After the overall disappointment that was the sequel trilogy (even if some of us enjoyed The Last Jedi) and the constant barrage of Disney+ shows which followed, it seemed like Disney were making the exact same mistakes that were made with the franchise following the original trilogy. Rogue One, Solo and The Book of Boba Fett may not be as bad as the infamous Holiday Special or the Ewok films, but the pace of the releases combined with a general decline in quality brings them to mind. If you’d asked me a year ago about where Star Wars was heading, I would have predicted a return to surviving as it did before: in video games, comics, and novels. Then I watched Andor.
Andor is perhaps the best entry in the franchise since the original trilogy. A gritty and mature exploration of the early days of the rebellion, Andor managed to engage with political themes in a way no Star Wars film or show has ever managed to do before, even if George Lucas insists Return of the Jedi is about the Vietnam War. Abandoning the obsession with space wizards and a couple of key bloodlines in favour of politicians, criminals, and regular revolutionaries, the series manages to explore the impacts of living under fascism, whether using the tools of the master is justified when resisting unjust regimes, and the difficulties of forming a united leftist front among other issues. When these themes are combined with beautiful cinematography, stellar performances, an excellently paced and structured story, and a generous helping of the weird aliens we have come to love and expect from Star Wars, the series easily outshines most other entries in the franchise.
It’s no surprise then that the most recent series of The Mandalorian attempts to recreate this formula in the third episode of its third season, ‘The Convert’. A detour from the adventures of the eponymous Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and his surrogate son Grogu, the episode instead follows former Imperial eugenicist Dr. Perishing (Omid Abtahi) as he goes through the recently-restored Republic’s amnesty program. Without spoiling the episode, it attempts to critique Operation Paperclip and post-war denazification programmes in a similarly grounded way to Andor’s exploration of fascism; however, it mostly fails to say anything interesting whilst struggling to handle mature political themes with the same grace as Andor. While aesthetically evoking Operation Paperclip, the episode seems to suggest that denazification programmes were actually too hard on their subjects, who were just innocent believers in their scientific pursuits, a take which couldn’t be further from the truth. Outside of some brief moments which imply that the change between the Empire and New Republic haven’t changed life for ordinary people, a fact which is both interesting when considering real post-fascist regimes and the gap in the Star Wars timeline between the end of the original trilogy and the beginning of the sequel trilogy, ‘The Convert’ lacks the substance to recreate the nuance of Andor.
The Mandalorian and other Star Wars media can still be great in their own right. The show was at its best in its first season, which grounded itself in smaller-scale stories reminiscent of Westerns, and moments of the newest season have managed to capture a different kind of magic. It might not be as politically serious as Andor, but the new season is already exploring mature themes like fatherhood and religious fanaticism. Through embracing these themes instead of trying to copy someone else’s work, The Mandalorian can still rise to the heights achieved by the first season of Andor in its own way.
“Pedro Pascal” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.