Andor‘s tenth episode will drop tomorrow and looks set to be a nail-biting prison break drama. At this point, we’re supremely confident that Tony Gilroy is going to deliver the goods, and it’s no longer a question of whether Andor will be good, it’s how good it’ll be. The upcoming episode should also give us some clear pointers as to how the final two episodes of season one are going to go down. With the ISB closing in, we’re willing to bet that Cassian won’t have much time to enjoy his freedom.
As the anticipation builds, Star Wars fans are heading back to some classic Star Wars discussions on The Last Jedi‘s treatment of Luke, and Andy Serkis teases what the prisoners are building in Andor. Let’s jump in.
Diego Luna opens up in new Andor featurette with footage from episode 10
Diego Luna has to be riding pretty high right now. Prior to Andor, he confessed he was worried that they’d waited too long since Rogue One to bring the character back, with fans skeptical that a show about a side character we all saw die would work. It’s safe to say those fears were baseless as Andor has cemented its position as the single best live-action Disney Plus Star Wars show to date (perhaps even arguably the best thing since Return of the Jedi…).
Now he’s teased what’s coming in a new Andor featurette that contains a brief sneak peek at tomorrow’s episode. Check it out:
“This is a different representation of the Empire,” Luna explained. “The control and the lack of freedom…Cassian finds himself in the wrong place in the wrong moment. This is the first moment when he understands what Luthen saw in Cassian—that he’s capable of putting a team together, that he’s willing to sacrifice to feel part of something bigger. Nothing’s gonna stop him.”
The brief moments from upcoming episodes come at the end, with a highlight of Cassian telling Andy Serkis’ Kino Loy, “I’d rather die trying to take them down than die giving them what they want.” That’s the kind of language that’s going to make Cassian such a vital part of the Rebellion.
We’re counting the hours until tomorrow’s new episode.
Even The Last Jedi haters admit Mark Hamill nailed it
Disney and Lucasfilm were clearly hyped about Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi prior to release. Shortly before the film came out, they announced that Johnson would be given his own Star Wars trilogy (which is technically still not canceled), and they even launched an Oscar campaign after seeing Mark Hamill’s performance as Luke Skywalker. After seeing the final cut, J.J. Abrams said, “I think we are all going to be very upset if he does not win an Oscar, and no one more upset than Mark.”
That proved to be ludicrously optimistic, but it shows that the incandescent fan reaction to The Last Jedi completely blindsided Disney. Now, five years on from its release, even people that still nurse a grudge against the movie have to admit that Mark Hamill knocked it out of the park as the dejected hermit version of Luke.
A Reddit thread is evaluating his performance, deeming it “the performance of his life,” that he “absolutely killed it” and that he was “exceptional.”
The discussion also rightly points out that for all the griping about Johnson “ruining” Luke, he was only working from Abrams’ story established in The Force Awakens. It revealed that Luke had disappeared, with even his closest friends and family not knowing his location and that his former student, Ben Solo, had fully embraced the Dark Side. With that as your starting point, how could The Last Jedi‘s Luke not have lost his mojo?
With the dust settling on the sequel trilogy, many fans are reevaluating The Last Jedi, which admittedly looks a lot better in comparison to the dreadful film that followed it. Maybe one day, even the most ardent haters will admit that it’s actually pretty great.
Andy Serkis teases that the Andor prisoners are building something very important to the Empire
Since the prison arc began in Andor‘s eighth episode, fans have been wondering what exactly the prisoners are being forced to build. We can see it’s a spoked piece of heavy machinery that needs to be precision assembled in a very clean environment. Suggestions include a piece of a probe droid, something to do with the Death Star’s superlaser, or the part of a TIE Fighter than connects the solar arrays to the hull.
Andy Serkis, who plays prison work foreman Kino Loy, seems to know and has dropped a tease that we should be able to figure it out. In an interview with Collider, he was asked outright what the machinery is, replying:
“It’s really important what they’re building, and I think for those who have a keen eye, and as you know the lore of Star Wars, will find that the pieces that are being made are…I’m not going to give it away because you have to dig around for yourself, but I’m sure there are theories about what those parts are. I’m sure they’re sort of circulating. Are they?”
The interviewer pressed him for specifics, but Serkis simply replied, “I’m not going to give it away.” What a tease.
Here’s hoping that tomorrow’s episode reveals why the Empire needs so many of these devices built and what they’re for. We think the theories that they’re somehow related to the Death Star are likely, as other Star Wars stories have shown similar manufacturing facilities around the same time churning out components and machinery for the Empire’s crowning glory.
That’s all for today, so we’ll see you again tomorrow to discuss another top-class episode of Andor. Once the credits roll on this, we should know the broad shape of the penultimate and final episodes of the show, so there should be a lot to talk about. However you slice it, it’s a good time to be a Star Wars fan.