Star Wars ladies get the short end of the saber

It’s a pretty rare occasion that I criticize anything Star Wars related. Well, I guess that isn’t completely true.

“Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” is total trash. Hayden Christensen is a terrible actor, and George Lucas couldn’t write dialogue if it meant surviving an attack by Tusken Raiders.But I digress.

On Tuesday, the core cast of the upcoming “Star Wars Episode VII” was announced.
Spoiler alert, this is a huge deal. Cast members from the original trilogy — Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford — will join a slew of relatively unknown actors for a new trilogy of films in the Star Wars universe.

The problem? There’s only one new female cast member.

Of eight actors who will be joining the J.J. Abram’s directed and co-written film, seven are men and one is a woman. In fact, if you look at the single black and white photo released with the cast announcement, newcomer Daisy Ridley and Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher, are seated next to each other in conversation.

This conversation better translate into the script, because otherwise this new Star Wars film has no chance in hell of passing the Bechdel test.

As a boy who grew up watching both the original trilogy and its prequels, I get that Star Wars could be seen as a guy thing. I played with my Luke Skywalker action figure and my Millennium Falcon model ship. My stepfather and I beat each other up with glowing green and red lightsabers. My mom claims to have some basic Star Wars knowledge, but she still doesn’t know her Death Stars from her USS Enterprises.

But it’s 2014. Seven dudes and one lady added to a cast already lacking for female characters is more than a little embarrassing. Especially when you consider that having strong female leads in action films isn’t exactly a box office risk.

Think about Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of Ripley in the Alien films, the first of which was released only two years after the first Star Wars film. Or think about the Jennifer Lawrence-led “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” also known as the highest grossing film of 2013.

Even “Frozen” has proven people will turn out in droves to see films in which females are front and center, often without the need of a romantic plot to make their stories interesting.

I can’t wait until Dec. 18, 2015. I will be the first in line to see exactly what the fantastic J.J. Abrams brings to the table to expand the Star Wars universe.

I just wish it wasn’t going to be such a sausage fest.

wdmcdona@indiana.edu
@thedevilwearsdm