How ‘Andor’ staged the first rebellion in the ‘Star Wars’ universe
The character of Darth Vader from the original trilogy is a familiar, beloved one, but the first “Star Wars” character to rebel against the Galactic Empire was none other — a character whose name is now a household word.
In the pre-Crisis version of the saga, the name of the rebel leader was Andor, and the rebellion of the galaxy was staged using what became the central elements of the new series: a space-age hero who had been captured by the Empire but escaped his captors and joined the Rebel Alliance to overthrow the Empire.
The first “Star Wars” film, “A New Hope,” came out in 1977. The original script had Andor fighting side by side with Luke Skywalker as they battled the Empire’s forces in battle. But Lucas ultimately discarded that story, preferring to build the story he wanted — and to write the character of Andor himself.
Andor was the rebel hero in “The Empire Strikes Back,” when he fought the Empire and helped Luke defeat him. In “The Return of the Jedi,” he and his band of space pirates were the villains of the film, leading the Empire’s forces in a full-scale military invasion of the Rebel Alliance base on Hoth.
Andor was not the only star of the galaxy who could be the star of a “Star Wars” film. His replacement in a “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones” was the rebel fighter Bail Organa, who fought as leader of the Imperial Security Bureau under Jabba the Hutt in the second film. The series’ other rebel leaders included Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca, who fought alongside Han Solo and others.
The Empire Strikes Back
“Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,” in theaters in December 2012
Lucas and his staff began brainstorming ideas for their new series in the summer of 1997. They wanted a story unlike their predecessors, and they could find no better person to write it than Mark Hamill.
“If you read my biography of Mark, he’s a man of remarkable talent,” said Lucas at the time. “And what he