Andor Season 2 Risks Continuing The Most Frustrating Star Wars Trend
Star Wars fans just can't catch a break.
Remember how Disney promised us to give us a coherent universe, without contradictions in canon and retcons, when they have scrapped the old Star Wars Expanded Universe (which, to be fair, was at that point quite a mess, with, for starters, several incompatible narratives of the Clone Wars), after acquiring Lucasfilm?
Well that was a promise they did not care about, or were incapable of fulfilling.
And it seems like Star Wars fans shouldn't expect a different treatment in the future.
Let's look at the upcoming Andor Season 2 in light of some recent trends. Season 2 is currently in production, likely to release in 2024, and it will cover the events between Season 1 and Rogue One.
The showrunner Tony Gilroy has already given audiences some hints at what to expect. And there is a significant risk that the show is going to end re-writing parts of Disney Star Wars canon. While many things related to formation of the Rebel Alliance are still vague enough, some events, which are likely to occur on the screen, have already been presented in the books, comics, etc.
For example, as Gilroy recently confirmed, Alan Tudyk's K-2SO from Rogue One will be featured in Andor Season 2, which is not surprising. However, Andor and K-2SO's first meeting has already previously been explored in a one-shot comic book.
Recent Star Wars properties such as Star Wars: The Bad Batch and Tales of the Jedi have already received criticism from viewers familiar with canon novels and comics, for needlessly changing major elements of stories, which already existed in print.
In other words, scriptwriters for animated Star Wars show do not feel themselves bound by printed canon that much. Andor Season 2 risks continuing this trend.
Particularly as the Marvel comic in question (Rogue One – Cassian & K-2SO Special 1) was relatively light-hearted – if only relatively to what Andor is shaping up to be. Andor's only encounter with a KX security droid in the show so far has been traumatic to him, and that might have a long-term impact on his reaction and attitude towards these war machines, which the comic's writers, of course, could not know in advance.
Anyway, for now we just have to wait and see.