Star Wars: Andor Trailer Explained: What Is the Reckoning?
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Star Wars: Andor, or simply Andor is an upcoming Disney+ Star Wars-themed streaming series that is set to premiere on August 31, 2022 on the streaming platform. The first season is going to consist of 12 episodes, but we also know that a second 12-episode season is going to be produced. The first trailer for Andor was released on May 26, 2022, when most of the release info was also confirmed.
In this article, we are going to explain the trailer for Star Wars: Andor so that you know what it is about, how some of the images relate to the overall storyline of the franchise, and what you can expect from the show.
Star Wars: Andor trailer synopsis
Before we actually discuss anything specific, allow us to show you the trailer itself:
As you can see, the trailer doesn’t reveal much in the narrative sense. It gives us an idea on the show’s setting, some of the characters (most of who are completely new), the atmosphere, and some hints about the plot. We know that the show is set in the Imperial Era, during the early days of the Rebellion. We see Imperial officers and Stormtroopers, whose terror is evident on the faces of the oppressed peoples.
Cassian Andor seems to be a spy at this moment or a rebel, but it doesn’t seem like he’s a high-ranking member of the Rebellion. The Rebellion itself seems to be very early in its development, so there’s still a lot to go before we see the organized group we loved in the Original trilogy. We know that resistance is going to be an important element of the story, as the narrations in the background show the resentment of the heroes towards the villainous Imperial officers.
This is what we know from the trailer of Andor.
Who is the villain of Star Wars: Andor?
From what we could deduce from the trailer, the Galactic Empire is going to be the main villain in the series. Certainly, it will be embodied by some specific officers and Stormtroopers, but we don’t know their names at this point. We are going to find out about them, but at this moment, the names are still an enigma. Let us discuss the Empire a bit before we continue.
The Galactic Empire, later remembered as The Old Empire, was the autocratic galactic government that prosecuted an empire of galaxies that replaced the Galactic Republic in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. Rising to power in the last years of the Republic, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious gradually secured the government under his control through Sheev Palpatine, the Republic’s last Supreme Chancellor.
Through his machinations like Sidious and Palpatine, the Sith were restored to a position of dominance amid the fall of the Jedi Order and the marginalization of the Galactic Senate. Without the Jedi guardians of peace and justice to oppose him, Sidious put an end to a thousand years of democracy; in his place, he installed the absolute rule of himself as Galactic Emperor.
For more than two decades, opposition to the Imperial regime was ruthlessly suppressed by the Empire’s rapidly growing military. For most of the Empire’s existence, the Imperial Senate remained within the Empire as the last surviving symbol of the Republic. With the completion of the Death Star, the Emperor felt confident enough to disband the galactic proxy corps while maintaining his control over the galaxy through a collective of sector governors and the general fear that the new station would inspire rebellion.
However, growing resentment towards Imperial rule gradually led to the rise of various resistance movements that eventually culminated in the formation of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. United by a common goal, the Alliance became a viable threat to the Empire after their successful theft of the Death Star plans and subsequent destruction of the station at the Battle of Yavin.
Throughout the Galactic Civil War, Imperial and Alliance forces fought across the galaxy in a conflict that culminated in the death of Darth Sidious and his apprentice, Darth Vader, at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY. . With the Sith extinction, the Grand Vizier of the Ruling Imperial Council, Mas Amedda, effectively succeeded Palpatine as Emperor in all but name, but had limited power beyond Coruscant as the Empire fully evolved into a stratocracy dominated by military officers.
It was during this time that the Empire splintered into a variety of separate factions, fiefdoms, and remnants, known as Imperial Remnants, dominated by various warlords, dissenting moffs, governors, admirals, and generals due to the lack of a line of succession. for the Imperial throne and unclear chain of command while the official Imperial government remained on Coruscant.
However, as the Empire’s shattered forces struggled to maintain their war effort against the growing momentum of the newly formed New Republic, Amedda’s power and centralized rule faded with the rise of Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax, a warlord who controlled the largest fraction of the Imperial Navy. A year after Palpatine’s passing, Rax, who controlled the largest Imperial fleet and held the position of Councilor to the Empire, organized the Imperial Remnant of Jakku as the Empire took its final stand on the desert world of Jakku at the Battle of Jakku. against the New Republic.
However, Councilor Rax died and the Empire was decisively defeated by the Republic, consequently resulting in its capitulation to the Republic through the signing of the Galactic Concordance in 5 ABY which led to the dissolution of the central Imperial government, shrinking the Empire. to a remnant of the state it once was.
During the era of the New Republic, what remained of the Empire was decentralized and transformed into a patchwork of independent territorial holdings, all politically united by Imperial tradition and ideals, yet locked in strict disarmament and reparations treaties. One of these entities was formed in the Core and Inner Rim, which was forced to remain within its borders.
A new government on Coruscant, led by Grand Vizier Mas Amedda and overseen by the Republic, was formed, though it was a provincial administration that had little real power.
Yet despite the fall of the Empire, his legacy lived on for decades in the Unknown Regions of space, where former Imperial officers, nobles, technologists, soldiers, and loyalists, including Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and Commander Brendol Hux, had abandoned ship for after the Battle of Jakku through the efforts of Rax and a secret Contingency devised by Darth Sidious based on knowledge provided by Grand Admiral Thrawn, a native of the Unknown Regions.
There, they formed a military junta called the First Order, and began secretly building their military forces and plotting their eventual return to power and reclaiming the Empire’s lost legacy and cause.
What does the reckoning mean in the trailer for Andor?
If you followed the trailer closely, the currently unnamed character played by Fiona Shaw says that the story of the rebellion sounds to her like “reckoning”. Now, we don’t have many details now, but it seems that it was a reference to the crimes of the Empire. Namely, the Galactic Empire led by Palpatine is known for committing numerous crimes and atrocities toward the peoples of the Galaxy, so a rebellion against the Empire, whose main goal was to punish the horrid Imperial officers, seems to be a form of reckoning for them, as they would, indeed, be paying for their past mistakes.
How does Andor tie into the Star Wars lore?
From what we know, the plot of Star Wars: Andor is going to take place five years before the events of the anthology film Rogue One. The rough timeline states that it is set between 5BBY and 0BBY, during the early years of the Rebellion and, also, Palpatine’s Galactic Empire. We assume that we are going to see how the Rebellion evolved in its early days and how many elements that became famous later, in the Original Trilogy, came to be.
So, as you can see, Andor is probably going to be an introduction to Rogue One and is going to focus on the Rebellion, rather than the Jedi and the Sith. How exactly it is going to connect the dots is still unknown, but we might get some direct connections later on in the series, especially during season two of Andor.
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