I know that people are probably getting irritated with Andor posts on the wider Internet. That’s what happens when critical acclaim has to save something that executives set up for failure.

Excerpt:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

A strong current of irony runs beneath that line. Weary of civil war, a Republic births the Empire which later devours it. Its Senate lives on in name, but true authority lies with an Emperor. That’s a Roman story. The Emperor abolishes his order of knights and peacekeepers, hunting them down or driving them into obscurity. That’s a Japanese story. Undesirables flee an oppressive, overreaching government and hide in the frontier. That’s an American story.

Lucas designed a galaxy united by contradictions. Star Wars is long ago, but its universe mastered the Turing Test and the speed of light. It’s a completely cosmopolitan reality where humans intermix freely with aliens, but it’s filled with knights errant and other anachronisms. He was searching for the monomyth.

Star Wars is neither far away nor, on a cosmic scale, long ago. It’s here on Earth, unstuck in time.

Click here for the rest.