Andor is ‘the most grounded Star Wars,’ says Diego Luna

Cassian Andor’s solo movie is odd for a franchise that relies on its white-knight heros. Rey and Luke struggle with the ability to cause harm while Han, Luke, Han, Obi-Wan, and Han are struggling with it. Cassian however mentions in his only film, that he has done horrible things in support of Rebel Alliance. The scene where he first meets us during Rogue One, he shoots his informant who can’t make the escape with him. His character is relentless, and often dour. Diego Luna said that he was returning to the character because of this.

“I don’t think he wants to be a hero,” Luna tells Polygon. “Definitely when we meet him he doesn’t think he’s capable of doing anything important. He’s surviving, he’s a mess. He’s in a very cynical moment where he’s not thinking further than his nose.”

Where? AndorCassian is still with Cassian when he leaves, but it’s five years later that he finally meets Jyn Erso. Rogue One. The prequel film ended with his death, and things are even worse for him. The series finds him on Ferrix in Star Wars’ equivalent to a blue-collar village on the edge of the universe. The Empire has no Jedi, there aren’t any Jedi, and Cassian is not in the forefront of battle for the destiny of the galaxy. As Luna puts it: “This is the moment when he’s the furthest he can be from the guy we meet [in Rogue One].”

Photo by Des Willie/Lucasfilm

Photo: Disney/Lucasfilm

However AndorStocks Rogue One’s sensibility for keeping a keen, ground-level Keep an eye out for how Star Wars’ huge battles and stakes come together. With Tony Gilroy once again helming Cassian’s story (he wrote both Rogue OneAnd Andor and is an executive producer on the series), there’s a real focus on how the big swells of the galaxy feel at a local level.

“The idea that we can do a story that takes him literally from his childhood origins, and walk him through a five-year history of an odyssey that takes him to that place — during a revolution, during a moment in history where huge events are happening and real people are being crushed by it,” Gilroy said at an AndorAugust Press Conference “The fact that we could follow somebody as an example of a revolution all the way to the end […] that was the buy-in for me, the opportunity to do that.”

Gilroy’s hope is to extend that journey’s granularity to the people and movements Cassian’s life touches during the show. Once Cassian’s life intersects with the Rebel Alliance, it’s from a much different vantage point than fans of the movies are accustomed to, depicted through segmented clusters and subterfuge. Mon Mothma is still there to keep the fight going, but she’s under considerably different circumstances than we’ve ever seen her.

“We’ve met Mon Mothma before in different iterations, different versions of the Star Wars storytelling. And each time we’ve met her, we’ve met this very composed, regal, dignified woman,” Genevieve O’Reilly, who plays Mon Mothma, said at a press conference for the show. “[Here]She is still a very distinguished senator. For the first time, we see the woman who holds the position. We get to see a private face of Mon Mothma; we get to flesh out not just the senator, not just the would-be leader of the Rebel Alliance, but also the woman.”

Image: Disney/LucasFilm

Lucasfilm

Lucasfilm

Mon Mothma is just beginning her defiance and eventual rebellion against the system she’s worked within for years. It’s a different point of view than we see in many Star Wars stories, and it’s not the only one: AndorTakes a different look at the antagonists.

In the show’s first few episodes, we’re introduced to two faces of the Dark Side much lower on the ladder than we’ve met before: There’s Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), an ambitious and meticulous Imperial Security Bureau officer who hopes to climb the ranks of the Empire. Then there’s Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), the enforcer for a local company with significant power in Cassian’s town. Their stories are the kind of subtle ones Star Wars thrives on — two people who are the heroes of their own story, and whose longing for power promises darker things.

“Having a character who wasn’t really sure about himself was what kind of made him the most fun to play,” Soller said of Syril. “He could kind of go either way — he could go into the Empire, he could go into the Rebel Alliance. He’s got a lot of gray area. He came from such a poor background and so much pain in his family. He’s trying to fill this void within himself through the fascist corporate bureaucratic structure where he finds order and he finds a place to be seen if he can supersede his station.”

Star Wars fans are not drawn to this kind of ambiguity. Every prequel promises to go deeper and explain everything. It will also build something new. But few people feel this thoughtful. Andor. Perhaps it’s no surprise the show with the dauntless task of picking up the bleakest Star Wars story and taking it even further into its depths would have to actually put its money where its mouth is. However, its four first episodes were disappointing. AndorThe viewer seems to have a lot of trust in the film. It isn’t a Star Wars story about heroes or how they saved the day. It’s not a story about what happens in the Star Wars universe so much as it is about how it happens.

As such, it’d be foolish to go into AndorWe can expect Cassian Andor as the shining knight of the rebellion. If all goes according to plan — Tony Gilroy’s, Disney’s, and beyond — we’ll come to truly understand what he means when he stares soulfully at Jyn Erso and says he’s been in this fight doing terrible things since he was 6 years old. But even if it’s not lightness and jokes, and even with the Empire occupying the high ground throughout the run of the series, Luna sees the story as an instructive one for our times — and maybe even a bit hopeful.

“It’s a different approach. It’s still about change, it’s still about freedom, it’s still about justice. But it’s a different approach. It’s the most grounded Star Wars you can get,” Luna says. “I think [Cassian’s]The process will be about discovering what each community can do. It’s a different thing, you know? This is a story about people — regular people understanding what they’re capable of if they articulate things in community, if they articulate actions in community.”

AndorThree episodes will be premiered on September 21. Each Wednesday new episodes will be released.