If you weren’t sure about Donald Glover’s take on Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story before tonight, his appearance on SNL gave you a reason to keep calm. He showed up in full costume to play the smoothest man in the galaxy in an awards show sketch that also acts as a comment on the diversity in a galaxy far, far away. Lando is joined by Kenan Thompson returning in his Saw Gerrera character, and not many more people. It’s a small gathering and it is representative of the number of black people that have appeared in Star Wars to this point.
Obviously, a few couldn’t be in attendance because they were killed in the heat of battle — though Saw’s presence is questionable because he got pulverized by the Death Star cannon in Rogue One — but it really is just a look at how few black people actually show up.
❤️ Lando Calrissian ❤️#SNL @nbcsnl pic.twitter.com/sdydmhaHXe
— GIPHY Pop (@GiphyPop) May 6, 2018
You could probably expand this out to people of color in general, especially before the prequels were released. But SNL is also missing a few big ones in there. Where is Panaka from The Phantom Menace? How about Finn from The Force Awakens? And Rogue One might’ve been the most diverse film of the entire series. It only took until 2016 for us to get to that point.
The sketch certainly isn’t that lofty, but it makes you think a bit. The main attraction is Glover’s take on Lando and the appearance by Max Rebo at the end. Probably one of the show’s best takes on Star Wars to this point.
(Via SNL)
