**SPOILERS** If you have not seen “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” do not read this piece with director Rian Johnson discussing some of the events of the movie. “Star Wars” fans are spoilerphobes and we get that. However, we’ll not consider piece about Lando Calrissian’s absence from the movie a spoiler. Sorry, it’s already public knowledge and long been out there in our galaxy.
READ MORE: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’: Mark Hamill Discusses Major Luke Skywalker Spoilers
There’s a lot of legacy characters in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” not counting the obvious ones of Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2D-2. Yoda makes a surprise appearance, Admiral Ackbar gets a scene or two (R.I.P. and thanks for your service), even Nien Nunb, returns after a reprise in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” But his longtime captain, Lando Calrissian, the suave-est smuggler in the galaxy, is nowhere to be seen in the new “Star Wars” trilogy thus far.
Where is the character in the galaxy far, far away? That’s unclear, but ‘Last Jedi’ writer/director Rian Johnson did consider using Lando briefly.
“Of course I’d love to see Lando,” Johnson said. “In terms of Lando, I briefly considered — would he work in the Benicio [del Toro] part, [DJ].” If you’ve seen the movie you know DJ is the morally ambiguous hacker/codebreaker who helps and betrays Finn and Rose within the span of a few hours, helping them escape prison on Canto Bight, but then selling them out to the Imperial First Order forces when the first opportunity presents itself.
“I don’t think you would ever buy that Lando would just completely betray the characters like that and have that level of moral ambiguity,” Johnson explained. “Cause we love Lando and you’d come into it with that [expectation]. And also, DJ, the character that they met, for the purposes of Finn’s character, had to be a morally ambiguous character that you’re not sure about, that you’re guessing about, and we already know that we love the character of Lando so it just wouldn’t have played in that part story wise.”
READ MORE: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Has The 2nd Biggest Box Office Opening Of All Time
“You have to write organically,” Johnson said. “Otherwise it leads to contrived places. Which is just to say it’s all about the needs of the story and there’s only so much room on the table for… favorite characters to be in the movie.”
Will we ever see Lando Calrissian again? Is he back on Cloud City? Maybe he’ll return in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: Episode IX”? It’s anybody’s guess at this point, but Billy Dee Williams has seemed eager in the past, so he’s probably just waiting by the phone.
Star your Lando petition now, since they’re all the rage. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is in cinemas everywhere.
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://dev.theplaylist.net/star-wars-lando-calrissian-absence-20171219/&media=https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/14225321/Lando-Calrissian-Jedi-Billy-Dee-Williams.jpg&description=Billy Dee Williams' Lando Calrissian is a "Star Wars" fan favorite and 'The Last Jedi' director Rian Johnson explains the character's absence.){kind=link}
But isn’t it more the reason that we as an audience have seen Lando betray the rebels as to why it wouldn’t have worked. That we had seen the essence of that same plot before with that character in The Empire Strikes Back? To be able to play on someone’s expectations requires us to not know if someone is capable of betraying someone else. Since we knew Lando had done it before we would have suspected that he could again and therefore it would have diminished the end result of the betrayal. I don’t see the logic in saying that it came from a place of knowing people loved the character. Although Lando redeemed himself and rescued Leia and Chewy and faught in the rebellion, I would say that it is more morally ambiguous to betray a friendship then to do what DJ did who had no previous relationships with any characters.
So in other words you didn’t want him in because you “already have a black character…Finn!”
You, sir, are an asshole! Yes, I called you an asshole!!! What a lame excuse. What, you don’t want more black people in your story?!?!? How pathetic!!!! Bring back Lando!
Nowhere is that suggested. In fact the “PC casting quotient” of TLJ is higher than other SW films: Holdo, Commander D’Acy, the Tico sisters, etc.
Anyway, had Johnson put BDW in the Del Toro role, fans would complain that his betrayal of Rose and Finn is a replay of his betrayal in Empire Strikes Back.