1 of 5 | Diego Luna stars in "Andor" on Disney+. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI |
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LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The latest Star Wars series, Andor, premiering Wednesday on Disney+, distinguishes itself with its depiction of the true underworld of the galaxy far, far away. It's the closest the franchise has come to new territory since The Mandalorian.
Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), one of the rebels from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, is looking for a girl from his home planet in a seedy bar on Morlana One. Andor kills people who interfere, drawing more attention to himself.
While Andor continues his search and meets with a mechanic named Bix (Adria Arjona), the Federation already is working fast to cover up the deaths. But Deputy Inspector Syril Karn (Kyle Solier) wants the truth, so he leads his own investigation, which closes in on Andor.
Although it is a prequel and uses a pre-existing character, Andor is beginning a new story. So it is effectively standalone if any Star Wars fans did not see Rogue One, although that is unlikely to apply.
Morlana One and the city of Ferrix feel like the seedy underbelly of Star Wars we rarely get to see. A smuggler like Han Solo also would travel in these realms, but the films didn't really follow him there.
Solo: A Star Wars Story did, but gave the locations an ugly brown hue. The locations of Andor look more aesthetically pleasing, but retain the noirish aesthetic within the Star Wars universe.
Andor kills in cold blood at the beginning of the show. That's a random character, though, so we'll see if he remains that cold-blooded toward characters the audience has more time to get to know.
By Episode 3, the show begins to show how Andor will go from a loner to joining the rebel movement. He is clearly covering his tracks when we meet him, but from whom?
Flashbacks to Andor's childhood on a green, natural planet promise to elaborate on past connections. It could take more episodes for those to prove relevant, though a battle between the forest dwelling tribe and space men with lasers harkens back to Return of the Jedi.
Other Star Wars accouterments include an endearing garbage droid and reference to parsecs. Presumably, Andor uses the term correctly this time.
Action scenes bring Star Wars to ground level. A laser fight in an empty warehouse causes heavy machinery to loosen amid the battle.
Some sequences are a little too Bourne style with shakycam. Andor creator Tony Gilroy wrote several of those and directed The Bourne Legacy.
The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi also tread in familiar characters and did little to move them forward. There is perhaps more potential for Andor, since this is only his second appearance in Star Wars, and the show is off to a promising start.
New episodes of Andor premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001 and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
