Star Wars Episode IX rumors: Lando Calrissian returning for another adventure?

After The Last Jedi asked us to say good-bye to characters we loved, a new Star Wars rumor puts Lando Calrissian back in Episode IX.

If Star Wars dares kill off yet another beloved character from the original trilogy in Episode IX next year, we’re pretty sure there will be no force capable of stopping the grief that fans will unleash on social media. (That pun is very intended.) So, with the rumor that Star Wars News Net is picking up about Billy Dee Williams coming back to the franchise as Lando Calrissian, we’re understandably a little worried.

After all, Han Solo features prominently in The Force Awakens, and then Kylo Ren kills him. Luke Skywalker gets the spotlight in The Last Jedi, and then he becomes one with the Force. We don’t need to talk about how real life has affected General Leia, either, as SWNN has us covered on that front.

In fact, killing Lando might actually result in backlash along those lines. SWNN argues that “the sequel trilogy has made every effort to move away from the original cast to focus on the new characters,” which is not wrong, to be sure. We’re just disagreeing about what the execution of that has to look like. So far, it’s looked like having to watch Han and Luke die and nearly watching Leia die. There’s a way to pass the torch along that doesn’t involve killing every single character from the original trilogy.

Yes, yes, Star Wars can simply point to “Let the past die” as its argument for killing Han and Luke (and possibly Lando). But eventually, “letting the past die” in the same way, over and over again, stops serving the story you’re trying to tell and instead just looks like a way to shock audiences.

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In other words: Lando should survive Episode IX, and please let Kylo Ren’s little murder spree end, Lucasfilm.