This throwaway Andor line could be setting up James Mangold’s Star Wars prequel movie

Disney is plotting a new course for Star Wars, and while some elements of the nine-movie Skywalker Saga will surely continue in the ‘New Jedi’ trilogy that’s potentially being headed up by Daisy Ridley’s Rey, the franchise is spinning off in all sorts of exciting directions. The Mandalorian & Grogu will take the hit Disney+ series to the big screen, Shawn Levy's Star Wars: Starfighter looks like it’s taking flight, and Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy recently spoke about a horror hybrid that could give Alien a run for its money.

Others haven’t been as lucky, with the likes of The Acolyte season 2 and the idea that MCU overlord Kevin Feige would helm his own Star Wars movie being thrown in the trash compactor. There are fears that some, including the Lando Calrissian prequel and Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron, will never see the light of day, but there are rumblings in the Force that James Mangold’s Jedi Order origin movie could be the ‘new hope’ Star Wars needs right now. Even though we don’t know much about the Logan director’s upcoming outing, it’s just been teased in the strangest way. 

Andor is trying something new in season 2, and while it once again features 12 thrilling episodes of heists and espionage as we lead into the events of 2016’s beloved Rogue one, each block of three episodes is released in one go and covers a different year of the Rebel Alliance’s formation in the shadows. You might think you know how the story goes, but as Rogue One proved when it became a war epic that was more than just a romp about how to steal the plans to the Death Star, this period of the galaxy far, far away is an untapped goldmine. With Easter eggs galore winking to the wider world of Star Wars, there was an unexpected mention of the Rakata. 

April 23’s “Harvest” revealed why Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) was at the wedding of Mon Mothma’s (Genevieve O’Reilly) daughter. His cover story of being an antiquities dealer instead of the Rebel instigator known as Axis meant that Davo Sculdun (Richard Dillane) had bought an ancient statue from him. Sculdun says it was stolen 25,000 years ago when Chandrila was sacked by Rakatan invaders. The seemingly throwaway line is a direct reference to the Rakata, an ancient species of fish-like aliens who conquered the galaxy when they harnessed the power of hyperspace travel. The complicated backstory of the Rakata was first introduced in BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and although that was consigned to the defunct Legends canon when Disney took over Star Wars in 2012, Legends legacies like Grand Admiral Thrawn and Boba Fett’s survival have been slowly amalgamated into mainline canon.  

Knights of the Old Republic is set 4,000 years before the Skywalker Saga, and with the Rakata being in power as far back as 35,000 years before that, we’re going way back into the history of the mythos of Star Wars.  Casting your minds back to Andor season 1, interest was piqued when Luthen explained to Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) the importance of his blue kyber crystal, which was a Kuati signet that celebrated the planet's uprising against Rakatan invaders in 25,000 BBY. Importantly, Sculdun’s reminder that the Rakata invaded Chandrila 25,000 years ago lines up with the Rakatan invasion from Legends AND the formation of the Jedi Order. This is another win for Legends purists while also making it easier for someone like Mangold to adapt this rich lore into live-action. 

Star Wars Rebels’ iconic "Twilight of the Apprentice” featured an Easter egg that many thought looked like a Rakatan space factory, while the ‘Ancients’ referred to in The Bad Batch are also thought to be those fishy foes. Star Wars has been peppering Raktan Easter eggs through continuity for a while. As well as Rakata Prime being included in The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary, eagle-eyed viewers might’ve been able to spot a Rakatan wraith box in the study of Dryden Vox (Paul Bettany) in Solo: A Star Wars Story. It seems the writers are getting bolder with their Rakata references, which suggests it’s leading into something. Given that Andor is doubling down on its nods to the various Rakatan invasions, it all neatly segues into Mangold’s story.

With Mangold’s movie supposedly being called Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, and the last big Legends project before Disney took the reins of the IP being Dark Horse Comics’ Dawn of the Jedi, it’s not too hard to put the pieces together. The Rakata referred to their spread as the Infinite Empire, which sounds like a pretty compelling villainous arc for Mangold’s movie. Mangold himself has remained tight-lipped on who or what will be the presumed big bad of Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, but told MovieWeb: It's an area and a playground that I've always [wanted to explore] and that I was inspired by as a teenager. I'm not that interested in being handcuffed by so much lore at this point that it's almost immovable, and you can't please anybody." 

Importantly, the Rakata had a big part to play in this period of the galaxy. Despite again being resigned to Legends, the Dawn of the Jedi featured the Jedi Order’s predecessors (the Je’daii) pushing back the Rakata during the ‘Force War’. There’s arguably too much here to cover in just one outing, but if Mangold’s movie is a hit, who’s to say he doesn’t have plans to expand the story further? After all, Star Wars loves a good trilogy. Much like how the High Republic novels were used to queue The Acolyte, don’t be surprised if new Dawn of the Jedi stories come out before Mangold’s movie. If nothing else, Andor reminding us of the Rakata could bring us one step closer to those rumors of a live-action Knights of the Old Republic adaptation.