I actually liked The New Republic being conceived as its own brand of neoliberal horror, but I don’t know, the conceptualization of what The Empire as an institution even was, is disappointing here. While I get the surface level comparisons to Andor, it doesn’t have a grasp on any tangible theory to fill out the spaces it’s playing in. (And certainly not the writing, it’s very journeyman here.) For as much as it “explores” a postwar reconstruction, it still moves in a Good/Evil, malice-of-an-out-group kind of ideology.

It’s a pretty high school social studies understanding of historical play.

Maybe I’m just attached to the interpretations provided by the prequels and then Andor, but Imperialism as Establishment, as oppression evolved from power evolved from status-quo, works far better for me than “Imperial” conceived as a pseudo-nationality. The episode codifies the former Empire’s structure as one that went out of its way to be bleak and awful; Palpatine and his powerbase as one and the same.

It just rubs me the wrong way that it’s even being called Andor-lite. They’re not necessarily incongruous in the macro beats, but philosophically coming from entirely different places. Without any real poli-sci informing the premises, its storytelling ambitions are just cynical for the sake cynicism.