Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for the Andor season 1 finale!
Mon Mothma's Canto Bight reference in Star Wars fans for several reasons. That said, defenders and detractors of the Rian Johnson-directed blockbuster can both agree Canto Bight was the worst part of Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.
Part of the point of Finn and Rose Tico’s Canto Bight visit was to highlight how the people there profited from both sides of the war. It took Andor‘s bemusing knack for fixing the worst Star Wars flaws to really get the message across. Mon Mothma’s Canto Bight reference during an important finale interaction fixes Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi’s most disliked story arc by putting the full weight of Andor’s first season behind Canto Bight’s vile history.
Andor Shows How Complicated Star Wars' Rebellion Really Was
In Andor season 1’s finale, Mon Mothma sets up her husband, Perrin Fertha, to take the fall for some Rebellion-related financial shenanigans. During Mon Mothma’s award-worthy acting clinic, she exclaims, "You can’t live without a casino? Fine. You go to Canto Bight and do whatever it is you need to do." The pivotal moment is just one of Mon Mothma’s family twists, but it also better contextualizes Canto Bight by revealing it’s the kind of place where a despicable individual like Perrin Fertha would fit right in. What would normally be an innocuous reference becomes something else entirely in the context of Andor's first season.
Star Wars has mostly drawn a clear line between good and evil, but that’s slowly begun to change over the past decade. The Rebellion was complicated, and Andor shows it through the oft-questionable sacrifices of so many from Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael to the citizens of Ferrix. Perrin Fertha may be unlikable and unbothered by the Empire’s growing evil because he can literally afford to not care, but even he doesn’t deserve to be wrongfully slandered. But those kinds of sacrifices were necessary for the Rebellion to succeed.
Why So Many People Disliked The Last Jedi's Canto Bight Story
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi didn’t have the time or the space to really explore the blurred lines between good and evil like Andor could, but the movie at least tried with its Canto Bight scenes. Unfortunately, those scenes with Finn and Rose Tico backfired because they felt so out of place and perhaps even a little unnecessary despite the built-in reasons for why they had to go to Canto Bight. That’s too bad because their time in the city tackled some of the same themes that were more successfully explored in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Andor.
At the very least, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi inadvertently took a page out of Nemik’s manifesto in Andor and tried. While the movie’s Canto Bight scenes ultimately fell flat, Mon Mothma’s husband's sacrifice and Canto Bight reference helped save not just the Rebellion’s future, but a Star Wars movie from the not-so-distant past. Only time will tell what else the incredible Andor manages to save in its next and final season.