‘Andor’ Will Cover 5 Years of Rebellion in 2 Seasons, Tony Gilroy Says
The new Star Wars series Andor will cover the five years of the rebellion leading up to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It will not, however, take five seasons. Creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy explains how the show will cover five years in two seasons.
Gilroy was on a Television Critics Association panel for Andor on Aug. 3. He broke down the plan for both seasons. The first three episodes of Andor have premiered and new episodes premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.
Season 1 of ‘Andor’ is 1 year in the life of rebel Cassian Andor
Season 1 of Andor is 12 episodes running 30-40 minutes each. Those 12 cover 1 year of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna)’s life as he joins the rebellion.
“We are covering one year in our first 12 episodes that we’ve completed,” Gilroy said. “It felt very important, particularly for a story where you’re taking somebody on a five-year journey, to really, really be fully invested in their complete story, from origin and as we know in Rogue to the end.So the responsibility to have an abundant, real, important backstory was obvious.”
‘Andor’ Season 2 speeds through 4 more years of rebellion
Gilroy is already planning Andor Season 2, and he knows the other 12 episodes have to catch up to Rogue. Season 2 will jump 1 year after every third episode.
“We are going to do another twelve episodes starting in November, and our organizing principle for our shooting is that we do blocks of three,” Gilroy said. “Directors come in for blocks of three. So last year, we were looking at the difficulty of doing five years, which seemed like it would take us the next 30 years. The answer just elegantly presented itself in front of us. We’re going to take our four blocks, our four blocks of three in the second half of the show, and each block of three is going to represent another year closer.”
Season 2 will have a different structure
Furthermore, each set of three episodes will have a somewhat different structure. Some may be concentrated in a period of days, while others cover a longer range of time.
“So we’re going to jump a year,” Gilroy said. “We’re going to do Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and we’re going to jump a year, and then we’re going to do four days. It’s just fascinating. We built it up. We’re very excited about it. So we get to take the formative forging of Cassian Andor in the first twelve episodes, and then we get to take that organism that we built up and we get to run it through the next four years in a really exciting, narrative fashion.”
This is an interesting way to approach a prequel. Gilroy has finite time prior to Rogue One with which to work. The rebellion as we know it is in dire straits until the rebels obtain the Death Star plans prior to A New Hope. So within that time, there could be one very eventful year, and other years that go in fits and starts.
