Andor & Resistance: More Alike Than You Think

At first glance, Star Wars Resistance and Andor seem like they couldn't be more unalike. Sure, both shows have two seasons, but Resistance was a Disney XD animated show with vibrant colors, silly physical comedy, lighthearted episodes and themes meant to help a younger audience learn and grow (even if the show can be enjoyed by all ages). Andor, on the other hand is a live-action prestige drama. It features intense, brutal violence, darker themes evoking real life tragedy and a much slower pace. But while both shows vary in tone and content, I maintain that a lot of the core themes that they tackle are one in the same, and go back to the very roots of Star Wars.

While not as many people seem to have seen Resistance compared to Andor, I think Resistance works as a great companion piece to Andor. I'd even say that it's a wonderful child-friendly and accessible version of the show if you want to get some of those themes across to people who may have difficulties with Andor for any reason, and I hope you just stick with me here while I explain why.

We’ve been sleeping. We’ve had each other, and Ferrix, our work, our days. We had each other, and they left us alone. We kept the trade lanes open, and they left us alone. We took their money and ignored them, we kept their engines churning, and the moment they pulled away, we forgot them. Because we had each other. We had Ferrix. But we were sleeping. I’ve been sleeping. And I’ve been turning away from the truth I wanted not to face. There is a wound that won’t heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it’s here. It’s here, and it’s not visiting anymore. It wants to stay. The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we sleep.

-Maarva Andor, Andor

At the beginning of Resistance, the head of the Colossus station, Captain Doza, declines the First Order from entering his station. Keeping up the image of being polite and peaceful, the First Order agrees, but secretly encourages and even arms a local pirate gang to continue its attacks on the Colossus, overwhelming their defenses and putting the station at risk until they're able to convince Doza to let them in to provide "security" and protect the people that live there, moving in under false pretenses to accomplish their real goals of complete takeover.

When the First Order occupies to the Colossus at first, they seem more like a nuisance than anything else. Kaz, as a Resistance spy takes it seriously, as does Yeager, a Galactic Civil War veteran. But for much of the Colossus, it seems like they're annoyed more than concerned. First Order stormtroopers walking around, checking things out is a pain, but for most of the regular people who live there not registering immediately as the injustice that it is.

Throughout the season, however, the First Order's grip gets tighter and tighter. Their justifications for bothering someone become less and less reasonable until they disappear entirely. The occupation escalates from a couple of odd stormtroopers poking their noses into peoples business into a full scale military takeover of the base, forcing the people of the Colossus (including Captain Doza) to take drastic action, fighting the First Order off through force and and having to uproot the station from the planet its been on for years.

Remember this, Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause.

-Karis Nemik, Andor

Much of our core cast of characters are already pretty anti-First Order when we meet them. Kaz, of course is a newly recruited Resistance spy who grew up in the New Republic, Yeager and his droid Bucket both fought in the war against the Empire, and even Captain Doza was a former Imperial officer and saw the horrors of what the Empire is capable of first hand (and as we'll learn later in the series, is married to a veteran from the Rebellion's side of the war). But not everybody feels the same way as they do. Most don't really like the First Order, but are ambivalent to them. Some even enjoy the security, or believe that the First Order has helped them in some way. Some even say that they are simply doing their jobs.

Our core cast is not enough to fight off the occupation by themselves. What they learn throughout the series, along with the rest of the Colossus is that resistance must be collective, and requires team work. The tiniest acts of resistance like distracting a stormtrooper or covering for a friend add up, and everybody joins the fight together to gain back their freedom. Not just the ones who call themselves rebels or agents for the resistance pilots but the racers, mechanics, shopkeepers, bartenders and everything in between!

The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.

-Mon Mothma, Andor

Of course, not all characters rise to the occasion when faced with Imperial control, sometimes due to the things that they were taught when growing up. One such character is Tam Ryvora.

Tam is a kind character with a good heart, who cares for her friends and has ambitions of being a great racer in a ship that she fixed up herself. Working as a mechanic in Yeager's garage, she's the most troubled by Kaz's arrival. Neeku takes to their new friend instantly, Bucket is just Bucket and Yeager (though she doesn't know it) knows of his true purpose. There's friction when Kaz is allowed to fly her ship, seems to take more of Yeager's (a father figure to her) time, all while being unreliable (due to disappearing randomly to spy) and seemingly pretty bad at his supposed job as a mechanic, especially compared to her top-notch skills.

When the First Order arrives, Tam receives them more warmly than the rest. Growing up, her grandfather worked in Imperial factories and he was just doing his job, how is this different? She also believes that the First Order has saved the lives of some of her friends on the Colossus, and they seem to be providing better security than the Colossus had before from the various pirate attacks that they'd been suffering.

Things only get worse when Agent Tierny arrives, and takes in interest in Tam- especially recruiting her. Tierny pulls out all of the stops- leaning into what makes Tam insecure, using cleverly revealed half-truths and outright lies to turn her against her friends, and leaning on the fact that she was raised more sympathetic to the Empire to help her buy into the First Order's cause. She lies about what they actually do, pushing supposed ideals that Tam finds easy to believe in- who doesn't like justice and security after all, especially in a galaxy this unstable and dangerous?

Tam's story in Resistance, while it goes in a different direction, is somewhat similar to Syril Karn's in Andor for me. They're both well-meaning people who are raised with pro-Empire tendencies in their family, and somewhat shielded from what the reality of it all looks like until it's almost too late. They are a bit lonely at times, have deep insecurities that are open and exploitable, and strong ideals that the wrong people can appeal to easily and use them. A soothing, easy lie is comfortable for them, but the bared truth can be too little, too late. And both characters are absolutely on-point examples of how a good person in the wrong circumstances can be sucked into being a participant in atrocity.

While Andor shows them in a new way, Star Wars has had these themes present since 1977- fighting back against tyranny, the power of people coming together, compassion to those who have done wrong, and more. They're present in everything that comes from the galaxy far, far away- and Andor and Resistance together paint a diverse tapestry with the same brushes.

“We are the Resistance now. All of us.”

-Kazuda Xiono, Star Wars Resistance