The Actual Meaning Behind That Star Wars Cereal In Andor [Exclusive]

"Andor" fans love to hate on Syril Karn (Kyle Soller). He's a worm, a toady, a stalker, probably an incel, and very, very creepy. He may be right about Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) being a threat to the powers that be, but he's going about everything in the very worst way. It's fairly clear that this all stems from his upbringing, with his mother, Eedy (Kathryn Hunter), trying to control every aspect of his life, snooping in his personal things, being the worst sort of passive-aggressive, and guilt-tripping him like nobody's business. She gives him crap about preparing two meals a day for him and tells him how he's neglecting her. "Where's the return on my investment?" she asks him. One way she adds a little extra control is in one of those meals; his breakfast of blue milk and fancy cereal. 

We've all been fascinated by the "Star Wars" blue milk since Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) drank some back in "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope." It's a galaxy-wide beverage, it seems, with people gulping it down on Tatooine, and pouring it into cereal on Coruscant as Syril does. /Film's own Ryan Scott recently spoke to Soller about "Andor" and asked him about the blue milk and breakfast cereal that he keeps consuming in his scenes at his mom's house. Soller has a great explanation, which not only tells us how it came about, but also how his mom uses it to control him. That control is starting to slip ... slurp? (Sorry, but Syril does slurp to shut out her whining.)

Soller calls the morning snack that comes from a little plastic contraption "proper Tatooine breakfast cereal, man. That's like legit stuff." As it turns out, the prop people were asking him what sort of things he likes to eat and what he doesn't, and Soller was a little confused as to why.

He said that they explained it was for a breakfast scene. He explains:

" ... they came up with the most amazing Star Wars Coco Pops that I've ever seen with the blue milk ... And this is just perfect because it's such a symbol of, to me, Syril's childhood, but also an indication of how much Eedy doesn't know her own child. I see Syril as actually out in the world living on his own as eating everything that he puts into his mind and body is quite clean and structured. 

"And you see a journey of the Star Wars Pops throughout the episodes of him just not eating it at all to eventually succumbing and kind of like, oh Jesus Christ, okay fine. It's the only thing that she'll give me for breakfast. And so that's its own kind of psychological journey in and of itself."

It's an interesting observation, the cereal being a symbol of what Syril is going through. He tries hard to keep his life structured because it's the only way he can feel like he's asserting power over something. When he loses this breakfast power struggle with his mother, the control freak in him is going to look for something else to control. He certainly tries to control what happens with Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), though it backfires. I also find it interesting to look at her feeding him blue cereal with no other options as a way of keeping him in the place of a child. He eats what she says he eats, and it's a child's breakfast.

Looks like we'd better keep a close eye on what Syril eats at mom's house in the future.

"Andor" is currently streaming through episode 9 on Disney+.