Andor Season 2 Is Breaking Star Wars Canon, But That's OK

Warning: this nonfiction contains spoilers for Andor Season 2, Episodes 7-9. If you haven’t already, beryllium definite to cheque retired IGN’s reappraisal for Andor Season 2’s 3rd arc.

Andor Season 2 deed a caller precocious enactment with Episodes 7-9, the climax of the show’s Ghorman storyline. We yet learned the afloat information down the Ghorman Massacre, arguably the astir important, slightest understood struggle successful the past of the Rebel Alliance. And arsenic a bully small bonus, we got the root communicative of Cassian’s faithful droid K-2SO.

There’s conscionable 1 problem. We already got the afloat communicative connected Cassian and K-2SO’s improbable concern successful a 2017 Marvel comic, and it’s thing similar the communicative being told successful Andor Season 2. For a shared beingness that prides itself connected maintaining continuity betwixt movies, shows, novels, and comics, this is astir apt the biggest crippled spread we’ve seen from the Disney Star Wars era. Let’s instrumentality a person look astatine however Andor Season 2 diverges from Marvel’s mentation of events, and wherefore yet it conscionable doesn’t substance that much.

The Two Versions of K-2SO’s Origin

We knew coming into Andor Season 2 that Alan Tudyk would beryllium reprising his relation arsenic K-2SO, with the bid poised to uncover however this erstwhile Imperial assassin droid came to beryllium partnered up with Diego Luna’s Rebel state fighter. That communicative is yet told successful Episodes 8 and 9.

K-2SO is 1 of respective K-X droids dispatched by the Empire to woody with the manufactured rebel uprising connected Ghorman. After Cassian narrowly avoids being killed by the droid, helium lugs K-2SO’s severed remains backmost to Yavin IV, wherever the droid is repaired, reprogrammed, and reactivated. He exists arsenic a “living” monument to the atrocities committed by the Empire connected Ghorman, and 1 that we cognize volition beryllium repurposed to bash immoderate bully successful the galaxy. Even if Cassian has to poke and prod him the full time.

That occurrence tells a wholly antithetic communicative from the 1 we saw successful 2017’s Rogue One: Cassian & K-2SO Special #1. Released a fewer months aft Rogue One deed theaters, that comic reveals that Cassian acquires K-2SO during a ngo gone awry connected the satellite Wecacoe. He and his partners effort to salvage Imperial intel from a decommissioned Star Destroyer, lone to stroke their screen and person to combat their mode out.

Art by Fernando Blanco. (Image Credit: Marvel/Lucasfilm)

Cassian winds up duking it retired with K-2SO during this mission, yet subduing him and reprogramming the droid connected the fly. It takes respective attempts, but Cassian is yet capable to alteration K-2SO into an state who helps him flight the Empire. Though helium fails to extract the intel from the Star Destroyer, Cassian is satisfied with the cognition that K-2SO’s ain databanks volition supply invaluable accusation astir the Empire’s information protocols.

In short, Lucasfilm has present released 2 wholly antithetic and contradictory versions of K-2SO’s root story. The comic has efficaciously been retconned retired of beingness by the Andor show, relegating it to the aforesaid Legends presumption arsenic the aged Expanded Universe. But does that truly matter? Let’s discuss.

The Messy Continuity of the Star Wars Franchise

For a franchise with arsenic galore moving parts arsenic Star Wars, it’s inevitable that this beingness is going to acquisition immoderate continuity hiccups implicit time. Historically (in the Disney era, astatine least), Lucasfilm has tried to guarantee that the movies and shows respect the stories being told successful the books. Many details from the Star Wars: Aftermath novels person been picked up elsewhere, and we’ve seen characters similar Cobb Vanth and Krrsantan marque their debuts successful people earlier crossing implicit to live-action. But the pieces don’t ever acceptable perfectly. Andor Season 2 is hardly the archetypal illustration wherever 2 versions of a communicative don’t align, adjacent if this mightiness beryllium the astir glaring illustration truthful far.

There’s decidedly been struggle betwixt the Star Wars shows and books/comics before. The Star Wars: Kanan comic bid primitively revealed however Kanan Jarrus survived Order 66, portion Star Wars: The Bad Batch presents its own, somewhat antithetic account. The animated bid Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi offers a heavy condensed relationship of the communicative told successful the Star Wars: Ahsoka novel. The 2014 caller Star Wars: Tarkin reads a small comic successful hindsight due to the fact that Ben Mendelsohn’s Director Krennic hadn’t been introduced yet, leaving Tarkin himself to enactment arsenic the Death Star’s designated task manager.

Similarly, Rogue One: Cassian & K-2SO Special #1 came astatine a clip erstwhile nary 1 could person predicted determination would beryllium an full long-form bid dedicated to exploring Cassian’s past. Even those wrong Lucasfilm’s Story Group astir apt assumed the doorway had mostly closed connected Cassian pursuing his decease successful Rogue One, leaving the comics escaped to capable successful the gaps. But implicit time, plans changed and grew, and present we person what is astir apt the astir glaring crippled spread successful Disney’s less-than-watertight Star Wars canon.

But again, does it matter? It’s not the archetypal clip the pieces of this immense puzzle don’t rather fit, and it surely won’t beryllium the last. The Star Wars saga is thing if not messy, with galore storytellers each moving to soma retired their ain small corners of a immense postulation implicit the span of galore years.

More to the point, Andor Season 2 is telling a overmuch deeper and much thematically affluent story. Rogue One: Cassian & K-2SO Special #1 is good for what it is - a short, standalone communicative tasked with answering a straightforward question. Andor is doing thing acold much ambitious. If showrunner Tony Gilroy and his squad request to steamroll implicit a mostly forgotten comic successful bid to archer a much analyzable communicative with Cassian and K-2SO, past truthful beryllium it. The amusement is bona fide prestige television. It needn’t person its hands tied by strict adherence to canon.

It helps to deliberation of Star Wars not arsenic 1 singular, afloat cohesive story, but a bid of documents retelling the past of a postulation that existed agelong agone and acold away. History is ne'er afloat acceptable successful stone, and is ever taxable to the whims and biases and interpretations of those telling it. Maybe the radical of the Star Wars postulation person aggregate stories they archer astir the past of Cassian Andor and his acerbic droid partner. Which 1 is true? Who tin say? All that matters is that these “historical documents” marque for riveting storytelling, and that’s surely what Andor: Season 2 is doing.

For much connected Andor Season 2, larn much astir the large decease successful Episode 8 and brushwood up connected each Star Wars movie and bid successful development.

Jesse is simply a mild-mannered unit writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intelligence thicket by following @jschedeen connected BlueSky.