Andor's Original Plan Would Have Brought Back A Major Star Wars Villain For A Cameo

"Star Wars" might be looking ahead to the next major cinematic event on the horizon, but some of us still haven't left the last space-bound adventure that captivated us all on the small screen. It's only been a few months since "Andor" season 2, arguably the high-water mark of the entire franchise, brought the acclaimed series to an epic and grand conclusion. Some fans may have assumed that there was nothing left to learn and no stones left to be uncovered by now. Luckily, those fans would be wrong. Like, "Dedra Meero finding herself on the hot seat and getting jabbed by Director Orson Krennic's finger"-levels of wrong. Let's just say that, in an alternate universe, those looking forward to an Emperor Palpatine cameo in "Andor" would've found themselves very pleased.

We know that "Andor" had originally been conceived as a series meant to span five full seasons, but what we didn't realize was exactly how much storytelling potential fell by the wayside once creator Tony Gilroy and his creative team readjusted their approach. In a recent episode of the Script Apart podcast (via Total Film), Gilroy's brother and writer Dan Gilroy joined as a guest to talk all things "Andor." Naturally, the conversation turned towards what the Gilroy brothers would've done had their initial plans for a five-year show actually panned out. According to Dan, this could've resulted in one of the biggest villainous cameos of any "Star Wars" production yet:

"What else would we have explored? Oh my god, where would we have gone? I mean, I can't imagine over five years we wouldn't have shown the Emperor at that point. I think we would have gotten closer to that world. I think we would have gone — we're really getting a good sense of opposition forces here, but let's go deeper into the power at the moment, the halls of power. I think we would have gone deeper into the halls of power and explored that. That would have been the natural way to go, I think, the progression of it."

One of the most enjoyable thought experiments while watching "Andor" was imagining what other characters in the vast canon of the franchise were up to at that exact moment. Jar Jar Binks, for instance, could've been prancing around somewhere on Coruscant during all those sequences involving Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) meeting in secret with Rebel mastermind Luthen Raal (Stellan Skarsgård). It's hilarious to imagine the esteemed cook and Jedi ally Dexter Jettster doing his thing in that 1950s diner from "Attack of the Clones," too. But throughout the series (and especially in season 2), one character was name-dropped and alluded to more than any other unseen presence: Ian McDiarmid's Emperor Palpatine.

That proved to be one of the most effective choices in the entire season, giving the authoritarian despot an added boost in mystique by simply showing us the reactions he provokes in other, more grounded figures. He was the one pulling the strings on the Death Star "energy project," the fascistic increase in "security" galaxy-wide following the Rebel heist on Aldhani in season 1, and the one ultimately responsible for the Ghorman Massacre. Many viewers had hopes of an actual appearance by the big bad towards the later stages of the second season, especially when so much of the action on Coruscant was set in the very same Senate chamber where a certain green-colored Jedi and the newly-unveiled Darth Sidious duked it out in a battle royale for the ages in "Revenge of the Sith."

But would an actual cameo in the flesh have undercut all of that careful bricklaying? I'm of two minds on this: On one hand, I appreciate the level of restraint to avoid the fan-service pandering that has afflicted so many other "Star Wars" stories these days; on the other hand, can you imagine the level of scenery-chewing McDiarmid could've done with a Tony Gilroy script and the steady direction of, well, literally any of the filmmakers involved in the show? This will always be a fascinating what-if scenario, but I, for one, am content with the version of "Andor" we received. 

Both seasons of "Andor" are currently streaming on Disney+.