STAR WARS SERIES ANDOR BACK FOR FINAL SEASON

If Andor — which returns now for its second and final season — has been received as one of the very best Star Wars TV series, thatis largely thanks to the grittier, more adult approach taken by its creator Tony Gilroy.

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That standpoint — far, far away from the family-pleasing tone often encoun-tered in the Star Wars universe run by the Disney empire — should be of no surprise to those who watched the 2002 action thriller The Bourne Identity, written by Gilroy.

Its genesis was already evident in the 2016 Star Wars movie Rogue One, which Gilroy co-wrote — and which serves as the climax to Andor, which recounts the rebellion leading up to that film’s events.

“Everything is emotionally charged” because “we're getting close to Rogue One’, Diego Luna, the actor who plays the protagonist Cassian Andor, said.

For Disney, the success of Andor stands out as anew hope fora franchise that has become hit-or-miss with audi-ences in recent years. That is why it has banked heavily on the 12-episode story, which costa staggering US$645 million (21.4 billion baht) to make, according to Forbes magazine.

Where Rogue One was about a rebel suicide mission to steal the plans for the Death Star, with “characters that sacrifice everything for a cause” Andor is about how one of those characters “gets there’, Luna said.