8 Months Ago, Andor Creator Tony Gilroy Gave the Advice Star Wars’ New Leadership Need to Hear

January 23, 2026, 8:00am

Andor is rightly being hailed as one of Star Wars‘ greatest achievements. Creator Tony Gilroy took an ambitious risk by making a series focused on one of the franchise’s lesser-loved characters, Cassian Andor, and making that series a prequel to a prequel (Rogue One), while refusing to include many of the traditional staples and tropes of a Star Wars project.

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During the first season of Andor, it seemed like Gilroy was cracking into an inspired idea, but it still felt like a niche corner of the franchise and cult hit TV, at best. However, the second season of Andor clearly showed just how high the show’s profile had risen. It helped that Gilroy and Co. more than rose to the sophomore challenge: they delivered the Star Wars franchise’s first true “prestige show” and went on to be an Emmy-winning pop-culture phenomenon.

Tony Gilroy’s Star Wars Advice Is Exactly What Lucasfilm Should Be Listening To

Dave Filoni is known for being the apprentice to Star Wars creator George Lucas and one of the foremost authorities on the franchise’s lore. However, while that deep-lore knowledge has allowed Finloni to create shows like Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels (beloved animated series that added so much to the lore of Star Wars), his live-action projects since The Mandalorian (like Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, or The Book of Boba Fett) have been more divisive. To mainstream viewers, Filoni projects like Ahsoka have been the kind of content that “requires too much homework” to be readily accessible. It’s led to greater fractures within the Star Wars community, and not everyone is celebrating the fact that Filoni is going to have even more of a controlling hand on the franchise.

During a Q&A podcast with Backstory Magazine 8 months ago, Tony Gilroy shared his view on the creative principle that should be guiding Star Wars into the future:

“A lot of times when you’re working on IP storytelling, your impulse is to open the toy box and start playing with all the toys,” Gilroy said. “You should try to resist that, and what you should do is leave more toys in the toy box than were there when you got there and resisting the impulse to be a child and instead think more like a storyteller who’s adding to the world rather than taking from it.”

Some may read that quote as a shot at Filoni and his preferred style of making Star Wars – but it doesn’t have to be taken that way, at all. Many fans have been objectively critical of Star Wars having to constantly recycle characters and plot arcs for nostalgic overindulgence. Andor certainly did a lot more than what is described in Gilroy’s analogy, as there was nothing childish about the series’ unflinching look at how fascism seizes a culture and forces everyone to inevitably see the shadow of evil coming down and choose a side. But the point is valid: Andor introduced so many new characters to Star Wars lore who are now icons: Luthen Rael, Bix Caleen, and Kleya Marki; it w also the rare case where a prequel successfully expanded the lore around established characters, with Mon Mothma, Orson Krennic, Bail Organa and Cassian Andor himself all looking way more interesting and important to Star Wars after the series.

Luthen Rael and Kleya Marki in Star Wars: Andor — Lucasfilm – Disney+

If Andor can “add to the toybox” and still use old toys to do it, then the new leadership team at Lucasfilm can too. That ball is already in motion with Star Wars: Starfighter, the upcoming film from Shawn Levy (Deadpool & Wolverine). Levy will be establishing the first new Star Wars lore set after The Rise of Skywalker, which provides new hope that Gilroy’s sentiment was heard, and even more great things will come of it.

You can stream Andor and all Star Wars content on Disney+.