I just love the GUTS that this series has. It says "haven't you had enough of the Fantasy? What if we dropped that element entirely and showed you the Star Wars universe without it?"
The same place, but with no magical farmboy to come along and save the day. If you want salvation, you'll have to claw and weasel and hide and connive for every inch of it. A whole storyline about tracing inventory sheets of warehouse parts. A whole subplot about how to get funding for arms, and then how to transport those arms to actual guerillas.
These are the bones of a revolution. Not petty family drama, laser swords, and magical forest creatures. I mean, I love old Star Wars, but there are strong elements of pitching it to a child's understanding of what fighting an evil empire is. From the very beginning, long before teddy bears, the movies were simplistic. That's part of the charm, but also part of what makes them easy for adults to roll their eyes at.
Andor is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's The Americans. It's The Sympathizer. There are a hundred moments of Show-Don't-Tell in every episode, lettting you see all the thoughts in the characters' heads, all the tension building for the options they're weighing, knowing that one bad choice will start the snowball that leads to their deaths... this is frankly a series that's far more intricate and subtle than anything Star Wars fans have ever gotten. There are no grandiose speeches, no opera in this space story...
To take Star Wars and tell stories of espionage, of intrigue, to try a thriller and a drama rather than something accessible to a 6-year old? That takes GUTS.