Lando Calrissian will soon be officially pansexual in the eyes of LucasFilm and Star Wars canon.
The official Star Wars website recently announced that Marvel Comics will release six special variant covers in June. These covers will be made to honor Pride Month much like the DC Comics covers coming out around the same time. With Star Wars, there will be six special variant covers and each will spotlight a different LGBTQ+ Star Wars character. This includes Doctor Aphra, Rae Sloan, Terec and Ceret, Yrica Quell, Sana Starros, and… Lando Calrissian.
Speculations around the classic Star Wars character’s sexuality started in 2018 when Donald Glover played the character in the prequel film Solo: A Star Wars Story. Glover decided to play up the character’s suave and sexual personality. Some fans and media sources speculated Glober may have been aiming at a queer portrayal. The actor then confirmed that idea in a 2018 interview with Sirius XM’s Entertainment Weekly Radio.
“How can you not be pansexual in space?” Glover reasoned when asked about Calrissian’s sexuality. “There are so many things to have sex with. I didn’t think that was that weird. Yeah, he’s coming on to everybody. I mean, yeah, whatever. It just didn’t seem that weird to me ‘cause I feel like if you’re in space it’s kind of like, the door is open! It’s like, no, only guys or girls. No, it’s anything. This thing is literally a blob. Are you a man or a woman? Like, who cares? Have a good time out here.”
That said, Glover’s attempts with the portrayl were not solid enough to be considered canon. Even worse, the original actor who portrayed Lando Calrissian was against the idea. In 2019, Billy Dee Williams argued that making the character pansexual was a mistake.
“I think that’s the reason they didn’t have the success they could have had,” Billy Dee Williams told Rolling Stone, and lamented how Lando was portrayed to possibly be in love with his droid. “Because they were going for something that was topical, instead of an adventure that’s far beyond those questions.”
He then added, “If you’re talking about this huge, incredible story, why lock yourself into this tiny moment between a character like Lando and his robot friend?”
With this in mind, the announcement of a Pride-themed cover variant honoring LGBTQ+ characters means that Star Wars canon recognizes Calrissian as pansexual. With speculation over the character’s sexuality going back and forth for the past few years, this is exciting news for LGTBQ+ fans.
So, that settles it. Lando Calrissian, the iconic rebel general and intergalactic smuggler, is canonically pansexual, according to Star Wars.
Source: Star Wars, Rolling Stone,
