Check out this new podcast on BBC Radio 4 which focuses on Princess’, of the fictional and real variety. Of course, in this corner of the galaxy ‘princess’ can mean only one thing, and the show looks at the life of Carrie Fisher and her GFFA counterpart Princess Leia.
She was nearly the focus of the franchise
In very early versions of the Star Wars story, George Lucas had women play a far more dominant role. The saga originally revolved around a general and his daughter, with the daughter as the focus of the film. The daughter eventually became Luke Skywalker with Leia taking a slightly less prominent position. For the sequel to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, screenwriter Leigh Brackett, an acclaimed sci-fi writer known as “the Queen of Space Opera”, changed the story to focus on Leia. According to Rebecca: “The original draft for that film has Leia taking on a much bigger role and her dialogue is much more sensitively handled.” Sadly Leigh Brackett died during the scripting process and rewrites by subsequent male authors altered Leia’s destiny.
She was forced out of her underwear
“There are no bras in space.” This was the reasoning, according to Carrie Fisher, that she was requested not to wear undergarments beneath her white Leia robes in Star Wars. As Maddie points out in the Princess podcast: “I’m sure if you could have a structured Stormtrooper outfit, you can have a structured bra.” But Carrie didn’t simply accept this bizarre, sexist request. As Rebecca tells Princess: “She was quite forthright about the pressures that came with fame and about the way she was treated on film sets including Star Wars. She really did stand up for women’s rights.”
