After being enlisted to help get 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story across the finish line, it made all the sense in the world Galaxy for Tony Gilroy to take charge of Andor.
Original plans called for five seasons and sixty episodes (each covering a year of Cassian Andor's life leading up to Rogue One), but when actor Diego Luna understandably baulked at the idea, it was condensed into two. That's why Season 2 covered four years in three episodes apiece.
Gilroy ultimately delivered a take on Star Wars that's considered thematically rich and extremely relevant to the world today. While it's been hailed as the best Star Wars content from the Disney-owned Lucasfilm, it wasn't always Gilroy who was in charge of the series.
In the newly released The Art of Star Wars: Andor book (via SFFGazette.com), there are details about the version of the show in development from Disney Animation boss Jared Bush. An extract from his 2018 series bible reveals just how different it would have been.
"The fledgling Rebellion experiences a crippling setback when an Imperial mole hidden within its ranks decimates a series of rebel bases. Cassian Andor, a young intelligence operative, is one of the few who survive, only to be falsely accused of being the mole himself. Out in the cold, Cassian discovers the only way to clear his name and find the mole is to infiltrate an Imperial planet, which holds the key to uncovering the mole's identity."
While we don't have the full breakdown of Bush's plans, this version of Andor sounds a little more like a straightforward Rebel vs. Empire story, with Cassian at the heart of that. Along the way, the plan was to reveal how he earned such a trusted role in the fledgling Rebellion and why he was tasked with helping to steal the Death Star plans.
For those who felt that Andor was too political, that might have been the preferred version of the story, but given how richly complex the version we got was, it's hard to mourn this unseen take too much.
The Americans' executive producer, Stephen Schiff, was set to serve as Andor's showrunner after Bush contributed a pilot script and series bible. However, when Gilroy reached out to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy with his take on Cassian's past, he took over in 2019.
The only thing Andor was really missing was a bit more of a Star Wars feel, though Gilroy has talked openly about not wanting to include figures like Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader in the series. How much Bush's vision differed in that respect isn't clear.
Andor Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Disney+.