We are still a few weeks away from the premiere of the “Star Wars: Andor” series on the Disney+ service, but anticipation is high for what Tony Gilroy has cooked up with a series that aims to be quite different from the other Disney “Star Wars” series thus far.
It’s darker, it skews more adult in terms of themes, it minimises some of the more fantastical aspects of the franchise, and it boasts on-location shooting and practical VFX as opposed to extensive use of the Volume.
It also, according to the show’s star Diego Luna, very much sets out to subvert expectations. That can be a dicey prospect considering how some “Star Wars” fans have reacted to shake-ups in the past. For Luna though, that’s a big part of the show’s appeal. He tells THR:
“We’re going to challenge every idea you have, or every answer you came up with, for why or how things happened and why this character did what he did… We’re going to challenge that, and we’re going to come to you and say, ‘No, listen, things were not the way you imagined. They were this way. This had to happen for someone to become the person you know.'”
One way they’re going to do that is with structure. As we know, the whole series will consist of two seasons of twelve episodes each. The first season covers a single year starting a point five years before “Rogue One”. The second season will cover the remaining four years with three episode blocks dedicated to each of those years. Luna is very happy with that structure:
“I think it’s perfect. It’s lovely. It’s almost like four different movies [via four three-episode blocks]. Three episodes will be a very strong block to explore a year, another year, and then another year and another year. There is also space in between each block where time passes, so we’re allowed to evolve and transform. But I think that’s part of season one, too.”
He goes on to elaborate that despite it being over a less compressed period of time, don’t expect the first season to be lacking in surprises. After the interviewer revealed they had seen the first four episodes, Luna says:
“Yeah, so when you saw episode three, you probably went, ‘I think I know the characters, the tone and what the series is going to be about, but then we take you where episode four goes. And you were like, ‘What!? Where are we going? What’s going on? What happened?’
So I think that’s something that this long format gives us. It’s the flexibility to literally transform and go somewhere else and meet other characters and find other planets and discover new things. It’s a fantastic format, and it’s very ambitious. It’s complete freedom. You have room, you have space, you have time, and that is lovely when you have something to say.”
The first three episodes of “Andor” are set to premiere on Disney+ on September 21st.
