I can understand many of your points very well, and yes, I also admit that I might be a bit too critical of Andor in some aspects. But for me personally, it unfortunately crossed a few lines that simply weren’t crossed before (keyword: attempted rape of Bix). I absolutely don’t deny that such themes exist in Star Wars and have always been there (Leia and Jabba, for example), but for me it was simply too much in terms of tone and especially the explicitness of the scene, which was extremely brutal by Star Wars standards. Unfortunately, you could really tell that this was deliberately incorporated into Bix’s story because apparently she hadn’t suffered enough yet, and with Season 2 they clearly wanted to consciously test all the boundaries they had – and that’s exactly what didn’t sit well with me, at least.
I get why that scene might cross a line for you, but it honestly doesn’t bother me that much. At the end of the day, it’s just one scene, and it’s not like there have never been dark moments in live-action Star Wars prior to Andor. I mean, in Revenge of the Sith there’s a scene where the corpses of the younglings Anakin killed are clearly visible. Sure, you don’t see Anakin actually killing them, but you do see him about to do it, and the next time we’re in the Temple, the kids are lying there on the floor. At the time, this was unthinkable because Star Wars had never been that dark before, and many fans criticized it for going too far. Yet now the scene exists and most fans have come to accept it. So again, I totally understand why some people think this scene crosses a line, but to me it’s really not a big deal. It’s just one scene, and it’s not like there have never been dark moments in live-action Star Wars before.
Another thing that needs to be mentioned here is that I think it’s also a problem that a dark series like Andor appeared right in the middle of many non-dark Disney products and series, and I think that’s why it feels so out of place, at least for me. It feels like a 180-degree turn – first you have shows like Skeleton Crew which was simply made for a younger audience, and then BAM, you have Andor which is clearly intended for an older audience. They’ve clearly lost their course regarding tonality. If Star Wars had been taken more seriously by Disney from the beginning, and if Disney hadn’t maneuvered the franchise too much into the younger target demographic with all their merch and series – then Andor would have landed much better tonally. And that’s actually the tragic thing about it, because Andor is actually a very good series, and yes, I can absolutely understand why the series is so popular – because it finally shows Star Wars seriously again, away from all the fanservice etc. But you simply have to note that Andor unfortunately appeared a bit too late, because now we have a completely confusing mess of Star Wars products, and even though there were already clear differences in the old EU – there’s still a big difference between whether you do this in book or comic form or in live-action series form.
I get why that could feel out of place for someone who watched all the series as they were released. But for me personally, it’s not really an issue, for a couple of reasons. First, by the time the second season of Andor came out, I had already stopped keeping up with all the other Star Wars series. Kenobi had disappointed me so much that as soon as I finished it, I decided I wasn’t going to watch any more Star Wars series or movies unless they were genuinely something new we hadn’t seen before, or unless I was actually interested in them. So when Season 2 of Andor dropped, I hadn’t seen The Mandalorian Season 3, Tales of the Jedi, Tales of the Empire, Skeleton Crew, or the Ahsoka series. The only thing I had been keeping up with since Kenobi was Andor itself, so the tonal shift you mentioned didn’t affect me at all. Second, even if I had been following everything, I’m the kind of person who can compartmentalize each series and product and enjoy them on their own, so I don’t let what I’ve seen before or after in other series influence how I experience each one.