The Disney + Star Wars TV series Andor concluded to much deserved acclaim, and it did something that seemed improbable given the state of the Star Wars franchise. Andor has helped create renewed enthusiasm for Star Wars as it showed how versatile and mature the franchise can be.

Ever since Disney acquired Star Wars from its creator George Lucas, the projects the company and Lucasfilm put out have received mixed reactions. At first, the franchise received a lot of renewed enthusiasm after the releases of Disney’s first two Star Wars films, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

But the reception to the following films, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Solo: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, was a lot less muted as many fans soured against the Disney films. As a result, the box office returns were not quite as high as the early films and in fact, Solo did not perform well in theaters.

This Was the Way

The Star Wars franchise recovered significantly when the first Disney + Star Wars TV show, The Mandalorian, debuted on the streaming app in 2019. For a couple of years, Mandalorian fever gripped fans and the larger public as Grogu, the infant Yoda-like co-star of the show captured the public’s hearts and imagination. It seemed as if the TV show single-handedly rescued the franchise and injected new life into it. However, many of the other Star Wars TV shows were not as popular or had the level of quality as The Mandalorian, except for Andor. In fact, although Andor did not have the high viewership numbers that The Mandalorian enjoyed, it was a massive critical hit as it presented a fresh and adult take on Star Wars with its grounded look at how the Rebellion began in earnest against the Galactic Empire.

Still, despite Andor’s critical success, Star Wars on the whole was floundering as inferior TV shows like The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka disappointed fans and emboldened toxic trolls to attack Star Wars. Then there was the fact that the film franchise was essentially dead as many announced films never went into production, except for next year’s The Mandalorian and Grogu. Even recently, The Mandalorian fell out of favor with many fans because of its third season, which was not as well received as its first two seasons.

New Heights of Quality Star Wars Television

When the second season of Andor first streamed fans and critics applauded the show’s mature, sweeping and complex nature with its nuanced and well-developed characters that quickly generated memes and online discussion about the nature of defiance, sacrifice and societies.

What truly captured the hearts of fans were its story arcs devoted to the Ghorman Massacre and the final arc that wrapped up the story lines of many characters including Cassian Andor himself. The last time we see him, he was departing for what would be his final mission in Rogue One. A mission he never returned from. What made his final on screen moments so heartbreaking was the revelation in Andor’s final scene that he fathered a child that he would never know. And no, this child is not Poe Dameron from the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.

What made Andor so great and unique was that it had no connection to the Jedi, the Sith, or the larger Star Wars/Skywalker saga. It instead focused on random, everyday people living regular lives and how the Empire affected them to either join the cause or support the Empire through simple acts that cascaded into mass movements that affected the galaxy.

It should be noted that Andor was not the only TV show to break out of the traditional Star Wars mold. Others like Skeleton Crew and The Acolyte gave us different stories that took place at different time periods and had little to do with the Skywalker Saga. However, they were not as regarded as highly as Andor.

After Andor

An interesting impact of Andor is that there has been increased viewership for Rogue One on Disney + because many realized that the film forms a sort of trilogy with the two seasons of Andor combined. What was remarkable about the final episode of Andor was that it cleanly connected to Rogue One, which brought Cassian Andor’s story to a conclusion as he sacrificed his life for the Rebellion. This theme of sacrifice was a major one in the show as Andor forfeited his dreams, his love and ultimately his life in Rogue One in order to be one of those thousand cuts that brought down the Empire.

Star Wars is enjoying a resurgence in popularity as the video game, Star Wars: Battlefront II has seen increased activity, the recent re-release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith performed surprisingly well in theaters and streaming has increased for Rogue One thanks to the prequel series, Andor.

Andor has established the lofty heights that Star Wars can aspire to, but many fear that anything after Andor will certainly fail to live up to the expectations and standards that Andor has set. That is inevitable, but this does not mean that Lucasfilm and Disney should not try to put out quality films and TV shows. They should rise to the challenge and meet the bar Andor has set.

A recent development is that after the second season of Ahsoka, which is in production, Disney and Lucasfilm will steer away from live-action TV productions and concentrate on films. After The Mandalorian and Grogu, there will be a film called Star Wars: Starfighter, which will star Ryan Gosling and will premiere in 2027, just in time for the franchise’s 50^th anniversary. Beyond that are the many announced projects by filmmakers like James Mangold, Dave Filoni and Simon Kinberg. Whether they will actually go into production remains to be seen, but already fans are demanding following up on the surviving characters of Andor to reappear elsewhere. Can this happen? Absolutely. It’s just a matter of getting the same creative team behind Andor to make some kind of follow-up or another unrelated Star Wars story that is of the same quality as Andor.

The point is that TV shows like Andor, The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew have shown us that Star Wars can be much more than the Skywalker Saga and anything related to it. Let’s see films or TV shows set centuries apart from the traditional Star Wars time periods. It would be great to see a prehistory of the Star Wars universe when the first lightsabers are created or stories from the Old Republic and even the far future. Reportedly, Tony Gilroy, the mastermind behind Andor, is developing a horror-themed Star Wars project that would further show the versatility of the Star Wars universe.

No matter what happens next, it feels great to be a Star Wars fan thanks to Andor.