Colby J Smith
As far as the line up of Star Wars films under Disney’s watch goes, Rogue One is the only release that comes anywhere close to garnering a unanimous consensus amongst fans.
With a critics score of 86% on review site Rotten Tomatoes, its undoubtedly one of the most complete and well rounded Star Wars films of recent times.
With a first look trailer being dropped on YouTube last week, fans will be hoping that the prequel spin-off show Andor will follow the in the same vein of Rogue One’s gritty, realistic and slightly darker Star Wars action.
The new trailer gives us a glimpse into production, with one staff member revealing there are over ‘two hundred named cast members and six thousand crowd actors’. The Mandalorian has set a high bar for Star Wars series, and with another of the crew member adding ‘We treat this exactly like we would a film’ we’re sure to be in for another visual and storytelling treat.
Set 5 years before the events of Rogue One (it would be hard to set it after the tragic climax of the battle of Scarif), the show will follow the exploits of take-no-prisoners rebel spy Cassian Andor in the early days of the rebellion.
Played by Diego Luna, the character walked the line of morality in Rogue One, asking the age-old question ‘do the ends justify the means’- set firmly within the rebel vs empire framework – and we expect to see this tightrope act played out in a new series that has been described as a ‘tense nail-biting spy thriller.’
Created by Academy Award nominee Tony Gilroy, the man who stepped in to rewrite and reshoot scenes towards the end of the filming of Rogue One, production is already underway and the show is expected to land on Disney+ sometime in 2022.
