“Andor,” the “Star Wars” prequel series following the journey of Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor before he went on a mission to steal plans for the Death Star, will segue perfectly into “Rogue One.”
During a panel on Wednesday as part of the Disney+ presentation at the Television Critics Association Summer Tour, executive producer, creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy broke down exactly how the 24 episodes of the series (split between two seasons of 12 episodes each) cover the five years that lead up to the Felicity Jones-starring film.
“We are covering one year in our first 12 episodes that we completed,” Gilroy said. “We are going to do another 12 episodes, starting in November.”
Those final 12 episodes will be broken up into four blocks of three, with each of the blocks representing “another year closer. Our 24th episode will walk the audience directly into ‘Rogue One,’” Gilroy added.
The upcoming prequel series, which premieres Sept. 21 with a three-episode drop, was described by series star Luna as a show about “regular people,” during the panel.
“I love that this story is about regular people. It’s about you and I. It’s about us,” he said of those that come together in the rebel alliance against The Empire, later adding, “It’s quite unfair to call this show ‘Andor,’ because this is about a community.”
“What Diego said previously – above anything, this is a show about regular people,” Gilroy said later. “You have this galaxy and so far, we’ve seen a lot of the same people over and over again. How many beings are there in the galaxy? … This is about the 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.”
Addressing the path that leads to some of the darker behavior Cassian engages in in “Rogue One” means the “Andor” series, too, gets muddy.
“You can’t leave the gray areas out when you’re talking about the revolution,” Luna said. “There [are] so many layers.”
Beyond the show’s heroes who are “regular people,” there’s an oddly similar element among those on the dark side.
“As dark as they are, it’s also a work environment. They’re regular people. They go to work; they compete at work; they are careerists; they are insecure, they are vulnerable; they are complicated, and they’re a huge part of our show,” Gilroy said.
He noted the character Denise Gough is playing is “the ISB [Imperial Security Bureau] inspector. She’ll take us into the ISB, but we have a bunch of other characters there as we expand out.”
During Wednesday’s nearly half-hour panel, Gilroy was also asked about K-2SO, the Imperial Droid from “Rogue One,” voiced by Alan Tudyk, and whether he might show up.
“I’d say wait and see,” Gilroy said.
“I don’t know how many writers are out there or storytellers, but it’s difficult to carry an Imperial droid around with you,” he said. “It’s a difficult piece of luggage to be bringing with you everywhere. When we do it, we’ll do it in a spectacular, I hope, fashion. And it’ll be the way it should be done – as opposed to presenting it and ignoring it or presenting it and hiding it.”
