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Three "woke" films later and we still lack a female X-Wing pilot

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I don't get it. We've now had three consecutive roll-outs of Star Wars films being run by people who openly advocate for equality, and yet I still lack the upper torso necessary to create a female X-wing pilot in any generation of Star Wars. And yes, there are female pilot torsos out there (thereby setting a precedent). Note the Sandspeeder pilot's 'hip indentations' near the lower set of tan straps:

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The most obvious example I can think of that would make a suitable minifig is Jessika Pava from TFA, who turned out to be a bit of a sleeper fan favorite (I liked her <30 seconds of screen time more than anything we've seen from Rey over the course of 2+ films):

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She also appeared in Lego TFA (again note pretty the pretty clear female paint job):

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There have, of course, been other appearances of women wearing the orange jumpsuit (including some hard-to-spot cameos in Return of the Jedi, if you can believe that):

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Before you accuse me of being too anal for my own good, recall that Lego is the one who has been pushing differentiation of male/female minifigures for the past decade. I just feel let down that we've now seen the release of the TROS sets and this void still persists. 

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I think a unisex torso is enough, but we definitely need female faces. On the other hand, if the new X-Wing pilot helmets become more common, we could solve this problem on our own. Of course, I too would like to see Lego releasing female OT X-Wing pilots; they are unfortunately often overlooked.

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A new OT X-Wing microfighter could bring in a female pilot, as we just gotten a scale X-Wing last year and those usually reduce their pilot-selection to Luke, Wedge or Biggs.

OT-pilots with the old helmets in general need more faces, they just keep reusing Dak's head for generic (and also named) pilots and it's as lazy as the clone head in every stormtrooper. But then again, if the new helmet is being set as the standard, you'd just need a new torso print.

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6 minutes ago, Dosenbrot said:

A new OT X-Wing microfighter could bring in a female pilot, as we just gotten a scale X-Wing last year and those usually reduce their pilot-selection to Luke, Wedge or Biggs.

OT-pilots with the old helmets in general need more faces, they just keep reusing Dak's head for generic (and also named) pilots and it's as lazy as the clone head in every stormtrooper. But then again, if the new helmet is being set as the standard, you'd just need a new torso print.

At least with the resistance, heads aren't an issue, since the visors are actual plastic now and you can throw on pretty much any female fleshy head (there are so many available from Harry Potter alone that I'd be fine). OT stuff is more difficult to replicate because of the printed visors... although I wonder if there will come a point when they drop that and just go with all resistance-style helms across both sources. 

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11 minutes ago, Brick-Wombat said:

Is it less "woke" to assume all females have hour-glass figures? *tisk-tisk!* 

I kid. :wink:

I think Lego just says "we're going to do female torsos, and female torsos have boobs and hips."

In all seriousness, I miss the days of asexual minifigure bodies. But now that Lego has established that there are differences between the two sexes, I want that dimorphism represented in my Star Wars pilots :P. 

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Granted it doesn't alter Lego's laziness, nor does it help purists, but for anyone not aware, there are the following available from Firestar Toys and all are utterly lovely:

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Combine that with the double sided face from Lego and you've got 6 female X-Wing pilot faces.

Just wish TLG made the same level of effort as FST.

 

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9 minutes ago, anothergol said:

You know that Disney is gonna do it. Three Ewok films.

Nothing is more woke then Ewoks.

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12 minutes ago, anothergol said:

You know that Disney is gonna do it. Three Ewok films.

Honestly, I'd see it. Can't be as bad as TLJ.

Also, it would give LEGO an excuse for more ewok village sets.

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14 minutes ago, KotZ said:

Honestly, I'd see it. Can't be as bad as TLJ.

Also, it would give LEGO an excuse for more ewok village sets.

You think we'd get the force Witch chick back, too?

latest?cb=20070109170629

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I think the existing pilot torso is fine to be used on both genders. The flightsuits are meant to be baggy and they didn't bother giving curves to either Paige or Tallie's minifigures. Its also worth pointing out the Sandspeeder Gunner shares the same torso as the pilot despite being a man. I don't think the hip indentations are intended to be because its a woman but because of the side straps pinching the uniform.

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I agree Jess Pava would be an awesome minifigure. Charal (the witch above) too.

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4 hours ago, Flieger said:

I think a unisex torso is enough, but we definitely need female faces. On the other hand, if the new X-Wing pilot helmets become more common, we could solve this problem on our own. Of course, I too would like to see Lego releasing female OT X-Wing pilots; they are unfortunately often overlooked.

Agreeing with you. Regular torsos are at least as good if not even better than the female ones, as the "femaling" of a torso by covering the arcs with black color is somewhat weird looking. It works with e.g. Juno Eclipse, because there the curvature is kind of inherent, only the lines are visible, and there is no odd black space on some other background color as her torso is black actually. But yep, we could do with more female heads. They are plenty in the classic yellow line but very few in the light flesh or in any other realistic skin color from the licenced themes. I am not voting for the new kinds of X-Wing helmets, though. They are too oversized and therefor ugly, I am afraid. It was a nice idea to include the goggles already in the helmet, the mold just didn't work out very well.

- Samppu

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21 hours ago, Samppu said:

Agreeing with you. Regular torsos are at least as good if not even better than the female ones, as the "femaling" of a torso by covering the arcs with black color is somewhat weird looking. It works with e.g. Juno Eclipse, because there the curvature is kind of inherent, only the lines are visible, and there is no odd black space on some other background color as her torso is black actually. But yep, we could do with more female heads. They are plenty in the classic yellow line but very few in the light flesh or in any other realistic skin color from the licenced themes. I am not voting for the new kinds of X-Wing helmets, though. They are too oversized and therefor ugly, I am afraid. It was a nice idea to include the goggles already in the helmet, the mold just didn't work out very well.

Agreed on all points. I was just referring to the new helmets because the concept is sound. The execution is ... not. For me it is not so much the size, I dislike that the helmet sits too 'high' on the head; the visor and skullcap should come down more. Anyway, the pros and cons of that new helmet have been discussed in detail elsewhere.

Who knows, maybe they will improve the helmet. Thing is, female face prints are enough for me. As was mentioned, flight suits are baggy (unless you are an instagram model...), and military gear in general tends to deemphasize female curves. Many, many years ago I served in the air force and the women in full gear were hard to distinguish from their male comrades unless you looked at their faces (and height, obviously). I mean, as sad as it is that the female pilots in the OT are rarely recognized as such, this is an indicator that we do not need female-specific torsos.

Btw., I was also very happy that Lego did not make any special torso printing for Zuzanu Latt. Her face print was all I needed.

Edited by Flieger

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On 10/22/2019 at 1:40 AM, Samppu said:

They are plenty in the classic yellow line but very few in the light flesh or in any other realistic skin color from the licenced themes. I am not voting for the new kinds of X-Wing helmets, though. They are too oversized and therefor ugly, I am afraid. It was a nice idea to include the goggles already in the helmet, the mold just didn't work out very well.
 

According to bricklink, there are now 157 female heads in light flesh. Of course, not all of them are suitable for SW figures but there is way more choice than there was even five years ago.

 

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The existing flight suit is fine as a unisex design. There are quite a few female pilots thoughout the OT never mind the sequels. The female pilot sat in the ROTJ briefing image above is Dorovio Bold. She can be made from using the T-16 pilot helmet. Quite a few of the pilots can be made from existing Lego releases and Firestar have also produced the Jaldine Gerams helmet (Blue Three) (very similar to an existing Dutch Vander design) as well as a Zal Dinnes (Red Eight) helmet.

LEGO RED SQUADRON - BATTLE OF YAVINLEGO STAR WARS BLUE SQUADRON

 

We also have helmets for Evaan Verlaine (Gold Three) and Wona Goban (Gold Nine)

 

LEGO STAR WARS GOLD SQUADRON

 

Several female pilots were in ROTJ for various squadrons too but unfortunately their voices were actually dubbed with male VOs. We can still create them (Dosmit Raeh - Tierfon Yellow Aces) as well as others.

 

LEGO STAR WARS REBEL PILOTS

 

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Don’t forget as well, this is Star Wars and the rebellion/resistance is very diverse, the use of the heads from Hera Syndulla or Aayla Secura would work, granted you’d either have to use their own headpiece which won’t be a helmet or use a flight helmet and ignore the lack of space for Lekku.

And there’s always Iden Vesario

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