The final third of Andor‘s first season will kick off tomorrow with episode nine and, judging by the teaser for the rest of the season, we’re in for an action-packed ride. We’re hopeful that the various disconnected plot strands will combine, especially now that Dedra has left the ISB base and is in the field on Ferrix. Rebel Alliance bigwigs like Luthen, Saw Gerrera, and Mon Mothma should also combine forces, with the latter apparently set to have to make some tough decisions as she commits to the Rebellion.
In other Star Wars news, there’s an illuminating interview with Corey Burton about voicing Count Dooku in Tales of the Jedi and the surprising revelation that fans are still looking forward to Rian Johnson’s long-delayed movie trilogy.
Denise Gough tells fans not to cheer for her ‘Andor’ character
Despite being a committed Imperial agent, it’s easy to root for Denise Gough’s Dedra. She’s one of the most competent people in the ISB, is treated condescendingly by her colleagues, and is one of the few people smart enough to see the links between apparently unconnected incidents.
Gough appeared at the Lucca Comics & Games convention in Italy, where she said all this was intentional but that we shouldn’t forget who Dedra really is:
One of the best things about Andor is that it portrays the Empire not as a comic-book bad guy, but as a genuinely scary fascist government. Showing the smaller intrusions and injustices the galaxy faces under their rule underlines why they need to be overthrown much more than seeing a cackling space wizard tossing lightning around the place. It certainly doesn’t sound like Dedra is going to have a face turn anytime soon, but we’re eager to see just how far she’ll go to catch Cassian Andor.
Corey Burton explains how he approached voicing a younger Dooku
Christopher Lee was a titan of cinema, with his Count Dooku one of the highlights of the prequel trilogy. Lee played the role in Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and The Clone Wars movie, though the role was taken over by veteran voice actor Corey Burton for the animated series. Burton did a great job and recently reprised the role in Tales of the Jedi and now, in an interview with SlashFilm, has gone into what it was like taking over the role.
Burton provided the temp track for The Clone Wars movie before Lee stepped in to record his part. Lee heard Burton in action and was so impressed he said to George Lucas “Are you sure you really want me to do this? Because this guy’s really good.”
He went on to talk about how he approached a younger version of his character:
“When we first started recording for these Tales of the Jedi, I had the idea that he’s much younger. So I should play him all sort of squeaky clean, naive, and fresh and innocent. So I started with this young Shakespearean sort of carefree, happy-go-lucky character. And Dave [Filoni] was like, ‘No, no, no, no. What are you doing?’ He said, ‘No.’”
Filoni made the right call, as even as a younger Jedi Master, it’s clear Dooku already had the gravitas he’d have as an older man. After Tales of the Jedi, we’d love to see more of Dooku, as he’s one of the more interesting and layered villains the franchise has to offer.
Fans are still hoping Rian Johnson’s ‘Star Wars’ trilogy happens
Lucasfilm clearly thought it had something special on its hands when it saw the finished cut of The Last Jedi and promptly announced that Rian Johnson would get his own Star Wars trilogy. Then the fan reactions came in. It’s safe to say they were caught off guard by just how much hatred there was for the movie, to the point where The Rise of Skywalker was clearly a frantic attempt to undo a lot of what Johnson established and provide a lot of fan service. We all know how that worked out.
Since then, Johnson went on to make the smash-hit Knives Out, netting an incredible $469 million from Netflix for the rights to two sequels. His planned trilogy has been put on the back burner, and is currently “indefinitely postponed”. But some are still holding a torch for the project, with fans on r/StarWars saying that Johnson releases “nothing but bangers” and that “if TLJ is any indication it’ll be fantastic”.
There are a few naysayers, but it appears that time (and the terrible The Rise of Skywalker) has caused at least some fans to reevaluate The Last Jedi‘s merits. We’ve been a fan of Johnson’s films since his awesome debut Brick, so we’d love to see him turned loose on a story that was entirely his own. Whether we’ll ever actually see it is looking unlikely, but stranger things have happened.
See you tomorrow for the new episode of Andor. By now, the show has cemented its quality, so we’ll just assume it’s going to be another awesome ride.