Warning: SPOILERS for this week’s Andor episodes are ahead!
“Who Are You?”, the second of the three Andor Season 2 episodes that premiered on the 2025 TV schedule, depicted the Ghorman Massacre, an event that had already been mentioned in Star Wars history. Kyle Soller’s Syril Karn was killed during the tragic event, and the slaughter of so many innocents pushed Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma to openly condemn Emperor Palpatine in the following episode. However, fans of Star Wars Rebels may have noticed that this moment deviated from how the animated show presented Mothma speaking out against the Empire, and Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy explained why he and his team decided to pivot from canon with this.
For those unfamiliar, the Star Wars Rebels Season 3 episode “Secret Cargo” shows Mon Mothma delivering a speech decrying the Empire’s atrocities that was broadcast across the galaxy far, far away while she’s being transported to Yavin IV by Gold Squadron. While it was established towards the end of “Welcome to the Rebellion” that this moment is still going to happen following the events of this episode, Tony Gilroy explained to EW that he and his brother/fellow writer Dan Gilroy weren’t interested in having O’Reilly recite the exact same speech for Andor, saying:
In canon, she's rescued by the Gold Squadron and the speech that they gave in the cartoon, which was a canonical show, [is on that ship]. And Danny's like, 'Do I have to stick to this f--ing speech?'
I can understand perspective, especially from a writing perspective. Although Andor and Rebels both exist within official Star Wars canon, both feel quite different from one another. The latter show is accessible to fans of all ages, while the former show gearing itself to the older members of the Star Wars fanbase with its more mature storytelling. So while there’s nothing wrong with the speech Mon Mothma gives in Rebels, it was also fine for Tony and Dan to come up with another speech that more effectively fit Andor’s tone.
But again, the speech we saw in “Welcome to the Rebellion” isn’t retconning Star Wars Rebels. It’s merely expanding this corner of Star Wars lore, as Tony Gilroy laid out:
In a really sneaky way, we're minimizing what they did in Star Wars Rebels, but we're keeping it consistent. We're just saying you don't really know the whole story of what happened.
The speech Mon Mothma gave to the Imperial Senate was cut between action scenes involving Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor and the operatives Bail Organa sent to sneak Mothma off planet, one of whom was an Imperial spy. However, a full speech was indeed written and filmed for “Welcome to the Rebellion,” and Genevieve O’Reilly told EW that it felt “special” getting the recite the whole thing. Alas, the video feed broadcasting this first speech from the Imperial Senate chamber was cut part of the way through, which is why it became necessary for Mothma to deliver that second speech from Rebels once she was in Gold Squadron’s care.
There are just three episodes left to go in Andor, and with Mon Mothma now on the run from the Empire, we’ll finally get to see her as that public Rebellion leader we know so well. Those episodes will lead directly into the events of Rogue One, which was technically O’Reilly’s theatrical debut as the character since her scenes from Revenge of the Sith were deleted.
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