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Andor is the Ultimate Star Wars for Grownups, But Sex is Not Allowed… Yet

Andor is the Ultimate Star Wars for Grownups, But Sex is Not Allowed… Yet
Image credit: Legion-Media

Andor is a good deal darker and grittier than your average Star Wars movie.

It is clearly inspired not by westerns or samurai movies but by Ocean's Eleven and The Shawshank Redemption. Its mood is often oppressive, with the subdued color palette to match.

The title character, Cassian Andor ( Diego Luna) is ruthless and only has any interest in any sort of greater cause insofar as he's occasionally motivated by his hatred of the Galactic Empire – at the series' start he is still very far from the committed revolutionary he will become by the time of Rogue One.

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Most of the cast have some sort of dark past, besides usual death there are also betrayal, torture and people breaking under torture. Violence is more brutal and visceral than typical for Star Wars, and Imperial goons who would have been only speedbumps for protagonists in another show are genuine threats.

However, there are still taboos remaining for Andor. And as you might have guessed already, one of them is sex. As Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy said in an interview (via):

"There's things we can't do — I mean, we have standards and practices. We can't have sex. There's a level of violence that we can't have. There's limits on what we can do. We can't do some things that we would want to do. But within that, we're cool."

That, of course, doesn't mean that the show can't imply sex. In fact, its opening scene is set in a brothel, and there is a clearly post-coital scene in Episode 2. But on-screen sex is still prohibited. A bit prudish for an attempt to make a less kid-friendly installment of a franchise which gave us slave bikini Princess Leia all the way back in eighties, if you ask me, but I'm not the one setting the rules.

In Andor, Tony Gilroy tried to explore boundaries of what Lucasfilm would allow, and found what remains one of said boundaries… at least for now.

That said, Andor is still an excellent show, if you don't mind the general premise, and makes a significant contribution to the shared universe of Star Wars, by showing roots of the Rebellion from the viewpoint of common people, who aren't involved with the Force, Imperial superweapons, or other Galaxy-shaking things.