The Star Wars prequel, focusing on the handsome, swashbuckling smuggler Han Solo, released a cast photo this week, and social justice warriors are already concerned that the movie is probably racist.
Gaming site Polygon published the picture Thursday, which shows most of the cast huddled on the bridge inside Han Solo’s famous ship, the Millennium Falcon.
But there’s one problem, the site said: everyone in the picture, with the exception of Donald Glover, who play’s Han’s frenemy Lando Calrissian, is “kinda super white” (or an alien but the aliens don’t count as minorities, apparently).
“Just as Lando Calrissian was the only black man in the galaxy, so is Donald Glover the only person of color in this photograph,” they whined. “Disney should be aware of how this looks.”
Social justice warriors quickly took to Twitter to denounce the complete lack of diversity in a cast that, by most accounts, isn’t even complete yet (and the cast photo released this week is missing Thandie Newton, a woman of color who is the supporting lead).
Technically, that appears to be the cast of the Love Boat, which was a television show and not a Hollywood movie, but, whatever.
What matters here is that social justice warriors were lured into a false sense of security by the two previous Star Wars films—The Force Awakens and Rogue One—and now they’re angry that Disney didn’t specifically cater to their needs a third time. Oddly enough, their complaints are remarkably similar to those from the “alt-right,” which claimed to be boycotting Rogue One because the film was too diverse.
Fortunately, Polygon is keeping a stiff upper lip, hoping that Disney realizes its mistake, hears the SJW outcry, and quickly moves to supplement the cast with much-needed minority characters. “It’s possible that Disney/Lucasfilm will expand on the Han Solo movie’s cast within the same time period as in 2014. Hopefully, those additions will include another role or two for an actor of color.”
Until then, though, most fans should be happy to note that the Millennium Falcon appears to have been spiffed up for its cameo appearance, and young Han Solo Alden Ehrenreich has the scruffy looking nerf-herder aesthetic down pat.
