By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Star Wars has been in a tailspin, and there’s only one bright spot.
That bright spot is two seasons of the series Andor, and it’s the best Star Wars has been in a long time, for one VERY simple reason.
It’s the first Star Wars product since George Lucas’s departure that knows who the galaxy far, far away’s true villain is.
The true villain of Star Wars, the one consistent face of evil across the entire franchise, has not been, and should never be, Palpatine or the Dark Side of the Force. It’s definitely not Anakin or Snoke, or Adam Driver in a Vader tribute mask.
It’s probably not Luke Skywalker, though if he drinks too much blue milk and gets cranky enough, then you never know.
The true villain of Star Wars is and always has been government bureaucracy.
The Death Star Is The DMV
The Death Star, in the first movie, was the ultimate representation of bureaucracy as true evil.
That super weapon is the final form of what happens when vast numbers of sycophantic bureaucrats strip the wealth of those under their control and use it to construct massive, impractical, totally flawed weapons of war.
And it’s run by a bunch of middle managers jockeying for attention around a conference room table.
When the Death Star didn’t work, the same inflexible, massively incompetent bureaucratic structure, run by Imperial DMV workers who only care about keeping their jobs so they can’t admit they were wrong, turned around and made the same thing all over again.
The Death Star is the California high-speed rail that was supposed to go all the way to San Francisco, but now costs ten times as much and only goes to Bakersfield.
Luke Skywalker Wasn’t Fighting The Force
That clear real-world similarity is what made Luke Skywalker’s journey so thrilling and easy to identify with.
He wasn’t fighting a person or a mystical and evil force; he was fighting a system of corrupt bureaucratic oppression.
The exact same oppressive system we’re all tortured by when we have to go down and get new license plates for our truck.
The same one we’re tormented by when filling out forms for the IRS.
Luke was fighting a legion of lazy public school teachers and code violation inspectors on behalf of all the normal people who want to be left the hell alone.
That trend continued in the prequels, when the bureaucracy-free monarchy of Naboo was attacked and held hostage by a group of middle managers from the Trade Federation.
It escalated when, as the prequels continued, the massive bloated bureaucracy of the Old Republic empowered and hid Palpatine, aiding him in his rise to leadership.
In a sense, Palpatine was the supreme product of that bureaucracy; he was its greatest creation, the natural result of years of bloat and red tape strangling well-meaning people until no one was left to oppose it.
Andor Puts Bureaucracy In Its Crosshairs
That brings us to Andor.
As mentioned at the outset, the best of the recent Star Wars series is Andor, and Andor is the best recent Star Wars series specifically because it makes that bloated bureaucracy the show’s sole villain.
Andor is about guys in cubicles and meetings planning the destruction of innocents.
They do it not because they love evil, but because that’s how they get paid.
Andor Season 1 followed multiple facets of crushing bureaucracy.
In a multi-episode arc, it explores the Imperial justice system, a system so drowned in red tape and bureaucratic disinterest that it’s more focused on making a profit for the middle managers turned judges and prison wardens who run it than on doing anything like actual justice.
If you’ve had any run-ins with the justice system in the real world, you probably spent those episodes screaming yes and pointing at the television, as it accurately portrayed the way it exists solely to service itself.
Sympathy For The Devils
Even the show’s bad guys, trapped in the Imperial bureaucratic nightmare, felt sympathetic in the face of bureaucratic challenges.
They too, were lost in a series of cubicles and endless meetings, places where everyone only looks out for themselves and has no interest in doing the actual work of government.
If you’re an adult who has ever tried to get health insurance or helped an elderly parent deal with Social Security, then everything you saw on screen was an accurate sci-fi representation of your reality.
Andor Season 2 picks up right where Season 1 left off, with a bunch of middle managers in a conference room casually planning to wipe out a planet in order to complete a bloated public works project so they can earn promotions.
It continues by dipping into the controversial topic of immigration, by introducing corrupt Imperial bureaucrats who show up on a planet to do a head count, and take what they can under the table.
And that’s why Andor is the only new Star Wars that works.
Why Disney Star Wars Hasn’t Worked Until Andor
The JJ Abrams movies failed because they became obsessed with Palpatine and the Skywalkers.
Shows like The Acolyte get lost in the backstabbing religion of the Jedi.
The Mandalorian fell apart because it became obsessed with Katie Sackhoff’s royal destiny and supported the corrupt beaurocracy of the New Republic instead of fighting it.
Ahsoka tried to make a villain of Thrawn, an iron-fisted demolisher of red tape.
Skeleton Crew thought it could fix all that by focusing on adventure. But Star Wars has never been just a shallow adventure.
Palpatine Represented The True Villain Of Star Wars
Star Wars should only ever have one focus and one true villain.
It’s not Palpatine and never was. The true villain of Star Wars is the massive bureaucracy Palpatine represents.
Every character in the Star Wars universe struggles under its weight.
It’s why the galaxy is full of black markets and smugglers, and it’s why you love it.
Because the heroes of Star Wars aren’t just taking on the Empire, they’re taking on the IRS, and lawyers, the meter maids, the medical system, and every damn annoying thing which is sucking away moments of your life.
Star Wars is at its best when it’s 1990s Dilbert with a lightsaber.
When Star Wars deviates from this formula, it stops feeling like Star Wars and starts feeling like something else.
And we’ve already got plenty of something else.
