Summary
- Rogue One director Gareth Edwards hasn't seen the Andor series yet but acknowledges it as a phenomenal show.
- Rogue One's success as an anthology film paved the way for future standalone projects within the Star Wars franchise.
- The critical acclaim and box office success of Andor proves that Edwards' vision for Rogue One was instrumental.
As he finally has gotten back behind the camera, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards reveals he hasn't seen Andor yet. The Disney+ show acts as a prequel to the 2016 Star Wars spinoff movie, exploring the origin story of Diego Luna's eponymous character as he is recruited to utilize his skills as a thief for the burgeoning Rebel Alliance to bring the Galactic Empire down. Also starring Kyle Soller, Stellan Skarsgård, and Genevieve O'Reilly, among others, Andor has garnered critical acclaim and is labeled by many as the best Star Wars show to date.
While speaking exclusively with Screen Rant at San Diego Comic-Con, The Creator filmmaker was asked for his thoughts on Disney+'s Andor. The Rogue One director confessed he had yet to watch the prequel show to his Star Wars spinoff movie, though acknowledged he had a very good reason for why he has yet to see the acclaimed title. See what Edwards explained below:
Okay, full disclosure, we finished [The Creator] on Friday. I have not seen it. I have not seen any TV. I've not seen any of the Disney+ anything. The only thing that I've seen is the ILM documentary, the Light of Magic, which is a phenomenal documentary, but I haven't had a chance. I'm sure I'll get back to you about it, but I saw the trailer when it came out, we were shooting at Pinewood at the time, and it looked fantastic. It's in, obviously, very great hands, and I'm excited for everybody that's involved.
Editor's Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the show covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.
Why Rogue One Was One Of Star Wars' Most Important Movies
Even with nearly a decade gone since the movie first hit theaters, and multiple big-screen installments in the franchise also released afterward, Rogue One continues to be one of the most important movies in the Star Wars franchise. The 2016 effort marked the franchise's first attempt at anthology storytelling within the Lucasfilm universe, still having connections to what's now known as the Skywalker Saga while still feeling isolated enough for newcomers to enjoy.
The anthology experiment initially paid off for the Star Wars franchise as Rogue One went on to garner large critical acclaim and become a box office smash, grossing over $1 billion against its reported $265 million production budget. This success initially fueled Disney and Lucasfilm's desire to continue attempting this standalone format with Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018, though between its rushed and troubled production and general audience disinterest for a Han Solo-centric prequel, it garnered only generally positive reviews and became the franchise's first box office bomb.
In spite of this failure, Rogue One's success continued to linger in Lucasfilm's mind and the Star Wars anthology formula would return with Disney+'s The Mandalorian, whose success in turn led to the creation of Andor. Though the Luna-led show is expected to conclude with season 2, its quick rise to success has further proven that Edwards' and writer Tony Gilroy's more mature and grounded approach to the Star Wars universe is the unique vision that helped launch the 2016 movie to success.