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This post contains spoilers for “Andor” season 2, episode 8.
One of the most terrifying moments during the Ghorman massacre in the latest arc of “Andor” comes when the Imperials unleash the full compliment of KX-series Imperial Security Droids on the crowd. They smash through the rioters like the Incredible Hulk, tearing them apart as though they were nothing and tossing them about like rag dolls. They were held until the end of the riot like a secret weapon and swept through like a final punishment. Treated like monsters in a horror film, they appear to be unstoppable and pop out from behind corners, ready to attack.
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Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) hasn’t had the best experiences with droids and seems close to dying at the hands of one, but is saved at the last minute by one of the Ghorman rebels, who runs a heavy duty speeder right into it, cutting the thing in half by ramming it into a wall.
We get the idea that this could be K-2SO, Cassian’s eventual pal who’s voiced by Alan Tudyk, but there was a different origin story for the two of them in the canon that doesn’t match this introduction, so what happened?
Cassian & K-2SO’s comic book introduction
In 2017, Marvel Comics published a one-shot comic called “Star Wars: Cassian & K-2SO — Special #1.”. It detailed the first meeting of Cassian and Kay-too, set prior to the events of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” In the comic, Cassian Andor is teamed up with a pair of twins named Kertas and Rismor, and they are tasked with uncovering Imperial security protocols to help in their work as Rebel spies. In the process of that infiltration, Cassian tripped an alarm and gained the attention of a KX-series Imperial Security Droid, and it took Kertas and Rismor to find its kill switch to save him.
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The three of them worked feverishly to reprogram the droid, figuring that it would be able to help them complete their mission about finding Imperial protocols, but it doesn’t go according to plan. K-2SO, as he reveals his name to be, still would very much like to detain them as they’re wiping his Imperial programming, but becomes less hostile as they destroy more and more of that intent from his memory banks. When the team is forced to split up, Cassian is left with K-2SO and the pair of them make a break for it, finding a ship and escaping. They head back to the rebel base having forged a new, if not somewhat antagonistic, relationship that we see in the movie.
The comic was good, but not many people read it and it didn’t tie into much else.
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Here’s how both versions of Cassian/K-2SO introduction can make sense
Tony Gilroy and his writing team saw a better way to make that work and went for it in this arc of the series. With a much larger audience watching “Andor” than those who read comics, it made sense to offer a first meeting of the two of them on screen. And the story for the comic book really didn’t fit the dramatic tension of the show. With the Imperial Security droids tearing apart the Ghorman rebels and Cassian on hand to witness it, it was no stretch in imagination for him to see the possibilities in having one of those droids of his own. When there was one laying at his feet, cut in half and shut off, it made sense to take it with him. The intelligence potential of the shut-down droid would be high, even if he couldn’t get it running again. And that became the new start of a beautiful relationship between Cassian Andor and K-2SO.
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Yes, it completely rewrites the history a sliver of “Star Wars” fans thought was canon. Is that the end of the world, though, if the better story is winning out? I’m asking myself how these two stories can jive with each other, and it’s easy to think that the comic book was a cover story. In a world of espionage, myths, lies, and covers, it would be easy to think that if someone asked Cassian about what happened, he could make up a story easy enough. Why not let the comic be one of those stories he could tell someone?
Giving “Star Wars” a unified canon is important. It’s crucial to know what needs to be taken into account for the creatives, but when you have a showrunner like Tony Gilroy firing on all cylinders and tell him he can’t tell the best story possible because of a comic book that very few people have read, it’s better to make some excuses or reasons the comic book can become secondary. I’m glad the folks at Lucasfilm are judicious about this and don’t do it very often. Usually what we get are slightly different versions that vary by their medium that are easy enough to chalk up to interpretation.
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Whatever we need to tell ourselves about this, we should, because what we got on screen was pretty incredible and I would trade the comic for it any day of the week. If I have to tell myself the comic book was a cover story Cassian told a contact once to justify it all still being a unified canon to do it, I will.
“Andor” season 2 finishes with a three-episode finale next week on Disney+. Solana Token Creator
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