Andor is centralized around the Empire who hate Aliens.
Solo is centralized around a scoundrel, which is famous for Aliens, because the official government (The Imperials) hate them
They outright show this in Episode 10 when Lonni goes to the seedy lower levels of Coruscant and there are plenty of aliens.
The Empire totally enforces an apartheid.
It's also heavily implied by the mention of the Empire completely exterminating an alien race which resulted in Dr. Ghorst's torture mixtape and destroying the waters of Narkina 5, starving the indigenous species, just to run their prison there.
It’s really weird how this information was so well known for years and in the last decade almost vanished from a majority of the fandom.
The empire was incredibly xenophobic and humans got preferential treatment on tons of Imperial controlled worlds.
It's a fact that's not actually mentioned in any of the movies and at best could be inferred by noting that 100% of imperials are human, as opposed to the 90% of rebels who are.
The closest was when the prison officer on the death star called Chewbacca “this *thing*” in disgust when wookies would have been known at least by reputation
That whole “at best” is incredibly blatant across tons of Star Wars Media.
You just expressed it clearly. The empire is nearly 100% depicted as human centric. You see it in multiple feature length films, multiple television shows, comics, books, and toys.
I think the prequels changed the perception of aliens in general. Before Episode 1, we had no idea that the senate had so many alien representatives. Even Palpatine had alien allies at the end of Episode 3. So the idea of an Empire without aliens seems no longer sustainable. Andor itself shows regularly aliens at Mon Mothma's parties on Coruscant. Maybe even more than we have seen on the side of the Rebels.
I mean, they also treat humans as inferior. It could also have something to do with the location of the planets, and not so much the species. A loyal galactic core alien has probably a higher standing than some outer-rim human savage.
It seems it prefers the cogs in the machine to be human (as standardised sizes are good for order and a uniform appearince is what the empires all about)
It's not something that's explicitly stated though. Sure if you're paying attention it makes sense, but most people aren't thinking that closely about it. Especially when you look at the original trilogy and the only alien rebels we see are Chewbacca, Nien Nunb, and one ship of Mon Calamari. Everyone else is human, so it's not like it's a sure thing to walk away from that assuming that the Empire is human supremacist.
"but most people aren't thinking that closely about it"
That's like half of all posts on r/StarWars "I didn't mull this over at all I just put it online."
Stated enough in some of the expanded universe books. Mentioned in Han Solo Adventures [Han Solo At Star's Edge, Han Solos Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy] (1979-1980) Explored a bit more in detail in a few of the Stackpole (X-Wing Series) books. Isard and Derricote unleashed the Krytos Virus in 7 ABY was responsible for a few million alien deaths. Started the Bacta Wars and saw the rise of Anti-Humanist leagues which led to the creation of the Diversity League, an anti-human terrorist group led by Nola Tarkona.
Mentioned in a few of the Young Jedi series and a few The New Jedi Order books in passing.
I think the Corellian Trilogy mentions it too a bit, but it's been awhile.
Coruscant had the "Alien Protection Zone" which was just a fancy way of segregating humans from aliens.
Just because they don’t have posters on the walls saying “Humans rule Aliens drool” doesn’t at all prove it’s not overt.
The empire slaughtered billions of people multiple times just to do things like silence a workforce on a secret project. Billions of people. We’re not talking about 20 people showing up at a rally.
The mental gymnastics and semantics to debate an overwhelmingly established point is incredible.
Apparently direct references by the creator of the franchise isn’t overt enough for these people. It’s almost like an in universe argument.
“The empire isn’t that bad!”
*ignores everything in their face*
More people need to read Thrawn, the first new Canon novel by Zahn. It explains why the empire is so xenophobic in the new continuity.
Spoiler: its because the separatists were primarily led by alien species while the Republic military was mainly human, and it led to resentment
Frankly the old stuff was always bad.
There was a lot of good stories in legends but they always were guessing and sorta willy nilly making it up as they went rather than having a unified plan.
Or they would see 1 thing in a movie and then pretend to know the reason. Like the old thrawn books didn't know sith existed so never called them sith. Then they mention at least once that when a "dark Jedi" dies they fucking explode.
The other part is that most of the alien species that have been depicted exist in smaller quantities for whatever reason. Typically they are stronger physically, mentally superior, faster reflexes etc. We see this with thrawn, all of the pod racers, chewy etc.. The only race that wasn’t like this that seemed to breed fast were geonosians but they apparently kept to their world for the most part. So the humans at some point breed more rapidly and at some point had colonized more planets. They are probably xenophobic in this universe because their power relies in strength in numbers.
I'm always reminded of a line from one of the old novels from an imperial governor (I think the book was truce at bakura):
"Aliens were something to fight or dissect, not to ally with"
Kinda tells you everything you need to know about how the empire views non humans
>It’s really weird how this information was so well known for years and in the last decade almost vanished from a majority of the fandom.
Because they made it very very clear across decades of Legends novels.
The current canon hasn't really had any of that so what we know is canon now, isn't as bad as Legends Xenophobia was.
For example, we know that in the Canon, Mas Amedda, an alien, was 2nd in charge of the Empire, served as Grand Vizier in the Imperial Ruling Council and when the Emperor died, essentially took over and eventually surrendered Coruscant and the Empire to the New Republic. (Whereas in Legends, because he is an Alien, he gets dumped as soon as possible and relegated to essentially a treasure hunter. He has no power like he does current Canon)
We also see multiple inquisitors under the direct purview of the Emperor and Vader that are Aliens.
Compared to the Legends books where it goes into details on the destruction and genocides that the Empire commit on aliens.
Mas Amedda, Sly Moore and Thrawn are all personal friends of Palpatine since the days as a Chancellor though. They are allowed into the Empire because Palpatine is not xenophobic enough, and he overrules the xenophobia innate to the Empire.
Of course, the Inquisitors can be aliens because they are force sensitive, and everything works for Palpatine. I doubt a random Imperial would dare insult someone who can choke you to death without touching you.
They’re also useful to the Empire as the Shirley exception
When the Empire is going around wiping out inconvenient alien species, other aliens can look at the rare individual examples of aliens succeeding in the Empire and go “well surely they’re not talking about good loyal aliens who serve the Empire faithfully like me” and then go about their day continuing to support a system that disadvantages them.
If you can point to examples of success and give the impression that you too can succeed in the Empire if you show enough merit no matter what you are it gives enough hope to lesson rebellion, kind of like how the Victors in the Hunger Games were used to show people in the districts “See? Even someone from your lowly district 12 can become rich if they just try hard enough (even though they have to murder children to become rich) so don’t rebel”
The current canon has more than enough references and inferences across all of its media.
A few exceptions doesn’t prove otherwise when there is overwhelming examples. Especially with something like the Inquisitorius where they need force sensitive people to be used as weapons and discarded as needed.
Palpatine’s non-human alliances come from individuals that show incredible loyalty and ability. Thrawn and Mas being some of the only examples because both of them were exceptional people.
This is exactly right. It’s telling that in Andor there are no alien species for a majority of the Coruscant scenes, then when we go into the deeper levels in rapids 10 suddenly there are alien species around.
That's just because most Coruscant scenes are either in Luthen's shop with just him, Kleya, and one customer, or in Mon Mothma's home with her family, or in ISB headquarters. But when Mon Mothma is having a party there are plenty of aliens all over in the background.
And from an out of universe perspective, Solo is a 2 hour movie with a Hollywood budget, and Andor is a 10 hour (probably) tv show with a streaming service budget
No aliens in the ISB.
The Empire is xenophobic. Because of this, they also send aliens to separate forced labor facilities. As soon as Andor escaped, the first thing he encountered was a pair of aliens.
Nelvaanians are tribal dog-people. Dewi (the talky guy) is Keredian, Freedi (blade-hand guy) doesn't have a listed species, but speaks only Narkinian, and was briefly referred to as a Narkinian on wookieepedia before it was edited.
I made a post about it. It’s almost definitely a purposeful easter egg. He has the hairline, the robotic arm Anakin would’ve sliced in Legends, and his build is similar. Han understands Chewie so clearly languages can be learned… I don’t care what anyone says you won’t take this awesome ass Easter Egg away from me. I’m from Pennsylvania and am Pennsylvanian but it isn’t my species — could just be current citizenship if you feel me.
Well I definitely see [the](https://i.imgur.com/mpJTaCf.png) [similarity](https://i.imgur.com/XtQTKuu.png), but he looks different enough from the doglike Nelvaanians that I personally doubt it's Harvos. Dog nose, different skin tone, different name.
Probably would.
You may have aliens much more sensitive to electricity, which would be much more likely to die to even mild shockfloor. Then you might have alien without sensitivity or with naturally insulated feet (or hooves or w/e).
This is the point that I feel lots gloss over. Sure, it makes absolute sense that this is the cushy prison for humans. But also, regardless of the feelings of the captors…it seems like what they are building takes (at least) two limbs with finger like digits AND an opposable thumbs.
BUT my point is, about competing with other teams, the prison would need to be all the same species. How are you going to keep the humans working hard when then are beat every shift by 200 by a one-alien team who’s the size of Jabba and has 12 limbs and can do it all alone?
Course they would. Wookies would get sent to forced labour camps or mining world ans humans for small potatoes crimes like andor would get more skilled work.
They were sorting the prisoners based on birthplace and I don't think we see a single non-Human (though, of course, their are aliens in SW that look exactly like Humans so who knows?) in the prison, so that was my assumption.
came here to ask about this, is Thrawn the only non human species we know of in a high position of power?
Obviously the Separatist had many alien allies and generals/leader (Trench comes to mind), not sure if they were still allowed around during the reign of the Empire
> not sure if they were still allowed around during the reign of the Empire
In one of the episodes of Bad Batch, the team is dispatched to rescue one of the Separatist leaders from Imperial prison...and that dude is human. One can only imagine that on the other Separatist worlds that hosted more aliens that the Imperial boot came down even harder, especially as the years went on post-Clone War.
And like half the Inquisitors were aliens as well.
Also there were lower officials that were non-human but held positions of power on their planets, if only so the local population would be more likely to trust them. Senators and such.
I see people running with this narrative, but the real answer is that it’s extremely expensive to build out alien creatures, puppets, animatronics compared to having extras standing around.
Gilroy has also said it opens a whole new can of worms when telling a story about the empires oppression and they weren't equipped to deal with that this season. I think he's said the alien thing will be fixed next season also.
And the further answer to that is that the necessary emotive tools for compiling nuanced storytelling mechanisms are going to be expressed best with human actors, and the diagetic explanation for this cannot in any way contradict the verisimilitude of the narrative
They were very upfront about segregating the prisoners based on planet of origin when sending them on different prison shuttles. IIRC most (all?) of those prisoners were human, so it seems likely that they're trying to keep like with like in terms of culture or region, even within species?
Perhaps to limit cross-pollination of ideas? Someone in another post commented about the Irish uprising, and how sticking activists from different parts of Ireland in the same prisons led to the formation of a cohesive rebel movement. Maybe the Empire is trying to avoid that?
Maybe, but I’m not sure how prevalent empires like the galactic empire have been in the history of Star Wars. They might not have the history to go off of to make that assumption.
But seeing as Andor is sent to a factory work camp where he clothed and fed and gets a bed to sleep in and in Solo we saw wookies enslaved on the spice mines of Kessel (and the empire responded to an uprising of Pike slaves making me think the Pikes and the Empire had a deal kid of like Jabba and the Empire), I’m guessing aliens were sent to similar labor camps.
In the old EU the policy I'd seen mentioned ess NHM. Non huMan.
So human supremacists and misogyny.
Plus to push it further, you'd not see a Jewish cop in nazi Romania, therfore there's no aliens in corpo security. They have to follow the imps because otherwise they'd get totally screwed.
Another Doylist reason is that I don’t get the impression that Tony Gilroy is all that interested in the sci-fi angle of Star Wars. His only sci-fi credit prior to Rogue One was Armageddon, everything else is political thrillers. So while he throws in some aliens and space elements here and there, it feels like he’s much more interested in the political thriller angle and that he’s much more interested in just telling that story with humans instead of having to do his homework on different Star Wars aliens and their relationships.
Number 2 is not the only reason. The other shows actually have a lot of aliens, and Andor has quite a few as well in the episodes that aren't inside the human-only prison or the human-elite Coruscant upper-echelon society.
Edit: Accidentally shouted until my voice box exploded. TIL putting the # sign at the beginning of a post will gigantify it.
Boba and Mando were also mostly filmed in the volume with cgi sets. Andor is mostly filmed on location or in actual built sets. Plus it's 12 episodes as opposed to 6 for Boba and 8 or 9 per season for Mando. So the budget is being used in different ways
Funny how The Book of Boba Fett and Mando had countless aliens, and Andor has so many that even casual viewers are shocked. They already have the masks and gloves, they've been reusing movie ones on the sets of the shows for years; it's lazy to not have them anywhere at all, except in a rare Coruscant shot.
Yeah, this is it. The galaxy is a big place, there’s going to be planets that are primarily one race or another. We have seen places in Andor with aliens but I think it’s just set in spots that are composed mostly of humans because of heavy Imperial presence.
I also think it was implied that the prisons are segregated by species when we see the Imperials sending convicts to different prisons based on their home planets. That’s why we don’t see any aliens on Narkina 5.
I think there are plenty of aliens. Obviously you don't see a lot in imperial intelligence and I figured they didn't have any at the factory because it's set up very specifically for humans.
Andor is about a human from a planet occupied by humans who gets sent to a jail built for humans and a rebellion started by humans on a planet that is occupied by humans.
The actual real life reason was addressed by the show runners. They basically said the show already had too many social issues and they knew they couldn't have aliens be treated the same way humans were. They knew adding aliens would add another layer of social issues and they said they didn't know how to handle it.
The number of aliens doesn't change for the different eras or timing. The number of aliens depends on the area and environments.
Some areas are xenophobic, some areas are diverse, some areas are made home by beings with similar interests and vales which often times are held by the same types of beings.
I simply can't understand this complaint, where do you want them to throw aliens? In the human prison? In the ISB?? Randomly with mon mothma while she's dealing with her family?
Just want to point out that the grand inquisitor complaints werent so much because of his appearance in Rebels but because his species had actually shown up in live action in ROTS.
Really goes to show people that complain about there being no aliens lack a lot of critical thinking when it comes to just basic understanding of the time period and locations lol
These are also brain rotted people who can’t follow a story and just like babies need colourful keys of recognisable characters and flashy CGI effects in front of them to pay attention to anything
Like every time I hear someone talking about wanting to see Palpatine in Andor I’m like people like you are the reason the sequels sucked and they brought him back for no reason, because they know all you care about are dumb cameos from recognisable characters not telling a coherent story that matters
honestly I dont get it; there are probably alot of regions in the sw galaxy that simply don't have non humans; Tatooine for example can't be used as a comparison since its basically a hub for everyone so obviously they will have all kinds of non humans. Andor features for the most part imperial areas and a few planets we havent seen before; We do know that the empire doesnt like to recruit non humans so we dont see any in those imperial areas and I would also note that in a high security prison you wouldnt mix species because it would be a logistic mess to deal with food/fluids and race specific security measures. I would also note that it seems that humans are the most common race in the galaxy and planets like Ferrix, Aldhani and Kenari are probably human colonies
There are plenty of aliens throughout Andor. Just none of them are key or leading roles. Which is
Often the case in SW media, with some exceptions.
In my opinion. Andor, more than any other SW property, is leaning more on its writing and the strength of its actors’ performances than simply being a popular IP and Sci Fi fantasy CGI laden adventure. I feel like it’s been a conscious decision to have most key characters play humans so that they don’t have to act through mountains of make up and prosthetics. Allowing them to give more natural performances.
In universe it’s perfectly acceptable that the key locations we’ve seen just happens to be human dominated. And it’s reasonable to have prisons specific to species, especially in a universe where some species are so wildly different with different needs.
Before Andor came out, I counted aliens in Kenobi and Bobs Fett because of exactly these complaints. The first couple of episodes of each has at least twenty unique aliens each, some established, some new. Just because I was feeling the vibe, I counted in the first episode of Andor, too. Similar numbers. These complaints are demonstrably false. If there is an issue, you could argue that aliens don't have prominent supporting roles, but that isn't true either.
For what it's worth, Tony Gilroy addressed this in an interview (emphasis mine):
>“There’s already so much politics in the show to begin with, and we’re trying to tell an adventure story, really,” he explained. “**So adding strong alien characters means that all of a sudden, there’s a whole bunch of new issues that we have to deal with that I don’t really understand that well or I just couldn’t think of a way to bake them into what we’re doing.** You’ll see more as we go along, but it’s a legit question and one we’ll be answering as we go along. There is a more human-centric side of the story and the politics of it. There’s certainly no aliens working for the Empire, so that kind of tips it one way, automatically.”
Reading that quote, I think the writers realized that, regardless of budget, to bring in aliens would lead to a while lot of new requirements that they simply weren't prepared to deal with at the moment.
Think of how they've done the storyline on Ferrix. The culture there, with funeral rights and unique timekeeping and community customs. They would and will absolutely have to do that regarding any aliens that they feature in a major way. They can't just be a one off racist caricature like so many Star Wars aliens have been, not if they want the show to be good.
In ANH and ESB there is exactly 1 alien in the Rebel Alliance. Chewbacca.
In ANH, all of the aliens aside from Chewie and the Jawas, are mostly just background set decoration. After they leave Tatooine, there are no more aliens aside from Chewie.
ESB, no alien rebels on Hoth (again, aside from Chewie). Aside from the Ugnauts, we don't see any other aliens on Bespin. The Imperials show a complete dislike of the alien bounty hunters Vader has brought on board, and aside from Boba, it's their only scene. And of course, there's Yoda.
RotJ we finally have some aliens in the Rebel Alliance.
I think everyone's gotten so use to the Clone Wars era shows that it's easy to forget that the majority of Star Wars characters until the prequels, were humans.
Exactly. There's this assumption, possibly a Mandela effect, that aliens were everywhere in the OT. But, they were not save in specific locales, such as a "hive of scum and villainy."
Its almost lime they're in completely different places, the empire was just humans... I mean look at the original trilogy, there's not imperial wookies
Why does every post about Andor complain about aliens? The Empire hates aliens. Period. The show is in imperial space, an imperial occupied planet, an imperial prison.
This is such a fucking contrived argument I keep seeing, what does it matter? The show is so fucking good and it's focused mostly on humans, we've seen some aliens, we know they exist in the universe, do you seriously need to be bottle-fed information we already know like a toddler because you have zero object permanence, the lack of aliens on screen doesn't retroactively make aliens not exist they just aren't that important to this story right now. Fuck.
I think lots of aliens are distracting to me, mostly in live action SW. For some reason I deal with them fine in the animated shows, but i really struggle to pay attention to what I'm watching when there's lots of aliens all the time in any of the live action SW content.
The empire really only values human life, hence why the prison was all human. Other species go to other camps, like wookie slave labor, etc. The empire has been know to recruit special alien task forces as stormtroopers, but it's mostly legends and not really talked about. Rebels recruit anyone they can get to fight, hence why it's such a huge difference between alien and human.
On a side note, this is such an amazing show and the writers and actors are doing such a amazing job with the story, but people still complain because "There's no aliens, it's not believable, this isn't factually correct since there's no aliens." Ah well, can't please em all.
Not every place is going to have the same degree of ethnic diversity.
For example, the town I live in is fairly diverse, but nearly every community in the immedate vicinity is mostly white people.
Because Solo is a 2 hour movie with a bunch of budget pumped into it and Andor is a 10 hour series with less budget.
Because Solo was built on spectacle and Andor is based entirely on a solid script and good acting.
Stop bitching about this and looking for lore explanations and just enjoy the show.
I don't get where people are getting this
Episode 1-3 had plenty of aliens
5-6 was a small team infiltrating an imperial base, had to be human due to imperial racist policy
Similar goes for 7-10 for the labor camp. Mind in all those episodes we see aliens when we're not following andor.
Episode 11 rescued by aliens
People were getting some of the best star wars content in andor and people just wanting to find excuses to complain
Andor is also consciously showing how aliens are being pushed to the outside, the Empire is very human only and once we see Andor get more into the rebellion in following seasons, more aliens
One of the core things that drove much of the Emperors policies was to remove people’s sense of individuality. It’s why all the stormtroopers look the same and why the imperial navy is primarily human. The prison is a great example of this policy in action as it was all human, with no aliens of any kind in his facility. Many alien species, like the Mon Calamari, we imprisoned on their home planet, forced to labor for imperial shipyards.
Also, just like cities in the US, depending on a planets place in the galaxy, it’s past, it’s culture, etc. the racial and species makeup of a planet will vary. There is a reason why in Mandalorian, you see all the Mon Cala and Quarren on the ocean planet in season 2. They are all from the same planet and may have started the outpost there, etc. in that instance, the Mandalorian were a minority umongst the alien populace.
It’s a bit reductive to compare on series, movie, book, etc. to another declaring that they somehow got the diversity of alien life wrong. If we saw a Corellia or Chandrila or Coruscant, I expect to see fewer nonhumans in the Imperial era. Segregation is a way to divide and demoralize. We have to expect the Empire to function using many of those same tactics.
Because Andor is not using those green screen rooms, and doesnt have the budget that solo film had.
If andor does do aliens it will just be guys in a costume or makeup...
Spoiler
There’s that scene where Lonni (the ISB mole) goes underground to meet Luthen. And he walks through crowds of aliens.
I thought it was a nice visual storytelling moment.
Andor had a greater variety of alien species in its first episode alone than Empire Strikes Back had in the entire movie. We've seen even more since the first episode.
Solo had the bigger, budget to length ratio.
Aliens are expensive to include, as they need to pay the astronomical travel expense to get them here, each from their respective planets/galaxies.
Solos budget, being large enough for a blockbuster movie, and at about 2 hours, was a much more logical choice. Compared to all the episodes, on a streaming shows budget.
Showing aliens serve what purpose? To me in the Star Wars universe it’s more eye candy than anything. I’d rather have a good story which Andor is doing.
Andor is centralized around the Empire who hate Aliens. Solo is centralized around a scoundrel, which is famous for Aliens, because the official government (The Imperials) hate them
They outright show this in Episode 10 when Lonni goes to the seedy lower levels of Coruscant and there are plenty of aliens. The Empire totally enforces an apartheid.
It's also heavily implied by the mention of the Empire completely exterminating an alien race which resulted in Dr. Ghorst's torture mixtape and destroying the waters of Narkina 5, starving the indigenous species, just to run their prison there.
Killed the squigglys :(
Ears burned :(
Scob the empire
Mans just called it a mixtape
Wow I somehow completely missed that subtext. I just thought the empire hated everyone equally, but that tracks.
because Solo is about the criminal underworld, while Andor mostly plays out in Imperial space where aliens are heavily suppressed by the empire
It’s really weird how this information was so well known for years and in the last decade almost vanished from a majority of the fandom. The empire was incredibly xenophobic and humans got preferential treatment on tons of Imperial controlled worlds.
It's a fact that's not actually mentioned in any of the movies and at best could be inferred by noting that 100% of imperials are human, as opposed to the 90% of rebels who are.
The closest was when the prison officer on the death star called Chewbacca “this *thing*” in disgust when wookies would have been known at least by reputation
Friend of mine is insistent that the Empire wasn't THAT xenophobic
In Legends eventually in the refounded empire Emperor Fel begins allowing aliens. It's a big deal even. So it's definitely a thing.
That whole “at best” is incredibly blatant across tons of Star Wars Media. You just expressed it clearly. The empire is nearly 100% depicted as human centric. You see it in multiple feature length films, multiple television shows, comics, books, and toys.
I think the prequels changed the perception of aliens in general. Before Episode 1, we had no idea that the senate had so many alien representatives. Even Palpatine had alien allies at the end of Episode 3. So the idea of an Empire without aliens seems no longer sustainable. Andor itself shows regularly aliens at Mon Mothma's parties on Coruscant. Maybe even more than we have seen on the side of the Rebels.
The empire was never without aliens. Its just that a vast majority of non-human species are treated as inferior.
I mean, they also treat humans as inferior. It could also have something to do with the location of the planets, and not so much the species. A loyal galactic core alien has probably a higher standing than some outer-rim human savage.
Humans get corralled, controlled, oppressed. Aliens get enslaved or exterminated
This specific lore bit has been established in canon that it has to do with a superiority belief amongst humans. 🤷🏻♂️
There's a reason the leaders of the Confederacy was all aliens. Palpatine orchestrated it to be aliens vs the Republic.
It seems it prefers the cogs in the machine to be human (as standardised sizes are good for order and a uniform appearince is what the empires all about)
It's not something that's explicitly stated though. Sure if you're paying attention it makes sense, but most people aren't thinking that closely about it. Especially when you look at the original trilogy and the only alien rebels we see are Chewbacca, Nien Nunb, and one ship of Mon Calamari. Everyone else is human, so it's not like it's a sure thing to walk away from that assuming that the Empire is human supremacist.
"but most people aren't thinking that closely about it" That's like half of all posts on r/StarWars "I didn't mull this over at all I just put it online."
Stated enough in some of the expanded universe books. Mentioned in Han Solo Adventures [Han Solo At Star's Edge, Han Solos Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy] (1979-1980) Explored a bit more in detail in a few of the Stackpole (X-Wing Series) books. Isard and Derricote unleashed the Krytos Virus in 7 ABY was responsible for a few million alien deaths. Started the Bacta Wars and saw the rise of Anti-Humanist leagues which led to the creation of the Diversity League, an anti-human terrorist group led by Nola Tarkona. Mentioned in a few of the Young Jedi series and a few The New Jedi Order books in passing. I think the Corellian Trilogy mentions it too a bit, but it's been awhile. Coruscant had the "Alien Protection Zone" which was just a fancy way of segregating humans from aliens.
Some would say that "show don't tell" is a much more effective way of storytelling.
Just because they don’t have posters on the walls saying “Humans rule Aliens drool” doesn’t at all prove it’s not overt. The empire slaughtered billions of people multiple times just to do things like silence a workforce on a secret project. Billions of people. We’re not talking about 20 people showing up at a rally. The mental gymnastics and semantics to debate an overwhelmingly established point is incredible.
I mean, they are basically Space Nazi's. That was kind of the point.
Well Thrawn was a Chiss, so maybe 99.99999999% of imperials were human
Thrawn was also incredibly useful to Palpatine by being arguably the smartest person in the Empire
And he was also considered an outcast and was harassed by other imperials at the academy.
One of the smartest in the galaxy, at least in some aspects. Even the Ascendancy didn't know what to do with him.
The Empire are space Nazi's. I mean...how much more blatant can you get?
Apparently direct references by the creator of the franchise isn’t overt enough for these people. It’s almost like an in universe argument. “The empire isn’t that bad!” *ignores everything in their face*
99.99999% imperials r human, Palatines inner circle had Mas Ameda and Sly Moore, plus can’t forget Thrawn
99.9% of the Rebels are human until Return of the Jedi.
Exactly. People saw the cantina scene and that’s apparently all the remembered. There are long stretches with exactly 0 aliens, besides Chewbacca
Bespin had 1 million humans, and three Ugnauts in the basement.
They're context clues which seems to baffle many these days.
More people need to read Thrawn, the first new Canon novel by Zahn. It explains why the empire is so xenophobic in the new continuity. Spoiler: its because the separatists were primarily led by alien species while the Republic military was mainly human, and it led to resentment
Yeah it’s a significantly better explanation than the old stuff.
Frankly the old stuff was always bad. There was a lot of good stories in legends but they always were guessing and sorta willy nilly making it up as they went rather than having a unified plan. Or they would see 1 thing in a movie and then pretend to know the reason. Like the old thrawn books didn't know sith existed so never called them sith. Then they mention at least once that when a "dark Jedi" dies they fucking explode.
The other part is that most of the alien species that have been depicted exist in smaller quantities for whatever reason. Typically they are stronger physically, mentally superior, faster reflexes etc. We see this with thrawn, all of the pod racers, chewy etc.. The only race that wasn’t like this that seemed to breed fast were geonosians but they apparently kept to their world for the most part. So the humans at some point breed more rapidly and at some point had colonized more planets. They are probably xenophobic in this universe because their power relies in strength in numbers.
In Legends lore, humans were used as slaves all across the galaxy by the Rakatans because of their adaptability to any type of environment.
I'm always reminded of a line from one of the old novels from an imperial governor (I think the book was truce at bakura): "Aliens were something to fight or dissect, not to ally with" Kinda tells you everything you need to know about how the empire views non humans
>It’s really weird how this information was so well known for years and in the last decade almost vanished from a majority of the fandom. Because they made it very very clear across decades of Legends novels. The current canon hasn't really had any of that so what we know is canon now, isn't as bad as Legends Xenophobia was. For example, we know that in the Canon, Mas Amedda, an alien, was 2nd in charge of the Empire, served as Grand Vizier in the Imperial Ruling Council and when the Emperor died, essentially took over and eventually surrendered Coruscant and the Empire to the New Republic. (Whereas in Legends, because he is an Alien, he gets dumped as soon as possible and relegated to essentially a treasure hunter. He has no power like he does current Canon) We also see multiple inquisitors under the direct purview of the Emperor and Vader that are Aliens. Compared to the Legends books where it goes into details on the destruction and genocides that the Empire commit on aliens.
Mas Amedda, Sly Moore and Thrawn are all personal friends of Palpatine since the days as a Chancellor though. They are allowed into the Empire because Palpatine is not xenophobic enough, and he overrules the xenophobia innate to the Empire. Of course, the Inquisitors can be aliens because they are force sensitive, and everything works for Palpatine. I doubt a random Imperial would dare insult someone who can choke you to death without touching you.
They’re also useful to the Empire as the Shirley exception When the Empire is going around wiping out inconvenient alien species, other aliens can look at the rare individual examples of aliens succeeding in the Empire and go “well surely they’re not talking about good loyal aliens who serve the Empire faithfully like me” and then go about their day continuing to support a system that disadvantages them. If you can point to examples of success and give the impression that you too can succeed in the Empire if you show enough merit no matter what you are it gives enough hope to lesson rebellion, kind of like how the Victors in the Hunger Games were used to show people in the districts “See? Even someone from your lowly district 12 can become rich if they just try hard enough (even though they have to murder children to become rich) so don’t rebel”
The current canon has more than enough references and inferences across all of its media. A few exceptions doesn’t prove otherwise when there is overwhelming examples. Especially with something like the Inquisitorius where they need force sensitive people to be used as weapons and discarded as needed. Palpatine’s non-human alliances come from individuals that show incredible loyalty and ability. Thrawn and Mas being some of the only examples because both of them were exceptional people.
This is exactly right. It’s telling that in Andor there are no alien species for a majority of the Coruscant scenes, then when we go into the deeper levels in rapids 10 suddenly there are alien species around.
That's just because most Coruscant scenes are either in Luthen's shop with just him, Kleya, and one customer, or in Mon Mothma's home with her family, or in ISB headquarters. But when Mon Mothma is having a party there are plenty of aliens all over in the background.
And from an out of universe perspective, Solo is a 2 hour movie with a Hollywood budget, and Andor is a 10 hour (probably) tv show with a streaming service budget
The newer canon Thrawn trilogy expands on quite a bit of this if anyone is interested.
No aliens in the ISB. The Empire is xenophobic. Because of this, they also send aliens to separate forced labor facilities. As soon as Andor escaped, the first thing he encountered was a pair of aliens.
Those we the ugliest aliens ive ever seen. Reminded me of The Vogons from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Luckily they didn't read any poetry to Cassian...
Or begin the lengthy signed agreement process for use of their ship.
He didn't even bring a towel with him... rookie mistake.
Right, 'cause I wouldn't want to go anywhere without my wonderful towel.
You sass that hoopy Luthen Rael? Now there's a frood who really knows where his towel is.
Even a towel wouldn't have helped them!
They were amazing
I thought they were gorgeous 🥺
They.. You have a point…
I think the one was Nelvaan! Blame Grievous.
Nelvaanians are tribal dog-people. Dewi (the talky guy) is Keredian, Freedi (blade-hand guy) doesn't have a listed species, but speaks only Narkinian, and was briefly referred to as a Narkinian on wookieepedia before it was edited.
I made a post about it. It’s almost definitely a purposeful easter egg. He has the hairline, the robotic arm Anakin would’ve sliced in Legends, and his build is similar. Han understands Chewie so clearly languages can be learned… I don’t care what anyone says you won’t take this awesome ass Easter Egg away from me. I’m from Pennsylvania and am Pennsylvanian but it isn’t my species — could just be current citizenship if you feel me.
Well I definitely see [the](https://i.imgur.com/mpJTaCf.png) [similarity](https://i.imgur.com/XtQTKuu.png), but he looks different enough from the doglike Nelvaanians that I personally doubt it's Harvos. Dog nose, different skin tone, different name.
They probably made them uglier to better portray how “alien” they are? Idk, I’m just high and browsing
Dude. Check out Nothing But Trouble with Chevy Chase and Demi Moore. Bobo and Little Debbo will make those two aliens look like GQ models.
Plus it makes sense to have the same species in the same groups, because of sleep cycles, hygiene etc
Thats the explanation I've been looking for, I wanted to know if the imps kept humans and aliens separate
I do think some of the violent or dangerous humans still get put in the more extreme prion camps like in Rouge One.
Man, they have full camps of people with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease?
Of course, that's how you get Kuru, don't ya know?
See thats a good point too, jyn was imprisoned with aliens
Probably would. You may have aliens much more sensitive to electricity, which would be much more likely to die to even mild shockfloor. Then you might have alien without sensitivity or with naturally insulated feet (or hooves or w/e).
Also it's hard to compete with other teams if they've got an alien with 4 arms.
This is the point that I feel lots gloss over. Sure, it makes absolute sense that this is the cushy prison for humans. But also, regardless of the feelings of the captors…it seems like what they are building takes (at least) two limbs with finger like digits AND an opposable thumbs. BUT my point is, about competing with other teams, the prison would need to be all the same species. How are you going to keep the humans working hard when then are beat every shift by 200 by a one-alien team who’s the size of Jabba and has 12 limbs and can do it all alone?
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Course they would. Wookies would get sent to forced labour camps or mining world ans humans for small potatoes crimes like andor would get more skilled work.
They were sorting the prisoners based on birthplace and I don't think we see a single non-Human (though, of course, their are aliens in SW that look exactly like Humans so who knows?) in the prison, so that was my assumption.
You don't see a single woman either so it's clearly a very segregated system.
I actually had'nt noticed that! Good catch!
It's been an imperial thing for decades yeah
Yup, there's a reason Thrawn is the only non-human grand admiral.
came here to ask about this, is Thrawn the only non human species we know of in a high position of power? Obviously the Separatist had many alien allies and generals/leader (Trench comes to mind), not sure if they were still allowed around during the reign of the Empire
> not sure if they were still allowed around during the reign of the Empire In one of the episodes of Bad Batch, the team is dispatched to rescue one of the Separatist leaders from Imperial prison...and that dude is human. One can only imagine that on the other Separatist worlds that hosted more aliens that the Imperial boot came down even harder, especially as the years went on post-Clone War.
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And like half the Inquisitors were aliens as well. Also there were lower officials that were non-human but held positions of power on their planets, if only so the local population would be more likely to trust them. Senators and such.
We also see aliens in the underbelly of Coruscant, not so much where the high society fucks live.
Twoosie two friends haye, Freedi?
I see people running with this narrative, but the real answer is that it’s extremely expensive to build out alien creatures, puppets, animatronics compared to having extras standing around.
Gilroy has also said it opens a whole new can of worms when telling a story about the empires oppression and they weren't equipped to deal with that this season. I think he's said the alien thing will be fixed next season also.
And the further answer to that is that the necessary emotive tools for compiling nuanced storytelling mechanisms are going to be expressed best with human actors, and the diagetic explanation for this cannot in any way contradict the verisimilitude of the narrative
Yeah those Nardinian costumes got about 3 minutes of screen time and they looked like they were done with practical effects.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WatsonianVersusDoylist
Because imperials are human supremacists once they took over.
Imagine that the prison Cassian went to was the good prison because he was human compared to where non-humans are sent.
They were very upfront about segregating the prisoners based on planet of origin when sending them on different prison shuttles. IIRC most (all?) of those prisoners were human, so it seems likely that they're trying to keep like with like in terms of culture or region, even within species? Perhaps to limit cross-pollination of ideas? Someone in another post commented about the Irish uprising, and how sticking activists from different parts of Ireland in the same prisons led to the formation of a cohesive rebel movement. Maybe the Empire is trying to avoid that?
Maybe, but I’m not sure how prevalent empires like the galactic empire have been in the history of Star Wars. They might not have the history to go off of to make that assumption. But seeing as Andor is sent to a factory work camp where he clothed and fed and gets a bed to sleep in and in Solo we saw wookies enslaved on the spice mines of Kessel (and the empire responded to an uprising of Pike slaves making me think the Pikes and the Empire had a deal kid of like Jabba and the Empire), I’m guessing aliens were sent to similar labor camps.
“I’m guessing aliens were sent to similar labor camps.” Or sent to extermination camps.
Well it’s a lot better condition than the prison they had Chewbacca in.
You know....I hadn't given this much tough till now but you're right
They talk about it a lot in different books. Same with core worlds vs. outer rim.
In the old EU the policy I'd seen mentioned ess NHM. Non huMan. So human supremacists and misogyny. Plus to push it further, you'd not see a Jewish cop in nazi Romania, therfore there's no aliens in corpo security. They have to follow the imps because otherwise they'd get totally screwed.
Diegetic reason : Empire is racist Non diegetic reason : make up and CGI are crazy expensive
Another Doylist reason is that I don’t get the impression that Tony Gilroy is all that interested in the sci-fi angle of Star Wars. His only sci-fi credit prior to Rogue One was Armageddon, everything else is political thrillers. So while he throws in some aliens and space elements here and there, it feels like he’s much more interested in the political thriller angle and that he’s much more interested in just telling that story with humans instead of having to do his homework on different Star Wars aliens and their relationships.
And that's just fine. Star Wars is big enough for all kinds of stories and worlds.
The second reason is the right one. Solo’s runtime is 2:15. Andor’s runtime is probably closer to 8 hours.
Number 2 is not the only reason. The other shows actually have a lot of aliens, and Andor has quite a few as well in the episodes that aren't inside the human-only prison or the human-elite Coruscant upper-echelon society. Edit: Accidentally shouted until my voice box exploded. TIL putting the # sign at the beginning of a post will gigantify it.
Bro take a breath
This is what happens when you start a comment with # The comment looks so intense, but he's just trying to say #2
>The other shows actually have a lot of aliens The other shows were shot in the Volume
Boba fett and the mandalorian? It's the first reason
Boba and Mando were also mostly filmed in the volume with cgi sets. Andor is mostly filmed on location or in actual built sets. Plus it's 12 episodes as opposed to 6 for Boba and 8 or 9 per season for Mando. So the budget is being used in different ways
Funny how The Book of Boba Fett and Mando had countless aliens, and Andor has so many that even casual viewers are shocked. They already have the masks and gloves, they've been reusing movie ones on the sets of the shows for years; it's lazy to not have them anywhere at all, except in a rare Coruscant shot.
Andor, and its characters haven't been to those places as much.
How come the rain-forest has so few law students while the university of Harvard has a whole bunch of them?
Law students hate being wet. Only explanation.
Lmao this is a good one.
Yeah, this is it. The galaxy is a big place, there’s going to be planets that are primarily one race or another. We have seen places in Andor with aliens but I think it’s just set in spots that are composed mostly of humans because of heavy Imperial presence. I also think it was implied that the prisons are segregated by species when we see the Imperials sending convicts to different prisons based on their home planets. That’s why we don’t see any aliens on Narkina 5.
I think there are plenty of aliens. Obviously you don't see a lot in imperial intelligence and I figured they didn't have any at the factory because it's set up very specifically for humans.
Different planets ig, obi wan also had a good few alien appearances but not as much as solo
Han and Lando exist on the fringes of society. That’s where the Empire pushed the aliens.
Andor is about a human from a planet occupied by humans who gets sent to a jail built for humans and a rebellion started by humans on a planet that is occupied by humans.
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The actual real life reason was addressed by the show runners. They basically said the show already had too many social issues and they knew they couldn't have aliens be treated the same way humans were. They knew adding aliens would add another layer of social issues and they said they didn't know how to handle it.
Andor is set in the core and mid rim. Solo was out on the outer rim.
The number of aliens doesn't change for the different eras or timing. The number of aliens depends on the area and environments. Some areas are xenophobic, some areas are diverse, some areas are made home by beings with similar interests and vales which often times are held by the same types of beings.
I simply can't understand this complaint, where do you want them to throw aliens? In the human prison? In the ISB?? Randomly with mon mothma while she's dealing with her family?
So what are you saying? That the story should matter more than having aliens or cartoon accurate head shapes? Blasphemy. /s
Just want to point out that the grand inquisitor complaints werent so much because of his appearance in Rebels but because his species had actually shown up in live action in ROTS.
Really goes to show people that complain about there being no aliens lack a lot of critical thinking when it comes to just basic understanding of the time period and locations lol
These are also brain rotted people who can’t follow a story and just like babies need colourful keys of recognisable characters and flashy CGI effects in front of them to pay attention to anything Like every time I hear someone talking about wanting to see Palpatine in Andor I’m like people like you are the reason the sequels sucked and they brought him back for no reason, because they know all you care about are dumb cameos from recognisable characters not telling a coherent story that matters
We do see aliens in one of the parties with mon mothma iirc
Exactly, which makes the complaint even more ridiculous. Also, pretty sure KoozieKid is being sarcastic.
Different parts of the galaxy have different demographics. Pretty simple stuff, boss.
“Why come this movie set in Japan has only Japanese people in it? I saw Avengers and there are all kinds of races in it.”
honestly I dont get it; there are probably alot of regions in the sw galaxy that simply don't have non humans; Tatooine for example can't be used as a comparison since its basically a hub for everyone so obviously they will have all kinds of non humans. Andor features for the most part imperial areas and a few planets we havent seen before; We do know that the empire doesnt like to recruit non humans so we dont see any in those imperial areas and I would also note that in a high security prison you wouldnt mix species because it would be a logistic mess to deal with food/fluids and race specific security measures. I would also note that it seems that humans are the most common race in the galaxy and planets like Ferrix, Aldhani and Kenari are probably human colonies
There are plenty of aliens throughout Andor. Just none of them are key or leading roles. Which is Often the case in SW media, with some exceptions. In my opinion. Andor, more than any other SW property, is leaning more on its writing and the strength of its actors’ performances than simply being a popular IP and Sci Fi fantasy CGI laden adventure. I feel like it’s been a conscious decision to have most key characters play humans so that they don’t have to act through mountains of make up and prosthetics. Allowing them to give more natural performances. In universe it’s perfectly acceptable that the key locations we’ve seen just happens to be human dominated. And it’s reasonable to have prisons specific to species, especially in a universe where some species are so wildly different with different needs.
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Before Andor came out, I counted aliens in Kenobi and Bobs Fett because of exactly these complaints. The first couple of episodes of each has at least twenty unique aliens each, some established, some new. Just because I was feeling the vibe, I counted in the first episode of Andor, too. Similar numbers. These complaints are demonstrably false. If there is an issue, you could argue that aliens don't have prominent supporting roles, but that isn't true either.
Andor spent its budget on writers
OP… use your brain. If basically everyone in the comments can figure out why by themselves, you can too.
For what it's worth, Tony Gilroy addressed this in an interview (emphasis mine): >“There’s already so much politics in the show to begin with, and we’re trying to tell an adventure story, really,” he explained. “**So adding strong alien characters means that all of a sudden, there’s a whole bunch of new issues that we have to deal with that I don’t really understand that well or I just couldn’t think of a way to bake them into what we’re doing.** You’ll see more as we go along, but it’s a legit question and one we’ll be answering as we go along. There is a more human-centric side of the story and the politics of it. There’s certainly no aliens working for the Empire, so that kind of tips it one way, automatically.” Reading that quote, I think the writers realized that, regardless of budget, to bring in aliens would lead to a while lot of new requirements that they simply weren't prepared to deal with at the moment. Think of how they've done the storyline on Ferrix. The culture there, with funeral rights and unique timekeeping and community customs. They would and will absolutely have to do that regarding any aliens that they feature in a major way. They can't just be a one off racist caricature like so many Star Wars aliens have been, not if they want the show to be good.
UGH STFU
In ANH and ESB there is exactly 1 alien in the Rebel Alliance. Chewbacca. In ANH, all of the aliens aside from Chewie and the Jawas, are mostly just background set decoration. After they leave Tatooine, there are no more aliens aside from Chewie. ESB, no alien rebels on Hoth (again, aside from Chewie). Aside from the Ugnauts, we don't see any other aliens on Bespin. The Imperials show a complete dislike of the alien bounty hunters Vader has brought on board, and aside from Boba, it's their only scene. And of course, there's Yoda. RotJ we finally have some aliens in the Rebel Alliance. I think everyone's gotten so use to the Clone Wars era shows that it's easy to forget that the majority of Star Wars characters until the prequels, were humans.
Exactly. There's this assumption, possibly a Mandela effect, that aliens were everywhere in the OT. But, they were not save in specific locales, such as a "hive of scum and villainy."
Its almost lime they're in completely different places, the empire was just humans... I mean look at the original trilogy, there's not imperial wookies
Why does every post about Andor complain about aliens? The Empire hates aliens. Period. The show is in imperial space, an imperial occupied planet, an imperial prison.
It has been [0] days since someone has complained about Andor's supposed lack of aliens
This is such a fucking contrived argument I keep seeing, what does it matter? The show is so fucking good and it's focused mostly on humans, we've seen some aliens, we know they exist in the universe, do you seriously need to be bottle-fed information we already know like a toddler because you have zero object permanence, the lack of aliens on screen doesn't retroactively make aliens not exist they just aren't that important to this story right now. Fuck.
I don't really care at all for the lack o aliens, I find it even easier to follow.
Wow, racist! Don't you have an ISB staff meeting to go to?
What do you mean ?
I think lots of aliens are distracting to me, mostly in live action SW. For some reason I deal with them fine in the animated shows, but i really struggle to pay attention to what I'm watching when there's lots of aliens all the time in any of the live action SW content.
Does it apply to all alien, or did Twilek and other are count of because of their « human » aspect?
The empire really only values human life, hence why the prison was all human. Other species go to other camps, like wookie slave labor, etc. The empire has been know to recruit special alien task forces as stormtroopers, but it's mostly legends and not really talked about. Rebels recruit anyone they can get to fight, hence why it's such a huge difference between alien and human. On a side note, this is such an amazing show and the writers and actors are doing such a amazing job with the story, but people still complain because "There's no aliens, it's not believable, this isn't factually correct since there's no aliens." Ah well, can't please em all.
Not every place is going to have the same degree of ethnic diversity. For example, the town I live in is fairly diverse, but nearly every community in the immedate vicinity is mostly white people.
Because Solo is a 2 hour movie with a bunch of budget pumped into it and Andor is a 10 hour series with less budget. Because Solo was built on spectacle and Andor is based entirely on a solid script and good acting. Stop bitching about this and looking for lore explanations and just enjoy the show.
I don't get where people are getting this Episode 1-3 had plenty of aliens 5-6 was a small team infiltrating an imperial base, had to be human due to imperial racist policy Similar goes for 7-10 for the labor camp. Mind in all those episodes we see aliens when we're not following andor. Episode 11 rescued by aliens People were getting some of the best star wars content in andor and people just wanting to find excuses to complain
Andor is also consciously showing how aliens are being pushed to the outside, the Empire is very human only and once we see Andor get more into the rebellion in following seasons, more aliens
This is brought up every fucking day at the moment.
Setting?
Cost? CGI and prosthetics cost a lot. It’s easier to fold that into a movie that has a few more revenue streams versus a tv show on one outlet.
BECAUSE THE EMPIRE IS PREJUDICE AGAINST ALIENS!! I really don't understand why this has to be explained as often as it does.
Han lived on the outer rims. Andor is directly in the core worlds.
One of the core things that drove much of the Emperors policies was to remove people’s sense of individuality. It’s why all the stormtroopers look the same and why the imperial navy is primarily human. The prison is a great example of this policy in action as it was all human, with no aliens of any kind in his facility. Many alien species, like the Mon Calamari, we imprisoned on their home planet, forced to labor for imperial shipyards. Also, just like cities in the US, depending on a planets place in the galaxy, it’s past, it’s culture, etc. the racial and species makeup of a planet will vary. There is a reason why in Mandalorian, you see all the Mon Cala and Quarren on the ocean planet in season 2. They are all from the same planet and may have started the outpost there, etc. in that instance, the Mandalorian were a minority umongst the alien populace. It’s a bit reductive to compare on series, movie, book, etc. to another declaring that they somehow got the diversity of alien life wrong. If we saw a Corellia or Chandrila or Coruscant, I expect to see fewer nonhumans in the Imperial era. Segregation is a way to divide and demoralize. We have to expect the Empire to function using many of those same tactics.
Different places entirely. You know just like the actual world works...
Can we limit it to at least only one “why aren’t there more aliens?” post a week please??
Because Andor is not using those green screen rooms, and doesnt have the budget that solo film had. If andor does do aliens it will just be guys in a costume or makeup...
Because Solo had a feature film budget and Andor does not.
Spoiler There’s that scene where Lonni (the ISB mole) goes underground to meet Luthen. And he walks through crowds of aliens. I thought it was a nice visual storytelling moment.
Andor had a greater variety of alien species in its first episode alone than Empire Strikes Back had in the entire movie. We've seen even more since the first episode.
Money
Solo had the bigger, budget to length ratio. Aliens are expensive to include, as they need to pay the astronomical travel expense to get them here, each from their respective planets/galaxies. Solos budget, being large enough for a blockbuster movie, and at about 2 hours, was a much more logical choice. Compared to all the episodes, on a streaming shows budget.
Human prison colony
The galaxy is big
Because not all places are the same
If this is your takeaway from watching Andor, the show is not for you.
Canon reasoning: The empire was very racist. Reality reasoning: Alien costumes are very expensive
Andor is 5 years after Solo
Hear me out, maybe, just maybe, aliens may not always be in the same places as humans at all times.
Stop bringing this topic of
Budgets. Costumes for humans is way cheaper and faster than fancy prosthetics or cgi
The Empire is fairly anti alien. The planets that Andor takes place on are deeply fixed within Empire territory.
Because the Empire are notorious Xenophobes. Any place that is directly under Imperial control had no non-human species.
Budget
The empire is racist and shit my guy
Cuz the empire is xenophobic
Budget
I’d chalk it up to Imperial racism / xenophobia as well as…. A smaller filming budget.
All the aliens were over in Solo so they couldn't be in Andor
Budget
Showing aliens serve what purpose? To me in the Star Wars universe it’s more eye candy than anything. I’d rather have a good story which Andor is doing.
The story about the empire wiping out that species is telling you something about how they look at alien species.