Star Wars' Cassian Andor Series Is What We Need to Get Over Solo

Earlier this week came a flurry of news surrounding Disney's upcoming premium streaming service, due to launch sometime next year and called Disney+. Among the announcements regarding the platform and its original programming was the surprise news that Lucasfilm was developing a second live-action series for the service, including the currently filming The Mandalorian, focused on Cassian Andor sometime before the events of 2016's Star Wars: Rogue One.

Portrayed by Diego Luna, the Rebel Alliance covert operative was an immediate fan-favorite character in the first Star Wars anthology film though, like all the main characters of the film, reaches a pretty definitive end by the movie's climax. A prequel series, fortunately, opens a lot of interesting opportunities for the character and, perhaps more importantly, gives a larger, more expansive story to a scoundrel-esque character that doesn't come with anywhere near the level of fan expectation and established baggage as this year's Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Just like its titular smuggler, Solo was released into theaters with the odds stacked pretty heavily against it. A publicly troubled production history, being released just five months since Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the generally high level of fan expectation associated with Star Wars worked to create an uphill battle for a film focused on one of the franchise's most beloved characters with a new actor following in the footsteps of Harrison Ford's iconic performance.

That's a lot of undue pressure, and while the film was positively received overall, it still performed well below Lucasfilm's expectations at the box office when it was released this past May. With plans for at least two additional sequels following the adventures of a young Han Solo presumably canceled, a Cassian Andor prequel series could fill that scoundrel-shaped void in the Star Wars Universe in many ways, including taking risks that Solo sequels never could.

NEXT PAGE: The Cassian Andor Series Could Take the Risks Solo Simply Couldn't

Rogue One is perhaps the darkest film in the entire Star Wars franchise, and Cassian one of its most complicated, lethal heroes in the cinematic history of the series. The first moment audiences were introduced to him, the character killed an unarmed informant rather than run the risk of letting him fall into the hands of the Galactic Empire. That immediately set the darker, more intense tone of the film in many ways, as Cassian was secretly tasked with killing Death Star creator Galen Erso rather than extract him from working on the battle station, as his daughter Jynn was led to believe. In a universe where the forces of good and evil are traditionally very easy to distinguish (and literally color-coded at times), that's a pretty distinct moral shade of gray.

Taking place before the events of Rogue One could show Cassian before he regains his sense of hope, providing a darker, more cynical take on the character while still exploring the dark underbelly of the Star Wars Universe. Solo explored the fringes of it, including the criminal organization Crimson Dawn, but most of the film served to tell the origins of Han's friendships with Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian, as well as how he would obtain the Millennium Falcon following the famed Kessel Run. While those are important moments in the history of the characters and the overall Star Wars canon, they also come with a sense of predictability that a Cassian Andor series would not be beholden to.

The upcoming live-action series could also fill the seedy void left by the cancelled Boba Fett solo film. The planned anthology film was reportedly set to follow the bounty hunter and his peers and competitors as they tracked down targets across the Star Wars Universe. As both a spy and assassin for the Rebel Alliance, Cassian could explore this darker perspective of the galaxy far, far away with an established character without the baggage of expectation or a significant amount of unseen backstory. And in terms of supporting cast, fan-favorite droid K-2SO, portrayed by Alan Tudyk, would be a logical returning character, with the series perhaps providing an origin to the partnership between the two, including Cassian reprogramming the former Imperial security droid to join him in working for the Alliance.

Ever since its debut, Star Wars has always loved its rakish rogues in contrast to their more noble, principled heroes. Cassian Andor is one of the most welcome additions in the new wave of characters introduced since the franchise's acquisition by Disney, and certainly fits the role with darker undertones than previously seen figures within the Rebel Alliance. With so much of the character's potential unexplored by the new Expanded Universe, the planned live-action series for Disney+ could provide a scoundrel-centric Star Wars story without the built-up expectation riding against Solo this year. The darker elements of the Star Wars Universe have always been there, and maybe it will be Cassian Andor and not Han Solo to be the one to guide audiences through it.

The Cassian Andor series is still in development with no expected premiere date announced at this time, but is expected to begin principal photography next year. Disney+ is slated to launch sometime in 2019.