Star Wars Rebels’ has increasingly established itself as a primer for ‘The Force Awakens’ by its original trilogy returns, and whether or not we see Lando Calrissian hanging out with BB-8 or Kylo Ren some day, we’re ecstatic to see the character brought to life by Billy Dee Williams once more. See Lando as a younger, smoother operator with our first footage of Billy Dee Williams joining ‘Star Wars Rebels’!

Where ‘Star Wars’ news contributors had previously tweeted a few snaps of the younger Lando Calrissian in action for January 19 installment “Idiot’s Array,” ‘Rebels’ today releases a new behind-the-scenes video of Billy Dee Williams getting back into Lando’s cape for the appearance. The young smuggler will pop up in a Sabacc game with Zeb (Steven Blum), ultimately acquiring the Ghost crew’s droid Chopper, only to further team with the gang to recover the surly ‘bot from nefarious gangsters.

Says ‘Rebels’ supervising director Dave Filoni of the appearance:

Lando’s very intelligent. We get him at ‘Star Wars Rebels’ at a point where he’s on his way up, hasn’t achieved it yet, which was exciting because he’s still working on all of his moves and all of his strategies.

Adds Billy Dee of the return:

This is a real good introduction to who he is, all the things you’ve heard about him.

Williams’ appearance as Lando Calrissian follows such original ‘Star Wars’ reprisals as James Earl Jones’ return as Darth Vader and Frank Oz’s Yoda, not to mention Anthony Daniels’ decade-spanning omnipresence as C-3PO. Which ‘Star Wars’ stars would you next like to see dust off their roles? Watch Billy Dee Williams’ ‘Rebels’ return as Lando Calrissian above, and give us your take in the comments!

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