"Stand By, Ion Control. Fire."
Just in case it's been too long since my last Star Wars: Special Edition rant, I am pleased to announce that I have the nitpick of all nitpicks coming up tonight. Those of you who haven't viewed Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back at least 30 times should probably run and hide in a deep dark closet far, far away from this post.
I was watching my Special Edition DVD of The Empire Strikes Back the other night, and I noticed that the Rebel chick who fires the ion cannon is missing! I have no idea how this escaped my attention before... probably there were so many other itty bitty stupid changes to harp on that I somehow missed this one. During the escape from Hoth, she is the one sitting in the command center who says, "Stand by, ion control. Fire." And the ion cannon knocks out the Star Destroyer that's sitting in orbit above Hoth, allowing the first Rebel transport to fly past it and get away. Maybe you didn't notice her as a child, but I sure did-- she was our first glimpse of a female Rebel, besides Leia. I mean, there were only three altogether that we saw in the entire trilogy-- Mon Mothma, Leia, and the Stand By Ion Control Girl. You can clearly still hear her saying the line, but there's no close-up: she's simply not there, just this disembodied voice.
Now, there are a couple of reasons I can come up with for this change. It bugged me so much that I spent (actual amount of time edited: let's just say it was way too long) Googling for some kind of explanation. I found one site which seemed to indicate that this is in fact a Fullscreen vs. Widescreen issue. While it is true that both Mike and I have the gold Fullscreen boxed sets, I don't see why this would make a difference-- I also have the 1995 THX pan and scan VHS boxed set, and at least two homemade versions taped from TV airings on Fox between what I would estimate had to have been 1986-1992. All of these tapes certainly had the unidentified Rebel chick. So there is the explanation that she was possibly cut out of the shot on the Fullscreen edition. (If anyone has the silver Widescreen set and can confirm this, that would be great.) But I don't see why she would have been, when she appears on the previous edited-for-television versions. I also saw a reference to a blooper in that shot, where you can see someone behind her giving a cue. This might be a reason for cutting her out of the TESB:SE.
But I'm still going to argue that this change was somewhat irresponsible of Lucas, and here's why: as a feminist, it just pisses me off. I am more than irked here. Rebel Chick was the Wedge Antilles of female Star Wars fans, the "everygirl." Not everyone can be a Princess, but you could dream of being the behind-the-scenes hero, the girl who saved the day by immobilizing a whole Star Destroyer with that funny egg-shaped ion cannon. She should have been left in solely because she was a female face. The fact that she isn't sitting there at her console with her chunky headphones and brown hair deeply disappoints me. Why, George Lucas, why? There were already shockingly few females in our favorite space saga. Couldn't you have left us this one?
Hell, you deleted the only scenes in Return of the Sith that portrayed Padme in her actual role as a Senator-- you know, doing her job. Sure, her outfit "conveniently" rips and she runs around in her kicky midriff-baring outfit in Attack of the Clones for half an hour, but the main female lead actually expressing an opinion of her own, sowing the seeds of the Rebellion in secret meetings with Bail Organa, and showing that she exists as something besides a blank face for Anakin to obsess over? Well, that's going to have to be cut so we can put in more special effects.
Leia? She's a great character. My problem is that she appears to be the only woman inhabiting the galaxy. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't CGI more of them in (I mean, he can CGI dinosaurs in, but he can't CGI some women? Of course I know they're called dewbacks, not dinosaurs. I know more about Star Wars than most sane people. I just hate to acknowledge that anything in the Special Editions exists) purely for continuity's sake-- after all, Lucas has officially endorsed the books and comics in the EU, and the EU is full of female characters. I was always grateful to these authors, feeling relief that they were correcting a mistake. It was vindicating; I wasn't the only one who noticed the disproportionate male/female ratio. I wonder whether it's because Lucas panders to the majority, or that he simply doesn't care. I believe the Exile is the first Star Wars video game PC to be named canonically female, for instance. And that was only very recently.
A quick search through the Star Wars EU reveals that the Rebel Chick has been given the name Toryn Farr. But never mind that. Her name is irrelevant. What I care about is that she was there. And now she is not. And I want her back.
Because I am a female fan, and it's my saga too.
6 comments:
For the record: no, the widescreen doesn't have her, at least I don't remember her in there. I'll re-watch it again tonight and correct myself if I'm wrong
Here's a funny thing for you... I took a film class at SLU with Elaine Roth and we actually talked about women in (and we lumped here) post-apocalyptic/sci-fi societies and talked in depth about the lack of female characters in such movies. AND how they're often "bad" women, think Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, or complete and total damsels in distress (Leia, even though she actively fights, is still a damsel in distress). So yeah, it's kinda distrubing that they cut the only other female character that is pro forces of good...
The widescreen edition DVDs do include the ion control chick. It's just like I remember in the originals, voice and camera shot included. And the Exile pissed me off because all she wanted to do was get with me. Kinda annoying, actually...but then they dropped that storyline (amongst others) so thank goodness the gameplay didn't force me to oblige.
OK, now that I know some versions have her and some don't, I'm still not appeased. It's a stupid cut. The Lucas people should be committed to NOT digging themselves in a deeper hole re: the sexism in Star Wars. One would think!
Re: female characters in SF, there are an awful lot of catsuit-clad bad girls. I still think the answer is writing more women, making them a real part of the landscape. Even if we only see them in the background, going about their jobs, we want to see them. In fact, I'd rather see Stand By Ion Control Girl just doing her thing nonchalantly in the background than yet another She's A Girl! How Will She Ever Overcome Her Girlness to Become A Hero! character. I think Firefly does a great job of this. But then, there are 4 women on the ship. They have to have personalities.
Leia is stuck playing The Girl! because she is the only girl. If there were more women, writers and directors would have to think more carefully about who they are as characters.
< /rant> again. :-)
Re: Firefly. I Netflixed this one too on the reccomendation of one of my students (he found out I was a Buffy/Joss Whedon fan and recommended Serenity and the series). I'm interested to see how it turns out. I would LOVE to write like Joss... *sigh*
My WP121 class is also structured around this idea (sorta) as it's looking at gender and identity in media...
You should definitely watch Firefly. It is awesome.
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