More Andor praise from the Honest Trailers guy.
Andor fans have their issues with how some of them tend to just blur the line between fiction and reality who act like Luke and Han were glory stealing douchebags (despite the fact that even in a political context, the fact these new recruits that previously had sympathies for the Empire would make great recruitment mascots for the Rebels)
What's even worse is that they spread this idea of moral compromises being OK because it's for a good cause. Killing your own allies, sacrificing the lives of innocent people, even pushing people to fight, knowing they will lose, just so you can have a byline to use against the Empire. That is the EXACT SAME TRAP Anakin fell into during the Clone Wars. And it's the very same principle that moved the Empire as a whole to commit their atrocities. Doing evil things for a greater good was the source of a lot of pain in the films.
I mean, imagine ROTS from Anakin's POV: "Sure, a few greedy businessmen and some deluded mystics die, and some of the latter are kids, which is bad, but at least I'll finally bring peace and order to the galaxy, and my wife and our kid will be OK. Our dear child, as well as the countless trillions of children of other beings, will wake up to a peaceful, orderly galaxy, all because of me."
The same thing goes for Tarkin in ANH. "Sure, the Empire will lose a ton of political capital, and if there's any Alderaanians off-planet, they'll be moved to rebel, but I know for a fact that Alderaan is a Rebel base because its senator was a rebel spy, and instead of losing millions of men taking the planet by having another big battle like Geonosis, I can use my superlaser to wipe them out and cow other worlds to compliance, forcing them to not go up against the Empire, thereby ensuring galactic peace and saving more lives than we can count."
Even fucking Palpatine can justify everything he does as Emperor in the name of galactic peace. "Sure, some corrupt businessmen, deluded mystics, and some worlds and groups led by stupid rebels will die, but my Empire will provide peace and plenty for God knows how many millions of worlds and star systems, and that's obviously worth all the evil things I'll have to do to maintain order."
These men were at the top of the fascist pyramid that the "heroes" of Andor were trying to overthrow. And yet, the hearts of the latter were so filled with blinding hatred that they couldn't see how their own ideas of compromising morality for the greater good is EXACTLY the very same thing driving their Imperial foes to do what they do.
Of course the Empire wouldn't let the people of Ferrix riot, because other malefactors might take that as a sign of weakness if they allow these people defy the Emperor's peace. So they have to put them down. Of course, they have to jackhammer Ghorman for the Kalkite ore, because once the Death Star is finished, no one would dare defy the Emperor, and there will be peace for the galaxy. Of course they had to put the prisoners on permanent shifts, because that Death Star won't build itself, and these guys are probably scum anyways.
When Dedra confronts Luthen in the latter's antique shop, she's disgusted by the fact that a man who lives under the peace and security of the Empire is sabotaging it. In the eyes of every Imperial, from the lower-ranking chumps like Dedra to the Emperor himself, that Imperial peace is bought by the everyday moral and material sacrifices the Empire makes to ensure said peace, hence why someone who hides within that peace while trying to sabotage it fills someone like Dedra with disgust to the core. Just like the Rebels in Andor, the Empire believes that the evil things they do will lead to a better tomorrow.
Yet, we see in canon that the Empire was more correct than the Rebels. People like Luthen admit that if they don't do anything against the Empire, the Empire will keep on going unchallenged, whereas the New Republic that the Rebels create was a sorry mess that even pirates and outer-rim yokels don't respect. More people signed on to serve the Empire than the New Republic, to the point where you even have common dockworkers during the New Republic's reign shout "FOR THE EMPIRE!" before taking a suicidal potshot at a Jedi and a Republic General. People cheered for the Empire, even on alien worlds like Pantora. Even the Empire's remnants were capable of wonders, such as building Snoke the largest non-Death-Star flagship in galactic history, or building a superlaser shotgun onto a planet, or building a thousand Star Destroyers that each have enough power to explode a planet. Hell, they even built a hyperspace ring that allows a vessel to cross into another galaxy.
Meanwhile, the NR is so short on manpower that they can't even patrol their systems properly, (an area that would be patrolled by several light cruisers or ISDs are now patrolled by a few X-Wings) while their prison guards and shrinks are all robots. Orson Krennic described the Rebels as "Lawless Ineptitude", and despite the fact that Gilroy wrote that line to be wrong, the rest of SW canon proved Krennic to be right; he was a prophet when it came to what the Rebels would lead the galaxy to. Especially when the person he argued with, Mon Mothma, proved herself to be a bad leader who disarmed the New Republic way too early. They have to rely on hot dogs like Hera who break the rules, or mercenaries like the Mandalorians, to ensure order. The Empire's people committed moral compromises and created something powerful, whereas the Rebels committed moral compromises and created a shit government, making the latter into horrible losers.
What was so beautiful about the Rebellion in the OT films, especially with Luke, was that they didn't sacrifice their souls. The Jedi and the Republic sacrificed morality for the sake of not rocking the boat. They gave Palpatine emergency powers so he can deal with that Separatist shit, and they paid for it during Order 66. The Separatists sacrificed morality for the sake of their capitalist revolution against what they saw as a corrupt Republic, allowing murderers like Grievous to lead their war effort so long as they won in the end. The Empire and the Sith obviously sold their souls for power. Every other faction aside from the Rebellion in the OT/PT compromised themselves, morally and spiritually, to gain an advantage or more power that they thought would be worth it. And it didn't work out for any of them. At the end of the Battle of Endor, they're all dead.
The Rebels alone refused to compromise their morals; with Luke, being more of an Alliance man than a Jedi, telling the Jedi to get fucked when Yoda told him that he should let his friends die to complete his training in ESB. He repeated that mantra in ROTJ when Kenobi and Yoda tried to get him to accept that he has to kill his dad, and instead, he saves his dad, which leads to the Emperor's demise, the Empire's collapse into civil war, and the Rebellion's victory on Endor.
Taken together, if you only count the films, the Rebels come out on top as the only faction surviving, because they were the only ones not to compromise their ideals or sell their souls. The Jedi are dead. The Sith are dead. The Separatists, Republic, and Empire are dead. There's only the plucky, idealistic Rebels and their last remaining Jedi who told the other Jedi to get fucked when they told him to detach and let his friends/father die. Sticking to the moral high ground, far from being a hindrance, SAVED the Alliance and allowed them to win in the end.
What did we learn from those six movies? That walking the high road definitely pays. That the narrow road to redemption and light is the road worth taking; that every other road that leads us to sacrifice our morals or sell our souls for power will just end in disaster, while those who take the long, hard road of compassion and goodness are the ones who win in the end.
Andor takes a big, fat sledgehammer to that, and tells you that the squeaky-clean Rebels were glory-stealing cunts, and that the true "Rebels" who saved the galaxy are backstabbing assholes who have no problems killing their own people for the cause. Filoni's Rebels was already on their way for that, what with his heroes committing terrorist acts and using the populace as a smokescreen, and his Jedi using fake surrenders to get away with things. Gilroy's Andor just took the logical next step and added Game of Thrones-style plotting and backstabbing to complete the Rebellion's transformation from political ideologues to bona-fide terrorists. Now, they truly are the Vietcong analogues Lucas mentioned they were.
I fear for the world when they can't even see this obvious thing. The fact that Andor's rebel heroes, well-loved by the modern crowd, are willing to make moral sacrifices make them no better than Tarkin, Palpatine, or Vader; even when they say it's OK because they're fighting for freedom, which puts them in the right, well, I'm sure the Empire thought they were in the right, too, because they also thought their side was the side of freedom. And if you look at the films AND the modern TV shows, more Senators voted for Palpatine, and more people volunteered for his cause, meaning that his cause IS the true Space Democracy when he has the lion's share of votes in the Senate, and his entire army, larger than any other organic, non-droid army in the series, is filled with citizen-soldier volunteers who freely came because they chose to be loyal to the system-even after it fucking falls.
So, instead of a war between a side that sold its soul and a side that refused to sell out its convictions, now, the Galactic Civil War is the war between the backstabbing cunts who don't know what the fuck they're going to do once they win, and the backstabbing cunt who at least knew what he was doing. And the latter had more people voting and volunteering for his side, not to mention the better drip, better numbers, better ships, etc..
Even after they blew up Aldeeran, that massive citizen-army stuck around. Even after the Emperor died, people were still willing to die for him. You couldn't get that kind of dedication for the Rebel Alliance/New Republic from most of the commonfolk, just the people specifically screwed over by the Empire and some rich twats. And the Empire's people/voters outnumber the Alliance's. And now, they removed the one thing that made the Alliance morally correct.
God help us if this is how people view politics in science fiction now. I know I've don a lot of pro-Imperial larping, but at this point, it scares me when I'm right.