“Endor” Episode 4 just debuted on Disney+ in the “Star Wars” series in its second week of release (the first three episodes were skipped on premiere day), and more than anything, this installment of the series cements that The new show is a very different approach to a galaxy far, far away. And that, according to showrunner Tony Gilroy, was completely by design.
“Endor” follows the radicalization of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), who we last saw giving up his life for the nascent rebellion in “Rogue One.” The show drops the almost videogame-like plot of Lucasfilm’s breakout series “The Mandalorian” for something more serious and earthy; texture feels tactile; The characters feel upset and broken, they find their way out and move in with their parents; The emphasis is on dialogue. This may be the best thing Disney+ has produced. And most of it has to do with one man: showrunner and producer Tony Gilroy.
Gilroy worked on “Rogue One”. He has a screenwriting credit, but some have suggested that in the absence of an early version, to one degree or another, he took over the actual direction of the lengthy reshoot, replacing original director Gareth Edwards.
When TheWrap joked with Gilroy that it was the longest rewriting work in Hollywood history (“Rogue One” was released back in 2016), he laughed. “I don’t spend a lot of time talking about ‘Wicked’ and I don’t really weed over it, but it was mostly the problem-solving, medically driven, energetic all-hands-on-deck kind of Experience,” Gilroy said. “I mean, it’s like building an entire civilization from scratch.”
Well, maybe not from scratch.
“Endor” was originally announced back in 2017 as one of several “Star Wars” projects being developed for Disney’s upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming platform, Disney+. It was initially developed by “Encanto” filmmaker Jared Bush, who wrote a pilot and created a series Bible. By November 2018 Stephen Schiff was installed as the showrunner and in 2019, at the D23 Expo, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced the show “Endor and K-2SO” featuring Luna and Alan Tudyk, who had Captured the performance and provided the voice. K-2SO, on stage.
In 2019 it was announced that Gilroy had joined the project, working with Schiff, but by 2020 he was announced as showrunner, lead writer and executive producer of the series, now simply called “Endor”. goes. As George Lucas once said, this situation rhymes like poetry.
“He tried it twice. He tried it very admirably. When we finished ‘Rogue’ and then Kathy got the idea to do this prequel, I thought it was a good idea, but no money It was,” Gilroy said. “You really couldn’t do a ‘Star Wars’ TV show. Six years ago he had no money to do the show. No one is doing such a show. It was just financially unfeasible. There was no streaming. It just seemed Ah, are you going to do some smaller version of something?, It’s not a good idea.”
Nevertheless, Kennedy and Lucasfilm went ahead and attempted to develop the idea, which Gilroy described as “very believable”. Seeing that there are potential problems ahead, Kennedy offered Gilroy a response. “And I said, ‘Look, I think it’s super pro, but it’s absolutely claustrophobic. You’re gonna be off the road immediately. What can they do? They’re going to do the same thing every week. It’s somewhere’ does not go. And he said, ‘Well…'” Gilroy recalled.
Gilroy produced a long memo about the show should be, “As a friend on the court, more than anything really.” It ended in Gilroy’s own admission, “a manifesto”. “It was crazy and wildly expensive and crazy and all my dark s-t. And then they tried to upgrade to another version they had. And I guess in the end, they just ran into the same kind of problem ,” Gilroy said. “It just got off the road and they came back and they saw this memo and they were like, ‘Oh, now we have money to make shows like this and we really like that. want to do.’ And then we danced on and on for six months and kept testing each other as we got closer and closer, but that’s the evolution. ,
One of the things Gilroy emphasized was a limited amount of episodes: two seasons of 12. There are practical reasons behind not running (“Diego will be too old” being one of them) but also storytelling considerations. “Watching four episodes just doesn’t prepare you for how big the show is going to be and how full it’s going to be and how great it is to make,” Gilroy said. “I don’t think anyone would bother us to do only two things because you physically can’t do that, I don’t think. I couldn’t.”
After not directing any of Season 1, Gilroy confirmed that he would not direct any of Season 2. Gilroy said, “We get this kind of bump when directors come in from their enthusiasm and their energy and their greed to find a new person who really wants to come and really aggressively try to build their bones.” doing,” Gilroy said. “It’s really cool, when we’ve been working on something for six or seven months, to have them come in and bring someone here with a new energy. It’s really helpful.” The first season is directed by Toby Haynes, Susanna White and Benjamin Caron.
When I ask if there was anything that was hard to get through the approval process (in the first four episodes the characters have sex and be tricked and our “heroes” murder two men in cold blood), Gilroy says That it wasn’t really an issue. “We have very little adult supervision along the way. No kidding. We’re pretty much left here to our own devices,” Gilroy said. “It’s a very small brain belief of people that figure out what To do.”
One of the coolest new ideas is the idea of a corporate-owned planet, which sends its own paramilitary forces to hunt down Endor (presumably with disastrous results). Initially thought of as a starting point for Cyril (Kyle Soler), a sort of overzealous corporate cop, it still fits perfectly into the “Star Wars” world.
“It’s also absolutely canonical pure. This is the moment when the Empire is absorbing everything else as they expand. One of the things they’re doing is to nationalize all these corporate planets,” Gilroy said. Explained. “By the time we’re done, we’ll have shown by all means that the Empire, with all its fascist appetites, is being satisfied in every way around the galaxy – environmental, corporate, economic, socially, in every way. route from. And it was such a cool way to do it.” Yes it was.
Much has been done about the way “Endor” looks, except for screen-based technology (called stage art) that powers “The Mandalorian” and its spin-off “The Book of Boba Fett.” While Gilroy acknowledges the benefits of screen technology, he also notes that it is “a new device.” “It’s a very simple device with some very serious limitations. It’s a box and you can get into it, but you can’t go beyond a certain point. It’s very expensive. But the main thing about it is this that you have a completely different workflow,” Gilroy said.
One major drawback, according to Gilroy, is that “you have to do all the post work first.” “You shoot all your plates. All your stuff has to be figured out. Actors have to know exactly where we’re going, they can’t move. It’s all happened before,” Gilroy said. “When we shoot, we’re just getting started.” Gilroy also pointed out that “The Mandalorian” and “Boba Fett” are half-hour shows with short stories. “We’ll have 12 of 190 speaking parts along the way. are hours. We are going for a lavish show. And doing so financially is a disaster. And you can’t mix,” Gilroy said. “You can’t say, ‘Oh, I’m going to be a vegetarian for the next two days. And then I’m going to go back to meat.’ You have to commit. It’s not disagreement or argument or rejection. It’s just work and flow.”
And while it feels like “Endor” is still largely connected to what it has done in the “Star Wars” television space. Gilroy says that the final scene of the series is Endor boarding a ship to take him to the Ring of Kuffrin, the orbital vestige where he meets Tywick, the informant character Daniel Mays plays in “The Rogue One”. (It is Tiwik who first tells Endor about the Death Star.)
When asked if any other characters from “Rogue One” would pop up in “Endor,” given that they are all still alive during the time period and many could potentially intersect, Gilroy bristled at .
“Popping up isn’t something we’re doing. We’re not doing any pop-ups. If people are there to be there, I mean, it’s logical to assume that if we end up going to Yavin’ and who will be in Yavin,” Gilroy said. “And it’s logical to assume that everyone knows Forest Whitaker here because Saw Gerrera majorly comes in ‘rogue.’ But no, nothing will go to waste. are for a reason.”
And maybe that’s the biggest difference between “Endor” and the earlier “Star Wars” television series on Disney+—it doesn’t stray to the fan-base with unnecessary cameos and outlandish shout-outs. Technically it may be a prequel series, but it is a breath of fresh air.
New episodes of “Endor” stream every Wednesday on Disney+.
