Andor is the next major Star Wars story to release, premiering in less than a month on Disney+, and I think it’s going to be great.
The show has, in many ways, flown under the radar since it was first announced a few years ago, thanks in part to the massive hype surrounding Obi-Wan Kenobi earlier this year. But I think that Andor will surprise people, showing a different side of the franchise and a different side of the Rebellion. We’re familiar with the Alliance to Restore the Republic from the original trilogy, but how did it come to be? I can’t wait to see Diego Luna’s return as Cassian Andor and see how his character becomes the spy willing to give his life for the cause that we were introduced to in Rogue One.
But running alongside that storyline is another one, and it’s actually what I’m most excited for in the whole series. Starring alongside Luna is Genevieve O’Reilly, returning to the role of Mon Mothma. And while the storyline with Cassian will show the darker sides of rebellion, we’ll also be seeing Mothma working in the Imperial Senate to lead the cause in secret. “As long as everyone thinks I’m an irritation, there’s a good chance that they’ll miss what I’m really doing,” we hear Mothma saying in the trailer for Andor.
Mothma at this point in the timeline is just an Imperial Senator from Chandrila. Having previously served in the Republic Senate, Mothma worked closely with other Senators like Bail Organa and Padmé Amidala to begin rumblings of rebellion, and with the rise of the Empire that has only grown stronger. She will, of course, become the formal leader of the Rebellion. As seen in Star Wars Rebels, a few years prior to A New Hope Mothma officially forms the Alliance to Restore the Republic and led the rebels into open warfare against the Empire. She led the Rebellion during the Galactic Civil War and, upon the formation of the New Republic, became the first Chancellor of the new government. But for someone as prominent as her, she’s received relatively little attention in the new Star Wars canon. I’m glad that she’s getting some of her due in this show.
And I’m also glad that it seems we’ll get some exploration of the political side of the franchise. There was criticism about that focus in the prequel trilogy, and because of that the sequel trilogy avoided it altogether. So much of the worldbuilding of the New Republic was assumed, and I wish we would have seen more of it. Showing how the fight takes place in these settings, how Mothma works behind-the-scenes to undermine the Empire all while seemingly help govern it, is ripe with tons of great potential. But it also is an important theme in Star Wars, where the fight doesn’t just happen on a battlefield but in every aspect of life. There’s more than one way to fight. And seeing such a strong figure like Mon Motha fighting in this capacity is something I’ve been hoping to see more of for a while.
I think the storyline with Cassian will be great. But I’m even more excited to see Mon Mothma, Coruscant, the Imperial Senate, the political scope of the galaxy, and the seeds of Rebellion being sown in the government. They could do a whole series just about that and I’d be totally in, but I think telling that story simultaneously with the other side of the rebellion will amount to a really great contrast, complementing one another as we see them begin to merge.
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