6 Things This Incredible 'Andor' Scene Can Teach Writers

Scene analysis is an invaluable exercise no matter what role you play on a project—you can learn about performance, directing, cinematography, sound, and more, just by diving deep into how a team approaches important story moments.

If it's Star Wars and writing, all the better for someone like me, who's a fan of both. Readers probably don't need me to proselytize again about how good Tony Gilroy's Andor is. It's dark, complicated, and more prescient than ever.

A popular moment from the series is Luthen Rael's (Stellan Skarsgard) monologue near the end of Season 1, in which he externalizes all his reasons for fighting in the face of certain death, offering hope to a mole he has on the inside of the Imperial forces.

Check out the scene below.

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I mean, seriously. Chills, every time.

I was poking around YouTube and stumbled on a video from Olivia Grace Cook analyzing the scene's screenwriting and everything writers can take away from it. It's worth your time if you're working on your own scripts... or just a fan of Star Wars.

She examines how the scene works, pulling apart the techniques that make it effective and what writers can learn.

Watch her analysis here.

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Using the Physical Space

The scene opens with Lonni Jung (Robert Emms) riding an elevator to meet a then-unidentified informant. When Luthen's voice comes through a hidden earpiece and mentions Lonni's newborn daughter, the scene immediately shifts.

"The elevator is jarred as Luthen says this, and Lonni has to grab for support," Cook says.

He’s paranoid. We can see his internal state via his actions.

Use a scene’s external situation to mirror what's happening internally. Lonni's trapped in a claustrophobic elevator talking to an unseen stranger’s voice, which perfectly reflects his larger position as a spy trapped in the ISB.

How does your character interact with their space? Do they move with confidence or nervousness? What things do they notice or overlook? You’re sharing a lot by using their choices.

As a filmmaker, you can use this to convey character psychology without relying on exposition or voiceover. Find a physical setting that represents your character's emotional state, then let the audience make the connection.

Telling a Story Using Visuals

When the elevator doors open, and the two characters see each other, Cook emphasizes how much the work blocking does.

"You could turn the audio off in the scene and watch the entire thing through, and you would still know exactly what's going on purely based off the framing and the shot composition," she says.

Luthen appears as a centered silhouette on a narrow walkway, wearing a flowing cape, an intentional visual echo of iconic Star Wars imagery, such as Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes Back. From Lonni's perspective, this is Axis, the mastermind the ISB is hunting. He doesn’t see Luthen, an old man.

The reverse angle shows Lonni small and enclosed, surrounded by negative space but backlit by the elevator's eerie glow. Luthen moves closer in subsequent shots, dominating the foreground. The visuals give us the power dynamic.

If you're writing a screenplay, you don't want to direct from the page with specific shot descriptions. But you can absolutely suggest the spatial relationships and power dynamics through action lines.

Don’t write, "Luthen stands in a wide shot, backlit by a blue LED tube light.” Ew. That takes you right out of the story. Instead, you might write something like, "Luthen waits at the end of the walkway, still and in darkness."

You're giving essential information, like Luthen's position and his stillness (which suggests control), without prescribing camera angles or lighting. The visual storytelling is baked into the description.

For the reverse, showing Lonni trapped: "Lonni in the elevator, wan in fluorescent light. The walls close and uncomfortable."

You're describing what we would see, but you're also directing the reader's (and eventually the viewer's) attention to the contrast. One character is confined, the other is in the open. One character bathed in artificial light, the other hidden in shadow.

Andor Credit: Lucasfilm

Use a Building Motif

Cook catches something specific in the monologue that's easy to miss.

When Luthen says, "I've made my mind a sunless space,” that word choice is striking.

"'Sunless' is so specific," Cook says. She adds, "Not only has it got that lovely alliteration, sunless space , but sunless implies the absence of a sun."

Luthen lives and works in the shadows, leading a dangerous double life that could end at any moment. He has to be as cold and calculating as the Empire, making choices a normal person never would. That’s the deep complexity of this show—its heroes are not purely good. They murder and destroy in the name of their mission, too.

The payoff comes when Luthen says, "I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see.”

The progression from sunless to sunrise creates an arc within the monologue itself—from despair to hope, from darkness to light, even though Luthen acknowledges he won't live to see that light.

This kind of internal consistency in dialogue takes effort and practice. You're building layers that reward close attention without being obvious about it.

Blocking as Character Arc

Cook also notes that Lonni's physical movement (or lack thereof) throughout the scene represents his entire emotional journey. He rides up in the elevator, confronts Luthen while trapped inside, glimpses the vastness of the rebellion taking shape, then gets shut back in the elevator to descend.

"At the end of the scene, Luthan shuts the door on him, getting the literal last word," Cook says. "Lonni is trapped back in the elevator just as he's trapped back in the ISB, but this time hopefully with a newfound vision and courage."

Lonni physically goes nowhere (he starts in an elevator and ends in an elevator), but he's changed by what happens in between.

That's a narrative arc in four minutes. When you’re writing a scene, you want to be able to point to what has changed. That means your story is moving forward in a compelling way.

Advice You Can Use

Cook points to two major takeaways.

"Good dialogue is subtraction. Subtracting until you find the words that are going to have the most emotional impact for the scene.”

This means trusting your audience to understand what's not being said (subtext, baby) and to read meaning into the visuals, scene structure, and circumstances. Audiences engage more deeply when they draw out nuance themselves rather than having it delivered directly.

I read a friend’s script recently that I loved, and this was one thing I really noticed. It was a longer draft, but read quickly because the dialogue was so punchy and the action was so economically described. I still got everything I needed, but I got it quicker. It really inspired me to do the same on a draft I’m currently working on.

The other piece of advice we get from this scene is to use external elements to convey internal states.

Setting, blocking, lighting, and visual staging can all communicate emotion without dialogue. Andor does this consistently throughout the series, showing characters acting out on a small scale what's happening on the larger scale of the galaxy-wide narrative.

The scene is simple but doesn’t lack impact, which is why it’s become so famous to fans of the show. Every shot choice, every line of dialogue, every movement serves multiple purposes. Nothing's wasted.

Screenwriters, Be Inspired

Cook's analysis highlights the craft that goes into scenes that feel effortless on screen. Andor ’s writers and directors made specific choices here. It adds up to something that feels important, real, and layered.

Think about how every element of your scene can work together. What can you, as a writer, include about the setting and positioning of characters to share something about how they work? What words do your characters use that betray a deeper emotional truth?

Check out all the other things we learned from Andor ’s writing.