Andor Creator Warns Star Wars Fans Not To Get Too Attached To Anyone
With his first installment in the franchise already setting a deadly precedent, Andor creator Tony Gilroy has warned Star Wars fans to not get too attached to anyone in the Disney+ show. Set five years before the events the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, the latest entry in the long-running science-fiction fantasy franchise chronicles the rise of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) from a lowly smuggler to the Rebel spy that faced down the Galactic Empire in the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Along with Luna, Andor sees the return of other Rogue One stars to include Forest Whitaker as the Clone Wars veteran and militant resistance group leader, Saw Gerrera, as well as Genevieve O’Reilly as senator Mon Mothma who became the central figure of the entire Rebellion.
Although Andor only just premiered last week, the entirety of its story has been planned out and will conclude at the end of season 2. The television series’ two seasons will cover the entirety of the five years leading up to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the standalone film where Cassian made his debut. The first of those five years takes place during season 1, although flashbacks to Cassian as a child are interspersed throughout. While it’s unclear how Andor season 2 will ultimately bridge the gap with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the man at the helm does have one warning for those watching the show.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Andor’s Tony Gilroy warned audiences not to get too attached to any of the characters in his new Star Wars show. The creator explained that due to the grand scale of the show, it called for hundreds of speaking roles in season 1 alone, but that with season 2 concluding the story, he had to kill off many of the series’ characters, teasing that « the body count is high » throughout the show. See what Gilroy had to say below:
We literally have around 200 speaking parts in the first 12 episodes. When I figured out season two, I had to make about 30 phone calls to the actors that I knew were going to go forward. I had to call them up and say, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking. This is when you live. This is when you die. This is how many episodes you’re in.” I mean, the body count is high all the way through, but people live. It’s a revolution. It’s a very intense period of time. People are doing very dangerous things. Some people live and some people don’t. How do we know who lives or dies at the end from the previous Star Wars? You wouldn’t know. I mean, there’s people buried in Yavin. Who knows who’s there.
Gilroy’s comments illustrate the sheer size and magnitude needed to tell Andor’s sweeping narrative across its two seasons. This is understandable as the series intends to tell the tale of the Rebel Alliance’s development from small cells to the military force seen in Star Wars: A New Hope. With any story in the war genre, deaths are to be expected and Gilroy warns that Andor is no exception.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story delivered an action-packed look at the Rebellion’s first major victory against the Empire, telling a heart-wrenching story that saw its central characters give the ultimate sacrifice as they all died in their effort to steal the secret plans to the Death Star. With Andor featuring hundreds characters, many of whom had never been featured in Star Wars prior, the series may be setting itself up for another dramatic conclusion full of pain and loss, but also of hope as the Rebellion will live on to ultimately prove triumphant against the Empire. With the series already killing off Timm Karlo (James McArdle), Bix Caleen’s (Adria Arjona) romantic partner, audiences should heed Gilroy’s warning and brace themselves for what’s to come as Andor continues.
Source: THR
