I admit, at first, I wasn’t that excited for this announcement. Yes, Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian back in The Empire Strikes Back (my favorite original Star Wars movie) seduced me in SO many ways. Yet, out of the pile of new content I found it lackluster; until…

Back in 2018 with the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story we received another infamous “Dumbledore cop-out”; The writer of the film mentioned that Lando Calrissian was in-fact written to be pansexual. However, we shouldn’t have expected to see this depicted in the film… Then why the f***…?

Anywho! With this new show the rainbow elephant in the room is, “will they have the stones to depict the character in this light? Or will Jonathan Kasdan’s words be brushed under the rug?”

Recently, Disney+ released an animated short focused around a man coming out to his family. This is the first Disney project of any kind that I have seen the “house of mouse” directly address subjects around the LGBTQ+ community. My hope is that the short was a step in the direction where such content for Lando can and will exist on the popular new streaming service.

Now, another question is which actor will portray the character? Billy Dee Williams or Donald Glover? I think there is a strong chance that it will be both. I’m hoping this is the case because if we recall back to the Rise of Skywalker our last scene with Lando was his interaction with Jannah (Naomi Ackie) offering to help find her family; a scene that felt very “spin-off.”

I would love it if he could return to reprise this role alongside Ackie. This potential also excites me because it would make Lando the only series in this set of ten that can show us a world after the sequel trilogy. Not to mention, it would be the perfect appetizer for it; it would focus around a character that isn’t directly correlated with the Jedi, but can serve as a soft introduction and test for audience interest in content around that time period (especially after the negative feedback against the sequels in general).

There’s no doubt that Donald Glover gave a great performance as the character so I think we can expect to see him in flashback capacity that can give a unique story-telling method that exists in both past and future.

I’m here for it!