The new Star Wars series "Andor" is a masterpiece

"And if everything goes up in flames?" Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) worriedly asks the art dealer Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), a secret leader of the rebellion. At stake is the fate of the inhabitants of the planet Ghorman, where Rael wants to open a "new front against the Empire." "Then it will burn. Visible from far away," Rael replies unmoved. The cause alone is important to him, if innocents have to die to advance it—good heavens! There's always a chip on the shoulder.

Hard, harder, "Andor"! The second and final season of the series has launched on Disney+. Never in the "galaxy far, far away" have there been more complex, exciting characters than in Tony Gilroy's series, and the world-building and storytelling create a powerful pull. The action takes place directly before the film "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016), in which we first met Cassian Andor and at the end of which Princess Leia received the plans for the Empire's Death Star. This film, in turn, ties in with "Episode IV: A New Hope," which launched the mega-franchise in 1977.

In "Andor," the magical abilities of the Jedi and their connection to the "Force" play no role. Lightsabers remain unwielded; there are no wisecracking heroes like Han Solo or funny sidekicks like the droids C-3PO and R2-D2. There is only the fascist dictatorship of Emperor Palpatine, its minions and collaborators, its subjects and victims, and its openly and covertly fighting opponents.

"Andor" is, above all, a political series that uses sci-fi to teach viewers a lot about their own world. About freedoms we should stand up for, and about the powerful who believe they have the right to take them away.

"The Empire must not win," is also the credo of Cassian Andor and his traumatized lover Bix (Adria Arjona). An obscure building is to be built on Ghorman, behind which the Ghorman Front protest movement suspects a secret Imperial weapons depot. Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelssohn), Death Star project manager, wants to frack the mineral calcite needed for its reactor here, so much that, according to experts, the entire planet could collapse (who doesn't think of Donald Trump's Fuck Nature! command "Drill, Baby, Drill!" or his brutal rare earth "deal" with Ukraine).

Defenders of the Empire: Imperial Security Bureau members Dedra Meero (Denise Gough, right) and Grymish (Kurt Egyiawan) plan a major strike against the resistance. Scene from the second season of "Andor."

Source: Lucasfilm Ltd™

And the secret police ISB, under Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser), with careerist Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and her shady partner Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), wants to use the Ghorman Front to lure the rebellion's pros and put an end to all resistance. That's how it seems at first glance. But in "Andor," that's often deceptive.

From the very first film, "Star Wars" was actually the story of fascism destroying a democratic world order. And of a son, Luke Skywalker, who had to realize that his father was Darth Vader, the most feared of the generals of the Nazi leader Palpatine.

However, because director and franchise creator George Lucas framed his "Star Wars" (1977) like a fairy tale, the Nazi aspect appeared more in the background and as a historical reflection. In 1977, Nazis were yesterday's horror figures on the fringes of modern, affluent societies. It's all over. Never again. Now "never again" is over. They're back.

"Andor" is a rightfully self-confident series, the only one in the franchise not to use the "Star Wars" logo. It tells a story that, although filmed before Donald Trump's re-election, is perfectly suited to these times when the long period of fearful silence surrounding the drastic and erratic US regime is hesitantly giving way to abuse and protest.

Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) and Cassian Andor himself are figures of change who can certainly serve as a way for the audience to identify with themselves. "Andor" is a series of hope, even if the rebels' victory over the Empire is still four films away. And franchise mastermind JJ Abrams granted space fascism a brief resurrection in the form of the "First Order" in the third "Star Wars" film trilogy (2015-19).

In "Andor," good and evil aren't separated in black and white as usual. The resistance may be fearless, but it's not without fault. Rebel leader Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) has apparently gone mad, reminiscent of Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now!" (1979). A paranoid tyrant of the good side—similarly trapped in the narrowness of his worldview as Emperor Palpatine.

And because the pictures are also right, this time one is not inclined, as is usually the case, to talk about the best “Star Wars” product since Irvin Kershner’s “Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), but rather that the franchise has never been better.

Of course, that's too dark for children. They'll have to make do with "Lego Star Wars" this time.

"Andor", twelve episodes, by Tony Gilroy, with Diego Luna, Adria Arjona, Ben Mendelssohn, Stellan Skarsgård, Denise Geough, Genevieve O'Reilly, Kyle Soller, Anton Lesser (streamable on Disney+)