I’m re-watching season 1 of Andor, a series that takes a springboard leap from a single throwaway line in the original Star Wars. “How will the Emperor maintain control, without the bureaucracy?” Sorry about the low sound volume.
Andor shows us the bureaucracy in all of its relentless oppression and cold brutality. Without the Jedi and their lightsabers, with only a passing nod to The Force, what Tony Gilroy has done to expand the Star Wars backstory is just frickin’ complicated superb. I can’t say “simply” superb, because the workings of the Rebellion against the Empire are as complex as the Empire is itself.
You don’t even need to know anything about Star Wars, except that it exists, to get caught up in the series. Take an old prison movie, like 1930’s powerful The Big House, and filter it through George Lucas’ THX-1138, and you have some of the most compelling television I have ever seen.
The power goes out, an alarm sounds, and “something’s really wrong on two!”
Wait. How the ding-dong heck did I miss this? Diego “Andor” Luna had a guest host run last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live.