I'm nearly 50 years old and have been a SW nerd my entire life.
Andor is the SW I've been waiting for all these years and decades.
No blasters
No space battles
No Jedi
No Sith
Barely any fan service
The ISB is incredible and everything I wanted in "Imperial Evilness"
Who would have thought I'd be riveted by Imperial banking regulations
Sure the show is named "Andor" but the rest of the characters and story are so good there HUGE swaths of the episodes where he's not even involved and you don't even notice it.
Just pure great story telling.
You know, i think what i'm about to say will sound like I DONT LIKE THAT YOU ARE HAVING FUN, but, at least i can say that, i don't feel that way.
I dont get the whole concept of "i like star wars".
I liked the first film, because it was a good film. I also liked the second and third film because they were good, not because "they were Star Wars TRADEMARK".
I didn't like (other Star-Wars-Expanded-Universe-Productcode74165) films because they were not good films. the fact that "they are star wars" doesn't really do anything for me.
A film being tied to a pre-existing product can, at most, make me more interested into seeing what the new one is, maybe even bring me to the theater, but it won't affect my judgement.
Now, i may like some subjects more, e.g. maybe i like lightsabers, maybe i like spaceships, or tanks, or godzilla, so films that have those elements may get a better judgement from me, but i'd still judge a product based on its quality, not by association.
And, to be honest, the Star Wars fanchise doesnt have a enviable quality rating, these days.
I watched the first 4/5 episodes of Andor and then wasn't interested anymore. At first, i was pleasantly surprised that the show wasn't complete shit, which is what i expect these days of anything branded Star Wars. The "futuristic/western" look that SW products tend to have is nice, but by no means special. I mean, Firefly has it .. see how that turned out.
But then i found that, i wasn't really interested in the story. The unlikable protagonist that has to infiltrate the EVIL FASCIST OPPRESSORS in itself isn't enough to keep me interested.
I think, if they had used the same actors, the same plot, the same resources, but added a bit of novelty to the story, it would have probably helped.
Having to hammer on to my point, the Empire in SW1 was like, super on-the-nose SPACE NAZIS, they were as clear-cut of a "generic dictatorial antagonist 4" example as they could be, because this simplifies the story for the viewer - Empire bad, Rebellion good.
So, yeah. If you asked me 30 years ago, i too would have said i like SW, but only because all 3 films happen to be good. Today, not really, no.
let's say, i .. like "Indiana Jones", because i like the character .. but then you can have a great character, put him in Kingdom of the Cristal Skull, and it's still shit.