Star Wars Episode IX rumors of Lando Calrissian heating up

Star Wars fans might just have stumbled onto something that’ll lend credence to reports that Lando Calrissian will be in Episode IX.

Star Wars: Episode IX, if rumors are to be believed, will feature Lando Calrissian. Unsurprisingly, this is actually pretty exciting considering the excellent work from Donald Glover in Solo: A Star Wars Story — building off of Billy Dee Williams’ establishment of the character way back in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

We brought you the original report from Star Wars News Net. That same site has now picked up confirmation that Williams will now skip a September public appearance, and it’s done the legwork on if this could be any other movie. (The short answer: probably not.)

So, it’s time to take a moment to sit down and think about what a Lando appearance could look like. When we first discussed the rumors, we argued about why we don’t want him to die. That position hasn’t changed one iota. But we didn’t talk about how or why he might come to Episode IX.

In other words: how is Episode IX going to explain what Lando has been doing since Return of the Jedi? The film could easily go the Han route and draw some broad strokes about where and what he’s done. Could he even have a kid of his own? (Can you imagine what would have happened to make Lando settle down? That might be the biggest plot twist of all.)

Even though Rey is more than adept at piloting the Millennium Falcon, who wouldn’t like to see Lando back in the cockpit and saying hello to his ship and L3 again? To be fair, we probably wouldn’t like an overt acknowledgment of how the droid is merged with the ship, but it would be cool to see him develop a relationship with Rey over love of the Falcon, echoing her relationship with Han.

And who wouldn’t want to hear Kylo Ren speak to his “Uncle Lando”?

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Seriously, hearing Adam Driver say those two words would be worth a ticket alone. Just don’t get the two particularly close, because that would put us back to maybe killing Lando.