What Does It Really Take to Build a Rebellion?

What does it really take to build a rebellion? . . . That’s the question posed by Kapil of Show Me the Meaning, a podcast dedicated to "exploring what great TV has to say about our lives," in his beautifully-crafted video that focuses on the second (and final) season of the Star Wars show Andor.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I can think of no other contemporary TV series than Andor that captures the political zeitgeist we’re living through, one dominated by the rise of fascism in the U.S. Streaming on the Disney+ platform, Andor is a prequel to the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which in turn serves as a prequel to the events of Star Wars: A New Hope (1977).

Among other things, Andor contends that resistance to and rebellions against fascism, authoritarianism, and empire are built on hope. But is that enough? . . . Are there other factors that intentionallr or not, come into play? Realies such as loss and reckoning; formative leadership; moral complexity and contradictions; blind luck; community; sacrifice.

What does it really take to build a rebellion? And what are the long-term consequences of the various factors involved in what it takes?

These are the hard, unsettling questions explored by Kapil in his 12-minute video commentary below.





Related Off-site Links:
The Dark Side of Hope: How Andor Brings Star Wars Into the 2020s – Show Me The Meaning (January 4, 2025).
The Side of Andor That Nobody Talks About – Epic Sell (August 24, 2025).
Tony Gilroy on What Andor Says About Trump’s Fragile Authoritarian Regime – Lovett or Leave It (August 24, 2025).
How Andor Mirrored Israel’s Genocide – Jessie Gender After Dark (June 17, 2025).
How Not to Be Fascist According to Andor (and Jesus) – Bryan Jarrell (Mockingbird, May 20, 2025).


For more of Andor at The Wild Reed, see:
• Welcome to the Rebellion
• Andor’s Depiction of the Rise of Fascism: Not Predictive But Reflective
• Andor: “A Magnum Opus of Anti-Imperialist Art”
• The Revolution Will Be Televised
• Andor: The Star Wars Franchise’s “First Piece of Universally Excellent Television”
• The Brilliance of Andor
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• How Empires Are Built and Rebellions Are Born
• Andor Season One Recap
• The Reckoning Is Here


See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Dispatches from Occupied Minnesota
• Omar Fateh: “Folks Are Waking Up”
• “It Was Murder”: 12 Powerful Responses to the Death of Renée Nicole Good
• A “Red Alert Moment for American Democracy”
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
• Chris Hedges: “Most Revolutions Succeed Not Through Violence But Through National Strikes”
• Jason Duchin: “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• “He Is Enacting an Authoritarian Agenda”: Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• Robert Reich: “This Is Fascism”
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• “This Is How Democracy Unravels”