Posted on 01/27/2024 9:28:43 PM PST by nickcarraway
"You betrayed Han Solo!"
Billy Dee Williams has recalled having to defend Lando Calrissian after catching heat from Star Wars fans for betraying Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back.
Appearing on EW's Dagobah Dispatch podcast, the actor, who played Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars saga, spoke of the backlash he received following the release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, after his character made a deal with Darth Vader that led to Solo being captured and frozen in carbonite.
Fans were upset about Lando selling Solo out, and made their feelings known to the actor whenever he was out in public. "I would pick my daughter up from school, the kids would run up to me and say, 'You betrayed Han Solo!'" Williams said. "I'd go on an airplane, and the airplane stewards would say, 'You betrayed Han Solo!'"
'Did anybody die? Nobody died!' “ He continued: "I got that for a lot of years. So finally, I said, 'Look, think about the whole situation. You're up against a pretty formidable character in Darth Vader. And then there is, of course, Boba Fett. And these people were invading my space, and I had to bargain with them. But the bargain at least prevented the complete demise of Han Solo and his friends. But I had to hold on to my whole situation."
After trying to reason with the fans, Williams decided enough was enough. He pointed out that Solo could have ended up in a far worse situation if Lando didn't negotiate with the Empire and that his friend not only lived to see another day, but also forgave him, so maybe it's time Star Wars fans did the same.
"I found myself explaining all this stuff to a point where I finally said to people, 'Look, I'm tired of explaining all of this.' I said, 'Did anybody die? Nobody died!'" Williams emphasized. "I think that was a clear indication that Lando was trying to figure something out, and he was trying to figure out primarily how to hold onto his situation without the complete demise of his friend."
While some Star Wars fans are still sore about director Rian Johnson's decision to kill off Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, things may well have gone that direction even if George Lucas were behind the camera. Hidalgo points to Lucas' 2012 story treatment for Episode VIII and reveals that Lucas' vision of the sequel also involved Luke meeting his end.
That's not the only similarity between Lucas' sequel trilogy plans and the one we actually got. Hidalgo also reveals that Lucas' trilogy would have revolved heavily around the hero's journey of a young Force-sensitive woman. Lucas originally wrote her as a 14-year-old girl named Taryn, with later treatments changing the name to Thea or Winkie(?!?). Hidalgo even hints Lucas' sequels may have revolved around this heroine seeking out a missing, disillusioned Luke Skywalker, with Lucas apparently drawing comparisons to Captain Willard's hunt for Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (a film Lucas was once attached to direct, as it happens).
The phrase "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" is an indelible part of the Star Wars mythos, but the story wasn't always set in the distant past. According to Hidalgo, a very early draft of the Star Wars screenplay from 1973 instead placed the timeline as "the 33rd Century, a period of civil wars in the galaxy."
One page reveals that, because The Force Awakens and the animated series Star Wars Rebels entered production around the same time, Lucasfilm considered linking the two projects through a common planet. While that idea was eventually abandoned, the original plan was for Jakku and Lothal to be the same world. Hidalgo also reveals Lothal was inspired by Sice, a grassy planet Lucas once envisioned as being the homeworld of the Rebel Alliance in Return of the Jedi.
Screenwriter Leigh Brackett featured a very unusual back-story for Lando Calrissian in her first draft of The Empire Strikes Back. As Hidalgo reveals, the draft features Lando introducing himself as a clone and a member of the Ashardi family. Apparently Lando's great-grandfather was so vain he created many perfect duplicates of himself rather than start a family the old-fashioned way.
Williams reprised the role of Lando in Return of the Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, with Donald Glover playing a younger version of the character in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Glover is now teaming up with his brother to develop a Lando feature film, so his galactic adventures are far from over (but hopefully, the Solo taunting is).
Idiots......................
It could have been worse - he could’ve been Bruce Dern.
Well maybe he shouldn’t have betrayed Han Solo, then :)
Who among us hasn’t put a friend in carbonite and sold him to a crime lord that is his archenemy?
Some people take their live action Comic Books and Sci Fi tales way too seriously.
It’s not new. Margaret Hamilton, the woman who played the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz found herself typecast, and could find few new roles that were not similar to the Witch.
Linda Blair made one major movie, back when she was 14 years old. The Exorcist. To this day, it defines her as an actress to most people.
Greedo shot first.
Well, except Alec Baldwin in Glengary Glen Ross. I think he was so good in that, because that's pretty much him. I still wouldn't harangue him on the street about being mean to Jack Lemon.
He’s totally dramatizing what people said to him.
This is what actors do.
Yeah, he wasn't kidding.
Jack Lemon had the public image of being someone most everybody liked. Sort of like Gary Cooper, sort of like Guy Fieri.
I’ll bet somewhere, someone still harbors a silent, blazing fury about how Alec’s character treated Jack’s character in that movie. “It just wasn’t fair!!”
It was so touching how Lando supported his friend Sonny, when he got cancer. And I think Diana Ross was his girlfriend.
Probably not too many bother Billie Dee in reference to
Brian’s Song. I recall watching it on TV as a Movie of the Week. Brian’s Song was mostly seen as a vehicle for James Caan. Caan became a very successful movie actor. Billie Dee had success, but mostly limited to black music genre, i.e. Lady Sings the Blues.
I'm pretty sure that role was the inspiration for the character Gil on The Simpsons.
I’d have told them to f-off, and take their crap to the scriptwriters, you know, the a-holes who go on strike for months.
Blasphemer!
Nah, Bruce was too busy tending the plants in "Silent Running". :)
Coffee is for closers!
#1 Everyone feared James Earl Jones wraith!
(two fingers pinching together to choke those that diss Jones!)
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