The Best Dogfighting Scene Since The Original Trilogy

With each new episode of Andor, I find myself in awe over just what a triumph of cinema this show has turned out to be.

This is Star Wars elevated to a whole new level, in many ways because it’s not trying to be the original trilogy all over again. It’s taking the aesthetic and the galactic conflict of the Star Wars universe and essentially telling a war story, a story of rebellion and skullduggery that’s grim and beautiful and surprising at every turn. New characters in stories we didn’t even know we needed, set far, far apart from the Skywalker saga and the Jedi and the Sith—a war fought within the alabaster walls of the ISB and the back-alleys of Ferrix.

But Season 1’s penultimate episode gave us something very Star Wars indeed—one of the finest, most uniquely choreographed dogfighting sequences we’ve seen since Return Of The Jedi. I say this not because Luthen’s space battle with the Empire was the biggest or craziest or most epic dogfighting scene since the original trilogy. After all, J.J. Abrams thought that by pitting a fleet of thousands of Star Destroyers against basically all the other ships in the entire galaxy, he could wow audiences into submission. But bigger isn’t always better, and this . . . .

. . . . pretty much encapsulates that principle. You can have a thousand ships onscreen and not a drop of tension or plausibility, and your grand showdown will just come across as goofy and absurd.

However, pit a Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser—making a routine inspection—against Luthen Rael’s heavily modded Fondor Haulcraft, and you get a dogfighting sequence for the ages.

Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) was on his way back to Coruscant after a meeting with the zealous rebel leader, Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) when he’s pulled over for a routine traffic stop by the Star Cruiser.

The captain of the Imperial ship asks for identification and Luthen’s onboard droid comes up with a fake Alderaanian ID as Luthen prepares to escape, buying time by pretending to be out of his depth flying solo. The Imperials say that ‘partisan activity’ has been taking place and that piracy is rampant in the sector. He thanks them and says he appreciates the warning, and they tell him to stay put and begin planning a boarding party (if only for the practice).

This is when things get crazy. As the Cruiser activates its tractor beam, Luthen begins heating up his own ship’s thrusters. The Imperials are surprised and confused by this. He doesn’t truly expect to escape from their beam, does he? But Luthen has tricks up his sleeves, and his Haulcraft isn’t at all what it seems, either.

Two boxy units rise up from the rear of his ship and shoot out dozens of bursts of projectiles at the ship behind them.

The projectiles aren’t meant to do any damage to the actual Cruiser—only to the tractor beam dish itself.

This does the trick, shredding the massive dish and taking out the tractor beam in an instant. Luthen’s ship is almost ready to leap into hyperspace, but the Cruiser’s captain orders a win of TIE Fighters to take out the Haulcraft.

Little do they know, Luthen is not only a skilled pilot, able to fly toe-to-toe with the Empire’s best, his ship also has lightsabers.

After taking out two of the four TIE Fighters with his ship’s turret guns, he zips past the Cruiser and turns to face the remaining two craft, and as they approach, two red lasers burst out of the sides of his ship. He spins in a circle, cutting through both the bogeys in a heartbeat.

That’s no ordinary Haulcraft—that’s the model they built based on Darth Maul!

After destroying his enemies, Luthen leaps into hyperspace, leaving the captain and crew of the Space Cruiser shocked speechless.

Like the rest of Andor, this dogfight was great not because it was the most epic or flashy or because it was a showdown between rivals with old scores to settle, but because it was a clever, expertly-crafted scene that did only what it set out to do and did it well. This show is economical. It doesn’t waste your time. Every scene matters. Even the dogfighting scene, as entertaining as it was, helped show us just how prepared and how skilled and how ruthless Luthen Rael truly is—not just a mover in the shadows, willing to sacrifice his own for the greater good—but a fighter himself, able to handle any situation—which we already glimpsed when he helped Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) escape Ferrix.

A few other thoughts on this episode:

• I loved the scene between Luthen and Saw. When Saw learns that Luthen is planning to not warn the other rebels, under the command of the mysterious Anto Kreegyr, about their doomed mission, he’s shocked and appalled at first. But Luthen convinces him that this is for the greater good. That sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to save the queen. “Call it what you will,” he says to Saw. “Let’s call it war,” Saw replies, accepting the grim reality of their situation.
• I also loved how they handled the death of Cassian’s mother, Maarva (Fiona Shaw) by presenting most of the grief and sadness over her passing through the stuttering heartache of her droid, Bee-Two, whose world has just been turned upside down. I guess I like that the droids in this show aren’t just comic relief, but have real feelings. Bee-Two has such vulnerability, you just want to give him a hug. They tried to pull on our heartstrings with C3-PO’s ‘sacrifice’ in Rise but that ended up being all for nothing. Here, the droid’s tragedy is real and raw and heartfelt.
• The death of Maarva presents a major opportunity for the two people pursuing our hero the most intensely. Syril Karn (whose name seems like a reworking of actor Kyle Soller’s) is tipped off about her death by his old Sergeant. He springs to action, though what he plans to do—and how he plans to do it without getting sent off to a prison camp—remains to be seen. I suspect it will play a major part in the finale. Meanwhile, ISB wunderkind Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) is using the funeral as a trap for her quarry.
• The only character this episode that I feel more sorry for than Bee-Two is poor Bix (Adria Arjona) who has seen better days and remains in captivity, with the threat of more torture looming over her at all times. She looks worse for wear, no doubt. Her captors show her a holograph of Anto Kreegyr, asking if he’s the man she introduced to Andor. We don’t hear her reply.

• In Coruscant, we get more wonderfully delicious scenes with Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) whose daughter, we learn, has become quite taken with the old Chandrilan customs she herself has largely abandoned. This is much to the dismay of Mothma’s cousin, Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) who worries that Mothma will set up an arranged marriage for her niece. Through their conversation about money problems, we see that the Senator is, in fact, very seriously considering the offer Davo Sculden (Richard Dillane) made to help her, in exchange for a potential union between their children.

Finally, we come to Andor himself, who has a lucky encounter with two absolutely wonderful aliens as he and his fellow escaped convict Ruescott Melshi (Duncan Pow) try to escape Narika 5. I mean, just look at these magnificent brutes!

They make a mad dash to steal the aliens’ ship but are caught in slimy nets and end up pleading for their lives instead. The aliens speak in a strange pidgin of some sort, with only certain words—like “dinner”—registering. But what looks at first to be the end for our hero turns to a lucky break when, much to his relief, it appears the aliens have little love for the Empire, either, and agree to ferry them off the planet.

Andor returns to his old hotel room—where a pair of aliens snore blissfully in their soft sheets—and retrieves his box of money and weapons. He tries to send a message to Maarva, only to learn of her passing, setting the stage for a perilous return to Ferrix and the trap that lays in wait.

In the final scene, Andor says his farewells to Melshi, who is off to spread the word of the Empire’s unjust prisons to the galaxy. Sparks of the coming rebellion starting to spread.

Cassian gazes out at the crashing waves as some of the loveliest music in any Star Wars production ever made washes over us. Composer Nicholas Britell who, along with everyone else making this brilliant show, deserves some awards. Granted, he’s competing against some major talent—Ramin Djawadi’s score for House Of The Dragon is some of his best work—but damn if it isn’t some of the most beautiful, original music in Star Wars. That final scene gave me chills. Stunning. Just stunning.

What did you think of this episode, dearest readers? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.