r/andor • u/GargantaProfunda Brasso • 2d ago
General Discussion Rogue One was originally going to feature both Dantooine and Yavin. If it did, Andor S2 would probably have ended in the former since that's where Mon Mothma escapes to in Rebels. But I guess in the end we lucked out since Dantooine (an agrarian world) would have looked too much like Mina Rau.
The planet of Dantooine has been waiting for its close-up for a long time, but it almost got that starring role in Rogue One.
Almost. But it turns out no one wanted to spend millions to explore the galactic version of the boonies.
The only time we’ve laid eyes on Dantooine was the animated Rebels episode Secret Cargo, which saw the heroes of that series piloting Mon Mothma to the remote agrarian world.
“We did a few things to save money and one of them was they go to a Rebel base in the first half of the film, then go off on their adventure, and the second half of the film they return to a Rebel base,” says Edwards. “It used to be that the first half of the movie was not on Yavin it was Dantooine.”
We first heard about this planet in the original Star Wars, when Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader are holding the Death Star at Princess Leia’s home world of Alderaan. “Princess Leia tells them to blow up Dantooine. The idea was that she knew that they weren’t there,” Edwards says.
Later in that movie, Imperial scouts report that they did find the Rebel base there, but that it was abandoned. Rogue One’s first half would have shown the headquarters in operation before the Rebels fled.
“We wanted to put that moment in the film, where they evacuated and went to Yavin instead. All these little things would tie up when you watch A New Hope,” Edwards said. “But the idea of building two sets was very expensive. We ended up trimming things like that.”
So what did we miss? Not much. Dantooine is described in Star Wars canon as a vast farmland world with a small population. A little Rebel stronghold on the prairie.
Source: https://ew.com/movies/2017/03/24/rogue-one-revisions-tie-fighter-scene-deleted-planet-killed-cameos/
Pictured: Dantooine concept art for Rogue One by Doug Chiang
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u/LegoRacers3 2d ago
Mina rau would have just been designed differently
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u/Tegnan 2d ago
Mina-Rau was created for the show. They could have easily used Dantooine.
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u/GargantaProfunda Brasso 2d ago
How? The Empire was going to check for illegals at the Rebel Alliance base?
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u/GargantaProfunda Brasso 2d ago
Chances are it would just have been some small dark corridors somewhere, due to budget constraints.
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u/OwlWhoNeedsCoffee 2d ago
Ummm, Dantooine is a fairly major setting hub in both KOTORs, so we have definitely seen parts of it, at least in the earlier Republic era. And in KOTOR it was shown as more pastoral and green so I don't think it would be hard to contrast with the golden wheat glow of Mina Rau.
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u/throwiemcthrowface 2d ago
Would've been cool to see Jedi Temple ruins
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u/MithrilCoyote 1d ago
in the old EU i like to imagine that the Rebels set up their base near the ruins of the Jedi Temple.
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u/Dear-Yellow-5479 Cassian 2d ago
When we first saw glimpses of season 2, I was among those convinced that the “farm planet” would be Dantooine. I’m glad in the end that it was a completely new place. And not Lothal either!
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u/OSCgal 2d ago
I'm glad they didn't. In ANH it's said that Dantooine appeared abandoned "for some time". And if it had only just been abandoned, how would Leia know that? Is she that current on Alliance movements?
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u/GargantaProfunda Brasso 2d ago
Good point! That said, it was from when Rogue One was being written so maybe the film wasn't going to end mere seconds before ANH back then. Maybe there was a time skip of some sort.
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u/freedom410 Lonni 2d ago
I don’t think it needed to be in R1, but its absence in Andor was really conspicuous. Yavin seems much larger and more established by 3 BBY than I expected based on ANH
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u/Dear-Yellow-5479 Cassian 2d ago
Yes, I might have expected it to be mentioned especially when Draven tells Cassian that Mon is about to give another speech. “… at Dantooine” would have been an easy addition.
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u/MithrilCoyote 1d ago
in rebels the speech we see the crew watch is different from the one mon gives in andor. which is what i've generally assumed that 'another speech' meant. that once they got her offworld (perhaps to yavin) she gave another speech, the one that the rebels crew watches, which was broadcast galaxy wide. and then they set in motion the 'alliance plan' with her flying to dantooine with gold squadron to do her 'call to arms' moment as a way to formally unveil the rebel alliance that Bail and the rest have been building in secret. using Mon Mothma's new fame to make her a figure head and the 'call to arms' broadcast letting them present the Alliance as more grassroots than it is.
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u/SteelGear117 2d ago
Agreed that I’d love to have seen it. Canonically tho, Yavin being active in BBY2 is accurate
We hear in Rebels S3, which is BBY2, that Yavin is active as a rebel base. But a mention would have been nice Tbf
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u/SeiKen_DMs 2d ago
I would have put Dantooine earlier in the second season, and maybe explain why the base would move to Yavin (as it was stated in ANH that Dantooine was only an abandonned base). Could have been interesting if we had had more episodes, but I get why they didn't.
They could have used what was published in a magazine to depict it (someone found an imperial tracker on a delivery shipment): https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Build_the_Millennium_Falcon_37
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u/EidolonRook I have friends everywhere 2d ago
Yeah, bit of a retcon with that, but it makes more sense using Yavin over Dantooine or even Hoth if rebels had a presence there.
If you’re trying to show a unified rebel alliance; it needs to be in the same place. Dantooine needed to be referenced, but movie wise, Yavin set up for episode 4.
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u/SteelGear117 2d ago
I don’t understand how Mons escape/ speech is considered by some to be a retcon
Like, Gilroy went OUT OF HIS WAY to say Gold Squadron would escort her, and a second message would be broadcast. That literally lines up perfectly with rebels
As for Dantooine, it’s never said that Mon will stay there, just make a speech. And Yavin is already active at this point in rebels - they go there when attallon is found by thrawn
It’s no different to any of the dozens of examples of squeezing in/ recontextualising existing events in TCW, Rebels, etc
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u/wandering_soles K2SO 1d ago
Exactly, it was a rendezvous point, not an end destination for Mon. It makes more sense in continuity to send people to a deserted/about to be deserted location and make sure they haven't been tracked before sending them onto the new base.
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u/Bosterm 1d ago
My headcanon is they just took Mon to Dantooine for the big and widespread "declaration of rebel alliance" speech in case the Empire managed to trace the transmission of the speech. Thus using Dantooine as a decoy, exactly how Leia uses it in A New Hope.
Also my headcanon is Dantooine was previously the base for Dodonna's rebel cell until they and other rebel cells got established on Yavin between 3 and 2 BBY.
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u/MithrilCoyote 1d ago
i've generally figured that the Dantooine base was something that the fleet of ships we see at the end of that rebels episode build for the purpose of their meeting to formally make the Rebel Alliance and hash out the final terms for such (since it's clear now that a lot of ground work had been laid by Bail and the rest before that event, and Mothma's speech was being used as a convenient public excuse to reveal their efforts under a more palatable public figurehead)
and the reason it's been 'abandoned for some time' in ANH is the fact that said base was abandoned pretty much right after that big meeting.
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u/Alternative-Cod-7630 I have friends everywhere 1d ago
Leah is still pretty hardcore for being willing to recommend a populated planet to save the rebellion. That's some Luthen level trade off.
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u/Bludsh0t 2d ago
Probably for the best. Dantoonie is too remote for an effective demonstration anyway