Star Wars prequel series Andor tells a compelling, gritty story of life under Imperial rule and wartime espionage that feels distinct within the sci-fi saga.
Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story isn’t the most controversial Star Wars movie ever made, but it still inspires plenty of passionate debate among fans about the place it holds in the beloved sci-fi saga. A gritty, standalone war story set in the period just before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, 2016’s Rogue One was always a risky bet, but it was one that paid off as it became the third highest-grossing film in the entire franchise.
Now, the studio is doubling down on that bet with Andor, a prequel-of-a-prequel that explores the formative years of Diego Luna’s rebel spy Cassian Andor from Rogue One. And much like the film that inspired it, Andor delivers a very different — but welcome — Star Wars story with its simmering tale of espionage set in the early days of a galactic rebellion.
Created and co-produced by Rogue One co-writer Tony Gilroy, Andor isn’t the action-packed adventure rooted in franchise lore and packed with deep-cuts that Star Wars fans have come to expect with The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Instead, the series offers a more thoughtful, slow-developing story about the conditions and events that led to the environment we’re thrown into in A New Hope, with a small alliance of rebels engaged in a seemingly un-winnable war to overthrow the Galactic Empire.
Andor has you experience life under the Empire through Cassian’s eyes, doled out memory by memory and through one bad turn after another under a harsh, authoritarian regime.
