The next Disney Plus Star Wars series, “Andor,” hits the streaming service with a 3-episode premiere on Wednesday, August 21.
Of all the Star Wars movies that followed the beloved original trilogy, I think Rian Johnson’s 2016 Rogue One might be my favorite. All the others have generally been hamstrung by their stories being linked too closely to the existing canon, whereas Rogue One let us explore an interesting side-story that was connected to essentially a throwaway line in the first Star Wars movie (“Many Bothans died to bring us this information”). And now, this week, Disney Plus is giving us an exciting Rogue One prequel series called Andor.
I’ll admit it, the early footage has already given me chills. Andor, the series, is Star Wars — but it’s also a new and completely different thing, too. It’s a spy story that’s also about imperialism, a rebellion against that imperialism, and a migrant who’s fighting for his place in a transitory world. “They’re so proud of themselves,” Diego Luna’s spy Cassian Andor, the central character here, practically snarls about the Empire at one point in the early footage. “So fat and satisfied.”
The OG Star Wars fans amongst you are probably caught up with the entire franchise, and thus know what happened to Luna’s character and to basically everyone else at the end of Rogue One.
