‘Andor’: Will Directly Lead Into the Beginning of ‘Rogue One’ — Tony Gilroy Explains How
The upcoming Star Wars series Andor is a prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The film introduced Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) as one of the rebels who helped deliver the Death Star plans to Princess Leia in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. But, now creator Tony Gilroy confirms the series will lead right up to Rogue One, the way Rogue One led right up to A New Hope.
Gilroy was on a Television Critics Association panel on Aug. 3. He explained how the prequel would lead into the film, of which he was a writer. Andor premieres Sept. 21 on Disney+.
Tony Gilroy says ‘Andor’ leads ‘directly into Rogue One’
The final scene in Rogue One was Princess Leia receiving the plans as Darth Vader embarked in pursuit of her. Likewise, Gilroy says the season 2 finale of Andor will lead into Rogue One.
“Our last scene of the show, our 24th episode will walk the audience directly into Rogue One,” Gilroy said. “It will walk you directly into the first scenes of Rogue One.”
What’s important is how the 23 ½ episodes of Andor before that inform what happens in Rogue One. For example, when Andor must kill someone to protect the Rebellion.
“By the time we get to Rogue One, what’s great about building this show back in reverse and seeing the proceeding four years is I think that killing will be as sad as it always is. I think it’s as sad as it is for him. I think if we are successful with the 24 episodes that we make, when you watch Rogue, a lot of scenes in Rogue are going to take a deeper significance and a deeper resonance. That is not a happy moment for him but there are so many things that will have been sacrificed along the way and so many regular people that have made just epic decisions about which way they’re going to do and what they’re going to give.”
‘Andor’ builds on ‘Rogue One’
Gilroy said the backstory he presents in Andor has its origins in Rogue One. Nothing will conflict with the movie.
There are snapshots for every character in Rogue, little moments of truth, of who they are, little pieces and shards that go back to who they were. The pieces that we had for Cassian were that he’d been in the revolution since he was six years old. He’d been fighting since he was six years old. We know that at the end of the film, he says, ‘My God, if we don’t go out and make this final effort than all of the things that I’ve done, all the horrible things that I’ve done for the Rebellion, they’ll be for naught. It’ll be useless.’ So we know there’s a very dark period. We’ve seen his behavior all the way through. There were little tiny navigational points and I just started to build from those. We fit into all of those very well but we completely expand on what it was.
Tony Gilroy, Television Critics Association panel, 8/3/22
Visiting new places in the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy
Gilroy acknowledged that a lot of Star Wars has centered around the Skywalker and Kenobi families. Andor will allow Gilroy to explore the regular folks in the galaxy far, far away.
“Above anything, this is a show about regular people,” Gilroy said. “You have this galaxy and so far we’ve seen a lot of the same people over and over again. Well, how many billions of beings are there in the galaxy? They’re all living their lives every day. This is about these huge titanic forces that are manipulating people’s lives, forcing them to make decisions. The story of revolution and what it really means is very complicated. A lot of it is very interesting to delve into as a writer.”
