Danger Gal Friday: The Starkiller Who Could Have Been

Recently quite a bit of discussion has been going on in the comments of my Princess Leia Danger Gal post, and then I chimed in on some ruminating on the hero’s journey of Han Solo over at the io9 blog.

StarkillerThen my hubby, and avid Star Wars figure collector (you are surprised by this?), pointed out to me the new Signature Series Concept figures based on early Star Wars art drawn by Ralph McQuarrie.

Evidently, Luke was supposed to be a girl.

Talk about a paradigm shift. How would this saga have been different if Luke Skywalker would have been Luka Starkiller? Evidently, Han Solo was also supposed to be a Jedi.

Admittedly, there are some facets of the saga we likely would have lost if the story had unfurled this way, namely Princess Leia, but how might it have influenced Hollywood if the most popular sci-fi adventure flick ever had starred a kick-arse female protagonist? Here’s a bit more background on this early Star Wars concept.

What do you think? What would you have missed about the version we know now and what would you have liked if this early concept had come to fruition.

Update: