By Joshua Tyler
| Up to date
Star Wars has been in a tailspin, and there’s just one vibrant spot.
That vibrant spot is 2 seasons of the collection Andor, and it’s one of the best Star Wars has been in a very long time, for one VERY easy cause.
It’s the primary Star Wars product since George Lucas’s departure that is aware of who the galaxy far, distant’s true villain is.
The true villain of Star Wars, the one constant face of evil throughout the complete franchise, has not been, and may by no means be, Palpatine or the Darkish Facet of the Power. It’s undoubtedly not Anakin or Snoke, or Adam Driver in a Vader tribute masks.
It’s in all probability not Luke Skywalker, although if he drinks an excessive amount of blue milk and will get cranky sufficient, then you definitely by no means know.
The true villain of Star Wars is and at all times has been authorities paperwork.
The Demise Star Is The DMV
The Demise Star, within the first film, was the last word illustration of paperwork as true evil.
That tremendous weapon is the ultimate type of what occurs when huge numbers of sycophantic bureaucrats strip the wealth of these beneath their management and use it to assemble huge, impractical, completely flawed weapons of warfare.
And it’s run by a bunch of center managers jockeying for consideration round a convention room desk.
When the Demise Star didn’t work, the identical rigid, massively incompetent bureaucratic construction, run by Imperial DMV employees who solely care about preserving their jobs to allow them to’t admit they had been incorrect, circled and made the identical factor over again.
The Demise Star is the California high-speed rail that was purported to go all the best way to San Francisco, however now prices ten occasions as a lot and solely goes to Bakersfield.
Luke Skywalker Wasn’t Combating The Power
That clear real-world similarity is what made Luke Skywalker’s journey so thrilling and straightforward to determine with.
He wasn’t combating an individual or a mystical and evil drive; he was combating a system of corrupt bureaucratic oppression.
The very same oppressive system we’re all tortured by when we now have to go down and get new license plates for our truck.
The identical one we’re stricken by when filling out types for the IRS.
Luke was combating a legion of lazy public faculty academics and code violation inspectors on behalf of all the conventional individuals who need to be left the hell alone.
That pattern continued within the prequels, when the bureaucracy-free monarchy of Naboo was attacked and held hostage by a gaggle of center managers from the Commerce Federation.
It escalated when, because the prequels continued, the huge bloated paperwork of the Outdated Republic empowered and hid Palpatine, aiding him in his rise to management.
In a way, Palpatine was the supreme product of that paperwork; he was its best creation, the pure results of years of bloat and purple tape strangling well-meaning individuals till nobody was left to oppose it.
Andor Places Paperwork In Its Crosshairs
That brings us to Andor.
As talked about on the outset, one of the best of the current Star Wars collection is Andor, and Andor is one of the best current Star Wars collection particularly as a result of it makes that bloated paperwork the present’s sole villain.
Andor is about guys in cubicles and conferences planning the destruction of innocents.
They do it not as a result of they love evil, however as a result of that’s how they receives a commission.
Andor Season 1 adopted a number of sides of crushing paperwork.
In a multi-episode arc, it explores the Imperial justice system, a system so drowned in purple tape and bureaucratic disinterest that it’s extra centered on making a revenue for the center managers turned judges and jail wardens who run it than on doing something like precise justice.
If you happen to’ve had any run-ins with the justice system in the actual world, you in all probability spent these episodes screaming sure and pointing on the tv, because it precisely portrayed the best way it exists solely to service itself.
Sympathy For The Devils
Even the present’s unhealthy guys, trapped within the Imperial bureaucratic nightmare, felt sympathetic within the face of bureaucratic challenges.
They too, had been misplaced in a collection of cubicles and countless conferences, locations the place everybody solely seems out for themselves and has little interest in doing the precise work of presidency.
If you happen to’re an grownup who has ever tried to get medical insurance or helped an aged mum or dad cope with Social Safety, then every thing you noticed on display screen was an correct sci-fi illustration of your actuality.
Andor Season 2 picks up proper the place Season 1 left off, with a bunch of center managers in a convention room casually planning to wipe out a planet in an effort to full a bloated public works venture to allow them to earn promotions.
It continues by dipping into the controversial subject of immigration, by introducing corrupt Imperial bureaucrats who present up on a planet to do a head depend, and take what they will beneath the desk.
And that’s why Andor is the one new Star Wars that works.
Why Disney Star Wars Hasn’t Labored Till Andor
The JJ Abrams films failed as a result of they grew to become obsessive about Palpatine and the Skywalkers.
Exhibits like The Acolyte get misplaced within the backstabbing faith of the Jedi.
The Mandalorian fell aside as a result of it grew to become obsessive about Katie Sackhoff’s royal future and supported the corrupt beaurocracy of the New Republic as a substitute of combating it.
Ahsoka tried to make a villain of Thrawn, an iron-fisted demolisher of purple tape.
Skeleton Crew thought it might repair all that by specializing in journey. However Star Wars has by no means been only a shallow journey.
Palpatine Represented The True Villain Of Star Wars
Star Wars ought to solely ever have one focus and one true villain.
It’s not Palpatine and by no means was. The true villain of Star Wars is the huge paperwork Palpatine represents.
Each character within the Star Wars universe struggles beneath its weight.
It’s why the galaxy is filled with black markets and smugglers, and it’s why you like it.
As a result of the heroes of Star Wars aren’t simply taking up the Empire, they’re taking up the IRS, and legal professionals, the meter maids, the medical system, and each rattling annoying factor which is sucking away moments of your life.
Star Wars is at its greatest when it’s Nineteen Nineties Dilbert with a lightsaber.
When Star Wars deviates from this system, it stops feeling like Star Wars and begins feeling like one thing else.
And we’ve already acquired loads of one thing else.
