‘Star Wars’ Is All About Opposing Fascism. And Tony Gilroy Explained Why ‘Andor’ Press Didn’t Say the Quiet Part Out Loud
It baffles the mind to think about people who look at the MAGA agenda and the current political climate of America and think “This is the rebellion.” It happens. MAGA heads don’t want to see themselves as cogs of the Empire but that’s what they are.
You might see it as a weird comparison but unfortunately it isn’t as clear cut as people believe. You’d think watching something like Andor might help them look at what is happening in Minnesota and think “Haven’t I seen this scene before?” But apparently the miscommunication between Andor‘s anti-fascist message and people who think Star Wars doesn’t apply to the Trump administration can be explained easily: Tony Gilroy was encouraged to not talk about fascism.
The idea that Gilroy would need to remove the show from fascism, at least as a descriptor, feels wild after you’ve seen Andor as a whole. But his explanation for why they tried to keep the word out of the press tour does make sense.
“You get out your Fascism for Dummies book for the 15 things you do, and we tried to include as many of them as we could in the most artful way possible,” Gilroy told The Hollywood Reporter. “How were we supposed to know that this clown car in Washington was going to basically use the same book that we used? So I don’t think it’s prescience so much as the sad familiarity of fascism.”
Protecting your cast and team
Gilroy’s show, like all of Star Wars, is incredibly political. Even if you ignore the “wars” part of the franchise, it is still a political message throughout. The evil guys are ruling the entire Empire. I don’t know how you look at that and dismiss it as just some fantasy story but alas. Gilroy’s explanation of why they removed Andor from the “fascism” conversation does make sense.
“The actors have a broad spectrum of political ideas, and we didn’t want anybody to perjure themselves or violate their conscience. So we came up with a legit historical model,” Gilroy said to the publication. “It was a very, very safe and legitimate place for us to sell the show without ever having to say what I’m free to say now.”
The thing that has been shocking throughout all of this is how timely Andor really has been. From Minnesota to other “moves” from the Trump administration, it all paints an eerie connection to the Star Wars series and Gilroy understands that. He’s just not happy that we may “never recover” from this dark moment in American history.
We’re proud of the show. God, we’re proud of the show. That’s our sustaining takeaway. We were stunned [about the prescience] for a while, but we’ve really gotten to the point where it’s really sad. It’s just sad how predictable and lame and obvious and wrong it all is. Fascism is just a total fail in the end. It eats itself up in the end. So this will have been an incredible waste of time, an incredibly wasted opportunity and an incredibly dark period in America’s history that it may never recover from.”
Rebellions are built on hope
One of the beautiful aspects of Andor is that even at its darker moments, it is still a story of hope. We know what happens to Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor and what his sacrifice does. Fans have been inspired by these stories for decades and the character of Cassian is the epitome of what Star Wars represents. So even when we’re watching the massacre on Ghorman, we see what people do to push back. The Ghorman massacre is also what is the most similar to what is happening with ICE in Minnesota right now.
But even with the knowledge that they didn’t want to say “fascism” on the press tour, it is still obvious that Andor stood as a message of hope against a fascist regime. It is timely, it does apply to the Trump administration, and it all is what Star Wars has always represented.
You can watch Gilroy’s brilliant series on Disney+.
(featured image: Disney+)
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