George Lucas’ Star Wars Female Pilot Tried to Hide

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

From the very first film, epic space battles have been a staple of Star Wars, but despite the franchise’s strong history of female heroes like Leia, few of the pilots who ventured into the cockpit of a star 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 it Return of the Jedi. Her name is Sila Kott, but you won’t hear her voice. It was dubbed by a man before the release of the final film.

That final film of the first Star Wars trilogy is packed with supporting characters during the space battle above Endor, making it hard to spot the female pilot unless you’re looking for her. But Kott makes a brief appearance as one of the A-Wing pilots, complete with a slightly different green flight suit and helmet. She is the one who says “Got it!”

The character is played by British actress Poppy Hands. Her voice was later dubbed by an unknown American male actor.

Decades after Return of the Jedi Upon release, Star Wars continued to be a marketing-driven empire, and that’s actually how this female pilot was finally recognized. In 2010, Hasbro release the toy line Star Wars: Shadows of the Dark Sideand that’s 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 have been getting real names of late thanks to toymakers, a tradition that goes back to the very beginning.

Among Star Wars fans who know about this female pilot, there is debate as to why she was voiced 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 distracting that Lucas dubbed her with an American accent (although this would not explain the still need an American). male rather than female). He did the same with the famous X-Wing pilot Wedge Antilles, whose Scottish actor Denis Lawson was dubbed by American actor David Ankrum.

Once the creators of Star Wars had a name for this female pilot, it was easier to make Sila Kott a bigger part of the franchise. She has now made several appearances in the Star Wars canon in books such as From a Specific Perspective: The Empire Strikes Back a From a Specific Point of View: Return of the Jedi. Speaking of the franchise canon, Kott is officially female despite the male dub, giving her the belated honor of being the first female pilot on the Star Wars screen.

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 into the final film. Considering how few women played even minor roles in the Original Trilogy, this actor’s brief appearance on screen is all the more impressive. That means she deserves that accolade Solo Han at one point bemoaned Luke Skywalker for destroying the Death Star: “Great shot, boy… that was one in a million!”