The Two Worlds of Yavin 4, According to the Concept Art of Andor Season 2

Yavin 4 has been a part of Star Wars from the very beginning. New concept art from Andor Season 2 reveals two very different sides of the legendary moon on which the Rebellion is born.

Yavin 4 Rebel base concept art

Quite early in the final story arc of Andor, the name Yavin is mentioned as a place of refuge. When Lonni meets with Luthen on the Senate grounds, he’s well aware he can no longer stay on Coruscant. The doomsday clock is ticking. What Lonni knows could cost him his life at any moment: the Empire is building a secret weapon.

So where will Luthen take him and his family to keep them safe? Yavin is the simple answer that Luthen is reluctant to give in order to get more information from his mole in the ISB. But soon it becomes clear that Luthen never intended to take Lonni there. On the contrary: among other things, the mere mention and the resulting knowledge of the moon is likely to have cost Lonni his life.

“Yavin. We’ll be safe there. As safe as we can be.”

But what exactly is Yavin? When we look at the concept art released as part of a recent behind-the-scenes video from Lucasfilm, two very different worlds exist on the jungle-covered moon in orbit around the red gas giant Yavin Prime.

First, there is the almost militaristic Yavin, with distinct hierarchies and rules. We are no longer in the early chaotic years of the Rebellion. Instead, we see an organized alliance of Rebel soldiers, capable of striking real fear into the Empire – and ultimately defying even a larger-than-life threat like the Death Star.

Yavin 4 Rebel base concept art by Scott McInnes

Production designer Luke Hull explains the thoughts behind the hangar set:

You can walk into this set and it feels like a museum very quickly. It needed to not have that sterility. So we're not sort of walking into a piece of concept art. We tried to make our sets as interactive as possible, not just for our key cast but also for our background [actors]. People can actually be mending, fixing, working on or transporting [equipment]. And we had to build X-wings. Everyone else was very excited about it, particularly the X-wings.

On a visual level, Andor stays true to the Yavin we know from Rogue One and A New Hope, especially in terms of the Rebel base. In all of Star Wars, Yavin is synonymous with the huge temple hangar where X-wing starfighters wait for the next mission and sparks fly as they’re getting repaired. We see pilots, mechanics and leaders of the Rebellion – and although many of the images look familiar, Andor takes you deeper into this hangar to find out who these people are, fighting the Empire in secret.

And that brings us to the other side of Yavin, which we haven't seen until Andor. The members of the Rebellion don’t sleep in cramped barracks, but have settled around the base in unexpectedly homely accommodations that have a lot of personality. It almost feels like we're meandering through the Yavin equivalent of the winding Ewok village on Endor – not quite as high up in the trees, but surprisingly cozy and even a little bit dreamy. A hidden sanctuary away from all militaristic aspects of Yavin.

Cassian's Yavin home concept art by Chester Carr

Luke Hull shares some thoughts about the design:

It's supposed to be like an antidote to Coruscant. [Bix and Cassian] have been in that safe house apartment – that sort of hermetic cube with a concrete jungle outside. But they're still at war. They're still refugees essentially camping. It was really a hard one to find a balance.

Their new home is a home full of history with a tragic twist:

They found a shell and repurposed it into a sort of dome shape, then try and take some essence of Kenari from his youth into the bedroom structure, the sort of teepee. Elements from Mina-Rau, like the hammock, and from when he was on Aldhani and stuff like that. There's some logic to how Cassian helped build the elements and bring them together. It has a glow and a warmth to it – a homeliness when Bix is there. Certainly that goes away when she leaves.

When we look at the new concept art we got for the Lina Soh Hospital on Coruscant in the final story arc of Andor season 2, the difference becomes abundantly clear. No warm colors and shapes but cold, sterile corridors, through which Kleya moves with an eerie look on her face. She remains trapped in the concrete jungle that Bix and Cassian managed to escape. She has one more mission to fulfill.

Lina Soh Hospital concept art by Giorgio Grecu

Kleya’s thoughts shift between rebellion and revenge. She is still a long way from accepting the world(s) of Yavin. First, she has to face her own past and her greatest enemy/friend: Luthen. A delicate balancing act between life and death.

Image credits: Lucasfilm