Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Cut a Tragic Subplot Revealing a Family Connection Between Lando and New Character

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker cut a subplot revealing the history of Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and his long-missing daughter, hinted to be newly introduced ex-Stormtrooper Jannah (Naomi Ackie) in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – The Visual Dictionary. Early spoilers from the film leaked onto Reddit — proved legitimate months later when Skywalker opened in theaters — described a scene set on desert planet Pasaana, where Lando reveals himself to Resistance heroes Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac) before lamenting the loss of his infant daughter, stolen years ago by the First Order.

In Rise of Skywalker, the trio do encounter a disguised Lando for the first time on Pasaana. Later, while on ocean moon Kef Bir, Finn meets Jannah and her band of rebel freedom fighters, soon revealed to be deserter Stormtroopers who defected from the First Order after the squad was commanded to fire on innocents — the same reason Finn abandoned the regime in The Force Awakens. Like Finn, Jannah was abducted as a child and conscripted into the First Order.

After Rey defeats the returned Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and the Resistance topples his Final Order fleet on Exogol, the Resistance heroes return to their base on jungle planet Ajan Kloss, where Lando and Jannah meet amid the celebrations. When Lando asks Jannah where she’s from, she admits she doesn’t know, and Lando replies with a smile: “Well, let’s find out.”

Information revealed only in The Visual Dictionary adds deeper meaning to the scene: it becomes clear their conversation, left largely ambiguous because of the scrapped subplot, was intended as a reunion between father and daughter. According to Lando’s pages in The Visual Dictionary:

Though he came late to the fight against the Empire, Calrissian struck a major blow by leading the attack on the second Death Star. Like many of the generation who waged that conflict, Calrissian did not then go easily into a quiet retirement. When peace reigned, he attempted to start a family, but tragedy struck and his infant daughter vanished. 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 at the old Alliance leadership.

In a quote attributed to Lando in his section of the book, Lando says, “The First Order went after us — leaders from the old wars. They took our kids.”

Child abduction was briefly touched on again in a scene set on Kijimi, where Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) tells ex-flame Poe the planet hasn’t been spared from First Order forces snatching children and turning them into soldiers. It’s only in the book where we learn Lando chose to reside on Pasaana where he found some “peace and sense of community” among its home species, the Aki-Aki, as the Rebel who fought alongside Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) “felt he had earned his rest after so much sacrifice.”

The leaks from months earlier suggest the subplot was at one time more prominent in Skywalker, which likely scrapped the story for time.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now in theaters.