Channel72 said:
NFBisms said:
My theory is that this will be a big source of the sectarian rebel tensions in the lead-up to the Alliance. Like I alluded to above, Luthen is basically a bolshevik accelerationist. Revolution on his terms is dirty, brutal, and spearheaded by a professional vanguard of gangsters and spies. Mon’s canonical call for Open Rebellion is the inevitable clash with that clandestine exclusivity, but I think what’s added to it with the development of a culture and religion rally, is that for once there might be a tangible, coherent ideology to the so-called “Alliance to Restore The Republic”, one that addresses what exactly makes The Empire more evil than the Old Republic.
Yeah - I mean, historical parallels are always tricky and inexact, but I think what you say about Luthen here is essentially correct. But I interpreted Mon Mothma as basically aligned ideologically with Luthen, rather than viewing the two as representing opposing sides of something like an eventual Bolshevik/Menshevik split. Mon Mothma finances Luthen’s revolutionary activities. She comes off as less “Machiavellian” than Luthen mostly because she operates as a public figure in the middle of a technological police state. (Mon’s cousin Vel also is presumably aligned ideologically with Luthen.) The fact that Mon does some Menshevik type things - like working with the Imperial Senate and Galactic elite to fight oppressive legislation - doesn’t really put her in opposition to Luthen’s attempts to pull off an “October revolution”. Mon’s public activities in the Senate (and her ineffective opposition to Palpatine) are something of a cover story. She’s a Bolshevik in Menshevik clothing, if anything.
Where I’m coming from with the parallel is more about where Mon ends up as opposed to where she is in Andor S1, and where the bolsheviks and mensheviks clashed in regards to membership. (And either way, early revolutionary days had both factions often working together on a temporary basis, participating in the same activities - extralegal or otherwise.)
I think Mon’s aligned with Luthen right now, but eventually she’s going to open the rebellion up in a pretty public move (Star Wars: Rebels). From then on, the Alliance becomes a known political entity to the Empire, with her as a public face of it. It’s a whole apparatus with a fleet and a council, there’s moralism in at the very least what is a public stance disavowing Saw Gerrera as an extremist. In A New Hope, its legitimacy as something that can gain favor in the Senate is why the Death Star exists. Bail / the Organas are not in exile like Mon is.
It’s still an inexact parallel - I didn’t intend to be otherwise and Star Wars never is - but I see the friction between being exclusive and being broad as one coming conflict in season 2.
To tangent off of this though, the Bolshevik in Menshevik clothing is interesting to say because we actually also get stuff in season 1 hinting at Luthen not wanting to be so clandestine anymore and Mon learning to be less scrupulous. Gilroy and Luna have said we will see Rogue One differently after S2; Draven and Cass’ ruthless activity in that film might be fully sanctioned by Mon herself. And how warranted was Saw’s disavowment really? How does Luthen get out of the picture? I’m interested to see where else any analogy will be imperfect. The mix and match is the fun part.
Yeah. I mean, the movies don’t explore this beyond a very superficial level. But clearly, we’re supposed to understand that the Empire is worse than the Old Republic because the Empire isn’t a democracy, at least after Alderaan. (Oh yeah, also that little matter of blowing up Alderaan.)
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It’s unclear what sort of economy/ideology the various Rebel factions depicted in the OT or Andor are actually fighting to achieve in some hypothetical New Republic, but presumably the Rebel Alliance that we know and love wants to setup something similar to the Old Republic, rather than something more like a socialist economy with publicly owned industries as suggested (arguably) by the underlying thematic vibes of Andor.
Right, I just meant before the Death Star, there’s already a well established Rebel Alliance. So I was extrapolating based on Andor’s depiction of cultural displacement, what makes that a reality without a planet killer moving people to action. I don’t think the economic mechanisms as you laid out could mobilize the common populace we see in Rogue One/OT (at least per Andor), so I was mostly speaking to what would. If the seperatists alluded to throughout Andor are the same corporatists from the prequels then I’m sure that’d all be in there somewhere as political promise in alliance, but I think there’d actually be some intentional, built-into-the-story eschewing of actually working out a post-Empire government/economy. The Alliance has canonically been a temporary coalition since Rogue One.
Like, I don’t think Andor is rewriting canon to make it more clear. I think it’ll just choose a focus that allows it to sidestep those concerns, while co-opting the historical motifs of revolution broadly.
Also, anyone notice how that deleted scene in ANH with Luke and Biggs is kind of an early “spiritual predecessor” to Rogue One/Andor? It’s a scene that would be right at home in an episode of Andor, minus the corny 70s dialogue.
Yes! Thinking about Biggs in this scene is specifically where I was coming from when thinking about the Rebel Alliance circa Rogue One / A New Hope.