Andor is the latest Disney+ show to hit the streaming platform, adding to the history of Diego Luna’s character Cassian Andor.
Cassian first appeared in the standalone Star Wars film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story where he helped Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) steal the plans for the Death Star alongside a ragtag group of rebels, and the forthcoming show is a prequel to this.
Here is everything you need to know about the show and what it’ll mean for the iconic sci-fi franchise.
‘Andor’ Timeline Explained: How Star Wars Show Will Lead Into ‘Rogue One’
Andor has already been given an early renewal and it will have two seasons in total, with the show leading directly into the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Tony Gilroy, the showrunner for Andor, has spoken extensively about his plans for the show, saying that when he took on the project, it was planned to be five seasons long. It has been shortened to two seasons instead.
The show will have 12 episodes per season, with Gilroy explaining that the creative team is approaching the show in “blocks of three” in Season 2, with each block skipping to another year in Cassian’s life.
At Disney+’s virtual Television Critics Association (TCA) press day in August, per Deadline, Gilroy said: “We are covering one year in our first 12 episodes, that we’ve completed, in fact we’re finishing our final mix on [episode] 12 tomorrow.
“We are going to do another 12 episodes starting in November and the organizing principle for shooting is that we do blocks of three, so last year we were looking at the difficulty of doing five years, which seemed like it would take us the next 30 years.
“The answer elegantly presented itself; we’re going to take our four blocks of three [episodes] in the second half of the show and each block is going to represent another year closer. We really get to take the formative forging of Cassian Andor in the first 12 episodes and then we get to take that organism that we’ve built up and run it through the next four years in a really exciting narrative fashion.”
With that in mind, Season 1 of Andor will take place over one year while Season 2 will follow the character over the four years that lead into the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
The Disney+ show begins in 5 BBY, which is around the same time that Jyn Erso is abandoned by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) in Rogue One.
Gilroy has also revealed that he knows exactly what the final shot of the entire series will be. It’ll follow Andor as he goes to meet Daniel Mays’ character Tivik whom he encounters and kills in the opening moments of Rogue One.
In an interview with The Playlist, the showrunner said of the scene: “Our final scene of the show is no secret; it’s going to be [Cassian] walking across the tarmac to get in the ship to go to the Rings of Kafrene to go meet, Daniel Mays’ [character], he’s going there.
“I mean, you watch people watch History Channel shows and whatever. What’s that story? Well, you know how it’s going to turn out. And it’s still, ‘why did it happen?’ So, we have a really cool narrative thing we’re going to do.”
Andor premieres on Wednesday September 21 with its first three episodes on Disney+, and the show will air weekly thereafter.
Update 09/21/22 3:16 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include details of the year ‘Andor’ is set in.
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