Star Wars: Andor creator says season 2 is the most "important" thing he's ever done

Since The Mandalorian premieres in 2019, we've had a great many Star Wars TV shows to enjoy on Disney+, including The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and The Acolyte. Shows like The Acolyte and Skeleton Key are on their way, to say nothing of animated series like The Bad Batch and Star Wars: Vision. As good as many of these shows have been, and as much as the people working on them care about them, there's a sense that Disney is pumping these things out on an assembly line, that it's more concerned with getting something in front of us than making sure that something is as good and singular as it can possibly be. How can any one of these shows stand out when the next one is always right around the corner?

Well, they can be Star Wars: Andor, a series from Tony Gilroy that tells the story of how Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) went from being a selfish scoundrel to a selfless freedom fighter willing to give his life to fight the Empire, which he does at the end of the 2016 movie Rogue One. The first season of Andor dug into topics I didn't think Star Wars would ever touch, and certainly not with this kind of grace and power, topics like inhumane prisons and bureaucratic fascism, and it did it all without any lightsaber fights. The best moment of the show might be when antiques dealer/Rebel organizer Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) gives a speech about what it means to dedicate himself to the cause. What galaxy is this?

I think it's very hard for a filmmaker to work within a massive franchise like Star Wars and still say something resonant and timely, so that Gilroy has threaded that needle is very impressive. And it sounds like the second and final season may be even better. Here's what Gilroy had to say when interviewed on the red carpet for an event put on by the Writers Guild of America East, where Gilroy received the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement:

"I’ve been on Andor for five years now. We’re finishing the second half. I’ve had a lot of fun over the years, but I don’t know whether I’ve ever done anything as important as these 24 hours of storytelling we’re doing now. I don’t know if it’s just cause it’s a thing I’m on, but I don’t think so. I’ve never had a chance to work this big before. It's a pretty big deal for me."

The first season of Andor ran for 12 episodes and the second will too, for a total of 24 hours of storytelling. If Gilroy is this excited about the back half of the show, then I am too. Now all we need is a release date.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.