Give Star Wars Resistance a try if you haven't! It's Andor for kids

Star Wars Resistance is a series that I am passionate about and always ready to defend. However, it's very much the dark horse of the franchise, often forgotten in the run of other shows. Now that it's been out for a few years, I think it's a good time to look at it again, discuss how it's the most unlucky of the Star Wars series, and why you should try it if you haven't. That's because Star Wars Resistance is Andor for kids!

Resistance's Unlucky Run Set the Stage For Star Wars TV After It

When Resistance was first released, some fans gave it a lot of criticism. It was heavily compared to The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. This is a bit of an unfair circumstance because Resistance does not function like its predecessors. It was doing something that Star Wars TV hadn't done up to that point:

It wasn't trying to change the narrative of Star Wars.

The Clone Wars told the story of its titular war, changing the plot of the franchise. It set down how and why Anakin Skywalker slid into the dark side, detailed Palpatine's takeover, and chronicled the downfall of the Republic in its final years. Rebels explored the foundation of the Rebel Alliance from the point of view of one Rebel cell while adding mythos and lore through things like The World Between Worlds.

Resistance doesn't really do this. It functions more like a Star Wars novel. Take something like Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray. It's a one-off adventure with Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Because of the time period it's set in, it cannot change the laid down canon of Star Wars. It's not like it will make it where Qui-Gon suddenly survives, and everything is different going forward. Instead, it's a character study of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's relationship while exploring the changing galaxy around them. This is how Resistance functions, especially because it didn't know where it was going.

Rebels and The Clone Wars were created in completed time periods as the creators knew the beginning, middle, and end of the original and prequel trilogies. Resistance didn't have that luxury. Season 1 premiered before The Last Jedi came out, and the show's second season had to be animated before The Rise of Skywalker was even written. The show's creators had no idea how the sequel trilogy would end.

This is why Resistance functions like a Star Wars novel. It's heavily a world-building and character-exploration series. When it premiered, we hadn't seen this kind of show that didn't try to change canon before in Star Wars. Now, this kind of storytelling is the norm. Resistance broke that mold for shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi, which can't really change the plot much. Instead, it explores the characters' motives, grief, and so on. Resistance also laid the groundwork for the ending of The Bad Batch.

However, Resistance got massively screwed over by its circumstance. Factually, it's the lowest-performing Star Wars show. But you have to look at its context. When Rebels was running, cord-cutting was about 13 million people as people switched from cable to streaming services. When Resistance ran, cord-cutting jumped to 30-45 million during its run, and it ran on a premium channel, Disney XD, which meant not all cable people even got the channel, leading to lower performances. By the time it arrived on Disney+, it had a bad reputation of being a "failure."

It worked in an incomplete narrative era, and at a time when Disney was getting ready to launch Disney+ amid most Americans switching from cable. Resistance was incredibly unlucky. Now, let's talk about the actual show.

Resistance's Broke Barriers for Star Wars

Resistance is historical. There is no denying that. It has the first onscreen queer couple of the franchise, something that Disney has tried to bury. We only know this because a writer threatened to go rogue. The fact is, though, that it made history with Orka and Flix. It's also incredibly diverse in front of and behind the scenes. Most of the voice cast and characters are people of color, which has become more the norm with later series like Andor, Star Wars: Visions, and The Acolyte.

As for the show itself, it was not afraid to try new things. Resistance swung for the fence with different ideas and explored the world in every single episode. Not all of it worked. In fact, much of it fell flat, which is why the show sometimes doesn't resonate with people. But Resistance tried. It tried brand new things, which is far more exciting than a show trying to be too safe. I will always prefer a show that tries new things and fails rather than not trying at all.

This is where Resistance is very much Andor for kids. The plot of Season 1 for both shows is essentially the same. Resistance and Andor are stories of how a fascist organization invades a community. They show how and why it happens. They both explore radicalization. They have scenes of torture, xenophobia, and spies. There are reveals that some First Order stormtroopers look to be brainwashed through a process called brain scraping and are not, in fact, volunteers in this regime. However, Resistance has one thing Andor doesn't.

Resistance's world is full of alien characters, so the series explores racism through this analogy. For example, one episode uses Holocaust imagery where the aliens are rounded up and put in shipping containers to go to work camps, never to be seen again. Unlike Andor, these themes are presented in a way kids can understand.

I will argue that Resistance struggles out of the gate. The first three episodes (to me) are the weakest of the show. It starts getting stronger with episode 4, which explores the social dynamics between the rich and poor people on the Colossus, which is where most of the show is set. These dynamics are a factor in how and why some people are radicalized into the First Order. People are struggling blue-collar workers on this station. The First Order preys on that.

The protagonist, Kazuda "Kaz" Xiono is a rich boy. As the son of a senator, who you can see in Ahsoka, Kaz has never held a job. He thinks the Resistance is a fun social club with Leia Organa and Poe Dameron. When given the task of being a spy on the Colossus, he treats it as more of a game at first. For most of the first season, Kaz lies to people around him about who he is.

That has very real consequences. Kaz learns firsthand that his lying hurts people, leading someone to get radicalized into the enemy. He is from Hosnian Prime, and anyone who has seen The Force Awakens can put together how Kaz learns the true cost of war. That this is not actually a fun thing. He loses people because of his actions, and Daddy isn't there to bail him out. It's fascinating because we really haven't had a rich protagonist like him. The best thing about Kaz, to me, is that despite everything, he never loses his kindness, which is a strength.

Also, with a generation removed from Order 66 and the loss of the Jedi, Resistance does some interesting things with the Force. It's neat to see how the Jedi and Force are talked about years later.

The humor of Resistance isn't for everyone. It's very slapstick-heavy which is something that not everyone likes. It's one of the things that firmly puts the show in more the "For Kids" category. Still, I argue it's a strength. Resistance is fun. It's Fun Star Wars, and you know what? We rarely get Fun Star Wars. Sometimes it's nice just to sit back, laugh, and have a fun little time.

Again, the show isn't for everyone, and it's not trying to be. It's going to try new things, and it doesn't care if people like it or not. It's also nice to see Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie having much more time in their roles. You can hear that Isaac is having the BEST time playing Poe in this show.

If you haven't yet, give Star Wars Resistance a try! Go in with an open mind, know that it had a lot of unlucky circumstances, and maybe you'll have a good time with this little bit of Fun Star Wars.