Lando's Droid Co-Pilot in 'Solo' Could Be an Easter Egg From Star Wars Books
Lando Calrissian’s slick droid co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon in the Solo trailer might be a deep-cut Easter egg to really old school Star Wars books. Back in the Eighties, the books by L. Neil Smith gave Lando a robot co-pilot, too. But, it didn’t look like this.
On Monday, the first full-length trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story debuted on Good Morning America. And it’s possible that scene, where Lando and his droid co-pilot salute each other, totally stole the show. But who is this droid? It’s possible that this is a kind of remaining of the character named Vuffi Raa, from the trilogy of L. Neil Smith Lando books published in 1983, after the release of Return of the Jedi. Canonically, these books are like pre-legends, insofar as stuff in them had to be retconned by Star Wars books from the Nineties. Specifically, the idea that Lando wasn’t that great of a pilot at first, which is why he needed a droid co-pilot.
Lando and co-pilot
In these early Lando books, we learn that even though Lando was a great gambler and conman, he wasn’t the best at flying spaceships. That’s where Vuffi Raa would help him out. Now, the droid in the Solo trailer looks nothing like Vuffi Raa, who was originally more like a spidery-droid with tentacles. But still, the fact that Lando even has a robot co-pilot at all seems to totally honor this continuity.
It also seems likely that this droid will be voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, since her character has been rumored to be a droid for a while. Though right now, we don’t know the name of her character yet and it hasn’t been listed on the IMDB page for Solo yet.
Even so, this droid, whatever its name is, is quickly proving to be the coolest thing in the movie.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is out everywhere on May 25, 2018. It is the first Star Wars movie to come out in May since Revenge of the Sith in 2005. Prior to The Force Awakens beginning the December trend in 2015, the six previous Star Wars films, prior to the Disney take over, were all released in May.
