The extremely popular franchise, Star Wars, recently added another name to its extensive list of projects – Andor. Andor is set as a prequel to Rogue One (2016) as well as the original Star Wars film (1977). However, despite the popularity the franchise has seen over the years, Andor failed to gather the attention of its audience.
Having been released on Disney+, Andor’s reception has been underwhelming, to say the least. The buzz that usually surrounds anything and everything related to Star Wars was simply missing from the prequel. While the viewership wasn’t that bad, comparing it to other projects of the franchise is certainly a letdown. Does this mean that the loyal audience of Star Wars is slowly getting over it? Showrunner Tony Gilroy has something to say about it.
Tony Gilroy’s Andor Still Chasing an Audience?
While the first episode of Tony Gilroy’s Andor was released on Disney+ on September 21, the spinoff show is still waiting for an audience. In an interview with Variety, Gilroy stated that he’s quite pleased with how the show turned out adding that the material, too, was great. So why did Andor fail to sit well with its audience? Well, apparently it is still chasing an audience. Gilroy added that the show was quite well-received from a number of sources, making Andor stand on the receiving end of critical praise.
“I’m very pleased with what they did. The materials are great. I think I was surprised. I thought the show would go the other way, that we would have this gigantic, instantaneous audience that would just be everywhere, but that it would take forever for non-“Star Wars” people or critics or my cohort of friends to get involved in the show. The opposite happened. We ended up with all this critical praise, all this deep appreciation and understanding from really surprising number of sources, and we’re chasing the audience.”
As measured by Parrot Analytics, Andor’s viewership falls nowhere near the other two critically acclaimed Star Wars projects, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian. The latter is still quite in demand even after two years, while Andor is the least-watched series of the Star Wars franchise. Parrot Analytics’ specialist, Brandon Katz expressed his disappointment with the series’ performance and low numbers. On his Twitter, he posted a graph that supported his claims.
Andor Was Shot Like a Movie
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gilroy admitted that the prequel series was shot in a movie-like manner. Even actor Diego Luna stated that the production felt like a long movie. Gilroy, whose work involves a lot of suspense-filled dramas, brings exactly that to the TV series, too. This might’ve been a bad idea as movies and TV shows are two varying media, what works for one, just might not for the other.
The movie-like shooting might have failed to work in Andor’s favor as the audience agrees that the story feels too long or simply repetitive. While the loyal audience of the Star Wars franchise was there to watch the prequel, Andor could be termed a failed experimentation, at least for now. Looks like even beautiful cinematography couldn’t make up for the unnecessarily drawn-out story.
Andor is available to stream on Disney+.
Source: Variety
