mrlazric asked:

I think get what you're saying in your last Andor post. It's not enough to just topple states that enforce their rule through violence (which is pretty much most if not all states when you think about it), you need to destroy the very concept of state enforced violence itself. Idk correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a very interesting post. Really gets the noggin jogging.

communistkenobi answered:

(re: this post)

yeah!! like star wars has played with this specific idea before so andor isn’t the first one to do it. I think a very instructive example is the star destroyer - it is introduced to the audience as an imperial ship, and is used as a visual representation of the empire’s might. and then in the prequels it’s revealed to the audience that actually those are republic ships that the empire simply seized and took over. which isn’t to say that the republic and the empire are the exact same, but they are both governments that benefit from (and arguably require) “star destroyers” existing in the first place, and that tells you something about how those states operate and view themselves. and to the extent that the prequels have a point or thesis, it’s about the susceptibility of liberal democracies to turn explicitly fascistic.

but I think andor is sort of noteworthy when comparing it to the other live action sw shows, because it seems to approach star wars from a much more curious perspective. like, how does the empire actually function day to day? what are the whims and goals of the people who work in those institutions, and how do they align or contradict the goals of the empire? what does imperial control actually look like? yes they occupy planets, but how? what happens to the people who live there? how are their economies and ways of life impacted?

Star Wars has a very established visual language, so we know what the empire looks like (stormtrooper helmets, big ships, pressed uniforms, clinical greys and whites, etc), but I think andor is encouraging you to consider what is informing those aesthetic choices, what values and beliefs produce that kind of visual language. they even call attention to it in the first episode, where Syril’s boss asks him if he’d gotten his suit tailored (which he had). A pristine uniform, to Syril, means something more than just looking good - the uniform is meant to portray his values and how he views his job. and so what I was trying to say in that post was that andor feels like it’s challenging star wars canon not through brute force retcons or rehashing of established lore, but is instead asking you to think about the history and politics of the universe that produce star destroyers and tailored security suits and tasers and stormtrooper helmets. they are not just neutral visual elements akin to the music score, detached from history, they are also storytelling elements that teach you how the empire thinks about itself.