The Female Star Wars Pilot George Lucas Tried To Hide
From the very first film, a staple of Star Wars has been epic space battles, but despite the franchise’s strong history of female heroes like Leia, few of the pilots hopping into a starfighter cockpit in the Original Trilogy were women. Most fans believe that it wasn’t until the Prequel Trilogy that we got awesome female pilots, but that’s not correct.
The original Star Wars trilogy has a female pilot hidden in Return of the Jedi. Her name is Sila Kott, but you won’t hear her voice. She was dubbed over by a man before the film’s final release.
That final film of Star Wars’ first trilogy is filled with supporting characters during the space battle above Endor, making it hard to identify the female pilot unless you are looking for her. But Kott briefly appears as one of the A-Wing pilots, complete with a green flight suit and a slightly different helmet. She’s the one who says “Got it!”
The character is played by British actress Poppy Hands. Her voice was later dubbed over by an unknown American male actor.
Decades after Return of the Jedi was released, Star Wars continued to be an empire fueled by merchandising, and that’s actually how this female pilot finally got identified. In 2010, Hasbro released the toy line Star Wars: Shadows of the Dark Side, which is how we got figures and names for three previously unnamed Rebel pilots from Return of the Jedi. As longtime fans know, characters in this franchise belatedly get actual names thanks to toymakers, which is a tradition that goes back to the very beginning.
Among Star Wars fans who do know about this female pilot, there is debate about why she was dubbed over by a male actor in the first place. Some think this is just an example of old-fashioned sexism, while others think that actor Poppy Hands’ pronounced British accent was so potentially distracting that Lucas dubbed her over with an American accent (though this still wouldn’t explain the need for an American male rather than female). He did the same thing with famous X-Wing pilot Wedge Antilles, whose Scottish actor Denis Lawson was dubbed by American actor David Ankrum.
Once Star Wars creators had a name for this female pilot, it was easier to make Sila Kott a bigger part of the franchise. She has now made multiple appearances in the Star Wars canon in books such as From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back and From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi. Speaking of franchise canon, Kott is officially female despite the male dub, giving her the belated honor of being Star Wars’ first onscreen female pilot.
In many ways, it’s impressive that she made it to the screen at all. Thanks to behind-the-scenes production clips, we know that two other women besides Poppy Hands auditioned to be pilots in Return of the Jedi, but she was the only one to make it to the final film. Given how few women played even minor roles in the Original Trilogy, this actor’s brief onscreen appearance is much more impressive. That means she deserves the praise that Han Solo once lavished on Luke Skywalker for destroying the Death Star: “Great shot, kid…that was one in a million!”
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