Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) was given a sentence to the Imperial penal colony on Narkina 5 in last week’s episode of Andor. Critics were quick to point out the artistic similarities between the jail and the world created by Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas in his debut picture, THX-1138, with the prison’s white prisoner uniforms and antiseptic working atmosphere, not to mention its black-clad guards with their cattle prods. The movie had already been mentioned on the show.
On one level, these kinds of allusions and references are expected in a large franchise property. Even though the scooter-riding “mods” in The Book of Boba Fett outraged some Star Wars fans, they were a clear reference to George Lucas’ second film, American Graffiti. In some ways, tackling the legacy of Star Wars in these endeavors entails tackling the Star Wars films to a greater or lesser extent.
This also applied to The Mandalorian’s second season, where many of the episodes were inspired by beloved Star Wars movies from the 1970s and 1980s. The most iconic scene from Jaws, which, along with Star Wars, is credited with creating the contemporary blockbuster, was referenced in “The Marshal” in a pretty overt manner. The menace in “The Passenger” was strikingly comparable to that of aliens or Aliens. William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, a masterpiece that Star Wars annihilated at the box office, was parodied in “The Believer.”
However, the way Andor has chosen to develop its world sets it unique from prior Star Wars streaming series like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. The show makes more than just overt references to the Star Wars films’ surrounding pop culture. It has made a conscious effort to expand the Star Wars universe in a way that seems deeply anchored in the series’ original 1970s context.
Andor expands the Star Wars universe beyond the first three films in a very literal sense. It stops in Coruscant, the city planet established in the prequels as the center of the Galactic Republic but was only added to the montage after Return of the Jedi. Andor travels to Niamos, a vacation destination like “Space Florida.” On Narkina 5, there is undoubtedly the “Imperial factory plant.” These are areas (and a variety of areas) not included in the first three films.
The show’s deft integration of the “used future” look from the first three films with these seemingly new surroundings is part of what makes Andor so beautiful. The details of Coruscant that Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) lives in are references to the prequel trilogy. In those movies, the Senate Chamber appears in a number of her sequences. But Andor sends its actors to the city world’s grittier, more industrial parts.
Additionally, Luke Hull’s production design for the program reflects it. The show’s technology appears to be inspired by science fiction from that era. Karis Nemik’s (Alex Lawther) navigation system in “The Axe Forgets” is definitely modeled on a Polaroid SX-70, which was manufactured from 1972 to 1981. At the conclusion of “Announcement,” when Cassian is condemned, the judge (Beatie Edney) employs a machine that is obviously based on a Knuckle Buster, a vintage credit card imprinter that was rendered useless in the 1980s. All of this is ingenious because Andor created the Star Wars universe in a way that blends in well with the past while being independent of it.
Andor expands and deepens the Star Wars universe in this manner, remaining firmly grounded in the setting of the original movie. The original Star Wars’ cynicism has, after all, held up quite well over time and resonates in today’s paranoid age. Undoubtedly, Andor is a timely and contemporary interpretation of Star Wars, but it does it by going back to the series’ origins.