EMMYS WATCH 2025 — When the Force is Not with Us: Considering Genre in Andor and the ‘Star Wars’ Franchise

‘Emmys Watch 2025’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama, Outstanding Comedy, and Outstanding Limited Series at that 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. Contributions to this theme explore critical understandings of some series nominated in these categories.

I once became startled in my sleep after a dream about ‘Star Wars’. In the dream, the franchise had abandoned the fantasy genre and wholly succumbed to science fiction. Admittedly, this was more of a nightmare than a dream.

As I have aged—and my ‘Star Wars’ fandom has persisted—I have become more attuned to how important ideas of genre are to my connection with the franchise; specifically, I admit, I am drawn to the idea that ‘Star Wars’ is not science fiction. Of course, this is not a new idea and I am not the only person to think this way: fans, critics, and scholars have for years discussed the genre of ‘Star Wars,’ from fan forums to videos and online commentary, and scholarly articles (Gordon 1978; Wright 2018); this discourse realizes that historically ‘Star Wars’ is driven by mythic fantasy more than questions of plausible speculative science. As George Lucas has revealed, “I knew from the beginning that I was not doing science fiction. I was doing a space opera, a fantasy film, a mythological piece, a fairy tale” (1997, 5-6). The complexity of this statement lies in the fact that, while the ‘space opera’ expresses fantasy themes, it is typically understood to be a sub-genre of science fiction.

The space opera occupies a threshold between fantasy and science fiction: its semantic iconography might resemble science fiction (cosmic space, spaceships, technology, androids, aliens), but its syntactic and thematic structures are driven by fantasy (wizards, magic, heroism, mythmaking, imaginary worlds, epic scale, and hope). Gary Westfahl identifies a few key characteristics of the space opera: space travel (or at least the existence of spaceports); adventure or ‘escapist’ storytelling akin to a “yarn”; and serialized formula (2003, 197-198). Underpinning these conventions is also the association between the ‘space opera’ and the soap opera or melodrama, which incorporates romance, heightened or excessive emotion, and family dynamics. Space travel in the space opera is less about speculative science, but about adventure and the potential existence of uncharted realms (Westfahl 2003, 197). What stands out about this in relation to ‘Star Wars’ is that space travel is probably also the most ‘science fiction-esque’ aspect of the franchise, since hyperspace is scientifically plausible in a storyworld that is otherwise ‘bound’ by a magical Force (figure 1). Even so, the animated series Star Wars Rebels (Disney XD, 2014–2018) introduces Purrgil, which are giant space whales that can travel the galaxy through a magical version of hyperspace—so not that ‘science fiction-esque’ after all.

 

figure 1: going into hyperspace in a new hope

figure 2: iconic opening text in ‘star wars’

 

A further example of this genre betweenness at work in ‘Star Wars’ is the dual interpretability of the opening text, “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….’ (figure 2). In a science fiction context, this positions the franchise in a spatiotemporal relationship with our own world—while not in the future, it sets a precedence for its historical and spatial plausibility; conversely, in a fantasy context, this opening emulates the “once upon a time” of fairytales. It is this latter reading that must have resonated with the Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg, who at the film’s commencement apparently let out a sigh of relief that he didn’t “have to worry” (presumably about any depiction of real-world conflict).

figure 3: andor has 14 emmy nominations, including outstanding drama series

With all this in mind, the series Andor: A Star Wars Story (Disney +, 2022–2025) reignites a discourse around genre in the ‘Star Wars’ franchise. Indeed, many critics and fans have identified something tonally, thematically and stylistically different about the two seasons that make up this series: as William Dare at KeenGamer identifies, “Andor feels like a Sci-Fi story, rather than the traditional Star Wars Space Fantasy”. The side of the ‘Star Wars’ storyworld depicted in Andor is dark, violent, mature, politically and intellectually complex, and hopeless. Andor thus reflects an explicit genre shift in the ‘Star Wars’ franchise: its narrational dynamics, thematic questions, and stylistic tendencies are shaped less by fantasy and more by science fiction and political drama. It is also significant that both seasons of Andor have been nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the 76th and 77th Primetime Emmy Awards (2024 and 2025) (figure 3) —the idea of ‘Star Wars’ as a ‘drama’ nominated for a prestige award notably highlights its degree of difference and acceptance within a different cultural sphere to the rest of the franchise. Therefore, while for decades I have been attached to the idea that ‘Star Wars’ is not science fiction, I now concede that Andor certainly seems to be.

So, what does all this mean for my ‘Star Wars’ nightmare? Unsurprisingly, it took me a while to embrace Andor. From the earliest episodes of season one, I could vaguely recognize the idea of ‘Star Wars,’ but not entirely. As the episodes progressed, I became anxious that at any moment an extreme shot of an all-too-familiar planet might appear with a title card that reads ‘EARTH’ (yes, the planet Alderaan resembles Earth, and it was blown up one hour into the first installment). The prospect that Earth might canonically appear in this storyworld (other than in the Star Tours theme park attraction) is disturbing enough to startle me in my sleep. This sentiment is perhaps the inverse to Ginsberg’s relief at reading “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. Admittedly, I am drawn to ‘Star Wars’ because it depicts a world that is not my own; this is what drives my own investment in the idea that ‘Star Wars’ is not science fiction.

Once I moved on from the concern that Earth might suddenly appear in Andor, I realized that this genre shift is entirely consistent with the narrative history of the ‘Star Wars’ storyworld. Andor is set during the Imperial Era, which is a time when the Empire dominants the galaxy and the Jedi have been eradicated (or are in hiding). Andor thus shows us the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy when the magic has been oppressed: the Force is not with us, and neither is the fantasy genre. In what follows, I share some ideas that come from my research on entertainment franchising and then further consider the function of genre in Andor. 

Genre and Franchising: Building the Architexture

Entertainment franchising is not a genre: it is a mode of production, which “is an altogether different category, cutting across careers, genres, and studios” (Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson 1985, xvi). The franchise mode is shaped by an interplay of intellectual property (IP) conditions and multiplied creative development, such that creative and industrial practices must work in concert to produce expansive storyworlds (that can extend across multiple media platforms, but not necessarily). As such, the relationship between genre and the franchise mode is dynamic, contextual, and reflects how creativity and industrial conditions are always in dialogue in contemporary entertainment.

Even though franchising is not a genre, genre plays a critical role within the franchise mode, either as a foundational component of its narrative mythos, or as a device for engaging variation within familiar structures. The dynamic of repetition with variation characterizes both genre and the franchise mode—popular commentary likes to emphasize the repetition, but it is critical to also account for the degrees of variation and difference. As Carolyn Jess-Cooke notes, “in its repetitious re-organisation of familiar features, genre shares much in common with sequelisation” (2009, 52). Sequelization—or serial form more broadly—drives the multiplied creative development of narration in the franchise mode (in my more substantial research on this topic, I conceptualize this as transtextual narration to account for the ongoing multiplication of narrative form). Serial form and genre are both frameworks that shape connections between texts, where serial form relates to the stories told within discrete textual structures and genre classifies stories within bigger architextual narrative systems.

This principle of architextuality can make sense of how genre characterizes the foundational mythos of franchise storyworlds. While it is common to draw on intertextuality to understand connections between texts—both in genre and serial form—architextuality understands a text across its multiplicity and in relation to its function through genre discourses and structures. Drawing from Gérard Genette’s ideas on transtextuality, architextuality accounts for “that relationship of inclusion that links each text to the various types of discourse it belongs to” ([1979] 1992, 82). This relation differs from intertextuality in that, more than denoting a simple co-presence between texts, architextuality relates to connections that function within broader narrational systems, such as genre and serial form.

Applied to the franchise mode, architextuality is a framework that enables the driving force of each franchise supersystem to be assessed based on its own industrial and narrative conditions, forms, genres, and media; in this framework, the architexture of every franchise should be assessed based on its own discourses and systems, as well as within broader historical, creative and industrial contexts. This perhaps explains why it can be common to refer to a franchise as its own genre: it is not that franchising or an individual franchise is a genre, but that franchises develop their own dynamic and transformative architextual system akin to genre. It is this sense of architexture that seems to underpin screenwriter Lawrence Kasden’s reflections on genre in ‘Star Wars’: “Star Wars is its own genre. It’s not really science fiction. It’s really something on its own, fantasy and myth and science fiction and Flash Gordon and Akira Kurosawa all mixed up together. For that reason, like all genre it can hold a million different kinds of artists an [sic] stories”. I think what Kasden signals here is not necessary the idea that ‘Star Wars’ is its own genre in a literal sense, but that it is its own narrative system—that is, its own architextural system that can sustain multiple stories, genres, histories, media, and audiences.

An understanding of the architextual system of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise must account for the multiplicity of its narration but also its range of allusions to other genres, media, and forms: its genre influences from sword-and-sandal adventure, soap opera, science fiction, Westerns, and samurai; its intertextual references to Flash Gordon (1936), Kings Row (1942), The Dam Busters (1955), The Searchers (1956), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Yojimbo (1961) (figure 4); and media influences, including film serials and afternoon matinees, pulp magazines, comic books, and literary epics. In 1977, Roger Copeland published an article in The New York Times titled, “When Films ‘Quote’ Films, They Create a New Mythology”. According to Copeland, Star Wars (1977) is shaped by references to such a wide range of other different movies, genres, and stories that it could have been called “Genre Wars”. Historically, genre variation in the ‘Star Wars’ franchise has not occurred discretely between installments—for example, the ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ is of the superhero genre but also draws from different genres for variation between installment, such as political thriller, comedy, and the teen genre—but genre variation and multiplicity is integrated in the architextuality of the franchise. Perhaps the ‘war’ in the ‘Star Wars’ franchise has always been about negotiating this genre multiplicity at its core. 

figure 4: ‘star wars’ influences, L-R, Flash Gordon (1936), Kings Row (1942), The Dam Busters (1955), The Searchers (1956), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Yojimbo (1961)

Andor: A Genre Wars Story

Following on from Copeland’s suggestion that Star Wars could have been called ‘Genre Wars,’ Andor depicts a retreat of fantasy’s power during this time in the galaxy’s history (BBY5–BBY1). A few elements stand out that signal this retreat of fantasy in Andor: depiction of the workings of the Empire’s intelligence organization, the Imperial Security Bureau (its magical Emperor is mentioned but never seen); the brutality of Imperial occupation and the suppression of planetary cultures to control mineral resources; the mounting threat of a weapon of mass destruction (we know this as the Death Star); views into private and domestic intimacy, conflict, and trauma between characters; false detainment in a labor prison factory with no release; and depictions of torture, assault, execution, and massacres. In this way, Andor is a science fiction political drama because of the oppression of the Force, and thus the fantasy genre. While Andor has been critically well-received—affirmed by its Emmy nominations—not all ‘Star Wars’ fans and pop culture commentators have embraced its genre shifts. A basic survey of online fan discourse reveals a strong resistance to the science fiction and drama leanings in Andor (figure 5).

 

figure 5: online fan responses to Andor

 

This discourse reinforces the important role that genre plays in audience engagement with media. While Andor might have found a place within more prestigious areas of screen culture and attracted nominations in more respected award categories (beyond the usual visual effects nomination), some subsets of its fan audience have struggled to accept this shift. I can relate. I usually watch new ‘Star Wars’ episodes instantly upon release, but when I read that the third episode of season two (called “Harvest”) involved a scene of attempted sexual violence, I hesitated (remember how I was anxious about Earth making an appearance?). Audiences connect with genres for various reasons, and ‘Star Wars’ has built an audience around a particular architextuality that is distanced from everyday reality. We might not always be cognizant of what draws us to franchise architexture until the space wizards, laser swords, and the Chosen One are replaced by a political dystopia of firing squad executions, sexual violence, and on-screen massacres. 

The audiovisual style of Andor also strongly embraces the qualities and techniques of realism, including a gritty aesthetic, longer takes (a notable example is in the season 2 opening episode, “One Year Later”), medium wide shots to position characters within (often cluttered and crammed) spaces, and a preference for mostly physical sets and locations (enhanced and extended using visual effects). In an interview with SlashFilm, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy describes the series as being “in the kitchen and not in the restaurant”. In its straightforward meaning, Gilroy perhaps notes how the series reveals the operational workings of the people behind the dominating empire and the burgeoning rebellion. Curiously, this word choice also highlights Andor’s association with stylistic histories of realism, such as kitchen sink realism and social realism, which depicted the everyday life of angry youth living in cramped domestic spaces and commented on social and political issues. And, while Gilroy certainly does not mean that the show is literally about kitchens, kitchens do play a big role in shaping the domestic materiality of everyday life in Andor, with compelling similarity to the aesthetic associated with the art of kitchen sink realism (figures 6.1-6.4).

figure 6.1: Andor (“that would be me”, Season 1)

figure 6.2: Andor (“that would be me”, Season 1)

figure 6.3: Kitchen (John Bratby, 1965) – key artist and work in the kitchen sink realism movement

figure 6.4: Kitchen II (John Bratby, 1966) – key artist and work in the kitchen sink realism movement

Despite this apparent shift in genre and style, Andor is consistence with the ‘Star Wars’ architexture. For decades, audiences have invested in a storyworld built around the defeat of an villainous Galactic Empire, and so it would seem misguided to now claim that any depiction of this storyworld under its control is somehow ‘not Star Wars’—that it to ask, what were we really expecting the Galaxy to be like during this time, if not a science fiction dystopia with political terror? Anything less would not justify the heroism celebrated at the end of Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi (1983) (figure 7).

It is with this mention of the Empire’s defeat by the Rebel Alliance in Return of the Jedi—and later again the defeat of the First Order by the Resistance in The Rise of Skywalker (2019)—that leads to a critical dimension that recontextualizes this ‘genre war’ in Andor: we already know where this story leads, and it is hopeful. As a midquel story (set between two already existing works) that precedes Rogue One (2016) and Episode IV —A New Hope (1977), there is always consolation in the knowledge that the Force will return. Andor is filled with terror, tragedy, and the suppression of fantasy, but this is also undercut by the certainty of ‘a new hope’. In The Fantasy Film, Katherine A. Fowkes reminds us that hope is one of the central principles of the fantasy genre (2010, 6). In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien offers the term “eucatastrophe” as the hopeful opposite to the tragedy of drama, whereby “the eucatastrophe tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function” ([1947] 2014, 75). Even though Andor rarely depicts hopeful moments (if any) and is not a ‘eucatastrophe tale,’ it is always-already positioned within a storyworld history with hope at its centre. As the final episodes of season two lead closer to the events of Rogue One—and thus straight into the beginning of A New Hope—every moment of known tragedy and sacrifice is also tinged by the knowledge of the hope that is to come (figure 8).

While the genre war between fantasy and science fiction that unpins ‘Star Wars’ might too-easily come down to a battle between space magic and dystopian politics, the ‘Star Wars’ franchise (like rebellions) will always be built on hope, no matter what genre variations might come.

 

figure 7: celebrating the defeat of the empire in Return of the jedi (1983)

figure 8: promise of hope at the end of rogue one (2016)

  References

Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger and Thompson. 1985. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960. Routledge.

Fowkes, Katherine A. 2010. The Fantasy Film. Wiley-Blackwell.

Genette, Gérard. (1979) 1992. The Architext: An Introduction. Translated by Jane E. Lewin. University of California Press. Originally published as Introduction à l’architexte.  Éditions du Seuil.

Gordon, Andrew. 1978. “Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time.” Literature/Film Quarterly 6(4).

Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. 2009. Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh University Press.

Lucas, George. 1997. Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Ballantine Books.

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1947) 2014. On Fairy-Stories. HarperCollinsPublishers.

Westfahl, Gary. 2003. “Space Opera.” In The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn. Cambridge University Press.

Wright, Jonathan. 2018. “The Fantasy of Star Wars: Reconsidering Genre in Hollywood’s Biggest Space Movie.” Film Matters 9(1):125 – 131.

Online material referenced via in-text hyperlinks.

Biography

Tara Lomax is the Discipline Lead of Screen Studies in the Master of Arts Screen program at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She has expertise in blockbuster franchising, multiplatform storytelling, and contemporary Hollywood entertainment and has a PhD in screen studies from The University of Melbourne. She has published on topics such as the superhero genre, franchising, licensing, transmedia storytelling, storyworld building, and digital effects. Her work can be found in publications that include JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies and Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and the book collections The Screens of Virtual Production (2025), Starring Tom Cruise (2021), The Supervillain Reader (2020), The Superhero Symbol (2020), The Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production (2019), and Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling (2017). Her research portfolio is available at Assembled Illusions. She is a member of the executive committee of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (SSAAANZ) and she is also an associate editor of Pop Junctions.