I started watching Andor three days ago and it seems awesome.
I am not a Star Wars fan. I got introduced to the franchise much later in my life and I didn’t like it. Most of it was just straight up trash. There is a lot of nice world building, the soundtracks are usually awesome but the storylines have usually sucked. There is a universe spanning imperial empire at war with its opponents so bulk of the stories revolving around space Harry Potters seems out of place.
But Andor seems really good so far. I am three or four episodes in. But it does a very good job of showing a well thought out scenario involving an imperial empire/corporation, their occupation of a place, the dynamic between the oppressor’s armed “security” wing’s counterinsurgency and some measures the locals have cobbled up to deal with them.
No nostalgia bait? No Skywalkers? No dead character from older trilogies suddenly coming back to life? This is pretty good so far. If this turns out good all the way I will give Mandalorian a shot too.
The books and world building outside of the major films was what many enjoyed about starwars. Andor is one of the very few that actually use that world building to show more than just big flashy Jedi bullshit, thus actually rely on being good instead of cool factor. Before this best we had showing this side of Star Wars was Rogue One, and Mandolorian. If you want to check those out you could, they’re less good, but not bad.