Andor

Andor is live on Disney Plus today with the first three episodes available to watch, and this being the fourth live action Disney Plus series as more and ...

Given that Rogue One was my favorite of the new Star Wars blockbusters, I’m certainly looking forward to checking this out later today. We already know a whole bunch of series that are coming, but Andor’s success, or I suppose theoretical failure, could alter their plans. I know many will look for audience scores, but it’s so early (only 36 total people have scored it on Rotten Tomatoes) that I’m going to wait and see what that number settles at over time. So, as you can see I’m including the animated series in there, and those have been generally well-received. Here’s how it stacks up compared to the other Disney Plus series we’ve seen out of the Star Wars universe so far: - The Mandalorian Season 1 – 93%

Looking some context as the new Disney Plus series begins? We'll get you up to hyperspeed.

Worried that her true identity as the daughter of Death Star engineer Galen Erso might be discovered, Saw leaves her in a bunker with just a blaster and a knife for protection, promising to return. That makes sense, since Emperor Palpatine is the supreme leader of both, though his alternate identity as Darth Sideous is still a secret to everyone but a handful of his most devout followers. As his apprentice, Darth Vader is the most visible Sith lord within the regime, and he reports only to his master. The other is Senator Mon Mothma, who hasn’t yet given up on the idea of democracy and is trying to change the system from within as a member of the Imperial Senate. The core philosophy of the Sith religion involves harnessing strong emotions like anger and fear into absolute power. Under the leadership of Darth Vader, agents of the Imperial Inquisition hunted down the last remaining Jedi and eliminated them, one by one. At the end of the Clone Wars the Emperor accused the Jedi of treason and activated Order 66, which compelled the clone troopers to execute any Jedi on sight, but that was just the beginning of the Jedi purge. There are isolated groups of insurgents throughout the galaxy, especially in the mid and outer rims, where the Empire has less control. One of them is Senator Bail Organa, who has been keeping tabs on underground rebel activity through a network of intelligence operatives using the code name Fulcrum. As is typical of any totalitarian regime, the Empire has reached its tendrils into every aspect of public life. There are some areas, however, where the Empire wields less power than others. Since then, Imperial forces have been gradually transitioning from peacekeepers to occupiers in the territorial outposts they once promised to protect.

The new series leans less on lightsaber showdowns and more on the messier interactions between good and evil.

But after so many films and television shows set in the same galaxy far, far away, Andor manages to carve out a new path to understanding that galaxy’s complicated moral stakes. Luna continues to have fantastic screen presence as Cassian, imbuing him with a naivete that is gone by the time Rogue One begins. And the antagonists feel like real-world villains, driven more by ego, workplace politics, and a misguided sense of duty than by a cartoonish pursuit of evil. Still, Andor is not so different from the rest of the franchise that it risks alienating longtime fans. This Star Wars project examines how a person’s needs, fears, and wants can be molded into a taste for revolution—or submission—depending on the (lowercase-f) forces at play. The prequel charts the evolution of Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna) from an unmoored cynic to the rebel captain viewers met in the 2016 film The violence is grittier, less lightsaber-dependent: The first 10 minutes of the pilot include a character’s accidental death and the cold-blooded murder of another at gunpoint. Unlike the main characters of Disney+’s other Star Wars shows, Cassian is not a stoic loner or an ambitious leader. A show that’s more concerned with portraying life under an oppressive system than with inspiring awe, Andor is an unusually mature entry in the Star Wars franchise. He seemingly [wanted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THKzwzieF40&ab_channel=PuddingAsgard) to build a sci-fi fairy tale, the kind with dichotomies—good versus evil, right versus wrong, light versus dark—that children could easily grasp. It’s a confident and sophisticated drama that asks for—and rewards—a grown-up kind of patience. The series observes a familiar setting from an unfamiliar ground level: Most characters are trying to save their own skin, not the entire galaxy.

The first episode of 'Andor,' the new Disney+ series that brings back Diego Luna's character from 'Rogue One,' is a different sort of prequel.

The first episode takes place in “BBY 5,” meaning five years before the Battle of Yavin — the Rebel/Empire dust-up that results in the destruction of the Death Star at the end of A New Hope. • Will Andor be the first Star Wars show that winds up feeling too cool to show us weird aliens and stuff? The episode also begins what will presumably be a series of flashbacks to Cassian’s childhood on the planet Kenari, focusing on his relationship with the sister he seems to be searching for early on. There’s plenty of intrigue in this first episode, but the most unexpected, and maybe kind of hilarious, aspect of Gilroy’s grounded/serious take on Star Wars is that it also winds up pretty closely resembling Solo, Rogue One’s sibling Star Wars Story that wasn’t nearly as successful, and basically caused the whole spinoff cottage industry to pivot to TV. Andor also feels like a pivot from the Stagecraft sets, Clone Wars expansion, and pandemic-era minimalism of recent Star Wars TV — a bid to show that the franchise can accommodate more subtlety than Boba Fett riding a rancor. It’s equal parts creative experiment and savvy self-marketing of that experiment: Here are some new corners of the galaxy to explore, on our way to a well-documented destination.

Cassian Andor meets with Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and must battle Syril Karn's forces to escape Ferrix. Plus, his backstory on Kenari is further ...

You could even argue that this three-episode arc forms its own prequel to the prequel to the prequel, spending a feature-length amount of time on five or ten minutes’ worth of backstory. They wind up leaving the precious box behind, though Cassian does briefly agitate for bringing it along, which will surely be read by Rael as a testament to his grit and determination — also, one assumes, proof that Cassian is the real prize Rael was hoping to score here. But he’s more interested in the how than the what of this device, specifically how Cassian was able to steal it from the Empire. Ferrix may be a comparatively minor planet, but it quietly serves as a test case for the Rebel Alliance following the “how democracy dies” despair of Revenge of the Sith: People can band together and fight off fascist encroachment. But give some credit (maybe even some Republic credits?) to Andor for making Ferrix’s secondhand nature, with its industrial workers and big scraps of metal everywhere, feel evocative in a way that has eluded some other recent additions to the ever-expanding list of Star Wars planets. It’s too much individual rattling for 14 soldiers to silence, an expanded version of the ceremonial bell-tower figure seen in the previous episode.

Before Disney Plus' new show can figure out who or what is Andor, it has to show us the Dark Side through Syril Karn, the best villain in the Star Wars ...

He’s willing to accept that the people of Cassian’s hometown are all “bluff and bluster,” as his corporate goon tells him, because he misses how it’s solidarity in action. [The Mandalorian](https://www.polygon.com/22193147/when-the-mandalorian-season-3-comes-out) had a good enough twist on Star Wars’ good/evil dichotomy, but [the villain wasn’t what came to define the show](https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/2020/12/18/22188476/the-mandalorian-season-2-e8-finale-skywalker-saga) (even when played by [one Giancarlo Esposito](https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/2019/12/27/21038233/the-mandalorian-darksaber-black-lightsaber-bo-katan-moff-gideon)). Though he’s not dumb, one gets the sense that he’s so insulated in his position that even explaining the flaws of the system wouldn’t get through to him. And [The Rise of Skywalker’s take](https://www.polygon.com/reviews/2019/12/18/21024586/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-review-spoiler-free) is... That light tailoring to his uniform is all he can do to make the powers that be conform to him, rather than the other way around. [The Book of Boba Fett](https://www.polygon.com/22903093/book-of-boba-fett-halo-ringworld-space-station) was a bit of a mess, offering up [neither a complicated antihero](https://www.polygon.com/22902664/book-of-boba-fett-episode-5-mandalorian-star-wars) nor a [particularly compelling antagonist](https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/22929592/book-of-boba-fett-hero-vs-villain) for our beleaguered hero to square off against. But in the first episodes of Andor, it’s clear Syril believes in the work. Instead, the show is the [nitty gritty](https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/23143231/star-wars-andor-trailer-release-date-celebration-disney-plus) of a galaxy far, far away. He takes the utmost pride in his presentation, modifying his uniform to make himself stand out as the shiniest apple in the bunch. It doesn’t take a leap of imagination to guess what feels so prescient about that storyline now, in a time when there’s a lot of change that needs to happen for the world to feel remotely just. [more granular way](https://www.polygon.com/star-wars/23056104/star-wars-moral-ambiguity-gray-characters) into the battles between light and dark. Syril is the sort of bootlicker who asked for extra credit to his extra credit.

The Disney+ series starring Diego Luna traces Cassian Andor's origin story before Rogue One.

Andor starts from a strong and powerful premise of how that becomes a point of radicalization, as the character is constantly being taken for a fight that may not be his own personal battle but will hopefully lead him to find what he seeks. (Thankfully, Timm gets what he deserved for being a punkass snitch.) Ferrix, however rings their bell for one of their own and it leads to a scrimmage that Karn and his troops are unprepared for and lose. The focus on Cassian’s personal journey really builds up a much needed different perspective of a marginalized, non-Force sensitive person who’s lost his home and his family and would do anything to get them back. It really takes all three episodes to ramp up the action compared to other shows or movies where we just get right into the Wars part of Star Wars, but I’d describe it as a simmer that builds up to a boil by the time we get to episode four. Cassian is thrust into helping Rael when Timm reveals that he’s really from Kanari like the girl he was looking for on Morlana One—something his mother warned would put him in danger if any outsiders realized he was a survivor of the tragedy on his home planet. When he gets back to Farrix, the planet he lives on with his adoptive mother Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw), we discover that he’s got a bit of a reputation for doing things “the Cassian way.” He’s a skilled black market smuggler of important and stolen things, along with his friend Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), who owns the business behind the reputable front that she runs with her clueless boyfriend Timm (James McArdle). Speaking of Mon Mothma, Genevieve O’Reilly returns as the fan-favorite character, and it’s exciting that we get to see more of her origin defecting from the high class roles she’s expected to fulfill on her journey to become the leader we know. It makes sense that he’d want to join the fight that has stripped them of their families as lost children who don’t understand the enemies who came to exploit their land. He’s played deliciously by Skarsgård, especially when it’s revealed he’s living a double life as both socialite and one of Mon Mothma’s associates. He’s a very bless-his-heart sort of fellow who doesn’t like Cassian’s closeness to Bix, so he stalks her as they close in on a deal with a buyer seeking an Untraceable NS9 (taken from the Empire to move through their blockades). Luna shines as a survivor on the fringes who finds himself instrumental to the start of the rebellion within the show’s first three episodes. The guards accost him on the way out pretty much just for the heck of it which leads to Andor to defend himself and not leave any witnesses.

As a prequel to a prequel, the latest Disney+ show is an unlikely candidate to break the mold, but the ground-level look at life in the galaxy is 'Star ...

I don’t know if I need to see each step of his transformation, but I’m here for the minor moments that most Star Wars series and movies might omit. (Which was either an attempt to wrest attention from its fantasy competitors, or a concession to the lack of a real climax to the first two episodes.) The supporting cast is universally strong, the world looks suitably lived-in, and the synths and drums in Nicholas Britell’s score lend drama to the proceedings. The sound of that voice telling you to stop, to go, to move. One of the series’ inspired decisions is to leave the Alliance and Empire out of the action early on. (Sadly, the reckoning arrives first for Timm, who tries to make up for his treachery in a futile attempt to free the far more capable Bix. [whatever](https://www.theringer.com/tv/2022/7/7/23197786/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-1-finale-review) [their](https://www.theringer.com/house-of-the-dragon/2022/8/22/23315669/house-of-the-dragon-premiere-daemon-targaryen-matt-smith) [virtues](https://www.theringer.com/tv/2022/9/16/23356715/house-of-the-dragon-rings-of-power-why-not-both), aren’t intended to reinvent Star Trek, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings, respectively. [point at the screen](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pointing-rick-dalton), and assure the audience that it’s in the right place. The Mandalorian [rules](https://www.theringer.com/mandalorian/2020/12/22/22194772/mandalorian-season-3-look-ahead-finale-the-rescue-book-of-boba-fett). [killing the past](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGMpZnEMYVc); instead, it [doesn’t think about the past at all](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlOSdRMSG_k). That’s the first of several signs that this series is set to deliver a much-needed shock to the Star Wars system and teach a 45-year-old franchise new tricks. Andor arrives at a time when genre fandom is drowning in prequels, products of the pressure to milk recognizable brands for all they’re worth. In Andor, the bar is in a brothel.

Star Wars fans are excited to see Diego Luna return as Cassian Andor in a new Disney Plus series, and we now know exactly when the episodes are released.

[subscribe now](http://radiotimes.com/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article) and get the next 12 issues for only £1. [sign up to Disney Plus now for £79.90 for a year or £7.99 a month](https://disneyplus.bn5x.net/c/1236178/564546/9358?subId1=radiotimes-607408&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.disneyplus.com%2Fen-gb). - Andor episode 10 - Wednesday 9th November 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 9 - Wednesday 2nd November 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 8 - Wednesday 26th October 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 7 - Wednesday 19th October 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 6 - Wednesday 12th October 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 5 - Wednesday 5th October 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 4 - Wednesday 28th September 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 3 - Wednesday 21st September 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 2 - Wednesday 21st September 2022 at 8am BST - Andor episode 1 - Wednesday 21st September 2022 at 8am BST

The new show follows Rebel Captain, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), five years before the events of Rogue One. Andor explores his pipeline from a child, who was ...

[writes](https://mashable.com/article/andor-review-disney-plus) that while the show’s first few episodes may be sluggish, “Andor is unmistakably a Star Wars story. Cassian Andor is a head intelligence officer at the Rebel Alliance, and part of a small team that succeeds in retrieving the plans to build the Death Star and delivering them to Princess Leia. [ Star Wars’ films](https://mashable.com/article/star-wars-solo-ranked) and spinoff series, Andor is exclusively streaming on Disney+. Quick Rogue One recap: The Empire is building a Death Star that promises to be the greatest weapon of all time (a galactic G.O.A.T if you will). The new show follows Rebel Captain, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), five years before the events of Rogue One. Disney’s latest Star Wars endeavor is Andor, a two-season prequel series to 2016’s spinoff film

Photo: Disney+/Lucasfilm /Courtesy Everett Collection. If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, STYLECASTER ...

Here’s [how to subscribe for free](https://stylecaster.com/disney-plus-free-trial/). Read on for [how to watch Andor](https://disneyplus.bn5x.net/c/256585/564546/9358?subId1=SC-&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.disneyplus.com%2F) online for free to see the Star Wars prequel everyone is talking about. (Disney Plus costs $7.99 per month, Hulu starts at $6.99 per month and ESPN Plus costs $6.99 per month for a total of $21.97 compared to [The Disney Bundle’s $13.99 per month](https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=t1ZX7*4ybQA&mid=42392&u1=SC-&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Fstart) price.) Disney Plus and ESPN Plus also come free with [Hulu+ With Live TV](https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=t1ZX7*4ybQA&mid=42392&u1=SC-&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Flive-tv), which costs [$69.99 per month](https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=t1ZX7*4ybQA&mid=42392&u1=SC-&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Flive-tv). You have room, you have space, you have time, and that is lovely when you have something to say.” Get More Unlimited, Play More Unlimited, Verizon Plan Unlimited, Go Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited and Above Unlimited.) If you have one of these plans, you can sign-up for a free six-month Disney+ subscription (which saves you about $42.) [Click here for Verizon’s FAQ](https://www.verizon.com/support/disney-bundle-faqs/) on how to sign up for its free Disney+ subscription. So there you have it—a way to watch Disney Plus for free. The season will lead into the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The Andor cast includes Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, who made his debut in the Star Wars universe in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. [$7.99 per month](https://disneyplus.bn5x.net/c/256585/564546/9358?subId1=SC-&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.disneyplus.com%2F) or [$79.99 per year](https://disneyplus.bn5x.net/c/256585/564546/9358?subId1=SC-&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.disneyplus.com%2F) (which saves users about $16 from the monthly price.) Disney Plus is also a part of [The Disney Bundle,](https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=t1ZX7*4ybQA&mid=42392&u1=SC-&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Fstart) which includes [Hulu](https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=t1ZX7*4ybQA&mid=42392&u1=SC-&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Fstart), [Disney Plus](https://stylecaster.com/disney-plus-free-trial/) and [ESPN Plus](https://stylecaster.com/espn-plus-free-trial/) for [$13.99 per month](https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=t1ZX7*4ybQA&mid=42392&u1=SC-&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Fstart) for Hulu with ads and [$19.99 per month](https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=t1ZX7*4ybQA&mid=42392&u1=SC-&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Fstart) for Hulu with no ads.) The bundle saves users about $8 per month (or 25 percent) from subscribing to each service individually. It’s about that need for people to unite, to articulate a reaction that involves community. The series starts with Cassian, a “revolution-averse” cynic and a thief whose home world was destroyed by the Empire, as he becomes a Rebel spy and eventual captain. [Rogue One: A Star Wars Story](https://stylecaster.com/star-wars-gifts/), which introduced fans to Cassian Andor, a Rebel captain and intelligence officer.

'Andor' debuted with three episodes on Disney+ on September 21. diego-luna-cassian-andor Image via Disney+. Star ...

The theme for [the third episode](https://collider.com/andor-episode-3-review-diego-luna-disney-plus/) is more urgent, perhaps reflecting the heightened stakes of the story, paired with the arrival of Stellan Skarsgård's Luthen Rael. [the first episode](https://collider.com/andor-episode-1-review-diego-luna-disney-plus/) perfectly set the tone for the show to follow, which can best be described as another Gilroy project in which he examines the relationship between individuals and organizations. "None of the opening sequences are the same, and each variation is a different orchestration, a completely different interpretation of our theme that Nic has done. As the story delves deeper into Cassian’s past, the music becomes more nostalgic — the theme for [the second episode](https://collider.com/andor-episode-2-review-diego-luna-disney-plus/) is dominated by strings, and has an almost romantic quality. Star Wars has produced some of the most memorable film music of all time, and most of it can be credited to the great John Williams. To celebrate the show’s release, Britell unveiled the three opening title themes that he composed for the first batch of episodes; there will be 12 in total, so fans can expect more musical experimentation as the season progresses.

What is "Andor"? Who is Cassian Andor? Everything you need to know before watching the new series, premiering Wednesday on Disney+.

[A New Hope](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-star-wars-hails-the-once-and-future-space-western-20151202-story.html)” (1977) and 14 years after Chancellor Palpatine ends the Clone Wars by declaring himself emperor and issuing the order to exterminate all Jedi in “ [Revenge of the Sith](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-revenge-of-the-sith-review-20151202-story.html)” (2005). A character originated by Caroline Blakiston in “Return of the Jedi” (1983), Mothma is a leader and founding member of the Rebel Alliance. Also, the series is set during a time when any surviving [Jedi are in hiding](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2022-05-26/obi-wan-kenobi-star-wars-disney-plus) because they have been hunted by the Empire. “Andor” will consist of two 12-episode seasons. the destruction of the first Death Star. Like “Rogue One,” “Andor” has been touted as a grounded exploration of how people and their everyday lives are impacted by the Empire. (Dates after the Battle of Yavin are labeled ABY.) For context, this is five years before Princess Leia sends her S.O.S. In addition to following Andor’s journey to becoming a Rebellion spy willing to die for the cause, the series will show how the unified Rebel Alliance came to be. Created by Tony Gilroy, the “Rogue One” screenwriter known for his work on the “Bourne” films, “Andor” is a spy thriller that will show how its titular hero came to be involved with the Rebel Alliance. In the context of broader “Star Wars” events, the first season of “Andor” is set in 5 BBY — Before the Battle of Yavin, a.k.a. Andor mentions having been in the fight against the Empire since he was 6 years old, after having lost everything. ‘Star Wars’ has long been a franchise fixated on the Skywalker men.

It's a series that acts as a prequel to a prequel. It features no epic battles between Jedi and Sith, nor many familiar faces from the movies beyond the titular ...

Andor is one of the few Star Wars projects out there blazing its own trail and telling a story with no Skywalker family connections. This series only has a tenuous link to the main trilogies, yet it’s quickly shaping up to be the best live-action Star Wars series to date. But thanks to the divisive reaction to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the jury is still out as to whether Johnson’s trilogy will ever happen. Star Wars: Andor works because it makes such a point of distancing itself from the Skywalker Saga movies and all the tropes and expectations that go along with them. Meanwhile, a young Princess Leia turned out to be a crucial character in Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, a series steeped in the Skywalker/Kenobi dynamic and Succession’s Nicholas Britell may not be the first name to come to mind for a Star Wars series, but Britell’s music truly captures the unsettling yet stylish tone the series is going for. The Mandalorian and its fellow Disney+ shows have managed to recreate that Star Wars aesthetic on the small screen largely through the help of the Volume, a digital set which projects detailed backgrounds and lighting against a video wall. But even as Andor captures the grimy side of Star Wars, it also succeeds in blazing its own stylistic trail. The scope of the series is actually pretty small by Star Wars standards. The Mandalorian broke major ground in 2019 as the first live-action Star Wars series. They have grand destinies and the power to reshape the course of the galaxy. It's a very different show from the likes of Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett.

Read our recap of the first three episodes of Disney+'s 'Andor' and weigh in on the 'Rogue One' prequel series.

Cass pulls a gun and demands to know how Luthen knows such things, but Luthen calmly says at gunpoint that he came to this meeting “looking for something more — and I think I found it.” Luthen teaches Cass a lesson about “building your exit on your way in,” as he triggers blast charges he had affixed to the factory doors. At the factory, Cass presents the Starpath unit to Luthen, who specialties that Andor is either an Imperial spy, a front man for the true seller, or a thief himself. Indicating a personal disgust for the Empire, Cass says simply, “You just walk in like you belong.” As he explains, “They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine someone like me would ever get inside their house.” When they hear Cassian reach out to B2EMO via comms, they set out to trace the transmission and find their prey. A distraught, panicking Kravas stares down the barrel of the gun Cass is holding and begs for mercy/offers to cover up his partner’s death — but Andor instead shoots him in the head, in cold blood. Cassian insists that said money is “in play,” and that he is going to pretend that this mild shake-down didn’t happen. On Ferrix, Cassian goes to a ticket booth to secure expedient passage to Tassar, but the keen agent holds firm on asking for at least 700 credits. One of the “dead” comes to and shoots his blaster at the older girl leader, after which the others positioned at the tree line pelt him with poisonous blow darts. With his boss away, DI Karn forges ahead with an inquiry into the murder suspect and how his craft was able to slip in and out of their airspace without incident. After being urged to leave the establishment, Cassian is approached by the two sentries from the bar, Verlo and Kravas, who demand to see his ID, given it’s post-curfew in “a company town.” Slipping into a strip club of sorts, he chats up the hostess — irking a nearby pair of fellow customers/sentry guards in the process — to inquire about a “girl from Kenari,” a small mid-rim system.

The Cassian Andor we meet in the earliest parts of Rogue One was already hardly the most prim-and-proper sort of person, even for Star Wars' ragtag Rebel ...

It’s why we gravitate to characters like the heroes of Rogue One, why [Din Djarin](https://gizmodo.com/the-mandalorian-isnt-perfect-and-thats-why-hes-so-comp-1840156015) and Boba Fett’s recent turn as the [nicest, worst Crime Lord](https://gizmodo.com/boba-fett-star-wars-chump-1848498513) this side of Mos Espa are so interesting, or why Luke’s inability to grapple with the myth of his heroic legacy in The Last Jedi is so heartbreaking. It’s to watch very normal people do their best in the face of overwhelming structures of evil, because they’re mad at the world they’re in and want to do right by it. But these three episodes go even further and introduce us to a layered world of networks and relationships Cassian has made for himself on the planet Ferrix, pretty much all of which he abuses for favors and are made with people repeatedly calling him out for it. It would be enough to show us that this is a man who barely has a grasp of what he’s doing or what he wants if this act, the catalyst for everything that goes to hell across Andor’s first three episodes, was all we got. But the one we meet [at the beginning](https://gizmodo.com/star-wars-andor-diego-luna-disney-plus-lucasfilm-1849555939) of his self-titled Disney+ TV show is somehow even less put-together to a shocking degree—and that’s pretty damn great. [Andor](https://gizmodo.com/star-wars-andor-series-non-spoiler-review-disney-plus-1849559119), the first three episodes of which began streaming today, opens by taking a practically universally beloved character from Rogue One and spending the best part of those two opening hours textually having what feels like the entire universe hate [its titular hero](https://gizmodo.com/star-wars-andor-diego-luna-rogue-one-disney-plus-vader-1849442225), and kind of for good reason.

The image tweeted out by FX Networks is the same poster style as the Star Wars: Andor poster was but instead of a dark and gloomy Luna as Cassian staring back ...

It's a beautiful reintroduction to the character and one that has fans of Star Wars exited to go on this adventure with Cassian. It does feel oddly apt that another fan favorite in Novak's Nandor gets the same poster. The poster was released back during Star Wars Celebration and was given to those in Anaheim at that first showcase for Lucasfilm.

For the better part of half a century, George Lucas pulled off a Jedi mind trick of galactic...

There are the crazy (female) hair-dos and the incongruous mash-ups of earthly technologies to which we've always turned a blind eye. Relentlessly, we're left out in the cold when it comes to our preconceived ideas of goodies and baddies. And although things may look, sound and feel very different to the Skywalker universe, we're still supplied with sufficient touchstones, so we never lose our bearings completely. Suddenly, and inconceivably, designers of weapons of mass destruction had families; the rebel alliance was complicated by extremism, even the reprogrammed robots couldn't be trusted. Full marks must go to the Andor team for bringing a new level of sophistication to Star Wars but whether the all-important merch-hungry kids will hang around for this slow-burn space espionage saga is the question. With Rogue One (the story of how the plans to blow up the Death Star were stolen), the black and white blurred into grey.

Warning: This article contains spoilers about the first three episodes of Andor. Forget about Han and Greedo. Cassian Andor proved he was the character who ...

Someone that is not completely aware of the big scale and of the repercussions of his acts. That's going to keep happening, which is the beauty again, not just of this format, but of this project that took that risk of moving forward. And he has that spark that is really cool, in his eyes. And that for us was really important, to make sure we understand that we are seeing a childish version of the Cassian we met. And the beauty of these characters is that they give themselves another chance, which is something I believe important to say. And I believe is a story of someone that has been forced to migrate and is a refugee. The next time he's in front of someone with a gun in the hand, he thinks twice. One of the things I loved about Rogue One is that Cassian is a hero, and yet in the very first scene where we meet him in that film, we see him straight up murder a dude, and a dude who is actually helping him and the cause out as an informant. The problem of that second corporal is that they looked at each other in the eyes, therefore he's never going to forget that face. And what he means with the struggle, with the dark past, with being part of a fight since he was really young. The fact that one of the heroes of the film was doing this to an ally in his first scene showed he was a different type of character than we've met before in the I think the beauty of this show is that we are going to see what oppression looks like, feels like — what it is to be in a marginalized world where you can't articulate community and where all your freedom is taken away.