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- [00:01]
John Podhoretz
Put us in a box. Go ahead.
- [00:05]
Matthew Continetti
That just gives us something to break out of because the next generation 2025 GMC terrain elevation is raising the standard of what comes standard. As far as expectations go, why meet them when you can shatter them? What we choose to challenge, we challenge completely. We are professional grade. Visit gmc.com to learn more.
- [00:34]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best Expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect.
- [00:51]
Matthew Continetti
The worst Hope for the best welcome to a special holiday edition of the Commentary magazine daily podcast. I'm here with Matthew Continetti, of course, our Washington Commentary columnist, Pooh Bah at the American Enterprise Institute, and of course, for our purposes here, one of the world's leading Star Trek fans from a very young age. And we decided we would do an episode for Memorial Day on this television show that we are both obsessed with on the Disney streaming service called Andor. If you haven't heard of it, we both recommended it. We just finished its second and final season. So we're gonna try to talk about it without spoiling it too much because I think we're trying to recommend it to you. And it's an unusual set of circumstances because I would say this just at the get go. It is a show with a general ideological feel to it that ordinarily we would not like. Now, that's not uncommon if you're a conservative who enjoys popular culture to have to stomach opinions as expressed in popular culture that you don't like. Andor is a political thriller in the guise of a Star wars story. And so its politics actually are kind of central to it in a way that they're often glancing and other things that we can overlook. Nonetheless, it is so compelling that I would say for my purposes, it overcame the political problem. So we need to fully flesh that out, I think.
- [02:36]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying in particular some of the later episodes and in the Mon Mothma character, who is this kind of well meaning liberal ish senator who becomes a leader of the rebellion against the Empire. But I found that the politics of it are, you know, it's not like I, I'm a conservative, but I don't really support the Galactic Empire. You know, we're, we're long, we're long past Jonathan Last's case for the Empire, published on the Weekly standard online in 2002. We're past that.
- [03:15]
Matthew Continetti
Literally. He literally, Jonathan literally made a case that the Empire were the good guys and the Jedi and The Rebellion were the bad guys. Which by the way, is then reflected in a weird way in the third set. In the third in the prequels or not the prequels. The future. The third set, 7, 8, and 9 in the Star wars numbers, kind of takes up the idea that maybe the Jedi are kind of bad.
- [03:45]
John Podhoretz
Well, they're definitely incompetent. But, you know, maybe the place to start, John, is to just explain what the show is.
- [03:53]
Matthew Continetti
Right. So we should say two seasons, I think 10 episodes the first season and 12 the second. Do I have that? Am I remembering?
- [04:00]
John Podhoretz
I believe it's 12 and 12 and 12. I think it's a 24 episode series. And the premise of the show is as follows. So in 2016, our time, a movie came out called Rogue One, A Star Wars Story.
- [04:20]
Matthew Continetti
Yes.
- [04:20]
John Podhoretz
And this movie, Rogue One, told the story of how the rebels in the Star wars universe capture the plans to the Death Star leading to the events of the original Star wars film, 1977, now called Star A New Hope, where we meet all the famous characters for the first time, and Luke Skywalker leads the rebels to destroy the Death Star. Right. So Rogue One came out in 2016 and kind of laid the groundwork for the beginning of the Star wars trilogy and what happens there.
- [05:00]
Matthew Continetti
So it's the moment, what it leads up to is the moment in Star Wars.
- [05:05]
John Podhoretz
The beginning of the Star Wars.
- [05:06]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, when Luke. Well, when Luke gets turns on R2 D2 he has bought at a kind of at a junk auction and this hologram pops up of Princess Leia saying, help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. And so the question is, how did the droid get the entire Rogue One? And this now 24 hours of Andor or whatever it is, is all how we got to the point at which Luke turned R2D2 on and saw and saw the message that is the originating.
- [05:44]
John Podhoretz
So the Rogue One was a huge success, made over a billion dollars at the box office, but it was also a mess of a production. The original story was actually proposed by a longtime kind of consigliere to George Lucas, the visionary filmmaker who created Star Wars, a man named John Knoll, who's a filmmaker on his own. And Noel came up with the concept that he would follow how the rebels got the plans to Death Star. But apparently that script, which he then co wrote with another writer or got credit for the story with another writer, wasn't enough. So the screenplay was then credited to a man named Chris Weitz. But that wasn't enough either.
- [06:30]
Matthew Continetti
Because Weitz, interestingly, most famous movie, American Pie. So you wouldn't.
- [06:35]
John Podhoretz
There you go. He gets co screenplay credit on Twitter, on Rogue One. I did a lot of research for this special episode, okay? So they have the screenplay, it's gone through all these drafts. Then they hire a young act director named Gareth Evans.
- [06:55]
Matthew Continetti
Gareth Edwards.
- [06:56]
John Podhoretz
G. Sorry, I always confuse him with the other Gareth.
- [06:58]
Matthew Continetti
Another G. Right.
- [07:00]
John Podhoretz
So it's Gareth Edwards. I wrote that down wrong in my notes. So Gareth Edwards, very talented sci fi director who had just done the Godzilla remake, they hire him to direct this, this thing. Rogue One, high concept, but from what we understand, it was a mess. The production was a mess, the script was a mess. And when they had the first cut of the film, you know, the first thing they start showing everybody in, in the studio, no one liked it. And so they turned to another figure who had been in Hollywood for, you know, at that point, 25 years, and who had done some films of his own, which we can get into, directed a few films, written screenplays for many more, including the Jason Bourne films, which were very popular. His name is Tony, Tony Gilroy. And Tony Gilroy is known in the industry as a script doctor in addition to his other talents. And so they went to Tony Gilroy and they said, can you fix this? And essentially he turned what was kind of a mess, from what we understand, into one of the best Star wars movies, period. I mean, way high up there. Whether you prefer the original, whether you prefer Empire Strikes Back. I mean, like Rogue One is among the top three in my view, right? So here's this guy, Tony Gilroy. He has no connection to Star wars at all, but he's able to rescue this movie, Rogue One. And there's a character in Rogue One named Cassie.
- [08:27]
Matthew Continetti
So he rescues it in two ways. He rewrites the screenplay and he directs most of the last.
- [08:32]
John Podhoretz
He reshoots it. So what?
- [08:33]
Matthew Continetti
I just reshoots it. Right. And he had been nominated for best director for his best known film, which was Michael Clayton, the movie about the film New York Fixer starring George Clooney. Apparently Gilroy doesn't like science fiction, didn't particularly care about Star Wars. And like another miracle in the Star World, when Star Trek needed saving, they turned to another guy who didn't like science fiction or anything, a writer named Nicholas Meyer, who had, who had made the Sherlock, written the Sherlock holmes pastiche, the 7% solution, and then directed and wrote the movie based on it. And somebody turned to him and said, will you take over Star Trek? Make this one movie. And he did. It was the Wrath of Con. It was sensational. So there was this predicate of somebody out of the world bring him in. He knows how to tell a story and can fix it and has a sense of drama and melodrama and so that's Tony Gilroy.
- [09:34]
John Podhoretz
So interestingly.
- [09:35]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [09:36]
John Podhoretz
Yes. Well, interestingly, Tony Gilroy, in my research I uncovered he has not watched Rogue One since its premiere almost 10 years ago. But he became fascinated with this character in the movie named Cassian Andor. And Cassian Andor in the movie is kind of this. You know, he's a rebel. He's. He's. He's part of this revolution against the Galactic Empire. He doesn't really play by the rules. He definitely has kind of a taciturn, cynical mien. And he, I mean, he's a great character. He's kind of steals the show, in my view. And Gilroy then is approached by saying, well, can you. What's the story behind Cassie and Andor? Could you do a television series about Cassian Andor and how he became part of this rebellion?
- [10:25]
Matthew Continetti
And Rogue One brings us to Star Wars.
- [10:29]
John Podhoretz
Right?
- [10:29]
Matthew Continetti
Andor brings us to Rogue One. Yes. Is the prequel, 24 Hours of the prequel to Rogue One.
- [10:37]
John Podhoretz
Right. And there's a quote by Gilroy that I came across that I thought is really interesting describing the show Andor, he said in one interview, the show is about the people that are the gravel the revolution is built on and forgotten. So this whole. His whole idea with Andor was he was going to show you the prehistory of this rebellion and revolution. So for those of people familiar with Star wars, the famous characters, Luke Skywalker, you know, Princess Leia, Han Solo. Right. He's going to say, who are the people who had to come before you get to those mythic figures? And what he does in the two seasons of Andor, the first season premiering in 2022 and the second season premiering this year, 2025, just concluded, is.
- [11:31]
Matthew Continetti
Get.
- [11:31]
John Podhoretz
Provide us a narrative of how one individual becomes part of this galactic conspiracy to overthrow the totalitarian evil wizard who runs. Who runs the Empire. Right. And it's just incredible drama.
- [11:52]
Matthew Continetti
Right? So Andor, in Rogue One, we are introduced to Cassian Andor when he does something heretofore unthinkable in the hero's journeys in Star wars, which is he murders someone in the first scene, in which.
- [12:10]
John Podhoretz
First time we meet him. Yes.
- [12:12]
Matthew Continetti
Takes someone out who is clearly going to end up ratting out the rebellion. He's getting a piece of information. He can't trust that the guy isn't going to somehow expose him because of the circumstances they're in. And he shoots him right there like it is. And that is where, you know, Rogue One is going in a direction very different. Know that very few science fiction properticularly Star wars properties, which are of course.
- [12:40]
John Podhoretz
About selling toys to children and owned by Disney.
- [12:43]
Matthew Continetti
And owned by Disney anyway, they. You don't go that way. Like, you don't do this with a hero. And he is clear. He is the movies. There are two heroes in the movie. There's a. There's a. There's a young woman and there's Andor. But he is the charismatic central figure of the movie. Kind of swashbuckling loner guy. And the whole point of the two seasons is that is who he is from the beginning of his life and how he slowly becomes. He accepts his role as a cog and a large machine that he needs to be a part of if the Empire is to be taken down. You can't do it by yourself. You got to do it in conjunction. You got to take orders from other people, even if you don't want to. And you've got to. And you've got to sort of understand you may have to sacrifice yourself for the larger cause.
- [13:35]
John Podhoretz
I mean, when we meet him, I mean, he's a loser. You know, he's somebody who was essentially rescued by a woman named Marva Andor from a planet that kind of a. Kind of a tribal culture. There was some imperial involvement. Marva takes him to her homeworld of Ferrix and raises him, but he remembers having a young sister. And so when we meet him in the first episode, he's on this hunt for his lost sister. And, you know, he doesn't. He has kind of a job working in spare parts in this planet of Ferrix, which is kind of this industrial planet, not really important. But when he goes and on one of these trips where he's looking for his sister who he never finds, he again gets into a crime. He ends up killing two people because he doesn't want to be discovered off world in this. In a restricted location. And that sets into motion the plot, right? Because once he has this initial murder again in the first episode of the series, a young bureaucrat named Cyril K. Played by Kyle Soller, who's just amazing in the show, becomes obsessed with finding Andor with finding the person who killed these two guards. And that is one of the two obsessions that drives the show. Because while Cyril K. Is a just a nobody. He's not even part of the Empire. He works for some like Imperial subcontractor corporate security group. Right there is taking place on the main planet in Star wars, the capital planet. There is a woman named Deirdre Miro who is part of the Imperial Security Bureau, the isb, the internal. The Gestapo basically of the Empire. And Deirdre Miro has become convinced that someone is organizing this spate of attacks, small insurgent attacks on Imperial positions and also the theft of Imperial Imperial property, including weaponry. And she is driven to find this person who she identifies as Axis. Just as Cyril, a galaxy away, is driven to find Andor. And the trick of the show is Axis finds Andor first.
- [16:08]
Matthew Continetti
Andor first, right.
- [16:10]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [16:10]
Matthew Continetti
And so as the. So we're describing the first season or the first three or four episodes of the first season, which goes on quite a journey. Andor ends up imprisoned. Not for this, like almost as a sideline. He's sent to a prison, which is how you see the real totalitarian nature of the Empire. It is a prison where they work people to death and they are building components for a weapon system they don't understand, which is the Death Star. They are actually he is a worker bee in a prison where no one's chained, no one says no one's at, because they can simply press a button and electrocute everybody on the floor, but keep them alive. And this is so horrible an experience that nobody ever wants to go through it. And they just work their selves to death, literally. And then Andor and a guy played by Andy Serkis who is the great played Gollum, is the motion capture artist who played Gollum in the great character, great character actor. They determined that they are going to do a jailbreak from a planet, from a place that is un. Jailbreakable. So that's the great drama in the first season is Ken Andor. How does he get out of this prison? And how does he get back to Axis, who it turns out is an antiques dealer on the main planet, a fey antiques dealer named Lutheran Real.
- [17:43]
John Podhoretz
That's his cover, right?
- [17:45]
Matthew Continetti
It's his cover. But he is a guy who sells historical artifacts really and art to the upper classes. Among whom is this Mon Mothma that you mentioned, an Imperial senator who it turns out is not only somebody he sells to, but is his Lutheran wheel, is the head of the head of the resistance or the rebellion. And he is running Mon Mothma. She is his inside man. And Andor becomes one of his many outside men doing things Elsewhere in the.
- [18:23]
John Podhoretz
In the galaxy, no one really knows the full extent of who's doing what.
- [18:28]
Matthew Continetti
He and his own aide.
- [18:30]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [18:31]
Matthew Continetti
Who I think, my guess is, we're supposed to guess is Andor's missing sister. But they never, in the end know those. Those dots are never connected.
- [18:42]
John Podhoretz
And Gilroy has denied that. It's funny that you mentioned that.
- [18:45]
Matthew Continetti
I know.
- [18:45]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. He denies that. But yes, you're supposed to maybe think that's the case. Yeah.
- [18:48]
Matthew Continetti
Because you also see her at one point as a little girl on a planet that looks pretty much like the planet.
- [18:53]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [18:53]
Matthew Continetti
He came from. So I don't know. But anyway, so he's got an A. And they're the only two people who know. And the whole thing is about how do they communicate and what. Rogue One, by the way, is a movie about getting good WI fi.
- [19:09]
John Podhoretz
The whole.
- [19:10]
Matthew Continetti
The whole climax of Rogue One is.
- [19:13]
John Podhoretz
It'S about getting the connection to a place where they get a good connection, get the signal.
- [19:17]
Matthew Continetti
They can down upload files. The files that are the plants, the Death Star.
- [19:23]
John Podhoretz
Anyone. Anyone who.
- [19:25]
Matthew Continetti
Right, Anyway, anyone who's had a bad.
- [19:28]
John Podhoretz
WI fi experience can enjoy Rogue One. I'm trying to think of reasons that people who don't like Star wars, they don't want anything to do with Star wars, should nonetheless give andor a try because we. We gave you a little bit of the plot. We should also mention that this character, Lutheran Rael, who is again, one of the main characters, one of the stars of the show, is played by the amazing actress Stellan Stargard and gives a performance over the course of the two seasons. It's just kind of like a level above even all of his other great performances.
- [19:59]
Matthew Continetti
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- [20:48]
John Podhoretz
You could be enjoying it.
- [20:51]
Matthew Continetti
Every damn sip of it. Damn right it's Folger's Instant.
- [20:59]
John Podhoretz
But why. Why is it. Why is the show I think potentially appealing to people who are not into science fiction, like, like I am, I think for a couple reasons. First is the show is different than any other Star wars property, including the movie Rogue One, in that it's set in this Star wars universe. And you've heard me mention the Galactic Empire and the Imperial Security Bureau and these planet funny planet names. And we. You just heard us talk about the Death Star, the battle station that can destroy planets. But the truth is it could be set in any environment.
- [21:39]
Matthew Continetti
Imagine.
- [21:40]
John Podhoretz
Exactly.
- [21:41]
Matthew Continetti
The best analogy is imagine it's the movie Casablanca and that there is this. Casablanca has the central location, right, which is Rick's Cafe. But imagine that you're just going all over Casablanca and there are plots within plots and wheels within wheels and there's a, you know, there's a war going on, but it's kind of going on somewhere else. And the question is who's going to step up? Who's going to fight the Nazis? Who's brave, who's self sacrificing, who's selfish, who's terrible and who's like two faced but in a good way. And so what this is, is about the best political thriller about this descent into totalitarianism. Because as you're watching Andor the empire is getting worse and worse and is tightening its grip and tightening its hold on the society, the high society which we see in the person of this woman, Mon Mothma and the whole. The rich people of this planet Coruscant, they're oblivious to any problems, that everything is good, everything's fine, it's a beautiful place, it's fun, it's advanced. They're all flying around in cars, they have incredibly lavish palace like homes and they don't even understand what's coming at them. She is the only person who, who knows that something that the emperor and who we don't even know Darth Vader yet. The emperor is up to something really, really terrible that is going to.
- [23:16]
John Podhoretz
And you never see the emperor either enslave them all.
- [23:18]
Matthew Continetti
You never see the emperor in this and you never see Darth Vader.
- [23:21]
John Podhoretz
No lightsabers.
- [23:25]
Matthew Continetti
Mentioned three times in only three episodes.
- [23:29]
John Podhoretz
Right?
- [23:30]
Matthew Continetti
So there's no magic, there's no, no one's, no one's telekinetically beaming things into their hands or flying like Princess Leia does.
- [23:40]
John Podhoretz
No telepathy. Yes. No weird locution like from yoga.
- [23:45]
Matthew Continetti
There's a whole question about whether or not is there something about. Andor this is a question that's raised at the end because it's where this question of whether he's a kind of messianic figure who sacrifices himself for the cause. And when, you know, we know he's gonna die because this has already happened. And Rogue One, he ends up dead at the end of Rogue One, as does the entire. That's the point about the gravel.
- [24:07]
John Podhoretz
Right.
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Matthew Continetti
The entire resistance that we see in Rogue One, except for Princess Leia, whom we only see in the final scene, is dead by the end of Rogue One. They've all been killed as they attempt to. As they successfully attempt to get this one little piece of information out. So he's. So what we're seeing is the noose tightening, the security services getting more and more powerful, the compromises that are being demanded of the elites getting more and more discomfiting. And the question is, how long can Mon Mothma play both sides of this game?
- [24:45]
John Podhoretz
And also Luthen becomes more ruthless as well.
- [24:49]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
- [24:50]
John Podhoretz
So as the noose is tightening, you begin to see a change in Luthen, who again, he's keeping up his appearance. No one knows who this person is.
- [24:59]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [24:59]
John Podhoretz
And even though the Empire is trying to find out, but he, he has a great speech in the second season where he talks about, I can't even keep it straight anymore. I'm. I'm beginning to lose it.
- [25:12]
Matthew Continetti
I have it all in my head and I'm losing it.
- [25:14]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, right. We have all these messages coming in from everywhere. He. He has to, he's ready to kill himself. Long standing associates or people who know the senator or any, anyone who threatens the security of what he's doing. He's. He is willing to sacrifice. And he, of course, in one of his great speeches in the, in the first season, he talks about. He knows that he is ruining him himself in order to see a revolution that he will never witness.
- [25:50]
Matthew Continetti
Well, he literally says, I am working toward a sunrise that I will never see.
- [25:54]
John Podhoretz
Sunrise. That's great language.
- [25:56]
Matthew Continetti
Yes. Every now and then a science fiction movie produces a kind of transcendent line. Because it's. Because in the end you're talking about stuff that's sort of abstract and metaphorical. Science fiction is always abstract and metaphorical. So it can go on these flights if they pull it off. Like that line, I'm working toward a sunrise that we can never see. Sort of like this line on WandaVision, the first big Disney show where somebody says, what is, what is grief but love persevering? Or there are various lines in Star wars that have this quality and he makes this speech or A couple of speeches that are really quite brilliant. But as a political thriller, if you would imagine it, if you liked Game of this is like Game of Thrones without porn, but it's not organized by family. It's literally a bunch of disparate people. And Andor has three or four people on his. On Ferrix, this planet that he is raised on that he loves, whom he loses over time. Because he really has to be shorn and shed of all connection for Rogue One to work. Like, he's got to get to Rogue One and he's basically got to be a totally independent actor by this point almost, because he's basically got to work. He only has one mission in Rogue One. He's got nothing left but to do what he can to defeat this plan. And he only finds out about this plan to build the Death Star in the last three episodes of the second season, which is a brilliantly structured. So we haven't even talked about. Second season is one of the most brilliant gambits in modern television narrative history because it's broken into three, four sections.
- [27:54]
John Podhoretz
Four. Three episode chapters, three episode arcs.
- [27:57]
Matthew Continetti
And each arc takes. There's a. There's a year's jump between each arc. So in the first arc, you know, you have the setting in motion of the effort to find Andor and find Axis because the two villains that you mentioned, Cyril and Deidre, become a couple. Turns out that Cyril is from a highborn family on this planet. She is, by the way, she grew up in a prison, and so she sees an advantage in him. She. Whatever. It's a kind of dark S and M ish, you know, dominant, submissive relationship. But they are. They are weirdly in love with each other. Each other. And they come together and then they both. They're. She's hiding things from him, he's hiding things from her. Even though they're in love, she knows what they're looking for. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing. And nonetheless, they are both in the muck until the very end pursuing. She's pursuing Luthen and he's pursuing Cassian and Luthen is playing mind games with Cassian. Then there is this great reappearance of Forest Whitaker as this bizarrely drug addicted lunatic who is addicted to the odor, who is like snuffing fumes.
- [29:33]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, fuel. Fumes.
- [29:35]
Matthew Continetti
Fumes of this fuel that is part of what is needed for the Death Star.
- [29:39]
John Podhoretz
So can I pause there for. Make a point about the show again. We're talking about the gravel. We're talking about how revolutions happen. That's what, that's the puzzle that seems to fascinate Gilroy that he wanted to work out. And Tony Gilroy, I also want to recommend, before I make my point about Forest Whitaker, I want anyone who's. Who has already watched the show or who has watched Michael Clayton or the Bourne films, or I recommend that you check out this article published in the New Yorker in 2009. It was a profile of Tony Gilroy called Twister by DT Max. And it's a profile of Gilroy who grew up. Three brothers. He's the eldest, then he has twin brothers, all of whom are filmmakers. They collaborate. His father was a playwright father Frank Gilroy was a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. And he. They talk about his writerly experience, how he got into Hollywood. His first film, this first big screenplay was the Cutting Edge, that skate, ice skating romance from 1992. And it's interesting because in the. They talk about Michael Clayton, one of the best movies of the aughts by far. And the profile is set during the filming of a film called Duplicity, which. Which was supposed to, I think, be kind of his breakout blockbuster because it featured Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. And it bombed.
- [31:06]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, with two. They're both con men and they're in love, but they're conning each other.
- [31:10]
John Podhoretz
Very typical Gilroy.
- [31:11]
Matthew Continetti
All these fusion.
- [31:13]
John Podhoretz
Yes. All these surprises.
- [31:14]
Matthew Continetti
The movie doesn't work.
- [31:15]
John Podhoretz
No. And it bombed. And so he kind of. When, you know, a few years later, right. Five years later or so, he's brought in to do Rogue One, it's kind of like, oh, he needs a job.
- [31:24]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [31:25]
John Podhoretz
So anyways, that's. I just recommend that for people because I've become a.
- [31:29]
Matthew Continetti
Just as, Just as Cyril's obsessed with.
- [31:33]
John Podhoretz
Andor I've become obsessed with Tony Gilroy. Forest Whitaker. So Forest Whitaker, as you say, plays this insurgent leader named Saw Gerrera, who is too extreme for the rebellion. And what's interesting is that when the show begins in the first season, there is no rebellion. There are these different groups of people who are trying to sabotage, undermine, oppose the Empire. And some of them are more militaristic than others. Luthen is definitely open to violence, but he's extremely careful in how he deploys violence. Whereas these other two leaders we meet, Sagrer and this guy named Krieger, I think they're just, they're just blowing stuff up. Right. And what the. One of the great things about the show is, you see how this insert, it begins as kind of these radicals, right. Psychotics. In the case of Forest Whitaker's amazing performance. And then it eventually morphs into a situation where a figure like Luthen actually isn't even necessary. Because by the time we get to the second season, you have this political leadership, right? Whether it's Mon Mothma, played by Genevieve Riley, who's very, very good, or Bail Organa, played by Jimmy Smits, who's, you know, Princess Leia's adoptive dad. The politicians now are in charge. And so figures like Lutheran Rail and Saw Gerrera, they're not important. And as I said on the, on the main show, it's all. It's the transition from a San Sam Adams to a James Madison, right. When the revolution gets to a certain point, Sam Adams just wasn't really part of it anymore. He was. And so.
- [33:19]
Matthew Continetti
But again, they got a formidable adversary because. And this is where the second season gets so brilliant because Deidre is sent to this French planet. I don't know how else to describe it. She and Cyril end up on this French planet, Gorman Gorman, where people wear berets and speak French and they speak this kind of pigeon French, and they're sitting in brasseries.
- [33:46]
John Podhoretz
It was all French actors play the Gormans, except one German actor, Right.
- [33:50]
Matthew Continetti
And they make, they make silk, essentially. And so it's a trading planet. And it turns out that this planet has the. It has the tool supply necessary.
- [34:03]
John Podhoretz
Has a mineral.
- [34:04]
Matthew Continetti
A mineral.
- [34:05]
John Podhoretz
That substance. Yeah. And you need it for the Death Star.
- [34:08]
Matthew Continetti
And the only way you're going to be able to mine this mineral is to basically make the planet uninhabitable.
- [34:14]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [34:14]
Matthew Continetti
And she conceives of an idea. She says what we need on this planet is an insurgency that will do everything wrong so that they can give us the casus belli so that we can go invade, take over the planet and do what we want with it. Because they are monsters.
- [34:35]
John Podhoretz
And here. Yeah, here's what makes it, this show, so dramatically inventive, because that's what she wants and that's her plan. Meanwhile, that's also Luthen Rail's plan, right. He wants things to escalate in order to trigger more rebellions, right. And so you have this weird situation where the bad guy and the good guy both want the same thing to happen to this planet. And the chapter or the three episode arc dealing with Gorman that, or kind of focused on Gorman, is the penultimate arc of the, of the second season. And it's incredible. And it's, it's, it's, it's just a World War II drama.
- [35:16]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, yeah. It's also, it's just one of the high water marks of television in the last 25 years. That those, those three episodes which are seven, eight and nine in the, in the 12 episode arc and are therefore they are year. There they are. It's the, it's. It's the year two before. Yes, Death Star is blown up. Because everything that leads up to this, okay, you basically spend all of Cassian andor's life with him up to the, up to the end of Andor. Then Rogue One takes place in about four days and then Star wars and then Star wars takes place. Yes, in about a week and a half. So you're actually got this 40 years leading to four days, leading to a week.
- [35:59]
John Podhoretz
This is my thing. So this is my thing because as this franchise has developed and we with, you know, with Star wars prequels and now the Star wars sequels and then all of the Star wars shows and Disney plus this, the. The franchise has expanded and the chronology has shrunk. Because I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking, okay, the end of the prequels happens 20 years before a New Hope.
- [36:31]
Matthew Continetti
The prequels, the Prequels are films 4, 5 and 6 in the series. Those are the prequels.
- [36:37]
John Podhoretz
No, 1, 2. No 1, 2 and 3.
- [36:39]
Matthew Continetti
No, but they are, they are the. In the making. In the actual, in our planet, in our timeline, they were made in the 90s and the 2000s.
- [36:48]
John Podhoretz
Right, right, right.
- [36:49]
Matthew Continetti
Whereas Star wars, the three original Star wars were made between 77.
- [36:53]
John Podhoretz
Oh, you're saying in order of production there.
- [36:55]
Matthew Continetti
So then there was a 15 year gap. And then George Lucas made.
- [36:58]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [36:59]
Matthew Continetti
What are called the prequels, right, which are chronologically the first, second and third movies in the series.
- [37:05]
John Podhoretz
And by the end of the third of these prequels, right, the Empire is established. Darth Vader is Darth Vader.
- [37:13]
Matthew Continetti
Skywalker becomes Darth Vader.
- [37:15]
John Podhoretz
And Darth Vader's two children, the. The twins are sent into exile and hidden because they don't want to be identified. So we are to understand that between that end of that movie Revenge of the Sith and the beginning of A New Hope, the original Star wars is.
- [37:37]
Matthew Continetti
A 20 year period in which Cassian Andor is basically growing up, is born.
- [37:43]
John Podhoretz
And is growing up, basically growing up. And then, and here's where I get really nerdy in between the end of Star wars and the beginning of Empire strikes back is three years, 23 years, and then I'm told is somewhere between six months to a year. Between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, that takes us to 24 years. So that's not really a long time for a galactic emp. I had always kind of thought that the Galactic Empire had been around. So it's. Everyone's living under this impression of the oppression. No one knows what a Jedi is anymore. 24 years, you know, I mean, it's longer than the Third Reich, but it's only, what, a third of the life. Less than a third of the life of the Soviet Union. So I don't know, I feel a little bit like maybe we should have spread out. Maybe we could have thought about the chronology a little bit harder. George Lucas, before you set us down this path. That's my only quibble.
- [38:44]
Matthew Continetti
I heard an interview with Tony Gilroy. There's this whole thing of Star wars that you may have, I certainly had no interest in. So there are novels and there's a 200 episode cartoon series, right?
- [38:55]
John Podhoretz
No, I'm not. I'm too old to be interested in that.
- [38:58]
Matthew Continetti
All of that stuff has to harmonize, as they say, as canon. So he's also almost like a sonnet. Gilroy is constricted by the Star wars canon and has to somehow slip andor in and out of these constraints and this so that it harmonizes with this whole cartoon.
- [39:28]
John Podhoretz
Here's another great quote from Gilroy. Quote. I cannot express the naivete and ignorance with which I entered this project. And he talks exactly to your point. He. Sometimes he'd have to write something and he'd have to call Marin county, where, you know, the Skywalker Ranch, and say, can I do this? Or sometimes he'd get instructions and we'd. You can't have that happen here. All while trying to create this propulsive drama. And, you know, knowing that makes, I think, the success of the show all the more impressive.
- [40:00]
Matthew Continetti
Right. Two other. Two other things I would say. One is that it is spectacularly beautiful to look at and the level of care that was taken, sort of like the original movie to make you feel as though you are nowhere near Earth. Nothing feels terrestrial. Nothing looks terrestrial. Nothing feels terrestrial. And that. That is. That is a deliberate, conscious, very complicated thing to pull off. And it cost an unimaginable amount of money. Supposedly, these 24 hours cost about $650 million. Now if you actually look, the Mission Impossible movie that's coming out this weekend or came out this weekend cost $300 million, and it's only two and a half hours. So. So it's not like it's that much Money. But for it, for a TV streaming series, it's an ungodly amount of money and every cent is on the screen, which is often not true of these things. So he pulls off this otherworldliness. So, you know, you're not here and it's not here. And therefore that drains. So maybe we can talk a little about the politics with. That drains some of the effect, the annoying effect of what I take to be the politics, which is they're really trying. Gilroy wants to analogize the state run media to Fox News. Right. There's all this. There's Fox News stuff going on and wants to analogize the behavior of the Senate to the behavior of the Republican Party and Trump and with the unseen emperor being Trump, of course, the very fact that the emperor is unseen makes him not like Trump, because if it were like Trump, you would, the whole thing would just be. The emperor would be in the corner of the screen talking for 24 hours and never leaving you alone.
- [41:51]
John Podhoretz
We should note, by the way, that the original model for the emperor was Richard Nixon.
- [41:57]
Matthew Continetti
Right. So. Right.
- [41:59]
John Podhoretz
Like liberal politics are not alien to the Star wars universe.
- [42:03]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah. The only thing that make, the only thing that makes the Star wars movies interesting from a political perspective or like heterodox is that these, the prequels are all about free trade and about how.
- [42:16]
John Podhoretz
The Empire protectionism restricts the Empire protectionist.
- [42:19]
Matthew Continetti
And so that's bad. And that was, that's the weird thing when people say, oh, George Lucas is really visionary, he saw protectionism coming or something like that. But so they really do. So that drains it. But there is a real Howard Zinn. You know, rebellion is good and you know, the rich overthrow the rich people and they're so terrible. And, and, and you know, and Trump is Hitler and Palpatine is Hitler. That's the emperor. That again, we, we never see though we see him obviously in, in the, all of the movies, all the other. Every movie from 2 onward, but we don't know.
- [42:57]
John Podhoretz
He doesn't appear in the original.
- [42:59]
Matthew Continetti
He doesn't appear in the original, but.
- [43:00]
John Podhoretz
He appears in the prequels and in.
- [43:03]
Matthew Continetti
Three others we see him in the Senate. In the Return of the Jedi, you see Palpatine somewhere, don't you?
- [43:13]
John Podhoretz
In Empire Strikes Back he appears via hologram. And then in Return of the Jedi, he shows up on the second Death Star.
- [43:19]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
- [43:20]
John Podhoretz
You know, original ideas, not necessarily being the George Lucas stock in trade. Once the first Death Star is destroyed, the Empire decides, let's just build another one.
- [43:32]
Matthew Continetti
So I'm just saying what's interesting to me, and I think this is why it's so praiseworthy is as I get older, I find myself less and less able to tolerate the insertion of completely gratuitous modern politics into everything. It was one of the reasons I loved Game of Thrones because it really was Hobbes. Yeah, it's Hobbes and it's the War of the Roses and Weiss and Benioff, who created it. We're not interested. Making us go, oh my God, Jon Snow is just like Jon Ossoff or something like that. The game here and there is a lot. There is more of that here.
- [44:11]
John Podhoretz
There is, but can I just defend it for a second? Because remember, we're trying to pitch this to the commentary podcast audience. I don't think I was as bothered by it as you. There is one scene her Mon Mothma's speech to the Senate, which in one in one of the most exciting episodes of the series, I should say. But she does give a pretty didactic speech that you could hear coming from Hillary Clinton, and that kind of annoyed me. But the truth is what I'm comparing it to is other kind of politicized science fiction of this era. And my example is going to be an episode from season two of the Paramount Television series Star Picard and of course Star Trek Picard.
- [44:58]
Matthew Continetti
The entire season two of Star Trek the entire made you want to jump out the window.
- [45:03]
John Podhoretz
Yes, Star Picard. The first two seasons are awful, awful television. The third season, one of my favorite TV series of the past decade. Easily. Okay, but what I'm talking about is an episode in the second season. In the second season, Picard and all of his woke friends are sent back in time to the 21st century. And literally one of the episodes is about an ice raid where they have to either they have to break into an ice detention facility or they have to help an illegal immigrant. And I'm just sitting there going it's so over the top. It's so heavy handed. It's so bad. Patrick Stewart's so old, you know, Give him something good.
- [45:51]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [45:51]
John Podhoretz
Anyway, but so I never had that same feeling watching andor your snacking routine.
- [45:59]
Matthew Continetti
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John Podhoretz
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Matthew Continetti
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- [46:55]
John Podhoretz
I know it's the politics are vaguely left ish, but I will tell. And just finally on this one, there's one minor character in the show. He shows up in the second chapter of the first season when Andor has to meet a group of rebels in order to basically conduct a bank heist from the Empire. And he meets this minor character who's something of a philosopher and he records a manifesto in that episode about what the rebellion is about. And the character dies andor gets the manifesto. We hear it in the first season and then we hear it again in the very last episode at a very key moment, at a very key moment where it seems to me, and I've talked to a friend and this was my read of the scene, it might not be accurate. It seems to me that basically through Andor the rebellion got hold of this manifesto and has been broadcasting it to the galaxy in order to inspire others. And I have to say, when you hear him say the manifesto is all about freedom, it is all about human rights, personal dignity, the weakness of authoritarian societies. I agree with every single word. And so this is why I think that if you, if you just think of the Empire as the Nazis, which is, I believe, the way that basically every American views the Galactic Empire, they think of Star wars as essentially a World War II movie series. The Empire and the Nazi. If you think of it that way, you won't be bothered by the politics. If you think of it as the way that many liberals and many creators think of it, whereas the Empire is the Republican Party, then yeah, you're going to get annoyed, Right?
- [48:44]
Matthew Continetti
But just to credit the show again and one of the reasons that I think you will love it, if you haven't watched it and if you have watched it and you're. Gilroy is such a good writer and being a good screenwriter is a very odd thing because often dialogue doesn't matter. It's all structure and the, the. His ability, his capacity and with tandem with his directors and his co writers and stuff to build tension in the course of each of these episodes out of nothing literally just is someone going to get through this door? Is somebody going to get onto the 18th floor of this hospital? Are they going to be able to get into a room that is closed off? And just the ability to build that which would be impossible for a less skilled person to do is really a remarkable achievement. It happens on every episode which starts making your heart pound. And I don't. That's really remarkable. And the other is the ability to sketch out an entire relationship in one literal line of dialogue, which happens again and again in this because he doesn't have time to do this. So two of the villains, Orson Krennic, who is. Who is in Rogue One, was played by the great Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn. And this head of the isb, the internal security, who's whose name I can't remember. He's got some weird funny Pentagas or something like that. Anyway, so he's yelling at Pentagas is right is Deidre's boss and his giving her instructions and all of this. And he there. They end up in one room in one of the either the penultimate or final episode. And Krennic looks at Pentagast and says, I don't know that I'm going to be able to help you, Lou. So suddenly one line of dialogue, an entire lifelong relationship is illuminated because Mendelssohn softens, his voice looks compassionately. We've just seen him torturing Deidre Krennic and he has this moment of genuine friendship and commonality with this other guy that has a plot consequence, by the way. But I just don't know I'm gonna be able to help you, Lou. Just being able to enrich what we're watching with one line of dialogue. And that's a continual surprise again also in sort of every one of these 24 episodes. Just so beautifully written and in fact very complicated. Sometimes you get lost in the plot a little bit because there's so much going on and there are so many strands. Oh, and one other thing I want to mention is the fantastic moment when Andor really meets the ends up crash landing somewhere. He's trying to make contact with rebels somewhere. And it turns out that there are not one, but two bands of rebels on this planet. And they're fighting and it's the life of Brian. It's the Judean people's front versus the popular front of Judea. They are on the same side and he needs their help and they're both trying to kill him. And he basically Just figures out a way to get the hell out of there and make sure they're all just gonna kill each other and be of no help.
- [52:04]
John Podhoretz
He's very crafty, and that's what makes the closing of the show kind of sad for me because, you know, like, we were talking about, I watched the show, and as Gilroy had recommended, I then put on Rogue One. And actually, my son watched Rogue One with me. He. He. My son is 11 years old and not a Star wars fan, but he loved Rogue One. And I was kind of sad because I would like more adventures of Cassian andor He's such a great character. Diego Luna's fantastic playing him. He totally embodies him. And he gets, like you say in that one episode, gets into the scrape, and you have to figure out how he gets out of it. And he manages. And it's just kind of. There's a bittersweet ending to this. As satisfying as the story is and coming to a close, there's still like, oh, I wish. I wish we had a little bit more.
- [52:51]
Matthew Continetti
Right. Well, the only. That's a very interesting point because he's crafty and he's attractive, and he and his people. It's all, again, about him realizing that his own blood, he can't save himself from his destiny, and he's not going to try. And that is the sort of 24 hours leading to the. I'm getting out of here. I've had enough. I'm exhausted. I've been on a. I was in a prison. I had to break out of a prison. I've had to do this. I've had to do that. My girlfriend is suffering from severe traumatic stress syndrome because she was tortured to find out my location and all this. And I can't take it anymore. And then it's just the surrender to the larger role that he has to play. So it's very kind of magnificent. The other thing about it is you wanted more, and originally the plan was to make more. And Gilroy says that he and Diego Luna looked at each other and they were like, we can't make three more seasons. Luda said, I'll be 65 years old by the time we're done. This takes so long to make these, and it's so hard. And Gilroy is 67 or 68. He's like, we have to stop here. It can't do it again. Like, we have to figure out a way. But it was ingenious here because we're just. We're just too old. We've come to the end of this.
- [54:22]
John Podhoretz
Well, it's, again, it's, it's working within the constraints makes it for a better product. Right. Because just having to do these jumps in time and.
- [54:29]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [54:29]
John Podhoretz
And you know, this, this is one of the great things of genre fiction in my view, is that you kind of work in a genre, there are limitations on what you're going to be able to do, but that might make you more creative. Yeah. And actually heighten the value of the work. And so again, just because it carries Star wars on it, there's no reason to dismiss it. Even though that could be true for a lot of things that have Star wars things.
- [54:58]
Matthew Continetti
Most Star wars since 1981 have deserved that dismissal, particularly the Disney plus series, with the exception of the Mandalorian, which again is in the Star wars universe but is basically just a west even then.
- [55:11]
John Podhoretz
Just like the first season of the Mandalorian, basically, you know, first couple.
- [55:15]
Matthew Continetti
So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a western. It's a western.
- [55:18]
John Podhoretz
Right. It has its own genre.
- [55:19]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah. It's got its own, it's, it's basically its own genre anyway. But I think in the end this is one of the high water marks of, as I say, of, of television, of television in the last decade. Very rich, very unusual and, and really worth your time. If you're looking for a project this summer, let's say, or you know something, again, now that it's all out and.
- [55:47]
John Podhoretz
Available and you know what? You'll binge it. I mean, I got, you know, at first, when the second season started, I did like one episode a night and by the end I just watched.
- [55:55]
Matthew Continetti
You just had to stay.
- [55:57]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, whatever they released, I watched.
- [55:59]
Matthew Continetti
Anyway, so that is our special episode here, Memorial Day episode about and, or on, on Disney plus. If you don't have Disney plus. Here's the secret. If you're willing to really, really binge it, you can do a free trial for a week, watch all 24 hours and then cancel when your 7 days is up without paying. If you don't want to pay for Disney plus, which I really wouldn't, you know, if you don't have kids or you don't need to watch Star wars or stuff, it's your, you could spend.
- [56:30]
John Podhoretz
It on a commentary magazine subscription while you should. While you like our videos and review our podcast.
- [56:38]
Matthew Continetti
Yes. Please go to YouTube like, like and subscribe there. Our numbers are growing by the day and, and I'm very grateful to everybody who is subscribing. And I'm grateful to you for listening to this unusual special episode. And we will be back tomorrow. So Matt for you, John Pod. Horace, keep the candle burning.