Hello there
Andor is over. Let’s have a moment of silence.
OK, now that’s out of the way. Andor was the arguably the first appointment viewing in the Star Wars universe since the first season of The Mandalorian. And Andor had the advantage over Mando in that the show “meant something.” In that it inspired plenty of words typed by the Think-Piece Industrial Complex. I don’t say this to mock, believe it or not. I have certainly said repeatedly that the first season of Andor was a grim warning about fascism that we should have heeded. The second season was a grim look at fascism that held the mirror up to current events, and given that Andor season 2 was filmed from November 2022 through February 2025 (interrupted by the SAG-AFTRA Strike of 2023) it almost seems like Tony Gilroy was a Jedi able to see the future.
The finale of Andor inspired a lot of pieces. I linked some last week but there were plenty of good ones that I didn’t. So enjoy a bonus Death Star HR Link-o-Rama, twelve articles about Andor I thought were worth your time. Note, several articles are paywalled. There are various ways around that if you’re so inclined, a simple Google search will help you there.
Andor by the Dozen - Link-o-Rama Roundup
Andor Finale: Creator Tony Gilroy Breaks Down the Star Wars Spy Saga’s Gut-Wrenching Ending
I posted this one in the latest Death Star HR but it’s so good that I thought it was worth posting again and leading off with. Especially for Gilroy’s comments about Kathleen Kennedy. For a certain - very noisy - section of Star Wars “fans,” Kennedy is Emperor Palapatine and Jar Jar Binks rolled into one. The ruiner of Star Wars and by extension, their childhoods and everything they hold dear. She’s also the one, per Gilroy himself, who made Andor happen:
She [Kennedy] has protected the show and protected me and wrangled a team together. When we started challenging Kathy, Kathy just kept saying yes. “Oh, I’m going to put the first scene in a brothel.” “Okay.” “I’m going to have them kill two cops.” “Okay.” “We want the production designer from Chernobyl.” “Okay, good idea.” She backed our play and got everything that we were doing. We’ve been through everything, she and I, on this—all the good and all the bad. There’s no show without her. For all the shit that she takes online, it’s just insane. This show exists because she forced it to happen. What a tough job she has, man.
I’d hope Star Wars fans will cut Kennedy a little more slack going forward, but sadly, I’m not going to hold my breath.
Even these Andor Stars Were Creeped Out by the Series’ Strangest Power Couple
It’s possible that outside of the “epic” scenes like the Ghorman Massacre, Mon Mothma’s speech and escape from Coruscant, and Kleya in the hospital; my favorite scene was the guess who’s coming to dinner with Eedy, Dedra, and Syril. But any scene with Dedra and Syril was great. They were perfect and perfectly awful together. I’d watch eight episodes of Dedra and Sryil just living their lives on Coruscant.
Gilroy and the writers crafted a deep saga with a lot to say about the moral toll of living under an authoritarian regime, a cruel normalcy that is as destructive as any planet-obliterating battle station. Imperial Security Bureau Supervisor Meero and ISB civil servant Karn were always doomed: Their first love was an Empire incapable of loving them back.
I mentioned before how much I enjoyed watching the interviews of Denise Gough and Kyle Soller. They clearly had fun together and fun exploring just how weird and damaged their characters were.
‘Andor’ Star Elizabeth Dulau Talks Kleya’s Necessary Choice and Being a Key Domino in Star Wars Lore
It is crazy that playing Kleya was Dulau’s first acting job after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She was fantastic the whole series but she just absolutely killed it (pun intended) in the hospital scene.
“It’s not lost on me that Tony Gilroy has literally written me into Star Wars history that dates back to the ‘70s. My mom and dad queued up at midnight to watch A New Hope,” Dulau shares. “And knowing that they’re going to see my small part in that chain of events that leads to those stories, I’m just so grateful that Tony would hand me that domino. I really didn’t want to fuck it up. I really wanted to do justice to this opportunity that he’s given me.”
I would love to see Kleya pop up again in some form, be it a book or something along those lines.
‘Before Anyone Else Defines It, I’m Going to Define It’
Tony Gilroy exposes the “glamorous” side of making a Star Wars project.
You would be so happy to know how many meetings there were on that stupid dog. I think I approved three different dogs. Like, “Yeah, that dog is fine for me.” “Okay, that dog is also fine for me.” Then people kept raising their hand: “I think it looks like a raccoon.” “I don’t like this dog.”
On the one hand, do you need to name an alien-dog that appears for 1 second, if that? Probably not. But that’s the level of dedication they had for Andor and it shows.
‘Andor’ Creator Explains Why Andy Serkis and Cassian’s Sister Never Returned
James Brown would say “kill ‘em and leave.” Go out on top. That’s what Andor did with Kino Loy.
“Andy dropped the mic, man,” Gilroy explained. “What am I going to do that’s going to be better than what we did? All it does is minimize that moment. I knew a lot of people were talking about whether we had a way of [bringing him back]. But I didn’t want to have that sort of coincidental environment.”
Benjamin Bratt weighs in on playing Bail Organa again after Andor
In response to a question about how if he felt nervous taking over the character from Jimmy Smits:
Typically, it wouldn't, because I've been doing this for nearly 40 years, and so I'm pretty confident in what I do. However, as I've learned, the Star Wars fan base is very passionate about their subject and easily likes to share their opinions. [Laughs]
That’s what’s called “putting it nicely.”
Andor creator reveals scrapped K-2SO 'horror movie' episode
I know there were a lot of people who were disappointed sassy murder droid K-2SO’s screen time was fairly limited. But, K2 certainly made the most of his limited time. I loved when he told Cassain “the man you don’t like is here.”
Delaying K-2SO’s Andor introduction was tough for some, including actor Alan Tudyk. “It was very controversial in the beginning,” Gilroy concedes. “I think Alan was probably disappointed, and I think there were fans who were disappointed, but I was like, ‘Man, whatever we're going to do, we got to wait really as long as we can until we introduce him.’
The article is more wide ranging than you’d expect, as always, we didn’t get our murder droid horror movie because of the only thing scarier than a murder droid: budget cuts.
Andor Was a Lesson in Self-Restraint
While I agree with this completely, considering that Tony Gilroy wanted to make this 5 seasons shows that maybe the self-restraint was more “Disney-restraint.”
Since Andor is so tuned into the grounded realities of these characters, fascist daily stand-ups and all, whenever it does swing towards more typical action-heavy sequences, like the Aldani heist, the Narkina 5 prison escape, or the Ghorman Massacre, the sudden shift is intense. After taking the time to make us know the cast, the sudden explosions of violence have us anxious over where each stray blaster bolt might land.
Not to brag, but I’ve been saying this since season 1. Andor was deliberately a slow burn so that way when there was an action scene, it hit harder. Think about the build up to the Ghorman Massacre. We had seven episodes of build up and a fair amount of the actual episode. So when it finally started, we were all on the edge of our seat.
Going to the greater point of the article though, I actually do think you could have fit a legacy character in and not had it distract. Darth Vader in his overbearing middle manager role could have worked.
Andor season 2 was incredible, but I still wish we got to see these 4 storylines
Obviously you only have so much time and so much money to spend, but it really did feel like there were a couple stories in Andor where there was a lot left on the cutting room floor or never got filmed due to the downsizing of the series. It really feels like Saw was going to play a bigger part.
When Cassian and K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) first appear during Andor's last arc, they are playing a game with Ruescott Melshi (Duncan Pow). The scene does an effective job of conveying the sense of ease and camaraderie that exists between Cassian and K-2. However, I would've liked to see more of the journey to Cassian and K-2 reaching this point in their relationship.
Supposedly there was a pitch to make Andor more of a “Cassian and K-2 having weekly adventures” show a la The Mandalorian and Gilroy said absolutely not.
Disney+ Makes Change To Rogue One Following Andor Season 2 Finale
Whenever I see the words “Disney makes change” I start to get nervous. Thankfully it’s just a new poster.
It seems as though, at least for now, Disney and Lucasfilm see Cassian as the figurehead of that movie, having gotten the context in two seasons of streaming TV (read more about how Andor connects to Rogue One here). Jyn and the rest of the Rogue One crew are taking a backseat marketing-wise.
Jyn was obviously the star of Rogue One so kinda sucks for Felicity Jones, but as Rogue One is the end of Cassian’s story, I can see why Disney changed some marketing material.
Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker Could Be Redeemed With Its Own Andor
Oh boy. I read the headline and thought “are they really going there?” But there an idea in here.
Not to beat a dead tauntaun, but the Disney-era movies are a vapid mimicry of the originals, right down to Palpatine’s apprentice — a Skywalker, no less — betraying them in a final moment of redemption. There’s nothing original, leaving us with a shallow era filled with even shallower characters. But it doesn’t need to be that way.
I’m not that mean to the Sequel Trilogy. It certainly has its issues but it has quite a few fun moments and The Last Jedi is legitimately good, even with its flaws. But an Andor-style series about how the Resistance came to be could go a long way to contextualizing the Sequel Trilogy.
I Can’t Believe ANDOR Actually Existed – An Ode To STAR WARS’ Greatest and Most Unexpected Story
It is a little shocking that Gilroy was able to tell the story that he did. See above comments about Kennedy making sure it happened.
The Disney era of Star Wars has been a mixed bag, but of all its projects, the one I was least excited about is the one Lucasfilm announced on Nocember 8, 2018Opens in a new tab, a whole year before Disney+ even launched. That’s when we learned about a prequel centered on Diego Luna’s ill-fated Rogue One character. What were the odds on that day a prequel for a streaming service that didn’t exist yet, one starring the second lead of a standalone movie (that was itself a prequel), would end up being the best thing Star Wars ever made? What if on that day I also told you the show would never feature a single Jedi or lightsaber?
That pretty much sums it up.
That’s it for this week. If you like what I’m doing, please subscribe. I’ll catch you next week, and may the Force be with you.
Between the memes and the Gilroy / Cast interviews there’s still so much to read. Thanks for these links 😃
A prequel show for the second lead of a stand-alone movie that's also a prequel for what's technically the fourth movie in a series of nine, and yet IT WORKS. And it's glorious.
As much as I don't like not knowing what happened, I actually appreciate that the show left some things unexplained, like Kino Loy's ultimate fate or Cassian's sister. It was better for the story overall. We don't even know what precisely happened to Ferrix after the first season, although I assume nothing good. But it still works.