The women of ‘Star Wars The Force Awakens’ talk about blasting barriers

If there was ever a better metaphor for women taking the wheel in a galaxy far, far away it’s Han Solo handing over the keys of the Millennium Falcon to the 23-year-old Daisy Ridley.

The Star Wars narrative has always favoured the pilot. Han Solo is a pilot. Anakin Skywalker was heralded as the cringe-inducing, pod-racing prodigy who later grows up to be “the best star pilot in the galaxy” (according to old man Obi-Wan). Even Luke Skywalker could bull’s-eye a womp rat while flying (and it’s not much bigger than 2 meters). So the news that Rey sits front and center, skillfully piloting the prize of the “Star Wars” skies is a big deal.

“It’s fantastic,” Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy says about Ridley’s role in the film. “I think what’s great about it is Rey, her character, is such a good pilot. That isn’t something she’s turning and asking how to do, that’s something she’s doing.”

The next generation of “Star Wars has several strong roles for women, on both the dark and light side of the Force. For a series that has struggled to find more than one standout female role (no matter how much she kicks butt), that is significant.

That’s not to say Star Wars has been absent of female influence. The franchise can boast the creation of the innovative and genre-busting Princess Leia, crafted by Carrie Fisher. And the newly established animated series Star Wars: Rebels and Clone Wars have a varied cast of animated parts for women. But the live-action movies have left a lot to be desired for female roles on film.

Padme Amidala, portrayed by Natalie Portman, started as a strong political figure/large-alien-cat fighter. In the end, however, Amidala gives up everything, including the will to live, when the love of her life (Anakin Skywalker) turns to evil. She physically dies of a broken heart while cry-birthing Luke and Leia Skywalker. Padme doesn’t even get the glory of living on as a political martyr; her whole story is swept under the rug so Darth Vader can take the stage.

The rest of the women in the Star Wars prequels and originals were sidelined to cantina bar stools or Coruscant hallways, banished as background players or imprisoned dancers, with the occasional exception of a Mon Mothma cameo (“Many Bothans died ... “). This list becomes only more frustrating when compiled with deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi that revealed footage of multiple female rebel pilots attacking the Death Star. Sadly, most of the lady rebels wound up on the cutting-room floor, save for one pilot whose small line was dubbed over with the voice of a man in the finished film.

But now there’s Rey.

“She feels very modern,” Kennedy says of Rey. “I think she will be relevant to audiences today, she embodies that sense of self-reliance and independence. I think that’s who she is. I think that’s who she is as a person, as Daisy Ridley and who she is as Rey.”

Even though Rey lives isolated on the desert planet Jakku, she remains tied to the Star Wars legacy built years ago. She spends her days scavenging through the junkfields and hunting among the innards of downed spaceships, including the remains of a crashed Imperial Destroyer. Her salvaged speeder is made from scrap, and even her goggles (which seem to be repurposed glass from the classic Stormtrooper helmet) link her to the past.

“Rey’s not important because she’s a woman, she’s just important,” Ridley says. “But obviously, having a woman like this in a film is hugely important.”

After working on The Force Awakens Ridley admits that the parts Hollywood was offering after she wrapped haven’t lived up to the character of Rey. “I understand sexism is going on, and I’ve seen it actually more this year being out of the film in the scripts I’m being sent. Sometimes I’m reading it and I’m thinking, ‘Are you for real? Literally the bit on the side?’ That’s not cool.”

How did the re-focus on realistic female characters in “Star Wars” occur? Perhaps it was simply Kennedy’s not-so-outlandish-idea of putting women in the writing and development room. Long before there was Rey or Phasma or even Lupita Nyong’o’s mysterious 1,000-year-old space pirate Maz Kanata (whose character is entirely computer-generated), months were spent in the story conference room creating characters and ideas.

“I have a story department up at Lucasfilm, and four out of the six people who make up that story department are women,” Kennedy says. “So there were as many women sitting in the room having those discussion as there were men. I think that, in and of itself, is what really began to help (Rey) take shape in a way that was relevant to us. And hopefully relevant to other women seeing the film. I think having all those voices in the room, along with mine, was extremely important.”

Director JJ Abrams said that it had been his intention from the start that a woman should be at the centre of the film. Speaking to journalists at a press conference following The Force Awakens’ European premiere, Abrams said: “From the beginning of discussions [with writer Lawrence Kasdan]. the notion of a woman at the centre of the story was always something that was compelling and exciting to me. And not just at the centre. We knew that, in addition to Leia who was a critical piece of this puzzle, we wanted to have other women — not necessarily human, but female — characters in the story.”

“We have Lupita [Nyong’o] playing Maz Kanata, who is the voice of Force wisdom in the story, and Phasma leading the evil side of the stormtroopers; we wanted to have female stormtroopers, and pilots, which we did. We just wanted to make thing this thing not feel like it was not inclusive.

“We always wanted to write Rey as the central character, but it was just one of the things we knew we wanted to do: to make the film look and feel more like the way the world looks and feels.”

If Princess Leia ignited the hearts and minds of little bun-wearing heroes across the galaxy, Capt. Phasma was created to spark fear.

The first female villain in a Star Wars movie, played by Gwendoline Christie (who made waves on Game of Thrones as Brienne of Tarth), is already setting sights high. Some are comparing Phasma to fan favourite Boba Fett. “Which means she makes a lot of impact but she’s not at the forefront of the action all the time,” Christie says.

But you won’t see Phasma tapping out after being carelessly knocked into a sarlacc pit like a wobbly toddler. Kennedy has big plans for Phasma and confirmed that the captain will carry on into the next movie. “She’s an important character, a baddie in the best sense of the word.”

Phasma, or the Chrometrooper as fans have dubbed her because of the custom silver armour she wears as a sign of her authority, commands the Stormtroopers of the First Order. But it wasn’t talk of villains that intrigued Christie, rather Kennedy’s thoughts on the status of female heroes.

“Kathleen Kennedy said to me, ‘Have you ever Googled ‘female heroines’? I said, ‘No,’ and she did it for me. If you do it, there are a lot of scantily clad women. Now women should be allowed to dress exactly however they choose, but the idea that you Google female heroines and there isn’t a diverse range of examples that come up, I find it a bit depressing.”

It was this discussion that helped lead to Christie’s involvement. The idea was to try something different, to push the boundaries for female roles, both evil and benevolent, toward a more realistic depiction of women. Which is a funny thought considering the most popular characters of this world carry around lightsabers and converse with Wookiees. Still, you won’t find Phasma in the scantily clad role of the hero nor will you see her as the stereotypical slithering, seductive female villain.

“We see women in a different range of roles in the film,” Christie says. “And the reason I love my character so much and I feel so enthusiastic about Capt. Phasma is, yes, she’s cool, she looks cool, she’s a villain — but more than that, we see a female character and respond to her not because of the way she looks. We respond to her because of her actions. I think we’re a society that has promoted a homogenized idea of beauty in women — and in men — and I think it’s really interesting, modern and necessary to have a female character that isn’t about the way her body looks. It isn’t about her wearing makeup. It’s not about her being conventionally feminised. The idea of this enormous legacy and franchise embracing an idea like that, which of course to many of us feels logical, is actually really progressive. And long overdue.”

Already the folks at Star Wars headquarters are attempting to work toward a more progressive galaxy on all marketing and social media platforms. Responding to an online commenter who said of Capt. Phasma’s look on the official Star Wars Facebook page, “Not to be sexist, but it’s really hard to tell that’s female armour for me,” the official account replied candidly, “It’s armour. On a woman. It doesn’t have to look feminine.”