Why is Felicity Jones not in Andor?
It had been years since a Star Wars film had been released when I learned in 2016 that Rogue One would be in theaters. That year I was living and working in Jupiter, Florida and located the theater where it would be playing. Unlike my first film experience with Star Wars in 1977 nearly forty years before, this film was not shown in 70mm but standard 35mm. Still, I was intrigued about the film and wondered how it would fit in the Star Wars timeline and who the characters would be.
There was a lot of publicity surrounding the film at the time, and the key characters were described in online stories devoted to all things Star Wars. The film poster prominently showed the protagonist, Jyn Erso. She was the daughter and only child of Galen and Lyra Erso; Galen had been deeply involved in engineering the Death Star. He had fled the program and his involvement with the Empire when he learned the destructive purpose of the moon-sized spacecraft.
We learn from the opening scenes in Rogue One that Galen Erso had a been working a farm on the planet of Lah’mu but the Empire knew where to find him. Galen was needed to complete the Death Star and the overseer of the program, Orson Krennic, took a contingent of troops to the planet to get Galen by force if necessary. Jyn had been trained by her parents to flee to a safe place if the Empire ever learned where they were living. The Imperial spacecraft with Krennic lands in a nearby field and Galen walks out to it, knowing the purpose of its arrival. Lyra helps Jyn prepare a bugout backpack, and Jyn runs from the house towards the mountains and her hiding place.
Lyra, armed with a blaster, goes to Galen talking with Krennic. She is killed by one of the storm troopers and Krennic orders the troops to find the daughter. Jyn, safely in her hiding place, is not found and Galen is captured and taken. Jyn is found by Saw Gerrera, a member of the rebel alliance and he raises her. Then there is a fifteen year leap in the timeline when we see Jyn fully grown but now a prisoner on the planet Wobani and we are not informed how she was captured and what she had done but surmise she learned many things from Gerrera in how to resist the Empire.
The complex story of Rogue One unfolds and we are introduced to Cassian Andor, an officer in the Rebel Alliance. He is ordered to free Jyn Erso, win her confidence and get her to reveal where the Alliance can find her father. But the search is not benevolent; the leaders of the Alliance want Galen Erso killed by Andor to stop the completion of the Death Star. This fact obviously is kept from from Jyn and she only learns the truth later in the film. Jyn Galen is capably played by Felicity Jones.
Many Star Wars fans have seen Rogue One and have seen the twelve episodes of Season 1 of Andor streamed by Disney+. Andor Season 1 and 2 are the prequel to the events of Rogue One. Many of the principal characters from Rogue One appear in the Andor TV series and are returning for Season 2. The series is named after the principal character Cassian Andor, but the principal character Jyn Erso in Rogue One is conspicuously absent from Season 1 of Andor.
Why didn’t Andor creator and writer Tony Gilroy–who co-wrote the screenplay for Rogue One–bring back Felicity Jones for the Andor series and explain what Jyn Erso had done to make her an enemy of the Empire that eventually led to her capture and imprisonment? In my opinion, this is a curious plot hole that many seem to overlook. Tony Gilroy has his reasons. We may or may not find out the reasons in Season 2 of Andor.
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