What don’t get is why people think something like star wars can’t have different tones. It’s a big universe with a big story. Just because the originals were these scifi epics doesn’t mean a different story set in the universe can’t be grounded and dark. Like how 40k can be really goofy and stupid but also really serious and gritty. It depends on the specific story being told within the setting. Not the setting as a whole
Andor is probably the best star wars they’ve done. It has flaws, but it’s so much better than Obi-Wan and Ashoka.
I remember when discussing Rogue One with my mother (who is not a big Star Wars fan), I mentioned that many felt it was out of place in the series, because it was unusually dark. To which my mother opined that the series was always dark.
In discussing it, it… honestly is. We fans sometimes overlook it, because the Original Trilogy is so triumphant in tone and grand in scale, and the Prequel Trilogy is… plagued with other problems… but Star Wars is dark in a way that original fairy tales are dark.
An entire civilization is exterminated in the first half hour.