Pilots

In the early to mid 1980s, a cohort of young people was disappointed to learn that flying an X-Wing was not, in fact, a valid career option. Some of them may have settled for a career flying military jets instead, figuring launching off an aircraft carrier was the next best thing (and one of them may have ended up writing for Youtini). It’s common to hear about how another movie and a character named Pete “Maverick” Mitchell gave a boost to aviation recruiting, but for some of us he was a poor substitute for the likes of Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles, and a smuggler with a souped-up freighter.

Without pilots, Star Wars would look like an early, extra-galactical draft of Doctor Strange - somewhat removed people in robes solving problems by waving their hands around and occasionally using ancient weapons. From Han Solo and the orange-clad Alliance starfighter pilots to TIE fighter pilots in their iconic black helmets, the pilot’s swagger is a counterpoint to the quasi monastic mysticism of the Jedi. Their braggadocio and edge-of-the-seat adventures constantly balances the often deep and introspective struggles of the saga’s warrior monks.

But, then again, perhaps they’re not so different—on our own planet, after all, early military pilots often - perhaps somewhat whimsically - saw themselves as ideological descendants of the chivalric knights of old. As Cole Horton notes in a 2015 article for StarWars.com, historical dogfight footage and war movies were an inspiration for George Lucas’ vision of space combat. If the Jedi are Knights of the Force, then perhaps the pilots in a galaxy far, far away are Knights of the Stars. At least, that’s what we like to think Wedge tells Luke over a Corellian Ale now and again.