Billy Dee Williams returns as Lando Calrissian in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Though he’s a welcome familiar face, there isn’t a whole lot for him to do and the movie doesn’t drop any major revelations about him. Or does it?
Near the end of the film, Lando shares a moment with Naomi Ackie’s Jannah, a former Stormtrooper who defected from the First Order like Finn. He asks her if she knows where she’s from, and when she shakes her head, he says “Well, let’s find out…” This has led to renewed speculation that Jannah may be Lando’s daughter, but their scene together is so vague that you might wonder if that’s not the case, at all.
A definitive answer to the mystery has now been given though via in a tie-in book, of all things. Rise of Skywalker‘s Visual Dictionary fills in the character’s backstory, explaining what happened to Lando after the end of the Original Trilogy and up to the beginnings of the First Order.
“When peace reigned, [Lando] attempted to start a family, but tragedy struck and his infant daughter vanished,” it reads.
Just to make the connection abundantly clear, the book then clarifies that his daughter was most probably taken by the villains, as one of the many children they kidnapped across the galaxy and then raised as Stormtroopers.
“It was only later that it became clear who the culprits behind the abduction were: the First Order, building their fighting forces but also specifically striking out at the old Alliance leadership.”
The Visual Dictionary doesn’t explicitly spell it out, then, but I think we can safely put two and two together here and deduce that, yes, Jannah is Lando’s daughter. Hopefully now that the pair are reunited, we’ll get to see their bond further explored in some other outlet – in the novels, comics or maybe even in a Disney Plus show. After all, that would somewhat make up for the fact that this hugely important reveal comes from a piece of merchandize instead of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker itself.
