Andor‘s first season showed fans the very early days of what would become Star Wars‘ Rebel Alliance. At the time of the show, the Rebels were essentially separate cells working against the Empire in different ways, loosely overseen by Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen and Elizabeth Dulau’s Kleya.
At this point, the Empire isn’t even sure there is a coordinated Rebellion, with ISB supervisor Dedra Meero the one person who’s starting to connect the dots between apparently disconnected attacks on Imperial facilities. So, how do we get from there to the original trilogy, where the Rebel Alliance is a fully armed militia able to square off against the Empire in open combat?
Fans on r/StarWars are picking over the movies and TV shows and trying to pinpoint where the Rebels went from an annoyance to an existential threat to the Empire itself:
There are a couple of points in Star Wars history that are obvious candidates. The Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star represent the first major victory against the Empire, representing a huge setback and proving to the galaxy that the Imperials are not invincible:
It’s hard to ignore your moon-sized space station being exploded by a farm boy from Tatooine:
We’d love to see how the Imperial propaganda machine spun the Death Star’s demise:
But there are other candidates. The Battle of Scarif in Rogue One showed that the Rebels were well-trained, determined, and equipped with state-of-the-art hardware:
This user summarizes it as a process rather than a sudden realization they have an actual fight on their hands:
Andor‘s second season should provide some clarity on this. That’s set to take place over the three years before the Battle of Yavin and presumably show the various Rebel groups uniting under the banner of the Rebel Alliance. This is currently shooting in the U.K. and is expected to air in 2024.
That’s going to be a painful wait, but once Andor is complete, we should have a clear picture of exactly how the Rebel Alliance grew to become the force that could dismantle an Empire.