James Poniewozik , The New York Times; ‘Andor’ Shows How a Resistance Is Built, One Brick at a Time
"The conflicts too may seem familiar, even more so as the second season unfolds. Imperial troops search for the “undocumented” amid a security panic that is manufactured — and amplified by media outlets — to justify a crackdown. The Empire disappears people to prison gulags with no hope of return. It bullies a small territory, undermining its autonomy to gain control of valuable natural resources. Senators weigh whether it is safe to speak out against the growing civil-liberties violations.
You could see this as Gilroy and company importing current events into the “Star Wars” galaxy. But you could also see it as current events repeating historical patterns that — swashbuckling and adorably memeable aliens aside — “Star Wars” has been concerned with since its beginning.
“A New Hope” hit theaters in 1977, a popcorn blend of Bicentennial rebel spirit and post-1960s antiauthoritarianism, about a feathered-haired farm boy flooring the pedal on his space hot rod and sticking it to the Man right in the exhaust port. As George Lucas said in a 2005 interview, he conceived his films in the Nixon and Vietnam years as a way of wrestling with the question, “How do democracies get turned into dictatorships?”...
In an age of copycat I.P. cash grabs, “Andor” doesn’t merely echo its source material: It also retroactively improves it. Sometimes, “Andor” suggests, the long process of liberation is harder than bulls-eyeing womp rats in your T-16 and less glamorous than a lightsaber duel. Sometimes it simply means grabbing a brick. And sometimes it means becoming one."
