Danielle Solzman
Lucasfilm made the decision to fire Gina Carano so the question going forward is what will happen to Cara Dune on The Mandalorian.
I am transgender and Jewish so it was very refreshing to hear that Lucasfilm is no longer employing the actor. Her words for quite a while have been offensive and it only got worse during the fall. According to some of the articles, it appeared that Carano lost out on the Rangers of the New Republic because of her tweets. Thank G-d. When you have that kind of social media presence, it can be devastating for your career. The announcement, however, should have come sooner.
Let’s get one thing clear here. Carano isn’t fired because of having conservative views. She is fired because of her social media postings that were more than offensive. It was upsetting to me as a transgender woman to see transphobia get a free pass. But at the same time, I have to praise The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal for calling her out. Nobody should be mocking pronouns at all and yet, Carano did exactly that. She’s become the Kevin Sorbo of Star Wars.
So now we get to the question of what happens with Cara Dune. Star Wars needs to have female role models. There is no question about that. The question is do they recast the character or bring in a new character. I honestly think they bring in a new character. There’s a lot to enjoy about Cara Dune the character but over the last few months, it was very tough to watch Gina Carano in the role. Here’s a character who was not only a stormtrooper but one who was born on Alderaan. You saw how personal this was during the second season finale!
It is possible that Cara Dune will live on in both the books and comics. But as far as television or movies, the season 2 finale is probably the last we’ve seen of her. It is for the best of everyone to bring in a new character altogether. Time will only tell.
One name that I’ve seen Star Wars fans throw around is Lana Parrilla from Once Upon a Time. I don’t think casting Parrilla is a bad idea. She isn’t a stranger to action series either having once been a cast member on 24. Something to factor in casting is that Parrilla is also a series regular for Why Women Kill‘s upcoming second season on CBS All Access. It isn’t uncommon for actors to take on multiple commitments. We’ve seen this with a number of SNL stars over the past few seasons with also starring in a TV series. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to several productions suspending because of positive tests. This is another thing to factor in. If production is still going on, this probably takes her out of the running.
Lauren Ash started campaigning for a Star Wars role on Twitter last night. You know what? She would be an awesome addition for the Star Wars universe and the actress has the nerd cred to prove it! But again, I believe that Lucasfilm needs to bring in a new character instead of an outright recasting of Cara Dune. This will be better for the franchise in general and give young girls another strong female role model to look up to. I would love seeing Lauren Ash in the universe. Although it didn’t happen on the series, she previously campaigned for Mark Hamill to play her father on Superstore.
I’m just a girl, looking at twitter, saying “Put me in coach”.#LaurenAshForCaraDune #HireLaurenAsh @Jon_Favreau @dave_filoni @themandalorian @PedroPascal1 pic.twitter.com/Hu6XcL1Zqp
— Lauren Ash (@lauren_ash) February 11, 2021
The third season is expected to production in April. If Gina Carano lost out on the Rangers spinoff in November, it probably means Lucasfilm could have also written her out of The Mandalorian‘s third season. They might do an outright recasting altogether like when Don Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2. What I do know is that the fight for Mandalore is probably going to play a strong role in what happens. The Mandalorian will return for season 3 following The Book of Boba Fett.
