Attention to Detail in Andor

Andor is the latest Star War to make production design a storyteller.

In May 2017, I moderated a panel about Rogue One, its relationship to Star Wars’ key themes of hope and resistance, and how that relates to and intersects with the political climate of reality. Andor certainly builds on the same. But I want to talk about aesthetics.

At that panel, someone brought up a review of Rogue One that suggested the prequels didn’t “feel like” Star Wars because they didn’t “look like” Star Wars, but The Force Awakens and especially Rogue One share a color palette with the original trilogy. This was pre-The Last Jedi, so the sequels were still considered good by much of the fanbase, and Rogue One, then and now, is Star Wars fandom’s golden child. The reaction to this comment was immediate and loud as everyone tittered about how true it was. The prequels were too shiny, they said, Star Wars is supposed to be desaturated. The bright intensity of the prequels broke the rules, and that broke our brains; we couldn’t connect to them as Star Wars because they looked wrong.

Obi-Wan Kenobi at a bar in A New Hope (left) and Attack of the Clones (right).

My favorite Star Wars are the prequels (sorry, not sorry), so the observation bothered me on a fandom level, but it bothered me even more on a production design level. Yes, the prequels are brighter and busier and more colorful than the original trilogy—that’s on purpose! That’s the point! The prequels take place “before the dark times, before the Empire”. They should have a vague unreality to them. It should be too vibrant, too much like a fantasy, a fairy tale, a legend. Like Camelot or A Midsummer Night's Dream. You are meant to feel uncomfortable. The Republic and the Jedi Order are dying. They are being eaten from within.

Andor’s Coruscant

Andor brings us back to Coruscant and expands on what we know.

Cassian’s and Mon’s apartments are starkly different, and Dedra’s apartment is a bridge between them.

Our experience of pre-Imperial Coruscant is limited to the upper echelon of society: the political elite and the Jedi. Except for Obi-Wan’s trip to Dex’s diner and a brief ride on public transportation, we never visit the working class. Or the ground.

Mon Mothma exists within the dying gasps of the Old Republic, of the fantasy, where they still pretend that the Senate has power and influence, and that the justice system functions. Mon’s home is bright, pristine, minimalist, but opulent. Her clothes are subdued compared to Padmé's but sumptuous compared to Leia's. Her husband is a fop, and her daughter is a trad wife, and her life is a lie.

Mon Mothma and her family live in the Chandrilan Embassy on Coruscant.

Imperial Coruscant, from Revenge of the Sith on, is infused with darkness and austerity. Imperials dress exclusively in black, white, and grey. White is Mon’s signature color, too, in both fashion and interior design. But Chandrilan colors are blue and gold, and she plays with that, too. Mon’s deep blues and soft golds are an act of rebellion, if a feckless one. The elite cling to the before times, and Mon dresses the part.

Andor’s most recent arc finds Cassian and Bix in an apartment that is dark and cramped, and seemingly nondescript. However, it is in conversation with every other living space we’ve seen in the city.

Dedra and Syril hosted his mother in an apartment that, while smaller than Mon Mothma’s home, shares its aesthetic and is just as bright. This makes perfect sense as they are both in government housing, but Mon is an ambassador, and Dedra is a low-level bureaucrat. But it also links them. It encourages us to find similarities in their stories, to equate Luthen with Partagaz and Perrin with Syril, to think critically about the ways in which they are women whose power is ethereal and dependent on manipulating men.

L-R Syril and Dedra (left) and L-R Bix and Cassian (right) in the season one finale.

Cassian’s dim apartment and Dedra’s blindingly white one are two sides of the same coin, and that links them, too. Their apartments, and they themselves, are one of a thousand. The buildings are vast, like the Senate chambers. The apartments within them are indistinguishable and utilitarian, like Syril’s office. The people who live there are anonymous, like every Imperial and every Rebel. It allows Dedra to plot and Cassian to hide in plain sight. They lie low and learn so they can leave, and likely destroy, their captors who masquerade as their mentors. Cassian is protective of Bix, and Dedra of Syril. Syril is Dedra’s biggest liability, and Bix is Cassian’s.

You called this home.

Prior to Andor, our only reference for living quarters in Coruscant was Padme’s apartment.

Padmé’s apartment is wide and warm, bright and open, colorful and luxurious. It’s the penthouse and has a small balcony on one side and a private landing platform on the other. The exterior walls are all gilded glass, so no matter where they are, they have an amazing view. Cassian’s apartment is small and cramped, and so is their view. Anakin and Padmé live in an art deco paradise, Cassian and Bix live in a brutalist efficiency. However, they are meant to serve the same purpose.

Both apartments are a refuge. They provide sanctuary and a sense of stability for the couples. Within their walls, they can be themselves, young and in love. Anakin and Padmé live together for three years, but always in hiding. If Cassian and Bix remain in the apartment until the end of the series, that’s also three years, also in hiding.

I don’t make these comparisons lightly. They are on screen.

Example one: Anakin and Bix suffer from trauma-induced nightmares, waking their spouse.

Example two: Padmé and Bix greet Anakin and Cassian after a mission.

Example three: Cassian and Bix, like Anakin and Padmé, cling to domesticity, humor, and love amidst the mess.

This one is my favorite. They are all so very young and adorable and tragic. But look at these explicit parallels. Look at how Bix and Cassian are dressed. Look at the curved wall behind Bix in comparison to Padmé’s balcony. Look at Bix’s and Padmé’s arms in the first caps, and at Cassian’s and Anakin’s arms in the second two. Look at the blue and yellow color schemes. The scenes don’t progress in the same way, they are not recreating anything, but the design and the staging reference the earlier scenes and that is purposeful.

It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

Nor are they the only parallels being made. Let’s start with the most obvious.

Cassian is my favorite character in Rogue One. I even pitched him getting his own movie (series weren’t an option yet) way back in 2017. The Cassian we met in Andor’s first season was not the one I imagined from Rogue One, but honestly, that excited me, and I love season two so far. Especially how the (doomed) romance of Cassian and Bix mirrors my favorite (doomed) romance of all time, Anakin and Padmé. Jyn and Bix don’t have much in common, besides the complex traumas they share with absolutely everyone in Star Wars. But when Cassian popped up to join Bix in her triumphant rebel revenge march, I flashed back to him joining Jyn in hers.

Next, we have Anakin and Syril. We very briefly see Anakin’s quarters in the Jedi temple in the Clone Wars series (“Rise of Clovis”—which is a pretty incredible title post Rise of Skywalker, but also Clovis is to Padmé as Tay Kolma is to Mon Mothma). Here are Anakin and Syril in the Coruscant quarters they grew up in, and don’t want to be in anymore, but are stuck in due to humiliation.

They both have toys!

Anakin makes up with Padmé and returns to living in her apartment, and eventually, Syril also moves into Dedra’s. It’s a big step up for him in terms of space and lighting.

But Syril remains paralleled with Anakin in Attack of the Clones/The Clone Wars, not Revenge of the Sith, the height of his power and confidence. Here we have Anakin and Syril made to feel small by their parental figure.

And here we have the most explicit scene between Dedra and Syril thus far (2.5), which I’ve chosen to link to the uncomfortable packing scene from Attack of the Clones due to the suitcase.

In the first season, Syril and Dedra’s entire relationship paralleled Anakin and Padmé in the packing scene. Anakin and Syril were petulant, infatuated, and creepy, while Padmé and Dedra were annoyed at the patriarchy, too busy for this nonsense, and uncomfortable with his gaze. I now suggest that Syril and Dedra have only barely moved past that dynamic.

I know they live in a repressed fascist society where their every move is scrutinized, but this is so uncomfortable.

Andor also uses production design to echo itself. I shared the links between Dedra/Syril and Cassian/Bix, and how Mon is linked to Dedra above. Here are three more times Mon Mothma was linked to another character.

On the left is Cassian on Aldani, on the right Mon Mothma entering the gala on Coruscant. I love a cloak and I love a wind effect!

Here’s one of my favorite shots from all of season one, Mon surrounded by the white marble and crystal trappings of the Republic that was, representing all she’s lost, beside a shot from the most recent episode in season two, Bix surrounded by the dark utilitarianism of Imperial control, representing that she has nothing to lose. Mon is all alone and perfectly still, Bix is marching with purpose, and will be joined by Cassian in the next frames.

And finally, here we have Mon Mothma linked to Orson Krennic by way of costuming. She’s in Imperial white while the rest of her cohort are in blue and gold, and she and Krennic are the only two with capes. None of this is out of character—rather, she’s been linked to them all along—but it’s particularly striking in this scene and moment, when they bicker over the line between rebel and terrorist. They are adversaries, and they are acting like adversaries, and the animosity is gold. But they are mirrors, and everything happening on screen is built to tell us that. Even Krennic’s blue stripes show up in Perrin and Luthen (both in blue and white and no gold) flanking Mon.

Andor is in conversation with what came before just as much as it is with what comes next. And it is using production design not only to enhance the story, but to tell one.

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Note: I am posting this for May the Fourth, which is on Sunday this year. Thus, this week’s Let’s Talk Television will be posted tomorrow. Visit anakin.me for more of my Star Wars posts.