Danek: "Andor" – the end of the legend

I was relieved to see the last, twelfth episode of “Andora”, the latest series embedded in the planet of “Star Wars”. It's a relief that it's over, due to the fact that this show is tired of me.

I sincerely hope that there will be no further parts. “Andor” will surely collect all affirmative reviews – and they will all be unsuccessful. The series proved to be a refined and robust production in all method aspect (activation, music, phase design, photographs, overall implementation) and a fatal 1 in principle.

Not even due to the fact that the storyline was mixed with a lesbian storyline, although it should not be underestimated. The first effort to push homosexuality has already taken place in the movie “Skywalker: Revival’ (2019), The worst always released under the name "Star Wars". In the fresh series, this was done as "subtlely", unbelievably. But there is no illusion: this is the tactics of tiny steps behind which lies the malicious stubbornness of the implementation of the ideological agenda. However, I wanted to compose about something else: the creators of “Andor” made a bad decision on a much more fundamental level.

Already in ancient times, in the Hellenistic world, the genre of literary works describing thaumata, “wonderfulness” – extraordinary events, places, things and characters was known. In Latin they were called mirabilia, and under this name they went to medieval literature. The species flourished lushly in the modern age – it is the kind of works that Jonathan Swift He parodyd in "Gulliver's Journeys", emphasizing this ironically in the fictional foreword arranged by the title character of the book. In the 19th century, Greek thaumata, or Latin mirabilia, found susceptible ground in the emerging popular culture. And in this form we all know them: books, and then besides the films in which the heroes traveled to distant and unusual worlds, they met extraordinary beings there, and in their company they experienced adventures to which the heart was torn out, wanting to follow them.

I'm going to hazard saying that "Star Wars" erstwhile they appeared before nearly half a century ago, they achieved the effect of specified an knowing of wonder to the degree that no another series succeeded science fiction in the past of cinema [1]. Although I had a long disagreement on this subject, present I gotta admit that the climate of the first films from 1977 to 1983 has succeeded – despite making many mistakes – in simple terms to sustain the creators of the alleged prequela trilogy (1999-2005), especially in the first 2 parts of it, "Dark Spectre" (1999) and "Atak of clones" (2002). The temper of wonder fills the longest production always made in the framework of the Star Wars – the series "War of the Clones" (2008-2020). On the another hand, it becomes barely visible in the movie "Łotr 1" (2016).

The wonder, whose roots as a literary convention go back to ancient Greece, is and has always been the essence of the Star Wars. The creators of the alleged sequel trilogy (2015-2019) realized this and clearly wanted to proceed the constitutional temper for the full saga. However, they did not prepare for this in any way, apart from the assembly of the large budget, they proceeded to implement carelessly in all respect, and the full was burdened by the serenity, pushed openly and by the strength of feminism and multiculturalism. The consequence was what he had to do in akin circumstances: tragic, but not in the affirmative sense of the word.

After the appalling defeat of the sequel trilogy, it seemed that the end of the Star Wars truly had come, at least on the screen. And then he showed up. ‘Mandalorian’ (2019-2020), followed by ‘Book of Bobby Fetta" (2021). I dare say that under changed conditions these series restored the atmosphere of wonder in its first intensity, at the level of the oldest films. They virtually pulled Star Wars out of their graves. due to the fact that like all time another successful work belonging to the saga was created, the viewer felt that, here again, he was standing on the threshold of this extraordinary world, whose gates first opened to him as a child. Just as a 4th of a century ago, they first ducked in front of the author of these words, now somewhat grey on the temples.

Meanwhile, in “Andor” although no of its creators nor enthusiastic reviewers will admit it, a complete substitution was made for the “Star Wars” of the feature convention.. He was liable for the performance of the series Tony Gilroywho had previously worked most frequently as an action cinematographer. You can see that, due to the fact that the best shot are sequences of police raids on the main character, assault on a military garrison, mutiny in prison or the outbreak of street riots. But the adventure, adventure and exotic themes, the subject of wandering through extraordinary lands, the wealth of the planet presented – everything that creates an atmosphere of wonders, disappeared completely. Instead, we get the communicative of a man pitching in a closed and dirty world.. The dark interior of the brothel, the repeated shots to the defenseless by the title hero, the undressed women in beds, the operational work of the safety service, the terrorist game – creates a completely different impression: we are not going on an expedition to a distant galaxy, but we are watching a “ordinary” crime series. But there is simply a crucial difference in kind and temper between sensational and adventure cinema.

They're going to say, finally, something serious, something for adults. But “Star Wars” are not meant to be “for adults” due to the fact that they never did. They were and are to be a communicative connecting generations: elders with younger ones, and even younger ones. This was the function of legends passed orally from generation to generation in old times. due to the fact that “Star Wars” have become more than a collection of films, books and series – they have become a story, and “the story” is the first and appropriate meaning of the word “legend”. Therefore, I find it entirely justified to call them saga. erstwhile told legends and sagas conveyed crucial mythical themes, the function of story is to recreate and renew the collective contact with the archetype, and, as Mircea Eliade emphasizes, archetypes known from ancient mythological systems inactive live in popular cultural works [2].

The series “Mandalorian” and “Boby Fetta” were aired recently, but I have returned to them many times since. ‘Andorra” I saw out of a sense of work and I am not going back to it. To what his creators did with "Star Wars" I like the Weber concept of Entzauberung, unenchantment. This show is not only from- but besides disappointment. Something was lost, and it was the most crucial thing.

Adam Danek

[1] The discussion of whether "Star Wars" should be included in the discipline fiction genre I postpone on another occasion, although it is indeed possible to give reasonable arguments against specified classification.

[2] In 1957, a Romanian traditionalist wrote: “It is possible to compose an full book dedicated to the myths of modern man, mythologists masked in the fun he likes, in books he reads. The cinema, this “dream factory”, uses countless mythical motifs, for example, the fight of hero against monster, fighting and initiation attempts, model characters and images (“girl”, “heros”, paradise landscape, “hell”, etc.). In fact, the very activity of reading serves a mythological function: it not only replaces the communicative of story practiced in archaic communities and the literature transmitted in oral form – alive present in agrarian European communities – but, above all, it offers modern man the chance to “get out of time” as myths had done before. Whether a modern man “kills” time, reading a crime story, or entering a abroad 1 in terms of the time of the universe of a novel, reading allows him to come out of the time in which he lives as an individual, and to engage in another rhythms – allows him to live in another “history”.’ (Mircea Eliade, Sacrum and profanum. About the essence of religionRobert Reszke, Warszawa 1999, p. 170.)

Think Poland, No. 49-50 (4-11.12.2022)

photo disneyplus