Somehow, Andor managed to stick to canon while blazing its own trail.
In a conversation with The AV Club, showrunner Tony Gilroy addressed the process of retelling Mon Mothma’s speech decrying the Ghorman Massacre in a way that fit both Andor and Star Wars Rebels‘ storylines. Unlike most of season 2, this anti-Imperial speech was already established canon and, per Gilroy, «has weight. How do you get around the fact that in that story, she’s rescued by the Gold Squadron? And, oh man, I don’t want to have to introduce like a whole bunch of new characters, or go with those characters.»
To work around Rebels‘ events where Mothma is brought to the Ghost crew by Gold Squadron, «Welcome to the Rebellion» reveals an untold chapter in her story, establishing that Cassian Andor helped Mothma escape the Imperial Senate but went uncredited for the rescue. For Gilroy, this allows the Rebel Alliance to «print the legend, not the story,» comparing the arc to «a construction project. That was something that was consciously built in that way. To have the whole show go along and not have them get together until, like, episode 10 in Yavin, I would’ve been disappointed with that.»
He also attributed this decision to the Rebellion balancing its public image and covert operations, as this builds up to the massive but dysfunctional alliance seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. «That’s a large part of what season 2 is about, isn’t it? Starting off in the first episode with the idiots in the Maya Pei Brigade. It’s a little bit of a sneaky introduction of the idea that’s gonna be blown out as the season goes along,» Gilroy added.
The aforementioned 2017 Rebels episode «Secret Cargo» saw Genevieve O’Reilly’s initial return as Mothma — who first played the Senator in deleted Revenge of the Sith scenes — following her Rogue One cameo a few months prior. Similar to Mothma’s speech, Andor season 2 also created a new Ghorman Massacre while establishing the Legends-era depiction of those events — in which Grand Moff Tarkin dropped a starcruiser on protesters — as a past atrocity. Other events were rewritten altogether, with the final scene introducing Rogue One companion K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) differently than how he and Cassian met in a one-off comic story.
Mon Mothma Cameoed
Along with Andor, Mon Mothma cameoed in Ahsoka as the New Republic’s Chancellor following the Galactic Empire’s ultimate defeat and dissolution. The series recently began production on season 2, though a release date hasn’t been confirmed yet.
The final Andor episodes air Tuesday, May 13 on Disney+.
