Female X-wing pilots in Star Wars

[Neil]

I can understand why this didn't ultimately happen because people don't like seeing women getting blown up. So I don't understand how the idea got as far as filming at all!?

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Revealed-Star-Wars-Originally-Had-Female-X-Wing-Pilots-34581.html

http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news/34581/_1355361876.jpg

[shootemindehead]

They all crashed on take off.

[krakenslayer]

I can understand why this didn't ultimately happen because people don't like seeing women getting blown up. So I don't understand how the idea got as far as filming at all!?

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Revealed-Star-Wars-Originally-Had-Female-X-Wing-Pilots-34581.html

http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news/34581/_1355361876.jpg

Huh! That's interesting.

If that's Lucas's juatification, I'm not sure I agree with it. The idea that we can watch guys getting blown up left, right and centre, but women are "sacred" and need special treatment seems pretty sexist and patronizing to ladies, IMO. It's not like it's a violent martial arts film where people are getting punched in the face - it's not cool to hit women because, as a general rule, they are less physically strong - but guns (cannons, lasers, whatever) are equal opportunity weapons. :p

[Neil]

Huh! That's interesting.

If that's Lucas's juatification, I'm not sure I agree with it. The idea that we can watch guys getting blown up left, right and centre, but women are "sacred" and need special treatment seems pretty sexist and patronizing to ladies, IMO. It's not like it's a violent martial arts film where people are getting punched in the face - it's not cool to hit women because, as a general rule, they are less physically strong - but guns (cannons, lasers, whatever) are equal opportunity weapons. :p

PLEASE PLEASE DON'T GIVE HIM IDEAS! He'll be digitally restoring them! :)


Don't forget we're talking about the world a third of a century ago! Maybe seeing women blown apart was quite as OK back then :)

[bassman]

They all crashed on take off.

Genius.


Anyway....I've been reading about this around the net and I don't see the big deal?...

[Neil]

Anyway....I've been reading about this around the net and I don't see the big deal?...
(a) It ever happened, without us knowing until now.
(b) How they got as far as filming it, and then realising they didn't want to!?

[EvilNed]

I think it's idiotic that they were cut. Shows what a patriarchal society we live in. Yuck.

[bassman]

(a) It ever happened, without us knowing until now.
(b) How they got as far as filming it, and then realising they didn't want to!?

A) This is George Lucas we're talking about. I'm sure he has tons of unreleased material that nobody knows about. He's probably holding it all back for the thousands of different releases in the future.
B) Losing scenes and characters is common practice. Should the explanation of women dying on screen being too traumatic for a PG film turn out to be true, I can understand that. But who's to say there weren't also tons of other fighter pilots, male, female, or alien that got cut simply because the scene was tightened in the editing process? From what I gather in documentaries, the editing of Star Wars was a complete disaster.

I just think it's getting blown out of proportion a bit, that's all. Yes, they were the only women fighter pilots and they were cut, but I can see now that people are going to start calling Lucas a sexist and make big deal out of nothing. He'll probably end up having to release a statement about this whole ordeal because people are too damned sensitive.

[AcesandEights]

I don't know, a lot of speculation in that link so I'm not too bothered by it either way as we don't know enough about the reasoning behind the decision to not include them. And even then, why would I care about the reasoning that went into it so long ago aside from it being an interesting commentary about humanity in general and the 70s in particular (interesting as that may be)?

[Danny]

Anyone else find it a little interesting that this came out very soon after Disney's acquisition of the IP? Star wars has always been both a sausagefest and kind of protrayed women as little more than dub support characters by and large, wonder if this is some unofficial damage control.

[shootemindehead]

http://videa.hu/videok/film-animacio/star-wars-battle-of-endor-the-lost-rebel-h7uvjdwyiJTaLVEq

Birds in X-wings.

It ain't right, I tells ya!!!

There's a scene in the link above with an Admiral Akbar lad in it and his voice had me laughing my arse off.

Absolute legend.

[Andy]

I think it's idiotic that they were cut. Shows what a patriarchal society we live in. Yuck.

Well it was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.. :shifty: