For A Desperate Disney+ Seeking Traction And Relevance, Andor Has No Choice But To Provide Both.

I’m usually not someone who draws much from one-person focus groups that happen to be occurring inside my home.  I’ve personally encountered far too many executives that have used those situations as what they perceived was actual research and made million-dollar decisions based primarily on them.   My own career opportunities have been directly impacted by the likes of some who used the opinions of an exceptionally demographically aberrational and statistically insignificant sample as somehow more meaningful to their job than the results of dozens of quantitative and qualitative surveys and data culled from millions of actual end users.

But in the case of my roommate, if for no other reason than observational grounding, I tend to pay at least a little attention.  Particularly when it comes to making an investment in something, as he is didactic and research-driven about those decisions as anyone I’ve ever encountered, professionally or personally.  Granted, in my case that’s a bar lower than the eighth round of a limbo contest.

So when earlier this week he opted into Disney Plus for the first time in years, I suspected there was a good reason.  And it turned out to be the drop of the second season of ANDOR, no less than 29 months after the final episode of Season One dropped just before Thanksgiving 2022.  So unsurprisingly he’s exemplary of what we lovingly call the “echo effect” that streaming services pride their goosing of time spent data on–rewatching a prior season that took place long enough ago that it requires a refresher course for the average fan to get them to a place to be ready to digest another helping of a series as dense in plot and action as a component of the STAR WARS saga.

As TIME’s Megan McCluskey advised her readers yesterday, he’s got quite a bit to brush up on:

In the prequel series…—considered by many to be one of, if not the best of the Disney+ Star Wars TV shows—we meet Cassian five years before that fateful mission, when he’s still a self-interested smuggler doing his best to scrape by in a galaxy gripped by the iron fist of the Empire. The series opens with Cassian killing two low-level Imperial goons while searching for clues about the whereabouts of his long-lost sister, a decision that sets in motion a chain of events that slowly begins to convert him from cynical mercenary to radicalized freedom fighter.

The 12 episodes of Andor Season 1 spanned a year in the galaxy far, far away and saw Cassian go from being reluctantly drawn into the rebellion in order to save his own skin to becoming a devoted resistance operative. His commitment to the cause was ultimately galvanized by a series of transformative incidents, including serving a stint in a brutal Imperial prison, hearing the final message his late adoptive mother Maarva (Fiona Shaw) left for him, and witnessing the people of his longtime home planet Ferrix revolt against their oppressors while rescuing his childhood friend Bix (Adria Arjona) from the Empire’s clutches.

And when he finally does get around to watching the first of four troika of episodes to be released on consecutive Tuesdays, a curious release schedule that appears to be a contrived compromise between a hardcore fan base dying to binge and the desire to at least have a chance at a broader and busier audience, there’s apparently going to be a lot more to process.  For example, a history lesson delving deep into the weeds of an actual battle that inspires the many that take place in this world, as THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s James Hibberd noted yesterday:

A key scene in the Andor season two premiere takes some real-life inspiration from World War II history.

About 20 minutes into the first episode, there’s a secret Imperial meeting led by Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelson) on a snowy mountain compound. There he plots the takeover and potential destruction of the peaceful textile-producing planet of planet Ghorman with a select group of high command officers. It’s a scene that has major importance for the final scene of the Disney+ show, which leads up to the creation of the Death Star.  Andor creator Tony Gilroy tells The Hollywood Reporter that the scene is like when the Third Reich plotted its Final Solution at the Wannsee conference in 1942, where 15 members of the German high command secretly plotted the extermination of millions of Jews. “The very first scene that Krennic has where he talks about Ghorman, that’s based on the Wannsee convention – the Nazi convention where the Nazis got together and planned the final solution over a business lunch.”

More tellingly–and I’ll scream SPOILER ALERT at this point–there’s more disturbing fare that’s already creating a boatload of online reaction, such as that dropped early yesterday by TOTAL FILM’s Molly Edwards:

Brasso, Cassian’s good friend from his home on Ferrix, is tragically gunned down by stormtroopers when he’s caught working on Mina-Rau during an Imperial inspection. Sadly, though Cassian arrived in the nick of time with his stolen TIE fighter, he wasn’t able to save Brasso.  It’s made even more heartbreaking by the fact that a Ferrix funeral tradition for those worthy of it is to have the deceased’s ashes made into a funerary stone, as we saw for Cassian’s mother Marvaa in season 1. Since nobody knows Brasso is on Mina-Rau, he’ll never get that honor, even though he’s more than deserving of it. “The way Brasso’s ashes won’t even be made into a funerary stone. He won’t ever be able to go home :(” says one fan.

And then there’s this take from SCREEN RANT’s Thomas Bacon:

Andor season 2…offers a much more intimate look at life under a fascist regime; it particularly explores that regime’s impact on women.  Personally, I found the end of Andor episode 3 deeply disturbing. There’s a subtle juxtaposition between two scenes; the wedding of a child bride and an attempted sexual assault. Gilroy is a skilled writer, and I have no doubt that this placement was intentional, to point to multiple ways in which women suffer under fascist regimes (the Imperial philosophy was popular on insular human-populated Core Worlds of the Star Wars galaxy, Chandrila included; notice how few aliens attend Leida’s wedding).

(W)e’ve never seen a sexual assault on-screen before, and some viewers are understandably disturbed. What I did not expect, though, was for one prominent YouTuber – who I won’t name here – to make the following argument:

“SA in SW feels unnecessary. You can portray power dynamics and making the audience hate the Empire in other ways without taking it to such a disgusting place.

Vader wouldn’t tolerate that s*** nor does the Empire condone it.

It has no place in Star Wars. Period. Unnecessary.”

All of this is well and good in an environment where there’s almost no such thing as bad publicity.  And Lord (Vader?) knows Disney needs all the help it can get.  You don’t think the imminent release of SNOW WHITE is drawing a bunch of folks with like minds and wallets as my roommate back into the breach, do you?

But here are the more daunting reality checks.  A series that had been planned for five seasons will now indeed sunset after this one, perhaps a victim of its exorbitant cost.  Forbes pegged the series’ total price tag at $645 million, with Season Two coming in even higher than Season One (just south of $300 million for 12 episodes).   And as COMIC BOOK.com’s Michael Hein confirmed, also sunsetting will be the association with the franchise and the esteemed and impassioned Gilroy:

Andor series creator Tony Gilroy has no plans to make more Star Wars after the show is finished. Gilroy was a co-writer on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and took over as showrunner early in its development. Speaking to ComicBook this weekend at Star Wars Celebration, he said that he wants to work on something else “for a while,” and didn’t say he would be returning to Star Wars in the future. It wasn’t a definitive closed door, but it doesn’t sound like he’s planning a comeback at any point either. Gilroy already has another movie in pre-production at the time of this writing, and it sounds like he’s satisfied with his tenure in a galaxy far, far away.

And while plans are already in place for a reinvigorated reintroduction of the franchise in conjunction with the upcoming golden anniversary of A NEW HOPE’s 1977 theatrical release featuring the likes of Ryan Gosling and director Shawn Levy that was announced last month to much fanfare, that stardate is at this point pretty far, far away itself.  Who knows who will be running Disney, yet alone Disney Plus, by summer 2027?   And what their appetite will be for something that can’t possibly be produced on the cheap?

I noticed what my roommate’s algorithmic prompts for further sampling were (side note:  I personally watch scant little Disney Plus, so my viewing habits aren’t a factor).  Unlike what usually happens to him on other platforms, there’s not a single suggestion that he seems inclined to even sample.  And while again he’s hardly a statistically representaive sample, I am awful curious what Disney thinks will be keeping subscribers and fans engaged once the final meld drops on May 13th.

Andor the movie needs to be as much of a savior as Cassian Andor the warrior at such a crucial point for both company and platform.  It sure appears it’s much more of an and/or proposition at best.

Until next time…