The best Star Wars TV show could have been Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible in space

It goes without saying that Andor, a series following Rogue One's Cassian Andor and the beginnings of the Rebel Alliance, was met with universal critical acclaim. Often hailed as "the best of Disney's Star Wars," the series is beloved by fans and critics alike.

However, as revealed in the official behind-the-scenes companion book for the 2022–2025 series, The Art of Andor, the original concept for the gritty sci-fi series was, in fact, very different from what was delivered by Andor's showrunner, Tony Gilroy.

The main driving force behind Andor's original conception was the mystery surrounding Cassian at his first appearance in Rogue One. How did someone so cold and aloof become the man leading the all-important mission alongside Jyn Erso to deliver the Death Star plans to Leia Organa in A New Hope?

In April 2018, the man charged with answering that question was writer-director Jared Bush, known for his work on animated films like Encanto and Moana. Bush's initial outlines were titled Star Wars: Alliance, which later became Star Wars: Andor Five. The project's codename was known as Whitesnake.

"[The series] was described to me as a spy drama, in the same vein as the original Mission: Impossible TV series," Andor's lead graphic designer Dominic Sikking said in the companion book. "The series would follow Cassian Andor and a group of rebels, infiltrating the Empire using Cold War-style spycraft."

When we examine Bush's concept, it's easy to see where the Mission: Impossible comparisons come from. Bush's plans are far more focused on actual spy work and Cassian going on missions, which, while it plays a far more vital role in Season 2, takes a backseat in Andor's first season by focusing on setting up the struggles of the Axis Network, a smaller rebel group, and their pursuit — and later recruitment — of Cassian into the Rebellion.

Image: Abrams Books

In Bush's original plan, Cassian is already a part of the Rebellion as an intelligence operative. However, after the rebels suffer a major setback due to an Imperial mole hidden within their ranks, Cassian is accused of being the mole himself. This accusation leaves him little choice but to clear his name. The task is fairly simple: he must infiltrate the Imperial planet Okara and uncover the mole's true identity. Cassian won't be undertaking this mission alone, though; aside from Avnee (his originally planned love interest) and K-2SO, no other characters were named in Bush's Andor bible.

However, as grand as Bush's original plan for Andor sounds, it was never to be after Tony Gilroy sent in his own pitch to Lucasfilm's president at the time, Kathleen Kennedy. Gilroy claims in the companion book that he wasn't trying to get the job, only to be helpful, but regardless, it led to Bush's plan being left on the cutting room floor.

Andor's first season is one of my favorite TV seasons, an intoxicating slow burn that shows the sacrifices Cassian and the rest of the Axis Network make to fight the Empire. Even so, I can't deny that I would also have been fascinated to see a Cassian who had already been part of the Rebellion from the get-go, and thus to see more complex spy work than we got. While we doubt we'll see this original bible ever developed, if Lucasfilm did want to give the original concept another chance, we wouldn't say no.