Michael Clayton in Space

Andor is exactly how daring a Star Wars story should be.

DIEGO LUNA'S Cassian Andor gets a certain look when he's angry: a set-jawed, forehead-scrunching glare that is simultaneously resentful, accusatory, and pitiless. He slips into that expression more than once in the first four episodes of Andor, and series creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (the film that introduced Cassian and to which Andor is a prequel), frames it in a variety of ways. In tight close-up or midrange profile, under a hood, in shadow, during a shoot-out-whatever circumstances cause or surround that reaction from the character, Luna and Gilroy ensure that it feels like a promise. Star Wars hasn't felt dangerous in a long time, but when Andor focuses on that face and all that it suggests? The "pockets of fomenting" that an Empire affiliated villain worries are spreading across the galaxy suddenly have recognizable potency, and the thrillingly realized Andor immerses us in that early agitation through Luna's mercurial visage.

Working backward has not entirely worked in Star Wars' favor recently. A pivot into spinoffs with predetermined endpoints has led to a frustrating feeling of narrative tedium (Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett) and, like the movies that inspired them, an overreliance on the Skywalker name (The Mandalorian). Meanwhile, in the universe of the films, a certain subset of the faultfinding Star Wars faithful will insist that Rogue One is only popular because it's the choice for fans who subconsciously hate themselves for liking a pop-culture property intended for children. They embrace the film despite its sloppy script and frenetic pacing, these pontificators say, because its gritty action sequences and themes of betrayal and sacrifice feel more adult.