The thing that bothered me about Alden Ehrenreich playing Han Solo in Solo (i.e., zero resemblance between himself and Harrison Ford) is the same thing bothering me about 81-year-old Billy Dee Williams returning to plan Lando Calrissian in J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars Episode IX flick — i.e., zero resemblance to Solo‘s Donald Glover.

I realize that prequels like Solo can’t hope to fully blend with the sequel trio — they’re parallel universes with their own biological compositions– but all these films have been produced by Disney and Kathy Kennedy, and after watching Solo I feel as if I’ve made an investment in Glover-as-Calrissian. But when Episode IX comes out I’ll be back with the old Lando again. And I don’t like it. Glover is 21st Century cool but Williams is the original cool so who’s da man?

From Ben Childs’ 7.11 Guardian piece: “The fear is that Disney-owned Lucasfilm is only wheeling out the 81-year-old [Williams] because it desperately needs original-trilogy cachet, and has exhausted the potential to cast Ford, Hamill or Fisher in yet another episode.

“Cynics will also complain that Williams ought to have been front and center in Abrams’ earlier effort, The Force Awakens, when he might have been paired successfully with his old buddy Han. But Lucasfilm has made a habit of keeping its classic cast apart in the new era, as if too much of a good thing might overwhelm us. Perhaps the idea is to retain the focus on fresher faces such as Daisy Ridley’s Rey and John Boyega’s Finn, so it is probably fair to say that the ploy has proved successful.
more or less.”

By the way: I’m not entirely sure if Luke Skywalker really and truly died at the end of The Last Jedi. He did, I know, but did he? I so hated the fact that Luke never left Ahch-To throughout the whole film, and that he died on Ach-To after the final confrontation with Kylo Ren even though he wasn’t actually fighting anyone — his “force projection” was. God, I hated that ending.