See The Three Female Fighter Pilots Cut From Return Of The Jedi
For a long time, females were largely underrepresented when it came to Star Wars. Over decades and decades, it was basically Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, and Natalie Portman’s Padmé Amidala in the prequel Star Wars trilogy as the only female major characters in the franchise. Women often ended up in the background or not doing any of the fighting or action.
That has changed in a big way in more recent years, with the sequel trilogies focusing on Daisy Ridley‘s Rey and then the Disney+ series giving us Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano. The future is focused on females in the Star Wars universe, but it clearly wasn’t always the case.
That being said, there was supposed to be more female representation in the first set of movies, specifically in the inclusion of three female fighter pilots in Return of the Jedi.
Unfortunately, all three were cut from the final edition of the film. However, thanks to Blu-ray, we were able to see these three female fighter pilots in the original series.
The first, pictured below, did make the final cut of Return of the Jedi but her only line – “Got it.” – was later dubbed over by a man and then seconds later she was blown up by a Tie-Fighter.
The second, an older woman pictured below, is pretty badass, but was cut out of the film because general Star Wars audiences didn’t respond to older women dying in horrific space battles.
The third and final woman cut from Return of the Jedi was an X-Wing pilot played by French actress Vivienne Chandler, who actually had a whole page of dialogue. This footage is also lost.
The entire original Star Wars series started to get more diverse as it unfolded, but it still was more male-centric than female (by a lot). The introduction of Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back would mark the first black main character in the Star Wars Saga. This would be followed up with Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. By the time of Return of the Jedi, there were a few black and Asian fighter pilots but they were killed off pretty quickly.
Again, Star Wars has mostly corrected its early male and white-centric characters and story arcs. But it’s interesting that George Lucas and company had the idea the first time around to include more females (if even for a brief second).
It would have normalized at least the idea that the pilots here were anyone in the Rebel Alliance brave enough to head over the Death Star. And it makes sense that in a numbers game, anyone and everyone would be ready to step up.
Unfortunately, these three Star Wars female pilots didn’t make the final cut. But they should have.
