How Andor brought Star Wars back to its revolutionary roots

Diego Luna, Tony Gilroy, Ben Mendelsohn and Denise Gough speak to The National about season two of acclaimed Disney+ series

Andor tells the story of how Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) went from a rogue to a true believer in the revolution against the Galactic Empire. Photo: Disney

Star Wars was never a story about a galaxy far, far away. It was about us – we just didn’t realise it.

Creator George Lucas confirmed as much in a 2019 interview with James Cameron, when asked about his tale of guerrilla rebels taking down an oppressive evil empire. The spaceships, aliens and Jedi masters were just a bonus – his tale was really about revolution and the mid-1970s political realities he was writing it amidst.

“They were the Viet Cong,” said Lucas, referring to the Rebellion. “The little guys won, and the big technical empire lost. That was the whole point.”

But since Lucas stepped away from the franchise after selling it to Disney in 2012, the story’s political roots have been largely left aside. Increasingly, the fixation on Skywalkers and space fantasy has made the franchise often fall into the trappings of grown men playing with action figures with very little grounding in our reality.

That is, until Tony Gilroy, the man behind the Bourne franchise and Michael Clayton, started applying his mind to the world of Star Wars to write Rogue One. And finally, Lucas’s vision found a kindred spirit – and the seeds of a grander, deeply political story were planted.

Gilroy tells The National: “I've been reading history my whole life as a sort of idiot armchair historian. I’m fascinated by all this stuff. And it is material I thought I would never have a chance to use anywhere.”

Andor series creator Tony Gilroy pulled from revolutions throughout history to fuel the story. Photo: Disney

That material became the original series Andor, perhaps the most acclaimed Star Wars creation since The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. And in case there’s any doubt, Gilroy does not mince words on what his series, now in its second and final season, is really trying to say: “It's about revolution".

“I want to drop the mic on revolution stories. I want to get it all in there. I want it to be timeless. I want it to feel like it's honouring all the revolutions that we've ever read about, all through history,” he says.

The series follows Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a man who initially embodies the sort of “scum and villainy” that Obi-Wan Kenobi once warned about. Over the course of the show’s two seasons – the second premiered on Wednesday on Disney+ globally – Andor is radicalised, slowly becoming a true believer in a revolution he initially wants nothing to do with.

But as the story evolved, it became grander in scope. Throughout the show, a panoply of characters across the landscape is featured. We follow a docile senator secretly working with an art dealer to fund and organise the rebellion. We meet guerrilla soldiers bickering in the jungle and farmers just trying to survive as the powers that be clench their fists. And we even experience the banality of evil through government workers deep inside the empire’s bureaucracy.

Actor Diego Luna, left, believes that Andor resonates because its story of people fighting for a better society reflects the world we live in. Photo: Disney

Gilroy had no shortage of historical antecedents to draw from. “The Russian Revolution, for one. The French Revolution. The American Revolution, obviously. Oliver Cromwell – I got really into that and the complications of him. Zapata. I know a lot about Mao.”

“Revolutions are like families,” Gilroy adds. They're all the same, and they're all different, you know? So I'm pulling from everything here. And as far as how molecular it is, I mean, I've always worked that way.”

Gilroy knew how rare an opportunity it was to get to make such grand political statements within a major intellectual property. But to his surprise, even as he laid his vision bare to Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and other top Disney brass, no one blinked.

“Disney knew what I was going to do. I did a lot of work beforehand to show them, to make sure that they were really into what we were doing, but they wanted to go this way. And it's a big gamble for them, too,” Gilroy says.

Mon Mothra (Genevieve O'Reilly), left, and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) are two key figures of the rebellion in Andor. Photo: Disney

For Luna, who serves as both producer and star, the show is not just about history – it’s about the world we live in now.

Luna says: “Yes, there's reference to the past, but sadly, history repeats. We're not that different from our parents or our grandparents.”

As season two evolves across its 12 episodes, and the war between the rebellion and the Galactic Empire heats up, Luna was surprised to see how much of it reflected current conflicts happening across the world.

“This story suddenly feels like, ‘Oh my God, it's talking about today’. And it's because Tony has a very honest process as a writer. He reflects on what matters to him. And a story of people wanting to bring change to their community is timeless.”

But for Ben Mendelsohn, who played the Galactic Empire’s military leader Orson Krennic in Rogue One and returns to the franchise in Andor season two, the show is the “pinnacle” of Star Wars because it captures the humanity on all sides of the political equation.

“The real secret to the empathy game is this: The rebels are fighting for a good idea, but the Empire is also fighting for what they see as a good idea. And that’s history in a nutshell. It’s a series of disagreements about good ideas,” says Mendelsohn.

Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), introduced in Rogue One, returns to the franchise in Andor season two. Photo: Disney

And part of the reason the series feels so rich, especially in the second season, is that the heroes are morally complex. Characters in life and death scenarios must constantly confront whether evil actions can serve the greater good, and what kind of violence can be justified. And even the revolutionaries consistently disagree on what measures must be taken.

For Denise Gough, who plays methodical and Machiavellian Imperial security strategist Deedra Meero, those themes resonate strongly – and impart lessons that perhaps none of its characters ascribe to.

 “It makes you think, wouldn’t it be amazing to be in a world where we all admit that maybe there's something other than this violence? That maybe the actual care of humanity is the best idea, as opposed to, like, wiping everybody out all the time?” says Gough.

Episodes one to three of Andor season two are out now, with three more episodes releasing weekly on Disney+ until May 13