Star Wars never truly admits what it is, but Andor finally has.

I just watched the first three episodes of Season 2 of Andor, the Star Wars show that paints the beginnings of the rebellion. They were excellent, but that’s not what I want to discuss.

In preparation for Season 2, I rewatched the final episode of Season 1. It reminded me of what Star Wars is about. There are light swords, laser beams, star destroyers, mystical forces, bigfoot-like creatures carrying crossbows, space pirates, artificial intelligence-imbued automatons. Heck, there are princesses in metal bikinis, massive space slugs, lava planets and ice planets, twisted politics, planet-destroying machines, epic battles amongst the stars, and bounty hunters, all of it set against the story of a single family. It’s a family-based space opera.

There is also a galactic, oppressive Empire. And because of that, there is a rebellion.

Star Wars is about rebellion. It’s about resistance. Take away all the trappings, and that’s what it comes down to. Special effects, incredible music, the story of heroes going on journeys, all that aside, this story appeals to people because it is about fighting oppression. The small people against the machine. The sporadic, spontaneous emergence of rebellious thought that opposes autocratic power because people have had enough. Star Wars is the story in our lifetimes of what it means to fight back, and while that may not be clear on the surface, that’s why this story has resonated for almost 50 years (2027 will be the 50^thanniversary of this modern mythology) – it doesn’t preach its point in our faces. It buries it in the subterfuge of imperial transports and rogue squadrons, like deflecting laser bolts with the aforementioned light swords (I know they’re called lightsabres but I’m trying to be clever).

What other modern tale of this prominence has preached the good fight?

The last episode of Season 1 pulls away the subterfuge for a moment and does what Star Wars never does: it makes its point plain. No lightsabres. No Force. No massive ships or galactic stakes. Just dirt roads, a funeral march, and simple people congregating to pay tribute to someone they respected. That person appears in a pre-recorded hologram and lays out the essence of Star Wars, the peak promise of the space opera. A bit from that speech:

“There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it’s here. It’s here and it’s not visiting anymore. It wants to stay.” 

Laid out plainly, an enunciation of a story that is almost fifty years old, previously avoiding the core that runs through it and that makes it tick. In this episode, the mythology simply says what it has always been doing and has been about. This is the birth of rebellion, and it’s incredibly emotional, a story that finally admits what it is. 

I find Andor the series to be peak Star Wars. It knows what it is. It admits what it is. And it barrels into resistance and a long, desperate fight whose outcome we already know. We know what happens to Cassian Andor, the protagonist. And we know what his actions lead to. Like handing the plans to the great machine in the sky from hand to hand, the story is promulgated arm to arm, from this hero to that, spontaneous acts of rebellion arising from anywhere, even the desert floor, to rise in answer to oppression. This is why I love Star Wars and think it is a peak story for our times. This is the type of story that humbles me and makes me want to write harder, to come anywhere close to this level of epic-ness around a concept that pulls on us – the thought that we are powerful, and that we can rise, that we must, that people have been doing that as long as there have been people, every time autocracy and injustice rise. We rage against the machine. “It wants to stay.” And we don’t let it.

I can’t wait to see the full extent of Andor Season 2. It’s not just peak Star Wars, it’s peak storytelling. The decisions made are so beautifully unconventional and moving, that it’s clear the mythology remains intact. Next year and the year after that, we’ll see more big screen Star Wars, and I hope the writers remember the core of what makes this story tick. It’s not swamp planets and little green men, or armor-clad warriors and speeder bikes. It’s rebellion. It’s our story.