave the threads that make up a nebulous narrative arc.

We recognize here a recent and rather painful tendency to immerse the viewer in media res by confronting him with a number of mysterious protagonists often carrying an inevitable secret which will be clarified with more or less strong flashbacks. This is of course the case of Cassian Andor, interpreted by a Diego Luna with the sex appeal more seen since a certain Harrison Ford, even if his character cultivates a darker side than a scoundrel. Witness, this inaugural scene in a brothel (so we make love in Star Wars ?), where Andor, in search of his sister, gets rid without qualms, clinical execution as a result, of two pathetic security guards. An imperial officer in a hurry to win the stripe does not want to leave the crime unpunished and decides, without the knowledge of his superior, to organize an expedition to Morgana, an expedition which will end in a fiasco.

“The Army of Shadows” vs “Koh-Lanta”

This planet in the form of an industrial and climatic nightmare reminds us that the photography of natural settings and even the digital effects, less dripping than usual, are one of the great successes ofAndor, with a special mention for the splendid lands of the planet Aldhani (in fact the natural park of Glen Tilt in Scotland), where Andor lands after having escaped the imperials. Her saviour, Luthe Rael, is played by a Stellan Skarsgard gone from Lars Von Triers to Thor and who seems to take a liking to the Hollywood circus, even if one would swear that his impenetrable hieraticism, a bit forced, is eyeing rather towards Bergman or Melville.

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It is moreover up to the director of Army of Shadows that we find ourselves thinking sometimes. The series favors an almost naturalistic approach to resistance, with its networks of diverse profiles, ranging from rich and discreet financiers (Senator Mon Mothma, whose character had made a short-lived but striking appearance in Return of the Jedi) to the anonymous heroes in charge of suicide missions. Andor therefore integrates a group of resistance fighters with the profile of survivalist candidates of Koh Lanta and who overplay the mistrust of the newcomer, who we can easily guess will play a decisive role in the success of the mission.

These audacities, largely compatible with orthodoxy and the house specifications, are hardly likely to provoke a jacquerie of the fan base. Nor, moreover, are they likely to cause a reset generalized in the universe. According to the first returns, scrutinized with particular attention by the thinking heads of Disney, the fans are happy. And those who haven’t reacted yet have probably fallen asleep the sleep of the just, waiting for a better reason to wake up. On the big screen?

Andorseries available on Disney+.




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