By Chris Snellgrove | Published
From the very first film, the core of Star Wars has been epic space battles, but despite a strong history of female heroes like Leia, few of the pilots who jumped into the cockpit of soldiers in the Original Trilogy were women. Most fans believe that it wasn’t until the Prequel Trilogy that we got the best female pilots, but that’s wrong.
The original Star Wars trilogy has a pilot hidden in it Return of the Jedi. His name is Sila Kott, but you won’t hear his voice. He was named by a man before the final release of the film.
That final film of the original Star Wars trilogy is packed with supporting characters during a space battle above Endor, making it difficult to identify the female pilot unless you’re looking for her. But Kott makes a brief appearance as one of the A-Wing pilots, complete with green flight suit and slightly different helmet. He is the one who says “I got it!”
This character is played by British actress Poppy Hands. Her voice was later dubbed by an unknown American male actor.
Decades later Return of the Jedi was released, Star Wars continued to be a commercial driven empire, and that’s how this female pilot was eventually identified. In 2010, Hasbro released a toy line Star Wars: Shadows of the Dark Sidewhich is how we got the figures and names of the three previously unmentioned Rebel pilots from Return of the Jedi. As longtime fans know, the characters in this franchise get real names over time thanks to the toy makers, a tradition that goes back to the beginning.
For Star Wars fans familiar with this female pilot, there is some debate as to why she was named after a male character in the first place. Some think that this is just an example of old-fashioned sexism, while others think that the British accent of the actor Poppy Hands could be so disturbing that Lucas gave him an American name (although this does not 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.
When the creators of Star Wars had the name of this female pilot, it was easy to make Sila Kott a big part of the franchise. He has now appeared several times in the Star Wars canon in books like this one From a specific point of view: The Empire Strikes Back again From a Specific Perspective: Return of the Jedi. Speaking of franchise canon, Kott is officially a woman despite the male dub, giving her the long-overdue honor of being the first female Star Wars pilot on screen.
In many ways, it’s a wonder it 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 who made it to the final film. Considering how few women played even minor roles in the Original Trilogy, this character’s brief screen appearance is pretty surprising. That said, he deserves the praise that Han Solo once gave to Luke Skywalker for destroying the Death Star: “Nice shot, kid…that was one million!”
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