With the show receiving highly positive reviews for its grittiness, A New Hope that made the franchise a cultural touchstone was its ability to correspond to its own galaxy in subtle ways. Lucasfilm achieved this mostly by presenting props as used or dinged up – in other words, realistic.
Because the items handled by and surrounding the characters were clearly anchored in every day, it was easy for viewers to imagine themselves beside Luke Skywalker on the moisture farm. This hit a new level in Andor, where life was dirty on the ground and far from the shiny spaceships of other recent Star Wars ventures. And if they just happen to have parallels to common objects here on Earth, that wasn't an accident.
Company Towns
The latter Republic and the Empire hosted galactic trade zones; they were called Corporate Sectors, Corp Sec, or Corporate Zones, and within these, they had designated “Leisure Zones.” Canto Bight from The Last Jedi may have functioned as one of these, but it had the aesthetic of Monaco or Las Vegas – a town utterly given over to luxury and vice rather than a separate place for corporate employees.
Such zones also showed up in Star Wars novels and on-screen projects. Major action in The Empire Strikes Back, for example, took place in Cloud City, an area that Lando Calrissian attempted to keep under the Empire's radar. However, the “Leisure Zone” area in Andor was distinct in its particular borders, complicated circumstances, and rules of Imperial management.
Moonshine
The inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy were long since established drinkers. The sight of Fennec Shand swigging blue Spotchka in The Book of Boba Fett suggested a celebratory moment with some fairly strong hooch.
Now the fandom meets nog, which seemed to serve as a form of moonshine or bathtub gin, and both forms knockout illegal American homebrew produced during Prohibition. There’s even “med nog,” which Luthen Rael handed to Andor in the fourth episode. Given Cassian’s reaction, nog likely wasn’t shy about its high alcohol content, and med nog was even nastier.
Shift Changes and PPE
Novels and video games such as Jedi: Fallen Order shared fairly detailed images about blue-collar jobs in the Star Wars universe. It was new, however, to see workers hopping onto employee transports and pulling on gloves to hit a shift.
According to the Star Wars official website, these details on the planet of Ferrix set the stage for the Ewok-like uprising of the workers in Andor’s third episode, “Reckoning.” Ferrix was a salvage-heavy planet replete with plenty of hard-edged industry, and visual bits of information, such as the workers’ differently colored gloves, hinted at the individual nature of its citizens. These were a direct contrast with the identical appearances of Imperial stormtroopers, which created a terrifying sense of invulnerability.
Morse Code
Communication was a challenge for the nascent Rebellion, as, at the point of Andor, it consisted of mostly separate cells. The Rebels had to use non-technological means to messages. In Andor, that took the form of Bix Caleen climbing to a hidden location to tap out a non-spoken message.
There were no holograms here; in fact, when the time came to raise the alarm against Pre-Mor Enforcement, the citizens clanged on the one-of-a-kind metal structures dangling outside their homes for just such a purpose.
Third-party contractors
One of the moments in Clerks that vaulted it to cult status was an extended conversation concerning the morality of destroying the second Death Star, which was likely full of third-party contractors at the time, as Randall and his customer discussed. Andor introduced Preox-Morlana, or the Pre-Mor Authority, which was a private corporation in league with the Empire.
The blue-uniformed security teams viewers and Twitter reactors discovered in Andor were of the Pre-Mor Enforcement. They weren't stormtroopers, but an armed division of a much larger company. And, as shown in Andor’s fourth episode, their paramilitary powers were maintained only at the whim of the Empire.
Lunch At The Desk
One of Andor’s strengths is its avoidance of showing characters in a fully black or white light. While this was an integral aspect of the original Star Wars films, the universe has become so well established over five decades that there’s now room for ambiguity and more complex characterization. Even amongst traditional antagonists, characters are neither totally good, nor totally bad.
One way this was illustrated was the sight of Preox-Morlana employees at their screens as they pieced together what they knew about Cassion Andor. One scene showed an employee digging into what looked like blue-noodled takeout, which was perhaps the first example the fanbase had seen of anyone eating in an office environment in Star Wars. This humanizing moment helped the audience see "the other side" as individual living beings with thoughts, goals, and differences.
Ear protection
The Star Wars universe was not a quiet place. TIE fighters screamed, speeder bikes zoomed, and sonic charges boomed. Given all the industry and noise churning through the galaxy, it was a wonder that no one seems particularly concerned with ear protection.
Although many movie scenes show characters wearing helmets in spacecraft-heavy areas, and “sonic nullifiers” showed up in video game Knights of the Old Republic II, few creatures seemed to sport ear protection. Andor finally addressed this. In the first three episodes, when the Time Grappler of Ferrix took up mallets to strike a long metal table, he carefully put on headphones.
Comfy Chairs
The chairs in Star Wars were distinctive and cleanly designed, but probably not too comfy. One of the Frasier. There were benches, cockpit chairs, and the occasional couch; however, none of them seemed particularly hospitable.
The arrival of Andor on Disney Plus changed all this. Cassian’s foster mother, Maarva Andor, often rested in a comfortable-looking living room chair. This detail underlined her maternal nature and lent a folksy feeling to the only place the wandering Cassion probably thought of as home.
Pay Phones!
One of Andor's hallmarks was its delightful manner of diving to the very depths of non-canon Star Wars lore. The idea of Corporate Sectors, for example, dated all the way back to the 1979 novel Han Solo at Star’s End. That wasn’t the only reality of the 70's content that the showrunners were willing to bring into Andor’s aesthetic.
It might have required an explanation for those whose first Star Wars memory was Cheers.
The Name Of The Lord
Much has been made of the occasional swearing in Andor, but one Earthly (or heavenly) intrusion went mostly unnoticed, marking a first in Star Wars live action.
When disaster went down in Andor’s third episode, Bix Caleen cried, “Oh, God!” It might have slipped past most viewers since so much was happening in the scene, but in addition to the little shower of interplanetary swearing, the Lord’s name, taken in vain, is now present in Star Wars.
Analog Alarm Clocks
When fans first caught a glimpse of Cassian’s new adventures in Andor’s trailers, the sight of the Time Grappler striking a metal table with mallets set an ominous, time-ticking tone. The lack of Sith and Jedi were marked in Andor, but that didn't mean semi-religious ritual was missing from its more vibrant scenes.
It wasn't difficult to imagine Star Wars' fan favorite Obi-Wan Kenobi coming to meditation at the Jedi Temple to the tones of just such a distinctive clanging. The initially quiet moment celebrated workmanship and reliance on human skill rather than machinery. It was a noticeable departure from a universe distinguished mostly by its reliance on advanced technology.
