There is a lot to love in Andor. It is a dense show, a big show, one that is filled with fascinatingly layered characters worth diving deep into, twisting plotlines that hold a mirror up to our world and the galaxy far, far away alike. It’s a show that, in spite of a certain reputation in contrast to other Star Wars stories, is filled with little nods to the franchise’s history old and new.
But right now, at least in our moment of interest, it’s a show where Cassian Andor’s blaster pistol goes vuh-weeeeee.
Just like Andor more broadly, there’s also a lot to love about Cassian’s blaster pistol. It’s a MW-20 Bryar pistol, itself one of those aforementioned little nods: the design is heavily inspired by the legendary K-16 Bryar pistol wielded by Kyle Katarn in the Star Wars video game series Dark Forces, a character with intriguing parallels to Cassian even beyond the latter in part subsuming the role of the former in modern continuity.
It’s a good-looking gun design even beyond that legacy, just a flat wedge of weaponry with a handle attached—different enough to Han’s iconic DL-44 but in that sort of vein, that excellent Star Wars mix of looking just askance to a real-world gun but with a greebled, sci-fi layer. It also does a little flippy-thing with the body of the blaster that’s very cool, which brings us to that sound.
The vuh-weeeeee is what accompanies that spinning of main section of the blaster, and in a franchise just bursting with incredible sound design, it’s maybe one of Andor‘s best additions to the auditory canon. It’s subtle, but pointed, a layer of Cassian’s intimidation whenever he pulls the pistol out to point at someone. Star Wars guns don’t need cocking or reloading like some actual weapons do; a blaster bolt is superheated gas condensed into a shard of pure energy. Maybe that’s the gas being primed, maybe the chamber is re-filling the flow of tibanna ready to be charged up and fired. Honestly I don’t really care to know, because while the internal mechanics of a MW-20 Bryar blaster pistol might be cool, but they’re kind of not the point.
The vuh-weeeeee serves as a similar auditory clue to both the audience and the characters around Cassian that he’s ready to pop off at a moment’s notice. There’s an actual mechanical ka-chunk noise too, presumably of that spinning section locking back into place on the blaster, but it’s the vuh-weeeeee that really sticks in your ear, this high-pitched little whine. In Andor Cassian is the kind of man who rarely pulls out a blaster pistol to not use it: from Skeen to Cloris, when the bryar’s broken out, he means business. You hear that ka-chunk, as it settles into a vuh-weeeeee, and you know Cassian’s good to go, and that somebody’s probably about to get a bolt put through them.
This high strung, intense little noise is not unlike the wielder of the weapon that makes it. After all, what is Cassian Andor if not a primed bolt of pure energy, ready to go off at a moment’s notice, ready to be aimed in the direction of something and fired at it for maximum effect? All it takes is a ka-chunk, then a vuh-weeeeee, and he’s ready to burn a hole through the structures of power he’s rebelling against.
Perhaps all that’s true. But maybe it’s also just true that vuh-weeeeee sounds cool as hell, and in a show already bursting with so many ideas and details, at the end of the day, you also just need a bunch of cool spacey noises. Andor is all that character work, all that symbolism and commentary, but it’s also the vuh-weeeeee. And it wouldn’t quite be Star Wars if it wasn’t both.
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