REBELS WITH A CAUSE
ASSIAN ANDOR IS dead. Even by the standards of Rogue One – aka the Star Wars movie where everybody dies – the Rebel Alliance operative’s demise by Death Star was pretty definitive. If he was a parrot, he’d be bereft of life, pushing up daisies and joining the choir invisible – an ex-Rebel. But as Obi-Wan Kenobi proved earlier this year, being canonically dead is no barrier to having your own TV show.
“We’re not bringing him back from the dead, not at all,” laughs Diego Luna, who reprises his Rogue One role in new Disney+ prequel series Andor. “He sacrificed everything for the cause and that hasn’t changed, but I think what is beautiful is to say, ‘Okay, now that you care about him, now that you know what he’s capable of, we’re going to tell you where things started and how difficult that journey was.’ I think it’s an interesting approach and a really cool way to start an idea. Normally we work the other way around, but it’s kind of nice to not be worrying about how to surprise people at the end. Instead, let’s create an interesting journey of someone who has an awakening so profound that it makes him willing to sacrifice everything. But what gets him there?”
The man charged with giving Cassian a credible history is Tony Gilroy, the director and franchise screenwriter who famously oversaw the extensive reshoots that are now widely credited with saving the movie. As showrunner on , Gilroy has crafted a backstory in which Cassian’s homeworld was destroyed during his childhood. Now – some five years before the fateful mission of – the adopted planet he calls home is about to be crushed under the metaphorical iron boot of the Galactic Empire. And frankly there wouldn’t be much of a show if Andor simply stood by and let it happen.
