Everyone’s been talking about the second season of Tony Gilroy’s “Andor”, the show which proved once again that something can be related to Star Wars and be good at the same time. But there’s still something missing for all of us true Star Wars fans out there. We don’t care about “dialogue” that “pushes the plot forward” or “causes viewers to think about weighty themes like sacrifice and authoritarianism”. We don’t care about what it took to get the Rebellion to take off, all of the lives on the line in the absence of the Jedi and the boots-on-the-ground missions that built the backbone of resistance against the Galactic Empire. No, for us, Star Wars is about one thing and one thing only: lightsaber duels. We need big colorful lines to go swoosh and fwoom across our TV screens. As such, we’ve decided to make season two of “Andor” much better by digitally adding a lightsaber fight to every single scene.
Let’s give an example: in season two episode two, there’s a tension-filled scene in which Imperial officers and stormtroopers are about to discover Cassian Andor’s friends Bix, Wil and Brasso hiding out on the agricultural planet of Mina-Rau without visas. It’s a timely scene with parallels to real-world events, but it’s also BORING! How sick would it be if all of a sudden, the camera pans over and we discover that Cal Kestis is clashing sabers with the Fifth Brother or something over in a field of grain? Now THAT’S more like it! We added this scene to make everything feel a little more “Star Wars”.
Another lightsaber fight we added happens when Imperial stooge Syril Karn is visiting his mother on Coruscant. Sure, it’s a scene that emphasizes how abusive parenting imprints on future generations, but what if we shift outside the apartment and a lightsaber fight was happening in the lower levels of the planet between Ahsoka Tano and…wait for it…Starkiller himself. This would be an awesome way to make “The Force Unleashed” canon again and completely shake up the universe in a new way. Plus, the way Starkiller holds his sabers in reverse grip is just so freaking badass.
Just to hammer the point home, how ‘bout this: everyone loved the Darth Vader hallway scene in “Rogue One”, which also has Cassian Andor in it. So instead of snoozefest ISB meetings where fascist vultures choose exactly how to scar the galaxy and disrupt lives, we have scenes of Vader on Mustafar just swinging his way through armies of rebel fighters, with no dialogue whatsoever. That’s what this series has always been about!
With these changes and more, “Andor” can finally be great again. Politics of the empire? Imperialism? War? These things don’t really matter in the face of a sick-ass fight with laser swords. Hopefully, more lightsabers will improve your viewing experience of season two!
