For a couple of reasons, I decided this week for Star Wednesday I would write about my 12″ Lando Calrissian figure.

In 1978, Kenner released a super-sized line of Star Wars figures. It’s referred to as the 12″ line, even though many/most of them are a couple of inches taller than that. In all, 12 figures were released: ten from Star Wars (R2-D2 and C-3P0, Ben Kenobi, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Jawa, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Stormtrooper) and two from the Empire Strikes Back (Boba Fett and IG-88). For the record, I owned five of them as a kid (Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, Vader, and Boba Fett) and currently own four (I lost Luke and Leia, but gained C-3P0). The figures retailed for $10.99, which (according to the online inflation calculator I just used) would cost roughly $39.99 in 2015 dollars. I don’t know why they cancelled the line so early (low sales and high cost, I’d guess) but they did.

In the mid 90s, along with the new Power of the Force line of 3 3/4″ figures, Kenner also relaunched a line of 12″ figures known as the Collector Series. Unlike the original run of figures, Kenner didn’t stop at 12 — dozens and dozens of different figures were released in this new scale. By the time Admiral Ackbar, Greedo, and all six aliens from the Mos Eisley Cantina band show up, you know everybody’s been invited to the party…

Anyway, one of the earlier 12″ figures released was Lando Calrissian. The Collector Series ran from 1996 to 2000, and Lando, part of the second wave, was released in 1997.

All things considered, it’s a pretty good looking figure. Other than the somewhat unnatural position of the arms (which make Lando look like he might bear hug you to death), everything else looks good. The head sculpt resembles Billy Dee Williams, and the muscles (unlike his 3 3/4″ counterpart) aren’t bulging like He-Man. He’s wearing his traditional Empire Strikes Back blue and black outfit, along with his weird wristwatch/communicator and a sweet cape. (I swear to you, one of these days I’m going to get a job that allows me to wear a cape.)

I’m not writing about Lando today because of any of that. I’m writing about this Lando Calrissian figure today because he’s black.

There weren’t many black characters in the original trilogy. Along with Lando Calrissian, on screen you’ve got African American Bespin Guard and Oola, Jabba the Hutt’s private dancer (and Rancor’s lunch).

Off screen we had the inimitable James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader and Ahmad Best as the voice of Jar Jar Binks, and behind a mask we had Tony Cox (a little person who you might remember from Bad Santa) as one of the many anonymous ewoks. In the prequels we got Samuel L. Jackson as Jedi Master Mace Windu, along with Captain Typho and Quarsh Panaka.

A couple of weeks ago, Disney released the official full-length trailer for the upcoming Star Wars film, The Force Awakens.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the trailer features John Boyega as an apparently AWOL Stormtrooper (I don’t know for sure; I’m avoiding spoilers). Shortly after that, a hashtag began trending on Twitter: #BoycottStarWarsVII. The people behind the boycott claim that J.J. Abrams (director of the new film) is pushing his anti-white agenda by featuring an African American lead in the new Star Wars film.

Let’s get to the bottom of this, shall we?

First of all, to find the racism inherent in Star Wars all one has to do is go back to its creator, George Lucas. Here is a picture of the racist Mr. Lucas with his wife.

The reality is, a couple of (literally, two) Grade-A trolls/assholes figured out how to “play” Twitter by generating a bunch of tweets using the hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII. When people saw and began responding to those tweets, Twitter picked up on the activity and added it to their list of “trending topics” — and once it was there, it was all over.

In reality, 99% of the Twitter traffic generated by this hashtag was from people responding to it and saying (using a variety of words and phrases) “that’s not cool.” Today, at its height, the @BoycottStarWarsVII Twitter account has 332 followers.

(I’m a nobody on Twitter and I have 900, if that tells you anything.)

The account has switched focus and its latest tweets are racist attacks against Ben Carson in an attempt to get responses from the media. Somewhere, in their parents’ basement, a couple of kids are giggling and having the time of their lives. I’m sure they can’t believe that the media (or anyone else) would take their goofs on Twitter seriously, but they did, to the point where media outlets are now having to write articles to explain that the previously reported news story wasn’t really news.

Article explaining the farce on Vox.com
Article explaining the farce on Esquire.com

So while lots of news outlets (Salon|USA Today|CNN) covered this non-event, they all got the wrong story: the real story was “a couple of kids trolled the internet and mass media into thinking Star Wars fans are racist.”

Here’s the reality: first, the Star Wars universe contains people of all races and colors. Greedo was green, Walrus Man was blue, Luke was white, Lando was black, and Admiral Ackbar was a squid. For anyone who doubts this, here’s a picture of the Jedi Council:

We’ve never seen racism depicted in any of the films, and except for a couple of internet trolls, we’ve (or at least I’ve) never seen it in fans either. I’ve attended lots of conventions (both sci-fi and video game themed) and seen all kinds of people there: boys and girls, young and old, skinny and fat, straight and gay, and of course, black and white (and everything in between). I’ve never met anyone who lamented the fact that Lando Calrissian or the voice of Darth Vader were portrayed by black actors. Fans of Star Wars are inclusive.

Back to poor Lando; this particular one is too large to take to work, but I have a spare 3 3/4″ Lando figure that’s headed to my desk — not as a political statement, but as a personal reminder that Star Wars is for everybody. Everybody deserves to enjoy the greatest films ever made (at least the first three…) and everybody (especially children) deserves to see characters on screen that they can relate to. May the Force be with ALL Star Wars fans.

#AllFansMatter