Congratulations, Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers; you’ve successfully tossed a wrench into one of the most incredible things to ever happen to Star Wars; I hope you all find hairs in your coffee and tiny rocks in your expensive shoes.
Indeed, the timing of the SAG-AFTRA strike proved to be a bit too inconvenient for Andor, who- per Deadline – couldn’t quite finish filming for its second and final season before its players under the guild went on strike. Actors with the British acting union, Equity, remain on set and will reportedly continue working, their refusal of which would mean potentially facing a lawsuit for violating their contracts. Go figure.
Tony Gilroy, the mastermind behind the critically acclaimed political thriller series, was firmly in strike mode before the SAG-AFTRA strike, having ceased all work, including writing, on Andor when the WGA strike began back in May. The Rogue One writer seems to see Hollywood’s current state of affairs as no different from the bleak overtones of Andor‘s Empire-era galaxy, having called this age of strikes a necessary “existential battle.”
It’s perhaps poetic that a show like Andor – mainly about a man who’s gotten fed up with the maniacal fist of the Empire and subsequently begins his journey to become one of the most dynamic forces against it – has wound up being affected by the strikes, which themselves seek to oppose the dizzyingly heinous structure of the entertainment industry at the moment. We don’t think it will get to a point where actors will perish trying to steal the plans of Disney’s planet-killing weapon (which they may or may not have), but the way the AMPTP is acting, we can’t exactly rule out that possibility, either.
The first season of Andor is available to stream on Disney Plus.