Summary
- Andor Season 2 hints at reintroducing Starkiller from Star Wars Legends, potentially altering the Rebellion’s history.
- Starkiller’s return could bring new power and depth to the Rebellion’s origin story, tied to Darth Vader.
- Fans eagerly anticipate the potential reimagining of Starkiller, captivatingly portrayed by Sam Witwer in The Force Unleashed games.
Andor, the Star Wars universe’s most well-received project in recent years, returns for a second and final season in less than a month. After the exhilarating first season showed multiple ways in which the Empire’s cruelty reigns, such as its prison-labor-related arc, fans have eagerly awaited showrunner Tony Gilroy’s final Rebellion chapter. It could tie directly into the A New Hope prequel, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, or it could tie itself together with its own explosive close-out. If Andor Season 1 says anything about Season 2, then fans will surely be pleased with whatever comes.
While there is much to look forward to in Season 2, a minor Season 1 Easter egg leaves open the possibility that Star Wars plans to reintroduce a non-canon character, Starkiller, who was once crucial to the Star Wars timeline. His inclusion could change the meaning of the Rebellion, how it formed, and who its major founders are. If it is more than an Easter egg, dedicated, long-time Star Wars fans familiar with the pre-Disney Star Wars Extended Universe (now referred to as Star Wars Legends) will find his inclusion satisfying, with all other fans hopefully coming to enjoy Disney–Lucasfilm‘s revamped version.
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In artifact collector and secret Rebel associate Luthen Rael’s antique shop in Andor Season 1, episode 4, “Aldhani,” eagle-eyed viewers noticed a nod to the character. In the shop, the metal-rusted armor that Starkiller obtains if players choose The Force Unleashed‘s dark ending appears on a stand in the background, among other galactic antiquities. While this may be little more than a nod towards a respected Legends icon, it would be obtuse for Star Wars not to utilize him now, even if they cannot figure out how to intertwine his original story with the ever-growing timeline.
The Force Unleashed Story & Protagonist Explained
Who Is Starkiller?
Before any big- or small-screen projects that filled the gaps between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the video game The Force Unleashed dotted the Rebellion’s formation as starting with the infamous Darth Vader’s mission to Kashyyk, where he continued searching for the last Jedi who escaped Order 66. After killing one long-since outcast Jedi, he finds the man had a son: Galen Marek, a small boy with a lot of raw force potential. Vader takes the boy in, training him in the dark side of the Force without revealing Marek’s existence to Lord Palpatine/Darth Sidious. After about a decade, Vader secretly directs Marek — now codenamed Starkiller — to hunt down the remaining Jedi whom Vader could not kill.
Starkiller blinds his first victim, independent resistance sect General Rahm Kota, who tells Starkiller that their futures are intertwined before being thrown out of a hurtling space station. Troubled but still determined, Starkiller continues hunting Jedi, with nothing but his training droid and only friend, Proxy, and their ship captain, Juno Eclipse. After a few more fun clashes, Starkiller literally gets back-stabbed as a reward. As Starkiller reports his victories to Vader, Darth Sidious enters the room, and the two meet for the first time. Sidious then forces Vader to lightsaber stab Starkiller and toss him outside the ship, leaving him for dead.
Away from Sidious’ prying eyes, Vader rehabilitates Starkiller, and his secret rogue agent continues hunting down Jedi. Angered by such a betrayal and troubled by his father’s force ghost, who reminds him of the Force’s better path, Starkiller searches for answers elsewhere. Eventually, he seeks out a now-blind and drunken Rahm Kota. The pair shake each other out of their psychological trenches and turn against the Empire, searching for other friends who can help. Starkiller learns through new friends and experiences how the then-disorganized resistance’s cause is just and compassionate. This leads him to the light side of the Force, whilst retaining some powerful dark-side tricks like force lightning.
In Starkiller’s eventual showdown with Vader, players get two choices that lead to very different endings. As one option, they can let Vader live, fight Palpatine, and die a hero. This is the big event that sparks the Rebellion’s creation under Kota, Bail Organa, and Princess Leia. The other choice — the game’s non-canon ending — sees Starkiller kill Vader, which gets his friends killed at Sidious’ hands before he gets captured, maimed, and rebuilt to become Sidious’ personal, less-than-human assassin. The armor that the newly-named Lord Starkiller wore as he killed Luke Skywalker in The Force Unleashed‘s non-canon DLC had not been seen for 14 years, until it appeared in Ruthen Lael’s antique collection.
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Why Starkiller Should Return
Starkiller Is Integral To the Rebellion’s Original Formation Story
For years, fans have speculated about a Starkiller return. From a rumored appearance in the Jedi: Fallen Order video game franchise to theories about his return via TV, fans have long awaited news on Star Wars Legends’ arguably most developed and well-loved character. If Gilroy is in fact going to reintroduce Galen Marek/Starkiller in Andor, there are a few conditions.
Galen Marek is intertwined with Darth Vader and the Force. Failing to establish a connection between them on screen would belittle Starkiller’s new existence. Whether he is Vader’s new secret apprentice as in the games, a force-sensitive assassin/bounty hunter, or one of the Empire’s Inquisitors, he has to be very powerful and have a Vader connection for his story to pay off. Otherwise, his reintroduction may feel so misplaced that fans will want him gone sooner than he arrived.
Marek must also be portrayed by the franchise’s already adored actor Sam Witwer, Marek’s voice actor and body model in The Force Unleashed games. Fortunately, with Witwer’s continuing involvement in the Star Wars universe in other projects such as The Clone Wars, his return is a given if Marek returns.
How Starkiller Could Fit Into Andor Season 2
The Rebellion Needs Friends, and Starkiller Could Be A Powerful One
Andor Season 1 ends with the titular character joining the rebel cause, and Season 2’s trailers promise a big fight. With that in mind, the group needs more allies, giving Starkiller a perfect window to enter the Star Wars universe. The Empire terrorizes millions of souls to keep control over the galaxy, and in its wrath are left many enemies who eventually get back on their feet. Starkiller could be one of those enemies. He could be written in as the Empire’s original Inquisitorious test subject who gets outcast because of his uncontrollable emotions and visions (akin to the cloning storyline of the video game The Force Unleashed II).
This would allow him to have a similar Vader connection, where he could be torn away from his parents in childhood and trained as in the original Force Unleashed. It would also give some much-needed connection to the Inquisitorious program, as there has been little beyond an ever-expanding roster of Inquisitor brothers and sisters. He could then become one of the Rebellion’s most powerful allies as he gets pulled to the light side, aiding Andor, Luthen, Mon Mothma, and the Rebellion through his ground-shaking presence and galactic relations. This could end in a bombastic showdown with Vader (even if Andor only sets up such a showdown in future).
Of course, this is only one way in which the Star Wars franchise could reintroduce the universe’s fiercest non-canonical lightsaber wielder. Regardless, there is no way that the Lord Starkiller armor Easter egg should be left alone. Galen Marek is too important to fans, the Rebellion’s beginnings, and even Darth Vader to leave out of Star Wars TV. Time will tell if and when Starkiller returns, but Andor has hinted at the reintroduction more than anything Star Wars-related. Regardless, Andor Season 2 is shaping to be a climactic end to Tony Gilroy’s two-part resistance saga that will give fans lots of pleasing blaster fire and political strife.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
- Released
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September 16, 2008
- ESRB
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T For Teen // Violence