Cassian Andor: The greatest gift to Star Wars

We’re celebrating the holiday season with the greatest gifts Star Wars can ever give us: its characters! Here’s why Cassian Andor is one of the best.

Star Wars is filled with so many incredible characters and inspirational storylines that it can often be difficult to distill the franchise down to just a handful of characters that mean something to each of us individually.

But not for me. If you’ve ever come across my Star Wars YouTube show, my Star Wars podcast, or any number of appearances I’ve made on other Star Wars podcasts, you’ll hear the same consistent answer for which Star Wars movie means the most to me. It’s Rogue One. I love all Star Wars movies, television series, and books, but Rogue One is the one piece of media that stands out among my 20-year obsession with the franchise.

Now, I’m sure some would say, “You just love Cassian Andor because you love Diego Luna.” Which is true, but that’s not at all why I love Cassian Andor. Cassian Andor is a character that I felt in my soul. Everything he stands for matters to me, but for a very specific and very personal reason.

Without Cassian Andor I wouldn’t have felt the same call to get involved in politics, to raise my voice against everything and everyone I was raised around, to use my privilege to help others, to be a conduit for good deeds, to let the image that people held of me die as I truly became me.

I saw Rogue One six times in theaters and I’ve watched it upwards of 350 times at home thanks to Netflix and Disney+. I watch it whenever I feel my resolve falters, whenever I feel like I’ve gone off course, whenever I need to be reminded of what we’re fighting for.

In a far less poignant way, Cassian Andor also said one of my favorite Star Wars quotes.

“I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old” stood out to me during my first viewing of Rogue One. I know it’s meaning is far deeper than how it touched me, but for me, I felt like the line was referencing Star Wars as a whole.

I was first introduced to Star Wars when I was 6 years old, at the opening weekend of The Phantom Menace. I still remember that experience like it was yesterday. But I distinctly remember that the Star Wars fandom was in a weird place in 2016. (But when is it not?) We were a year removed from The Force Awakens and following the Disney acquisition, some fans were constantly trying to make it a competition about who had been in the fandom longer and what made someone a “real” fan.

Cassian’s line stood out to me because I had been a Star Wars fan since I was 6 years old; I knew older fans who had been six years old when Star Wars: A New Hope premiered; I had friends who were introducing their 6-year-olds to Star Wars with The Force Awakens. There was just something about that line that stood out to me about how Star Wars is generational and how the constant fandom fighting comes from that passion of the franchise mattering to all of us.

Star Wars matters to so many of us for a variety of reasons, and it has for 40 years. Some of us are drawn to characters we see ourselves in, to struggles we understand, to storylines that feel like home. Each character is undoubtedly important to each fan in different ways; but for me, Cassian Andor is like a call to action.

Do you think Cassian Andor is the greatest gift to Star Wars? Which character do you think is the greatest gift to Star Wars? Let us know in the comments!