I Love It When Cassian’s Blaster Does the Factor

There’s a lot to like in Andor. It’s a dense present, a giant present, one that’s full of fascinatingly layered characters price diving deep into, twisting plotlines that maintain a mirror as much as our world and the galaxy far, distant alike. It’s a present that, regardless of a sure fame in distinction to different Star Wars tales, is full of little nods to the franchise’s history old and new.

However proper now, a minimum of in our second of curiosity, it’s a present the place Cassian Andor’s blaster pistol goes vuh-weeeeee.

Similar to Andor extra broadly, there’s additionally rather a lot to like about Cassian’s blaster pistol. It’s a MW-20 Bryar pistol, itself a kind of aforementioned little nods: the design is closely impressed by the legendary Okay-16 Bryar pistol wielded by Kyle Katarn within the Star Wars online game collection Dark Forces, a personality with intriguing parallels to Cassian even past the latter partially subsuming the role of the former in fashionable continuity.

It’s a handsome gun design even past that legacy, only a flat wedge of weaponry with a deal with hooked up—totally different sufficient to Han’s iconic DL-44 however in that kind of vein, that glorious Star Wars mixture of trying simply askance to a real-world gun however with a greebled, sci-fi layer. It additionally does slightly flippy-thing with the physique of the blaster that’s very cool, which brings us to that sound.

The vuh-weeeeee is what accompanies that spinning of principal part of the blaster, and in a franchise simply bursting with incredible sound design, it’s possibly one in all Andor‘s greatest additions to the auditory canon. It’s delicate, however pointed, a layer of Cassian’s intimidation at any time when he pulls the pistol out to level at somebody. Star Wars weapons don’t want cocking or reloading like some precise weapons do; a blaster bolt is superheated fuel condensed right into a shard of pure power. Possibly that’s the fuel being primed, possibly the chamber is re-filling the circulate of tibanna able to be charged up and fired. Actually I don’t actually care to know, as a result of whereas the inner mechanics of a MW-20 Bryar blaster pistol could be cool, however they’re sort of not the purpose.

The vuh-weeeeee serves as an analogous auditory clue to each the viewers and the characters round Cassian that he’s able to pop off at a second’s discover. There’s an precise mechanical ka-chunk noise too, presumably of that spinning part locking again into place on the blaster, however it’s the vuh-weeeeee that actually sticks in your ear, this high-pitched little whine. In Andor Cassian is the sort of man who not often pulls out a blaster pistol to not use it: from Skeen to Cloris, when the bryar’s damaged out, he means enterprise. You hear that ka-chunk, because it settles right into a vuh-weeeeee, and you recognize Cassian’s good to go, and that anyone’s most likely about to get a bolt put by them.

This excessive strung, intense little noise isn’t in contrast to the wielder of the weapon that makes it. In any case, what’s Cassian Andor if not a primed bolt of pure power, able to go off at a second’s discover, able to be aimed within the path of one thing and fired at it for max impact? All it takes is a ka-chunk, then a vuh-weeeeee, and he’s able to burn a gap by the buildings of energy he’s rebelling towards.

Maybe all that’s true. However possibly it’s additionally simply true that vuh-weeeeee sounds cool as hell, and in a present already bursting with so many concepts and particulars, on the finish of the day, you additionally simply want a bunch of cool spacey noises. Andor is all that character work, all that symbolism and commentary, however it’s additionally the vuh-weeeeee. And it wouldn’t fairly be Star Wars if it wasn’t each.

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