By George & Josh Bate
Abrams Books’ The Art of Star Wars: Andor is the “definitive behind-the-scenes exploration of the making of Andor,” according to Emmy award-winning writer Dan Gilroy. As such, the book is filled to the brim with insights, beautiful concept art, and the deepest dive imaginable into every facet of the acclaimed Disney+ series.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year, series creator Tony Gilroy revealed that Andor Season 2 was originally going to feature a “horror movie” episode in which K-2SO terrorizes a group of rebels. Over a year later, The Art of Star Wars: Andor reveals more about what this episode of Andor may have looked like.
New Details about the Alien and Predator-Inspired K-2SO Horror Episode Emerge
Dan Gilroy, who penned the Aldhani and Ghorman massacre arcs of Andor, envisioned the ninth episode of Season 2 as a “self-contained horror story, in which a KX unit gets trapped inside a Yavin-bound tanker and begins hunting down its rebel occupants.”
Production designer Luke Hull elaborated on the idea for the episode and cited Alien and Predator as inspirations.
“We were going to have almost an Alien-esque/Predator combo in space on a ship, which would have been really cool, but it was a whole other, massive expense.”
So why didn’t the horror movie K-2SO episode of Andor come to fruition? “It always stood very large and looming outside the budget,” explained Hull. “And it felt like a diversion from our storyline. Suddenly, we just left Ghorman on some random mission on a ship. They get boarded, and K-2 tears through the ship. It’s a cool episode, but wouldn’t it be better to sort of weave it into the lot, which Tony did! And which I think is much stronger, personally.”
While it seems unlikely that the K-2SO horror episode will be reworked into another Star Wars story, the possibility of a Star Wars project existing in the horror genre continues to warrant discussion. In an interview with Business Insider, Tony Gilroy mentioned that Disney and Lucasfilm are currently developing a Star Wars horror project. “They’re doing that,” Gilroy said. “I think they’re doing that. I think that’s in the works, yeah.”
Star Wars and the Horror Genre Have Crossed Paths Before
The K-2SO horror episode would not have been the first time that Star Wars dabbled in the horror genre. In 2020, Disney-Lucasfilm Press published Dark Legends, a collection of short stories written by George Mann with illustrations by Grant Griffin. The stories include shadowy figures snatching children in the night, a haunted mask, a powerful Sith, a wolfman gone mad, twisted spirits, and more.
The Vader’s Castle Saga, meanwhile, asks the question: What if your starship broke down on a lava planet and the only safe haven was a castle that once belonged to Darth Vader?
In Legends, author Joe Schreiber penned Death Troopers and Red Harvest, two horror novels centered around a virus that turns people into monsters. Death Troopers follows a crew and inmates of a drifting prison barge that have to fight for their lives against undead Storm Troopers aboard a Star Destroyer, while Red Harvest was a prequel that showed the development of the virus, set at a Sith academy in Old Republic times.
The Art of Star Wars: Andor is out now, courtesy of Abrams Books
