‘Andor’ director explains how not being a ‘Star Wars’ obsessive worked in his favor

Given the famously effective deviation from the Star Wars ethos undertaken by Andor, one might be forgiven for momentarily forgetting they were even watching a Star Wars property.

Gone were the over-the-top sci-fi shenanigans and fan service of the original trilogy, The Mandalorian, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and in its place was a hard-boiled political thriller whose dialogue and tension allowed it to reach unimaginable new heights.

The more overwhelming section of the internet’s voice was on board, of course; even the infamously gluttonous Star Wars fanbase can recognize when they’ve been given something great. As with any piece of media in existence, Andor still managed to find itself as the target of some detraction, however weightless, often in some form of it not fitting the same mold as its peers.

As the rest of us are well aware, the decision more than worked out in its favor, and showrunner Tony Gilroy enlisted a crack team of creatives that would honor this direction with little to no apprehension. One of these associates, director Benjamin Caron, who helmed Andor episodes “Announcement,” “Daughter of Ferrix,” and “Rix Road,” was happy to explain how not being a hardcore Star Wars fan, which may have left him susceptible to Andor‘s deviation, was helpful to the process in an interview with /Film.

“I was into Star Wars when I was a kid, but I wasn’t an obsessed Star Wars fan, and I declared that to [Tony Gilroy]. But I responded to the writing and to Tony’s writing. And my guiding principle is always to look at the emotional weather of the script and to focus on the anthropological strangeness of these people and find the uncomfortable stuff, the piece of gravel in the shoe and the emotional texture of the story that I can basically amplify through the visuals. That’s the guiding principle that I use across everything.”

Once you look past (or better yet, embrace) the tonal shifts employed by Gilroy, you were immediately treated to some of the best television that Disney Plus has to offer, with the show’s fundamental emotional beats and technicalities receiving all of the attention that may have gone into the visual effects had Andor gone down the usual Star Wars route. Caron recognized this, and delivered three riveting episodes as a result.

The first season of Andor is available to stream on Disney Plus. A second season, which will also be its last, is currently in development.