I’m in a bit of a bind. I like Diego Luna, but wasn’t a massive fan of Cassian. The character is not exactly a draw on his own. But, my major problem with him was that I found him to be a pretty thin character. He’s introduced as a cold killer, becomes un-disillusioned with hope and blah blah blah faster than you could flick a light switch, then dies. Not much to latch onto there. A tv show would probably fix that.
Same thing that we're going to be following a dark and depressed guy who won't go through his character arc till after the series has ended (same as Solo), unless we're going to do it in reverse where we see him start as a bright and optimistic guy who gets worn upon to the point we see him at the start of the movie. Sort of like a sci-fi breaking bad (please note I've never seen breaking bad). I'm not saying Disney wouldn't do that kind of thing for their new Star Wars t.v show but I doubt it.
I’m actually pretty excited about a Cassian Andor centred Rebellion spy series! I think it could work really well - and also I simply love the Rogue One / ANH era of Star Wars storytelling, visually and design-wise. Huzzah!
I have no way of demonstrating that assertion one way or another but, in my experience, those who have enjoyed Star Wars typically revolve around the Rebellion Era. In addition, the more casual fans will enjoy a good story, so I see no harm in tapping a rather large swath of Star Wars history while connecting with a lot of very familiar elements. Finally, it is 20 years worth of time in said history. Again, are all the story possibilities exhausted out of the era? If not, then I see zero issue.
Not sure we're on the same page here. I'm saying I think most fans care about the OT/Rebellion era, and not so much the post-RotJ to TFA Resistance era (which I mockingly called the Rebellion 2.0). Hence, this proposed series strikes me as fairly promising, given the available options. (Maybe not as promising as a series that actually takes place during the OT, but, who knows, perhaps a character introduced in this series can take up that mantle in a subsequent one.)
I've only see a couple episodes of The Americans, but based on what I've heard about it he should be a good choice. I wonder how dark this will go, obviously not as dark as The Americans, but hiring someone from a show like that makes me think it'll be at least a bit darker.
One of the few failings of Rogue One was the lack of character development and backstory. That being said, though I liked Andor in Rogue One, I don't know about building a whole series around him. I wish Disney would get away from full series ideas and perhaps just do limited series with a definite end. If it was like a limited series, miniseries, I think that would work better for Andor, while also providing opportunities to feature more Rebels. There is a lack of suspense for Andor because there's already a ceiling on the character. I would rather see a Jahan Cross-like series instead. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jahan_Cross
I was watching that event live today, and when they mentioned Alan Tudyk, my hype for this series immediately went up. Also liked the little production info that she gave, namely that this show has been filming for a while now.
I've been a huge Alan Tudyk fan since Firefly, so I am very happy to hear he'll be back as K-2S0. I'm not sure about the Deadline article, but the article on StarWars.com says that Disney+ will start on November 12. This is the first I've mention of seen a specific launch date.
For me, Rogue One was never about characters. It's an event movie. Like those old war movies from the 50's and 60's. The characters were a device to get you invested in a horrible event. So they never were really developed. Just hints that made you curious as to why they might act a certain way. With Cassian, I was curious as to why he was so ruthless to a fellow Rebel that he could kill him just like that. But the movie was about him. Or Jyn. Or anyone else. It was about stealing the Death Star plans and the horrible loses it caused for the Rebellion.