It has been fascinating watching the larger universes such as Star Wars and Marvel figure out how to transition their worlds to serialized television without losing the grandiosity that made these stories theatrical draws in the first place. The Mandalorian broke significant ground in this field by crafting an original story that exists in the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, giving opportunity for characters we know and love to stop by.
Another live-action Disney series that will begin to fill in more story cracks from the Star Wars universe is Andor, a program centered around Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor that will be set five years before we first met the character in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Andor was accompanied at that time by a faithful droid, K-2SO, voiced by Alan Tudyk. It has been reported that K-2SO will not be part of Andor, so while interviewing Tudyk for his new show Resident Alien, we asked him if he’d like to bring his opinionated droid back in ANY other Star Wars series, the way that popular characters are finding their way to The Mandalorian.
Alan Tudyk told us:
One thing that is good about Andor, I mean, I think [shows] that are going to have the K-2SO droid… you know, the K-2SO droid is not really in the rest of the Star Wars -- any of the Star Wars universes. He only existed there. Like, what happened to that model, man? [Laughs] I guess there’s a malfunction there! You could easily reprogram them and turn them against you! So to have a world that there’s even going to be K-2SO droids IN is exciting to me. But sure. I love Star Wars. I love doing it. It’s crazy.
Naturally, an actor who got to be in a Star Wars movie would jump at the chance to be in more Star Wars. That’s less the story than it is that the KX-series security droids can and should play a larger role in future Star Wars stories. As Alan Tudyk notes, there might have been a serious malfunction in that brand of droid, and there are ways that storytellers can access their programming to make them compelling characters on screen. Think of the way that The Mandalorian used Taika Waititi’s IG-11 as both a bounty hunter and eventually, a reprogrammed defender over the course of two seasons. You can give a droid an arc, and it’s cool to see Alan Tudyk recognize and express that.
We have to wait until 2022 to see Andor on Disney+, as the series is busy filming right now in the UK. But you can see Alan Tudyk in his SyFy series Resident Alien right now. Be sure to tune in to this debut season and see where the comedy-sci-fi combination is going.
