Add to Shopping CartPlease take me toDonald Glover is going to a galaxy far, far away. After months of speculation and rumors, Lucasfilm announced on Friday that Glover has officially signed on to play Lando Calrissian in the upcoming young Han Solo movie. The Star Wars spinoff stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han, and will focus on his early years as a smuggler and pilot. According to Lucasfilm, the untitled Han Solo film will introduce Lando “in his formative years as a scoundrel on the rise in the galaxy’s underworld.” Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie) are set as directors on the project. “We’re so lucky to have an artist as talented as Donald join us,” Lord and Miller said in a statement. “These are big shoes to fill, and an even bigger cape, and this one fits him perfectly, which will save us money on alterations. Also, we’d like to publicly apologize to Donald for ruining Comic-Con for him forever.” Lando first appeared in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, where he was played by Billy Dee Williams.
The character shared a somewhat contentious history with Han, and was the prior owner of the Millennium Falcon. In Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Lando helped rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt, and later flew the Millennium Falcon as a general in the Rebel Alliance. Glover’s connection to the Han Solo spinoff movie was first reported back in August, when Birth.Movies.Death revealed he was the apparent top choice for the role. That same month, Glover told TIME he was aware of the rumors but wouldn’t confirm or deny any involvement. “I mean, I grew up on [Star Wars]. My dad was a big fan. I had all the toys when I was little. I had a Darth Vader with the lightsaber he has. It’s like the bible. I love that franchise,” he said. In addition to creating and starring in his FX series Atlanta, Glover is also known for his stand-up comedy, his long-running role as Troy on Community, and his music, which he’s released under the name Childish Gambino. He’s also been cast in next year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming.
The Han Solo movie will hit theaters in 2018.I am done with Lego. And no, it's not because I stepped on a brick in the middle of the night last night, suffering what can only be described as the worst pain in the world, although yes, that's a permanent source of rage for every parent, really. No, I'm done with Lego because that sacred cow of millions of geeks who grew up happily constructing elaborate vehicles, castles, cities, and imaginary lands, is no longer the Lego of our childhood. It's time to face the hard truth: Lego is evil now. On the one hand, the story of Lego's resurgence in the past few years is a remarkable tale of innovation and canny survivalism. The patents on Lego's brick design began expiring in the early 2000s; the original patent expired in 2011, and despite many attempts by Lego to get its patents extended indefinitely and then to trademark the design, the company was eventually forced to admit that innovation was its only road to continued success. Enter the new saga.
Lego 2: The Licensing. It started with "Lego: Star Wars," of course, and the library of licensed Lego goodness now includes, to name just a few, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Batman, Speed Racer, Indiana Jones, Toy Story, Cars, The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Super Heroes (including figures from Marvel and DC Universe), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and even, heaven help us, a set based on the new "Lone Ranger" movie. Here's a list, if you're in the mood. Things really got genius in 2011, when Lego went ahead and created its own original series, Lego Ninjago. The premise is brilliant, from a merchandising and sales perspective. There are six main characters, five of them ninjas who have to go through various stages of training and ninja accomplishments -- meaning multiple permutations of minifigures from just the primary cast. Then there's a different set of villains for each season, each set of villains has its own vehicles, weaponry, and mechs, as do the ninjas, and virtually no single minifigure is available for sale all by its little lonesome -- only as part of a set that ranges from $10 if you're lucky to $100 and up if you're the parent of a fanatical 3-
, 4-, 5-, or 6-year-old child. Now there's "Chima," a show that aired once, near as I can tell, but which has still spawned a million minifigs. Plus, many of the themes also now have companion character encyclopedias, which are little more than catalogs for greedy, brand-obsessed children. The hype around the must-have toys is so intense it's even led to full-on Lego fraud rings, and I myself bought a sketchy standalone minifigure on eBay that arrived wrapped in tissue in a Ziploc bag, just to avoid spending $30 or $40 on yet another ridiculous "set." My biggest complaint about the licensed sets, other than their always increasing cost, is that they're basically the antithesis of the Lego model: where I remember building and learning to build with the Lego blocks of my youth, these new sets simply require children to follow somewhere between 100 and 300 steps to build a very specific, one-time use vehicle or environs. Then, 2 to 7 hours later, they're done, moved on to the next shiny branded toy.
Yes, of course, you can deconstruct the sets and build something else out of the blocks, but many of these new pieces are specialty parts that hardly fit anywhere else: wings, bolts, circular attachments, pointy triangle blocks. They're less interchangeable than they've ever been. Plus, with all the emphasis on characters, the minifigures are the focus of most of the attention: kids will beg their parents to buy a $40 set, mine the minifigures, and toss the rest into a separately sold, branded storage bin. And do not get me started on the Lego for girls sets that have started to spring up in the last year or so. After all, once Lego is no longer even remotely about creativity, problem solving, or imaginative thought, why not go all the way toward pandering to ludicrous gender stereotypes and producing a bunch of pink crap. I'm hardly the first to complain about Lego moving to a licensing model that costs a lot, turns our kids into brand slaves, and dampens their creativity -- but what really gets my goat is that the company is simultaneously trying to cling to its creative roots by releasing imagination-oriented sets and products for adults.