On Wednesday, former Mandalorian star Gina Carano noted a striking similarity between the new marketing slogan for Andor Season 2 and one of her own previous tweets. In a post on X, Gina Carano pointed out that the phrase “Welcome to the Rebellion,” prominently used in Andor’s promotional campaign, mirrors her own previous post and also the slogan on T-shirts and hoodies bearing her character Cara Dune’s image. The actress, who is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company, Lucasfilm, and Huckleberry Productions over her 2021 firing from The Mandalorian, used the opportunity to take a jab at the franchise’s creative marketing choices.
Gina Carano’s Quotes and the Welcome to the Rebellion Collection
Gina Carano speaking at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con International, for “Deadpool”, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In her X post from Tuesday referenced a tweet from February 12, 2021, where Gina Carano wrote, “This is just the beginning.. welcome to the rebellion.” Alongside it, she shared an image of a T-shirt featuring her character, Cara Dune, with the text “Fight the Empire” and “Welcome to the Rebellion.” Gina Carano remarked, “Do you think they were all sitting in the writers room thinking.. 🤔 OK, I’ve got it, it’s super original.. just spit balling here but how about we make our main catch phrase… Welcome to The Rebellion. lol.. 😂.” She also provided a link to content creator Jay David’s drunk3po merchandise collection, noting the merchandise had been selling for 4 years.
Lawsuit Against Disney
(L_R): Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) and Cara Dune (Gina Carano) in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season two, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
Carano and The Walt Disney Company recently came to a limited protective status agreement in her lawsuit after the judge in her case issued an order to Disney to stop stalling in the provision of documents regarding her case. Carano was fired from The Mandalorian in 2021 following a series of social media posts that questioned if social and governmental backlash was going too far. In an unprecedented move, Lucasfilm stated at the time that her posts “denigrating people” were “abhorrent and unacceptable.” Carano, however, alleges wrongful termination, claiming she was let go for expressing political views that did not align with Lucasfilm’s vaguely stated values while other actors, like Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill, of Carano’s Mandalorian co-star Pedro Pascal, faced no repercussions for arguably more severe and malicious political posts.
Andor Marketing
Cassian Andor in the trailer for Andor Season 1 – YouTube, Star Wars
With the premiere of Andor Season 2 only a week away, Lucasfilm might be grasping at any social media relevance they can by using “Welcome to the Rebellion” in its messaging. The overlap does not seem coincidental, as Gina Carano is well known in the Star Wars community and draws significant lines at fan conventions.
This isn’t the first time the phrase has been associated with Star Wars’ broader narrative of resistance against the Empire, but it raises questions about how closely Lucasfilm and Disney are following the social media fan base for Gina Carano. Andor Season 1 was widely regarded as a ratings failure for the Disney+ streaming services at the time of its release, but as more recent Star Wars shows have failed to chart, it leaves many people who monitor the Walt Disney Company wondering what the business case for spending $645 million on two seasons of a show that almost no one watches could be. Whether this slogan similarity will play a role in her legal arguments remains to be seen, but for now, Carano is ensuring her rebellion against Disney remains in the spotlight.
Do you think Lucasfilm was intentional in using Gina Carano’s Welcome to the Rebellion slogan?
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Plenty of megacorps claim to hate megacorps, but the sheer amount of damage Disney has done to itself is impressive.
Amen my friend! No joke I’ve been telling people for the last three years, that within the next decade they’re going to write books about how the worst downfall of a mega-company ever happened….
I don’t think such books will stop at Disney