Star Wars’ Andor series, which came out in 2022, is a welcome throwback to the atmosphere and storyline of the original series, later tagged Episodes IV–VI. Unlike so many of the fanboy novels and movie spin-offs, this series, created and written by showrunner Tony Gilroy, the creator of the Bourne movies, comes with a certain detachment, since Mr. Gilroy was “not much of a fan” of the Star Wars universe before taking on this project. But I believe he has returned, in both Rogue One and Andor, to a moral vision that is closer to Lucas’s original trilogy.
This series dramatizes the different reasons that people get involved in rebellions against dictatorial power, specifically the titular character Andor, who transforms from a mercenary cynically assisting a rebellion to an increasingly devoted servant of the cause. The Empire is a vast, far-reaching power that in some ways is the most effective bureaucracy possible. Most of the cogs in the machine have become so accustomed even to horrible ways of torturing information out of people, or running a prison, or plotting ways to make it seem as if the people were rebelling and then wiping out whole people groups, that the Empire has continued gathering more and more power. Most of this seems to go down the chain of command from the Emperor secretly, without being run past the Senate—another way in which this Empire is presented as dictatorial.
Although many characters in Andor, especially those closest to power, blind themselves through decadent living to the truth of what is happening, one by one, for various reasons, defectors gather into an increasingly strategized rebellion in which lives are laid down in the cause of freedom. In the past century, dictators and governments in our world—from Hitler to Stalin to modern-day China—have tried to make life uncomfortable for Christians; for Christians to remain faithful, they have had to become rebels, to turn their backs on social expectations and laws, quite frequently risking their own lives on a daily basis. Although some well-known Christians have been martyred, Dietrich Bonhoeffer among them, every faithful Christian under the cruel cultures of fascism or communism (or the pressures of cancel culture in America) is a rebel just like Andor.
Every Christian carries the light of freedom within them. We all, whether we are being persecuted or not, have the freedom that Christ has given us. Sometimes it can take times of hardship, scarcity, pressure to conform, or even outright extermination of Christians to show us how free our spirits truly are in Christ. God, at the moment of crucifixion and resurrection, gave us freedom from the penalty of sin—even more than that, we are freed from the condemnation of worldly systems, and even the condemnation we might feel from God’s own moral law! Because of this freedom, we can laugh in the face of the most tightly drawn empire or any other power—because at the end of it all, we will be ultimately free, held by Christ in heaven, pain removed, tears tenderly wiped away.
Unlike Andor, Christians ultimately have no need to restructure the power system of the world: our real enemy is only using the forces of oppressive government to try to get Christians to lose our faith. However, if we hold onto the truth of Christ, we won’t need a new order in the world—because a new kingdom is already alive in us, a spirit of freedom in our souls and minds.