The final episodes of Andor Season 2 no doubt will lead many to rewatch Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, because Andor adds so much meaning and context to its 2016 predecessor. Rogue One’s story begins a matter of days after Andor S2 concludes. Those in full completist binge mode may then feel compelled to watch Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (a.k.a. The First One), because its story starts about five minutes after the end of Rogue One.

Star Wars: The First One From 1977 also brings to completion a whole mess of things brought up in Andor that we didn’t realize were important at the time. The genius concept of Episode IV has always been: it starts in the middle of the story, but it’s the first one, and somehow it’s perfect that way.

One aspect that gains new clarity upon revisiting Rogue One and A New Hope is: It was really a good thing that the Space Guerrilla Fighters met some Space Asian Philosophers at that exact point in their journey.

I’ll elaborate, because it’s Asian American / Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander Heritage Month, so, allowed an indulgence, perhaps we are, hrrm?

The new perspectives we gain from Andor S2 let us see, in a way never really done before in Star Wars, the mental state of the Rebels right before they start the main mission of Rogue One, especially for Cassian Andor and Mon Mothma.

Think about all they just went through to get to Yavin. The sterile prison camps, the cold Coruscantian corridors, the Bourne-esque metallic relentlessness of their Imperial pursuers.

At the risk of getting woo-woo, think about how far Cassian and crew must feel from spirituality at this juncture. Their struggle with the Empire is crushingly procedural, unforgiving of innocence. Their lives are all adrenaline and rules, fears and tactics. Their belief in any ritual or comforting past or indeed, a moral code, broken by their own choices. Planets and people are merely resources to be consumed to make the metal moon (or the Rebel base). Group meals at the guerrilla summer camp notwithstanding, they probably feel a bit adrift from any kind of faith.*

So in that sense, upon rewatching Rogue One with fresh eyes, how much more powerful the chance meeting at Jedha City becomes. It’s at this point that the blind Zen master enters their lives. At this point, the story shifts toward space samurai discovering telekinesis. It makes MORE sense this way — because after watching Andor, we finally understand how they arrived on Yavin with nothing left to lose, and no Ferrix left to give.

This isn’t about finding religion per se. When pressed upon by stressed-out times, we often reach out for something beyond the material. It could be religion. It could be a familiar ritual. It could be the Force. It could be dancing at your daughter’s wedding.

And this may sound weird, but arriving at this reading of Andor made me proud to be Asian American.

(Asians in America also share the Rebel Alliance problem that there are a lot of diverse groups and we don’t always agree to be under the same umbrella, or that there even is an umbrella, hence our unwieldy month name. For purposes of this discussion, I’ll posit that there’s an Asians in America Umbrella.)

One of the common griefs we get as Asians is being treated as sort of emotionless automatons, more Vulcan than human. Arguably, more than any socioeconomic issue, our biggest collective struggle lies in being eternally othered, being seen as a something without a soul. We’re historically and recurrently pigeonholed as spies, disease carriers, tech geeks.

Star Wars draws from the soulful parts of East Asian and Middle Eastern language and philosophy, and via a benign form of cultural exchange, produces this thing that is as deeply felt as the Kurosawa films it emulates. Because the central idea is STILL that the holistic Force will prevail over all this “crude matter.” And the Force is the Dao 道, or qi 氣, duh. Or whichever word meaning “interconnective life force” you choose to use from Asian traditions.

Star Wars always had the Eastern stuff, East Asian/Middle Eastern/North African stuff adopted (in classic Orientalist fashion) and purposed towards making the far-far-away galaxy we know and love. I won’t go into the whole thing here, it’s most obviously apparent in the naming of significant characters with East Asian phonemes: Han Solo, Kylo Ren, Obi-Wan, Rey, Jyn Erso, et al.

In Rogue One, the Asian stuff is finally given voice and face when we meet Chirrut and Baze. In A New Hope, Asians are present, thematically, spiritually, iconographically…. they’re just not literally there. This is true of many (old-school) stories which involve the “gaining-Eastern-wisdom” trope, cf. Iron Fist, Dune.

Chirrut’s mantra, “The Force is with me and I am with the Force,” perhaps that seemed borderline corny at the time. Rewatching Rogue One after experiencing Andor S2, the arrival of the Force into the cynical spy’s mission felt exponentially more powerful. Faced with mounting insurmountables, Cassian and Jyn gain from their new friends the belief that they will “find a way to find a way” and indeed, that “someone’s out there.”*

So Rogue One, which was a pretty good movie when it came out, gains new meaning from its prequel, and becomes the reparative turning point in the middle of a reframed trilogy (Andor-Rogue One-A New Hope).

I don’t make this argument for the sake of having a take. I happen to think that Andor actually just saved Star Wars. Or rather, expanded it.

Part of the current problem with Star Wars fandom is, for many, the Original Trilogy was The Best Thing That Ever Happened (On A Screen), and the official prequels/sequels starting around 1999 haven’t fully recaptured that feeling of being The Best Thing, and plus we’re older and wrestling with adulting stuff, and some part of you goes, “Well, maybe my Best Thing That Ever Happened wasn’t really even A Thing.”

And that’s been really contentious and difficult for a while. But now there’s Andor.

The last trilogy of Andor S2 episodes may’ve reclaimed The Best Thing Ever Happened title. The new thing is, it’s the first Best Thing that both surpasses and augments a prior Best Thing. It’s a very good show on its own. If you are blessed or burdened with Star Wars lore nerd knowledge, it makes Rogue One and A New Hope so much richer. It’s like a new translation of a sacred text. Better yet, it’s when you learn the reason for the old superstitions.

There was grownup wisdom in those kid things all along.*

*(a.k.a. “hope”)