The Sound of Andor’s Success

In episode six of Andor, we follow two teams as they attempt two different kinds of heists, two high-stakes jobs with the enemy right around the corner (or even in the same room). Rebels Vel and Cinta help the Ghorman resistance pull off a train robbery, while covert operative Kleya is forced to extract a surveillance device as a group of Imperial officers closes in on her. The editing jumps from one narrative to the other almost rhythmically, letting each story line breathe long enough that you don’t feel pained when it cuts away but not so long that the momentum loosens. “You’re kind of spinning plates,” says Andor editor and executive producer John Gilroy. “You planted all these seeds in the earlier episodes and now you’re paying them off.” For Gilroy, brother of Andor creator Tony Gilroy, the trick is to “pay attention to what’s in front of me, then build, build, build the tension.”

Not that there’s a lack of tension in season two of Andor, the prequel to Rogue One that follows Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor in his fight against the Galactic Empire during the years leading up to the formation of the Rebel Alliance. The season is epic in scope, spanning four years and half a dozen plotlines over just 12 episodes, and Gilroy’s brilliant editing makes this ambitious vision possible.

Unlike Game of Thrones, which sacrificed pacing and tension in an effort to keep up with its many characters, Andor doesn’t just maintain its edge across story lines. It increases it. In the show’s first three episodes, the editing moves faster and faster along three separate narratives as the runtime reaches its end, raising the stakes while making the audience anxious for the next cut. This is particularly apparent in the final 20 minutes of episode three, “Harvest,” which cuts among Mon Mothma realizing the extent of her rebel actions during her daughter’s wedding on Chandrila; stormtroopers closing in on Brasso, Bix, and Wilmon hiding out on Mina-Rau; and Cassian rushing to save his friends in his pilfered TIE fighter.

“That might be the most emotionally complicated episode in the whole season,” Gilroy says, comparing the editing of the episode to changing channels. It doesn’t help that Mon’s story line on Chandrila is vastly different in setting, tone, and approach from the one on Mina-Rau — she’s at a crowded event while trying to hide an emotional breakdown, and Brasso, Bix, and Wilmon are physically hiding from the Empire in vast open fields. “There’s a lot of different emotions and a lot of ground we cover,” Gilroy explains.

The episode moves smoothly and doesn’t feel overstuffed because Gilroy cuts just at the moment tension is highest in one story line, pivots straight into an already fraught scenario in the next, and then moves back and forth, maintaining the stress without overpowering either narrative. This also allows time to pass while we look away, dispensing with any moments that would otherwise slow down the action.

This method is almost instinctual for Gilroy, who shrugs off any mention of process, philosophy, or approach. “It’s a feeling that things are right,” the editor says. “It’s very much in the writing, and I don’t do a lot of rejiggering in the cutting room.” Though he is aware of the entire story process from the moment his brother and his team of writers (which includes the third Gilroy brother, Dan) come up with the outlines for the season, John avoids giving input until postproduction. “I’m kind of a rewriter more than a writer,” he says. “I try not to be a co-conspirator in the beginning.” Much as the writing feels like Tony’s singular vision despite his working with a writers’ room, the editing is very much John’s vision even though he has a team with him: “I have the overview the other editors probably don’t have. There’s a singularity to it.”

The sequence hits emotionally thanks to the cuts between Mon dancing and the Mina-Rau team evading capture. When we catch up with Mon a few minutes later and see she is still dancing, the contrast between the immediate danger and horror on Mina-Rau (including an attempted rape) with Mon’s disassociation makes the emotion of both scenes hit harder than if we had seen one story line play out fully before going to the next. As if to leave the audience with one final gut punch, the episode ends with the emotional devastation of Brasso’s death. For Gilroy, the key to the scene was not to dwell on it too much and move so fast that the realization of his death doesn’t hit you immediately. Rather, Gilroy’s editing and his brother’s script aim to be observers of Andor’s action, spending just a few moments on a big event before continuing on. “That way, we have a greater chance of making you cry,” Gilroy says.

Another reason the episode works so well? Brandon Roberts’s “Brasso,” an EDM remix of the “Niamos!” anthem from the first season, which is heard at the Chandrilan wedding right as Mon decides to drown her sorrows in shots and dancing. Genevieve O’Reilly’s frantic performance hides her exasperation in her dance moves, while close-ups both isolate her from the surrounding wedding guests and enhance the feeling of claustrophobia. Gilroy imagines “Niamos!” as a Top 40 hit in the Star Wars universe that everybody knows and dances to, and the energetic tune provides a juxtaposition with the sorrow you feel at the end of the episode, both for Mon and for Cassian and his friends grieving Brasso. John and Tony Gilroy tested multiple edits for the song while storyboarding the sequence to ensure it would all work together — not only when we hear the song but also when we don’t. “It was important that the song remained interesting for 15 minutes, even intermittently, without ever feeling repetitive,” John says. “I quickly realized that wasn’t a problem — it actually felt good to return to it. It’s a very catchy song.” The result is the dramatic highlight of the episode, a descent into chaos that has been such a hit online it was turned into an hourlong dance loop on the official Star Wars YouTube channel.

The impact of “Harvest” comes from how intimate its stories feel, even as the Mina-Rau raid and the Chandrila wedding look epic in scope. For John Gilroy, managing the characters and story lines was an exercise in building his own dream movie. “At the end of the day, all you have to do is please yourself,” he says. “I’m building the movie that I want to see. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. If you pay attention, the film will tell you what to do.”