[TV] Disney+ Star Wars: Cassian Andor

[Ihavewaffles]

Star Wars Reportedly Changes Their 5-Season Plan for Disney+'s Andor.

https://thedirect.com/article/star-w...-andor-seasons
By Richard Nebens - April 23, 202

Almost no project from Lucasfilm is shrouded in more mystery than Andor, which is looking to debut before the end of the year. Although rumors point to a trailer for the show likely arriving during next month’s Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, fans still have barely any ideas about what will actually be a part of the plot as Cassian Andor’s pre-Rogue One story comes to life.

Even with Andor being so under the radar, for the time being, it has a leg up on many of the other Star Wars Disney+ series in terms of a confirmed future. Earlier this year, actor Stellan Skarsgard revealed that plans are already in place for Andor to continue into a second season, which came to light months before Season 1's promotional tour even starts.

With Season 1 rumored to premiere in August and Season 2 already in development, fans are wondering just how many years of Andor fans will get on Disney+. Now, a recent interview has shed a clearer light on that picture with new information on how many seasons fans can expect to see from this property.

Andor News on Twitter discovered and translated an interview from TV Cultura in Brazil with Adriano Goldman, the director of photography for Lucasfilm's Andor.

According to Goldman, he worked on a series that was originally supposed to be five seasons long, but, due to a change of plans, it's now set to be just three seasons. Looking at his credits and his upcoming work, it's widely believed that he was speaking about the Andor series in these comments.

Bespin Bulletin also revealed that a source of theirs had heard that Lucasfilm intentionally set Andor five years before the events of Rogue One took place. This would give the studio the opportunity to get as many as five seasons out of the series, although those plans seem to have changed.

[Ihavewaffles]

Andor Star Wars Series: “What You Know Is Really All Wrong”

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...ies-diego-luna
BY ANTHONY BREZNICAN - MAY 23, 2022

It’s a very paranoid world we live in.” That’s how showrunner Tony Gilroy begins to describe the upcoming Star Wars series Andor, based around the early adventures of Diego Luna’s Rogue One hero.

The 12-episode show is set to launch on Disney+ later this summer. For our most recent cover story, “Star Wars: The Rebellion Will Be Televised,” both Gilroy and Luna spoke with Vanity Fair about their new take on the intrepid Rebel agent. In this bonus story, the two reveal new details (including how the Rebel political leader Mon Mothma intersects with her future top spy) while also correcting a few rumors about the show that have circulated among the fans.

For instance, don’t expect Alan Tudyk’s blunt-speaking droid, K-2SO. “We don’t have Alan Tudyk,” Gilroy confirms. “Not yet, anyway.” But fear not. Prep for a second season is already underway, and the story of how Cassian Andor met that former Imperial battle droid may be told then. “It is a second season, but it’s really, for me, the second half of the novel,” Gilroy says. “This first season is about him becoming a revolutionary, and the second 12 episodes take him into Rogue One.”

They also say the series will make Star Wars obsessives reevaluate key tenets they have come to believe—all while trying to draw in fans who aren’t as well versed in galactic history.

Fair warning: There are some light spoilers ahead about how the Andor series starts out. For casual fans, it may be merely intriguing, but the more you know about the Star Wars universe, the more you might be able to read into what’s being suggested.

Gilroy is known for writing the first four Bourne thrillers, and he received Oscar nominations for both writing and directing Michael Clayton. He got involved with Star Wars by helping to rework Rogue One during its reshoots. Secrets, conspiracies, and claustrophobic distrust are among his hallmarks, so expect Andor to put a galactic spin on those themes.

“Tony is probably the best there is when it comes to the spy genre and bringing that into the Star Wars universe,” says Michelle Rejwan, a producer of Andor and Lucasfilm creative executive. She says Andor looks “through the lens of this character that had such a huge impact on Star Wars history, but who has a very personal, very rich, very committed investment in this fight.”

Luna emphasizes that the show will also be about the transformation of a fearful man. “I believe science fiction and stories that happen in a galaxy far, far away are a great tool to comment on our world—on your life and my life and the way we interact,” the actor says. “We need to explore the revolutionary we can become to change things, to stop war, to make this world a livable place. So Andor talks about that. I think it can inspire a lot of people on how much you can do by yourself.”

Rogue One, as those who’ve seen the 2016 movie know, is actually the conclusion of Cassian Andor’s story. It’s set just before the events of 1977’s original Star Wars and tells the self-sacrificing story of the Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans that allowed Luke Skywalker to reduce the planet-killing battle station to a field of glowing debris. Andor will be primarily set five years before that mission in Rogue One, although the show will flash back even further to when Cassian’s childhood home world first falls under the tyrannical control of the Empire.

“His adopted home will become the base of our whole first season, and we watch that place become radicalized,” Gilroy says. “Then we see another planet that’s completely taken apart in a colonial kind of way. The Empire is expanding rapidly. They’re wiping out anybody who’s in their way.”

These are strategic moves for the dark side, asserting dominance over worlds that are manufacturing centers, that supply raw materials, or that provide other vital supplies needed to maintain control. “They’re taking over the corporate planets,” Gilroy says. “They’re tightening up their supply chains.” What the Empire doesn’t destroy, it consumes. “It’s all the ways that oppression can pull a culture apart and destroy it,” Gilroy says.

Some things that were once only hinted at in the movie will be explored in more detail. “We got to invent and create and dream about all the answers you don’t find in Rogue One,” Luna says. “I thought that character was gone for me. And suddenly, when they asked me if I would be willing to do this, my straight answer was, ‘Yes, of course,’ because I also have questions I would love to answer.”

Gilroy highlights just a few such blank spots. “You know he’s been fighting since he was a child, right? He says that. You know he’s been a guerrilla fighter. You certainly know he’s been an assassin. He kills an ally in the very first scene,” Gilroy says, referring to a moment in Rogue One when Cassian murders an informant to prevent him from falling into the Empire’s hands. “That was a big gulp on Rogue One, to see who would swallow that. He’s morally complicated in a really dark way.”

Gilroy brings up another moment from the film in which Felicity Jones’s Jyn Erso fears the Rebel leadership won’t back her and Cassian’s efforts to stage a heist for the Death Star plans. “Felicity comes out of the council meeting in Yavin and says, ‘They don’t want to do it. They don’t have the guts to do it.’ And he’s standing there with this murderers’ row of guys, and he says, ‘Man, if we don’t go do this, then all these terrible things that we did, all the crap that we’ve done, it’ll be useless. And all the moral, all the blood on our hands will be useless.’”

With the new series, Star Wars fans will learn how those hands got stained. We know from Rogue One that Cassian is willing to give up his life; Andor will show that long before that, he was giving up parts of his soul for the cause too.

“He’s someone surviving in dark times,” Luna says. “If you know the Star Wars universe and story, these are the darkest times.”

"This man Tony Gilroy is a fascinating writer, and he's always referring to stuff you and I can relate with. He's a great collaborator. And he has this urgency to talk about the world we live in." — Diego Luna on Andor's showrunner

As part of his prep for the original role, Luna says he imagined aspects of Cassian’s history that never made it into the movie, just as background for himself as he brought the spy to life. He and Gilroy discussed all that as the scripts were coming together. “Now all that material is useful again,” Luna says. “I thought I was never going to be able to share that.”

That helped personalize Andor for him. Asked what he personally contributed to the spymaster’s story, Luna says he thought of people who are forced to run due to pressures beyond their control—until they decide to stop running and make a stand. “It’s the journey of a migrant, which to me is everything I come from,” he says. “That feeling of having to move is behind this story very profoundly, very strong. Not being able to be where you belong and how that shapes you as a person, how that defines you in many ways and what you are willing to do.”

But Cassian doesn’t begin that way. “What I can tell you is that this guy, he doesn’t see further than himself,” Luna says.

Rebellion? Right vs. wrong? “In the beginning of it all, he couldn’t give a shit about any of that,” Gilroy says. “He’s a thief. He’s a ducker and a diver. He has a lot of anger about his childhood, and about the Empire, but he has no place to put it. He just doesn’t believe in anything at this point.”

But Cassian is also a natural leader. “He’s seductive,” Gilroy adds. “Seductive in a way where he’s manipulating people. He compromises, he changes his mind. He’s really a perfect kind of spy, warrior, killer. How do you get to that place—and then sacrifice yourself?”

He says Andor “is taking someone who’s really anti-revolution and turning them into the most passionate person who’s going to give themselves to save the galaxy.”

To get there, Cassian needs to follow a leader as well..

Hardcore Star Wars aficionados who hear the name Mon Mothma know immediately who that is. Casual fans probably need a reminder. She has been an intriguing side character for years, but Andor will place her closer to the heart of the action, if not at center stage.

Mothma first appeared in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, originated by actor Caroline Blakiston. She was the priestess-like figure in a flowing white caftan who hosted a Rebel briefing to outline weaknesses in the all-new Death Star the Empire had under construction. She is most remembered for delivering the enigmatic and ominous line: “Many Bothans died to bring us this information.”

In the prequels, George Lucas revealed that before Mon Mothma was a leader of the Rebellion, she was a young member of the Galactic Senate. In Revenge of the Sith, Genevieve O’Reilly portrayed her in a brief scene, then she reprised the role years later in Rogue One as a sort of M figure to Luna’s 007. O’Reilly will return in Andor, and we will see how she and Cassian cross paths—eventually.

“I have a sheet in front of me. I have 211 speaking parts in this show. There’s probably 75 people in there who really matter, and there’s at least a dozen seriously important characters that we’ll be carrying forward to the second [season],” Gilroy explains. “It is a huge, orchestral, Dickensian ensemble cast, with Diego at the middle of it, and Genevieve at the middle of another part of it. They intersect. I’m not going to get into how they intersect. They do have intersection—but they do not meet. They will not meet until the second half.”

Her character is still in the galaxy’s leadership class on the capital world of Coruscant, trying to navigate the turmoil of the Emperor’s new autocracy while quietly fomenting opposition. But Andor doesn’t start there.

Here’s where it gets a little spoiler-ish. “Our show starts with a very simple, almost film noir situation for a thief. A skeevy kind of guy gets in big trouble, tries to sell something he has to save his ass,” Gilroy reveals. “A Rebel talent scout has been watching him with interest, and he’s sort of recruited on the worst day of his life.” That story line focuses on Luna and two unspecified characters played by Stellan Skarsgård and Adria Arjona. “On episode four, we leave there and we begin to expand out…”

Gilroy and Luna don’t explicitly make this comparison, but what they describe sounds akin to the structure of a show like Better Call Saul, which weaves together story lines that only occasionally touch directly. But indirectly, the waves they make buffet against one another and have particularly dire implications for the future we know is coming in Breaking Bad. Star Wars has always told its stories out of chronological order, and the tension that comes from knowing that destiny becomes part of the drama.

“There are certain events that happen in these five years that are important and need to be paid attention to. There are certain people, characters that are legacy characters, that the audience, the passionate audience, really feels that they have an understanding of and know,” Gilroy explains. “In some cases, they’re right. And in some cases, what we’re saying is, ‘What you know, what you’ve been told, what’s on Wookieepedia, what you’ve been telling each other…is really all wrong.”

Or, if not wrong, he adds: “It’s upside down, or it’s sideways, or it’s the opposite of what you thought was true. Or it’s way more interesting than you had ever thought. Or that’s a lie and there’s a reason for it. I would say that there’s some surprises in store.”

Within just a few episodes, he predicts O’Reilly’s character will become unforgettable even to casual viewers. “I bet that when episode 104 plays, when Mon Mothma finishes the episode, that there’ll be people tweeting about Mon Mothma.”

This is another mission of Andor—to please Star Wars die-hards while also expanding the audience beyond them. “The really passionate Star Wars community…all those people have a lot of people in their lives that are Star Wars hesitant, or Star Wars averse, or Star Wars reluctant. Their roommate, their husband, the guy at work, whatever.”

Andor, he says, is aimed at them too. “I mean, I want my wife to be watching this show,” Gilroy says. “She couldn’t care less. She’s not that interested in it. She hasn’t been interested in it for the last two years. But my goal is that she really is like, Oh, my God, I’ve got to see the next episode. Without losing anybody, it’s really about enhancing what we have.”

[Ihavewaffles]

SWCA 2022: ANDOR TEASER TRAILER, RELEASE DATE REVEALED

https://www.starwars.com/news/swca-2022-andor

Calling all rebel spies: we have some new intel on the next major Star Wars story.

Today at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2022, Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase revealed that Andor, the upcoming Disney+ series, will start streaming August 31, 2022. In addition, a new teaser trailer for the series made its debut, featuring the titular hero in action, as well as glimpses of the Empire and much more. Check it out below.




However this turns out, whoa, the production value...

"spared no expense" -john hammond


I mean...just those elevators side of the building in coruscant...nothing special happens in that shot, it just looks...good..and then I look at thor trailer, or she hulk...I wonder if Disney's best crafters jumped over from marvel to starwars??


This shot alone, looks better than anything star wars in any movie or show ever...it looks, well, like a real place, not the cgi fest from ep1-3..

I find I stare at tiny details like beams, the steel constructions, like people actually live n work there..

[Skizzit]

Now this has my attention. I am way more into this than Boba Fett or Obi-Wan. I have wanted this every since Lucas teased a Star Wars TV series 20 years ago that would be focused not on Jedi and the heroes but the regular people trying to make it in this world.

A show about a bunch of rebels just fighting the Empire with not a Jedi in sight? Sign me up!

[Ihavewaffles]

damn, jon favreau now has george lucas bod

[Myradin]

While I find it an odd choice of lead, I suppose the good point is it doesn't seem to be nastalgia bait at least.

[Infinity Cubed]

I really don't understand the appeal of this show.

Andor was easily the worst thing about Rogue One (aside from Ben Mendelsohn's annoying lisp). Yet here he is, given the lead role of a series when nearly anyone else from the movie would have been a more interesting choice. Even Jyn, two-dimensional as she was. A Chirrut and Baze show would have been infinitely better.

What really confuses me is that there's actually people looking forward to this, especially after the trailer.

But to each their own I suppose. Here's hoping K-2SO gets a lot of screen time, though something tells me he isn't.

[Khaza-R]

I really enjoyed Rogue One. Its infinitely better than the sequels. But, I would agree its a pretty odd choice as he was one of the more boring characters in that film.

That being said, sometimes the best shows are where they have a ton of creative freedom to work with the universe. Cassian is about as blank of slate as you can get so I am willing to give it a shot and see what they can come up with.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think of it more a show about the rebellion and it's just though Andors perspective. So of course he will be central to it but it let's them take the show just about anywhere because we really don't know a whole lot about the dude outside of the last few days of his life.

[Ihavewaffles]

Those were clone troopers, I like that, don't need stormtroopers that can't hit the side of a bantha for this show..

Still holding out hope we'll see saw gerrera in 1st season..

[Polyxo]

This series is honestly pretty interesting to me. I'd love to see a darker, spy thriller series that's kind of about the 'sin eaters' of the Alliance that do a lot of bad things so that the real good guys can succeed.

[PACOX]

I really don't understand the appeal of this show.

Andor was easily the worst thing about Rogue One (aside from Ben Mendelsohn's annoying lisp). Yet here he is, given the lead role of a series when nearly anyone else from the movie would have been a more interesting choice. Even Jyn, two-dimensional as she was. A Chirrut and Baze show would have been infinitely better.

What really confuses me is that there's actually people looking forward to this, especially after the trailer.

But to each their own I suppose. Here's hoping K-2SO gets a lot of screen time, though something tells me he isn't.

I do think Andor was th "worst" of the Rogue One crew but I think it's because his character was easily defined. A veteran insurgent willing to do what needs to be done for his cause. You didn't need more information about him in the movie but I think you can use such a character to tell a lot of stories and world building.

If you like war stories then the Imperial Era is great. Most of the stories to come out of it are great, IMO. Fallen Order, Rebels, Rogue One, Thrawn, several comics. Mandalorian is a sequel to stories from the Imperial era than simply the aftermath of RotJ.

So far we've really only seen the Rebellion at its best, post ANH, and in Rebels (cool but a kids cartoon at the end of the day). I know I am open to a story about the early rebellion when the Imperial were cementing their power and the Rebels weren't the large power they'd eventually become.


Most of the Rebels we know are good guy stereotypes are accidental heroes. We don't have people who were hardened by fighting the Imperials and really saw some things.

[Skizzit]

I really don't understand the appeal of this show.

Andor was easily the worst thing about Rogue One (aside from Ben Mendelsohn's annoying lisp). Yet here he is, given the lead role of a series when nearly anyone else from the movie would have been a more interesting choice. Even Jyn, two-dimensional as she was. A Chirrut and Baze show would have been infinitely better.

What really confuses me is that there's actually people looking forward to this, especially after the trailer.

But to each their own I suppose. Here's hoping K-2SO gets a lot of screen time, though something tells me he isn't.

Andor's name may be the title and he may be the lead, but this looks way more like a rebellion series than a Cassian Andor series. He is barely in the trailer. If a dirty, gritty tv series about the rebels fighting a war in Star Wars with not a Jedi in sight doesn't excite you, I don't know what to say. It sure does me.

[Infinity Cubed]

Andor's name may be the title and he may be the lead, but this looks way more like a rebellion series than a Cassian Andor series. He is barely in the trailer.

Yeah, that must be why it was, indeed, named after him and he is clearly labeled as the lead. And that this is just a trailer which is specifically designed to lure people in (hence giving misleading information). The fact that he actually isn't prominent in the trailer should be sending huge red flags into the air about how awful he is going to be in it.

Boba Fett 2.0. Except this time they don't have Mando and Baby Yoda to come in at the end to save it.

[PACOX]

Boba Fett 2.0. Except this time they don't have Mando and Baby Yoda to come in at the end to save it.

Fett was always meant to be a sub-arch of Mandalorian. Not sure why people keep trying to paint it as it's one standalone thing.

[Infinity Cubed]

Fett was always meant to be a sub-arch of Mandalorian. Not sure why people keep trying to paint it as it's one standalone thing.

Didn't claim otherwise.

But it was "his" chapter of the story. And everything not including Mando, Grogru, and Luke was absolute garbage. And Andor won't have them to come in and rescue "his" story.

[Ihavewaffles]

Yeah, that must be why it was, indeed, named after him and he is clearly labeled as the lead. And that this is just a trailer which is specifically designed to lure people in (hence giving misleading information). The fact that he actually isn't prominent in the trailer should be sending huge red flags into the air about how awful he is going to be in it.

Boba Fett 2.0. Except this time they don't have Mando and Baby Yoda to come in at the end to save it.

I posted a lengthy article above, you should read it...this is kinda like game of thrones where you follow different characters in different locations, situations, that may take time until they interact perhaps, but it's for the sake of world building n character development...
Show is made by the guy who made jason bourne, I'm not sure why he would needs some green baby eating noodles, or some mando who can't lift his sword...
The tone of this show i get the feeling the writing will be a lot better than previous shows, this is probably not for kids, which is fine by me. Lets have something interesting that's not there to sell toys..Nothing against Mandalorian, I love that show, just I want something different for once..

[Infinity Cubed]

I posted a lengthy article above, you should read it...this is kinda like game of thrones where you follow different characters in different locations, situations, that may take time until they interact perhaps, but it's for the sake of world building n character development...
Show is made by the guy who made jason bourne, I'm not sure why he would needs some green baby eating noodles, or some mando who can't lift his sword...
The tone of this show i get the feeling the writing will be a lot better than previous shows, this is probably not for kids, which is fine by me. Lets have something interesting that's not there to sell toys..Nothing against Mandalorian, I love that show, just I want something different for once..

Again, you misconstrue my meaning.

Let me spell it out more succinctly: Boba Fett's series sucked balls until they all but put him to the wayside and focused on more popular characters. But at least he starred heavily in the teaser trailers for the show, and they did try to make him the star of it until they realized how awful he was. With Andor, they're not even doing that. They've already shoved the star of his own titular show to the wayside and are having to rely on tertiary characters and stories to lure in an audience. Zero confidence in Andor, despite, again, naming the show after him and giving him an obviously ridiculous paycheck.

It has nothing to do with tone or content. Andor is just a shit character, it was a shitty choice to give him his own series, and they would have been better off just doing a rebellion-based series on its own, or at least choosing or even creating more interesting character(s) for the titular lead.

[Ihavewaffles]

Again, you misconstrue my meaning.

Let me spell it out more succinctly: Boba Fett's series sucked balls until they all but put him to the wayside and focused on more popular characters. But at least he starred heavily in the teaser trailers for the show, and they did try to make him the star of it until they realized how awful he was. With Andor, they're not even doing that. They've already shoved the star of his own titular show to the wayside and are having to rely on tertiary characters and stories to lure in an audience. Zero confidence in Andor, despite, again, naming the show after him and giving him an obviously ridiculous paycheck.

It has nothing to do with tone or content. Andor is just a shit character, it was a shitty choice to give him his own series, and they would have been better off just doing a rebellion-based series on its own, or at least choosing or even creating more interesting character(s) for the titular lead.

Andor wasn't star of rogue one either, and the movie turned out pretty good, and I have more faith in someone who did jason bourne n this teaser trailer looks freaking awesome.

[Infinity Cubed]

Andor wasn't star of rogue one either, and the movie turned out pretty good, and I have more faith in someone who did jason bourne n this teaser trailer looks freaking awesome.

No kidding.

Did I mispeak somewhere? Did I call the movie "Cassian Andor: Rogue One?" Did I say "Andor was the de-facto star of Rogue One and was the greatest bestest thing ever to ever ever?" I'll give you a bit of help: I did no such thing.

Try reading what's actually written rather than skimming some random words, misconstruing it in your head, and then replying with complete and utter nonsense. It helps you look less foolish.