Star Wars series Andor was supposed to feature the franchise’s first ever F-bomb, but it ended up being refused by Disney.
Created by Tony Gilroy, the series takes place five years before events in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, as Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) becomes involved in the mounting resistance against the Galactic Empire.
It is the fourth live-action series set in the Star Wars universe, following The Mandalorian, The Book Of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
In a new interview with Variety, director Benjamin Caron revealed that the show was set to feature an F-bomb in a crucial scene, but the request ended up being turned down by Disney.
In the scene, Cassian’s late adoptive mother Maarva Andor delivers a speech via hologram, which ends: “Fight the Empire!”
As Caron revealed, the initial script instead had her saying: “Fuck the empire!”
“Disney wouldn’t let us use it,” he revealed. “So we changed it to ‘Fight the empire.’ I remember having a call with Tony Gilroy saying, ‘Are we gonna get away with this?’”
The director added how he “wrote a legal brief” to Disney encouraging them to let them use the word. “I wrote a memo on it and said, ‘Here’s why I think it’s economically prudent, and here’s why I think it’s good,’” he said.
Reviewing Andor, NME wrote: “Feeling far more revolutionary for the franchise than Rogue One ever did, Andor proves that Star Wars can grow up without growing old. The Lucasfilm universe is clearly big enough for all kinds of stories, and this might just be one of the best yet.”
The 12-episode first season concluded on November 23 last year, with a second batch of episodes already in the works. Here’s when to expect Andor season two.