The Art of Star Wars: Andor (The Complete Series)
The official behind-the-scenes companion to the Emmy, WGA, SAG, Golden Globe, and BAFTA–Award nominated Disney+ series. New York Times bestseller!
The Art of Star Wars: Andor (The Complete Series) gives readers an exclusive inside look at the production art, visual development, concept art, creature designs and FX, graphics, props, and more that went into creating the Tony Gilroy-helmed Disney+ series.
Through extensive interviews with Gilroy, star Diego Luna, and the talented Lucasfilm visualists, author Phil Szostak documents every step of Andor’s production from discussions following the initial release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story up through post-production on the final episodes of season two.
With deep dives into the locations that defined the series, including Kenari, Ferrix, Aldhani, Narkina 5, Mina-Rau, Ghorman, and Yavin 4, among many others, this essential volume celebrates the legacy of all twenty-four critically acclaimed episodes and the hurdles the filmmakers, cast, and crew had to overcome to bring their vision to life.
Every facet and detail of the Rebellion and Empire’s inner workings and the day-to-day existence within the world of Star Wars that Andor lovingly depicted are explored in great detail along with reflections on the series overall and its espionage roots and political relevance. The lived-in, battered costumes, ships, and locales that are so crucial to the DNA of Star Wars are on full display in this volume alongside the elegant formalism of the Galactic Senate and Coruscant.
Every piece of concept art—from ISB uniforms to Ferrix workwear to sleek speeders to the sterile prison cells of Narkina 5—has a tactility that leaps off the page. Cassian Andor’s journey from thief to spy to rebel to martyr, and the stories of his allies, uneasy partnerships, Imperial schemes, and galactic revolution took audiences on an emotionally resonant adventure and The Art of Star Wars: Andor spotlights the exceptional work that made it all possible.
Author: Phil Szostak
Release Date: 30th June 2026
ISBN: 9781419775680
Page Count: 288
I’d been excited for this book for a while. I love the ‘Art of’ books and have done for a long time. This particular book is somewhat of a return to form after the series lost its way a little with The Rise of Skywalker release. We seem to have waited ages for something, anything, related to Andor. It’s been well over a year since the series finished and it looked like all was said and done. The great things about these ‘art of’ books are that they also serve as a moderate version of a ‘making of.’
The book opens with ‘The greatest gamble in movie history.’ The gamble, of course, they’re referring to is the ending of Rogue One. An ending in which, all of our protagonists and heroes die at the end of the film in order to serve the larger purpose. I admit, I never thought they’d do it. We were under the new hands of the House of Mouse after all. Tony Gilroy tells us in his introduction to the book that Kathleen Kennedy approached him, after the book finally officially admits that Gilroy oversaw mass rewrites and reshoots on Rogue One and asked him if he’d like to come back and do a Star Wars TV show.
Gilroy said no. Flat out. Wasn’t interested. The rest, as they say, is history.
The book also opens by giving us the entire list of creatives in the team which is a marvel in itself.
The artwork featured throughout the book itself, as expected, are things of beauty. We’ve come to expect nothing less from Star Wars these days. Dating right back to the days of Ralph McQuarrie himself, the art department team at Lucasfilm are second to none.
There’s a real joy in reading the words of the book to learn about the production process. There’s hundreds of revelations in this book and it would be shame for me to simply list them there. It’s better if you find them yourself.
To give you an idea, however, of the sort of things we learn about in this book, here’s a few:
Saw Gerrera was conceived by Lucas himself to originally appear in his ultimately scrapped Underworld series.
The lights in B2 were actually the lights of an iPhone that were then controlled by another iPhone on set.
Unsurprisingly, Narkina 5 was heavily influenced by THX 1138.
Neal Scanlan tells us in the book that Season 2 of Andor featured more creatures and aliens than season 1 due to fan reactions.
The Naboo flashbacks in season 2 were shot on the same location as the deleted scene from The Phantom Menace was all those years ago.
The Holiday Special won’t ever die as Eedy Karn’s kitchen was based on Ralph McQuarrie concept art for the Wookiee kitchen from that infamous 1978 special.
The book details season 1 and 2 in chronological order and in planet sequencing. The artwork is a marvel to behold and really shows us how visually and tonally different Andor is to anything else in the Star Wars canon.
The book layout follows the same format and design as previous incarnations for other projects and it visually pops. One could spend hours simply gazing in wonder at the artwork on presentation here.
Dan Gilroy closes out the book with his words and does so wonderfully. He reminds us that Andor really succeeded best at pushing the boundaries between good and evil. To move beyond a simple storytelling notion of black and white. That, indeed, the world of Star Wars, and our life too, has many grey areas and that’s where the best stories are told.
This book, however, is anything but grey. It’s a myriad of colours and talent that will, I have no doubt, be regarded as among the finest of its kind for many years to come.
Art book lover are spoilt as ‘The Art of The Mandalorian and Grogu’ arrives to us later this Autumn.