I didn’t know it was possible for me to fall in love with Star Wars spin-off Andor any more than I already had. Then I saw this amazing retro tribute to the Disney+ streaming hit and got pumped for the season one finale all over again.
Posted on the Auralnauts YouTube channel earlier this week, “Andor 1975 TV Intro” is exactly what it says on the tin: a made-up intro for the show if it were released before even 1977’s Star Wars had hit theatres. It showcases a grainy CRT filter, a deeply serious and gravelly baritone voiceover, and quick intros of all the major characters. The whole thing is cut from actual Andor footage, and like any classic TV intro, includes almost every major spoiler from the first season (so be warned).
Here it is:
The video’s description is also on point:
It’s 1975. A New Hope won’t be released for another two years, and George Lucas is mostly known as the American Graffiti guy. You just finished watching the latest episode of Barney Miller.
“And now, we bring you tonight’s TV movie premiere. Get ready to travel to a far away galaxy that existed a long, long time ago. It’s the science fiction spectacular…ANDOR. Every Thursday night, only on ABC.”
One reason the tribute works so well is that Andor is already at its heart a sort of modern homage to neo-noir science fiction from the late 1970s and early 1980s. It somehow manages to marry deep dives into baroque Star Wars lore with paranoia about technology and totalitarianism that would be at home in any Philip K. Dick short story. Craven Moorhaus and Zak Koonce, the talents behind the Auralnauts remix channel, even say the Andor intro is inspired by Star Wars creator George Lucas’ own directorial debut, THX 1138, a film about a future dystopia where society is medicated and controlled by androids.
Showrunner Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Identity, Michael Clayton) has already confirmed that Andor will only run two seasons, and that the second will time-jump every three episodes to help it arrive at the events of Rogue One. For now, however, we still have the end of season one to look forward to, which according to Gilroy should deliver at least one major payoff. It airs on Disney+ starting at 3:00 a.m. ET on November 23.
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