Andor has improved one detail from the Star Wars sequel trilogy, according to a fan of the Disney Plus show.
In Andor season 2, a major plot point is the Empire's designs on the planet Ghorman, which involve mining for kalkite to ultimately be used for the Death Star (leading to the Ghorman Massacre). One fan on Reddit has noticed that this has a lot in common with Starkiller Base, which is introduced in The Force Awakens.
"The existence of Starkiller Base always bugged me. You're telling me the entire planet had its middle ripped out and its core mined for kyber? The scale seemed so out of whack," they wrote.
"But surprisingly, the Ghorman story in Andor is essentially a real-time retelling of a similar situation. The showrunners obviously did it in a more tasteful manner (they didn't even show us the mining craft meant to gut Ghorman, we simply hear about it). In Andor, the scale of the operation of strip-mining the planet somehow feels realistic and grounded.
"Just goes to show when you get scale and story right, what would otherwise be a goofy premise becomes real and terrifying."
The post has hundreds of upvotes, and, while not everyone agrees, one person has pointed out that Star Wars had already laid the groundwork for Starkiller Base, which was once the planet Ilum: "This is also something that was expanded on before Andor even came out. In the Jedi Fallen Order game, we see the Empire around a decade before A New Hope was already mining on Ilum. There was likely a plan to use Ilum as a super weapon even as early as that point in time."
"Was going to say Jedi Fallen Order I think confirmed an earlier fan theory and a clever way to anchor [J.J.] Abrams' nonsense to the wider universe in a meaningful way," adds another fan. "Given Ilum's significance as well to the Jedi it's got an extra mean-spirited edge to it."
Andor season 2 is the most critically acclaimed live-action Star Wars project ever, so it's no surprise that it might find a way to ground some of the saga's more outlandish ideas.
Next up for Star Wars is The Mandalorian and Grogu, which hits theaters on May 22. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows for everything else that's on the way.
