The first live-action Star Wars spinoff film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, told a pivotal tale about an early action of heroism within the Rebel Alliance’s war against the Galactic Empire. The opening crawl of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope discusses the Alliance’s “first major victory,” but Rogue One finally shows it on screen. However, the journey to get to the heist of the Death Star plans wasn’t an easy one. The Rebel Alliance had to evolve before it could assemble into a fighting force that could threaten the Imperial Army.
The Disney+ series Andor is set to explore the early adventures of the spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a fan favorite character from Rogue One. Andor is set to include many familiar faces from the Star Wars saga. Among them is Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly), the leader who assigns Cassian to find Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) in Rogue One. Mothma is an important figure within the Star Wars franchise that united the rebels into a singular unit. Although Mothma only briefly appears in the films, she has a major role in the animated shows, expanded universe, and older Legends materials.
Before the Fall of the Republic
Prior to becoming the leader of the rebellion, Mothma served as the Senator representative of the planet Chandrila in the Galactic Senate. A vocal critic of Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), Mothma became an early ally of Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) and Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman). Genevieve O'Reilly briefly appears in Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the Sith, but she had a larger role in a few key deleted scenes. George Lucas cut a storyline out of the film that focussed on Mothma and Organa convincing Padme to join the first stage of the Rebel Alliance.
Mothma’s role prior to the events of Revenge of the Sith was expanded in Dave Filoni’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Actress Kath Soucie voices a younger version of Mothma, who makes her opposition to the war with the Separatists her defining campaign promise. The Clone Wars shows Mothma’s extensive efforts to support peaceful solutions to the conflict; she even attempts to reach out to the Separatist Senate in the Season 3 episode “Heroes on Both Sides.” Unfortunately, a plot by General Grievous (Matthew Wood) puts an end to this possibility of a treaty before it ever takes off.
Mothma also gets in on the action when the war strikes the capital planet Coruscant. She helps Padme (Catherine Taber) and Organa (Phil Lamarr) lead a murder investigation when the Rodian Senator Onaconda Farr (Dee Bradley Baker) dies of suspected poisoning in the episode “Senate Murders.” She’s also forced to flee the Senate offices when a kaiju-like creature wreaks havoc on the city in the episode “The Zillo Beast Strikes Back.” These early adventures show how Mothma became the woman we meet later on in the rebellion.
During Imperial Rule
The Clone Wars’ sister series, Rebels, picks up in the middle of the Imperial rule of the galaxy. Mothma has continued her position as a representative of her home planet within the Imperial Senate, but finds that her voice is often silenced. Democracy has been eroded. Mothma continues to work with Bail Organa to find those willing to oppose the Emperor. In the episode “Secret Cargo,” the crew of the Ghost helps Mothma avoid Imperial spies in order to attend a critical meeting with her allies. This shows how brave she is to risk her life in an act of defiance.
Rebels explored how Mothma turns the Rebellion into a concentrated movement, as opposed to a few scattered bands of resistance fighters. Despite her frequent calls for peace, Mothma finds that there is no option other than going to war. At the end of “Secret Cargo,” Mothma delivers an address before a galactic audience calling the rebels to arms. “I hereby resign from the Senate to fight for you, not from the distant hall of politics but from the front lines,” she says. “We will not rest until we bring an end to the Empire, until we restore our Republic!”
As a Military Leader
By the time of Rogue One, Mothma has fully converted into a military leader. While Organa has managed to keep his involvement with the Rebel Alliance a secret, Mothma has fled into hiding. After Organa is killed in the explosion of Alderaan, Mothma is left to inherit the leadership vacuum. The Alliance is filled with younger heroes, who have grown up under fascist leadership. However, Mothma still holds on to her memories of the Galactic Senate, which gives her the hope that democracy can emerge once more.
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi was the first time Mothma (Caroline Blakiston) actually appeared on the screen. Although she doesn’t appear in the final battle on Endor, Mothma develops the strategy to destroy the second Death Star. It’s clear from her address to the other heroes that for Mothma, any loss of life bears heavily upon her. She steps away from the center stage after mentioning that “many Bothans” died to recover the plans for the Imperial weapon.
In the Legends Canon
Both the older, now “non-canon” Star Wars novels, now classified as Legends canon, revealed that Mothma’s leadership continued within the New Republic. Timothy Zahn’s early Star Wars book Heir to the Empire shows how Mothma works with Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Admiral Ackbar, and the other heroes of the Galactic Civil War to restore Coruscant as the democratic heart of the galaxy. The new material has largely characterized her in the same way; Mothma has had brief appearances within spinoff novels such as The Princess and the Scoundrel, the Aftermath trilogy, and the Alphabet Squadron trilogy.
It’s unclear what stage the rebellion is in during Andor, but we know that the resistance movement experienced more than a few growing pains. It will be interesting to see how large of a role Mothma plays; how does a straight-laced former Senator become a mentor to a deceptive intelligence agent like Cassian? Star Wars has proven that the line between good and evil is always a little vague, and hopefully, Andor will delve deeper into some of these moral quandaries. Regardless, it should provide a larger role for one of the franchise’s most underrated characters.