Okay. I will concede that Leia cannot be the Jedi because in the time frame the movies were released that would have made Star Wars a girl movie and it would have lost broad appeal.

You're absolutely correct.

Says who? Darth Vader was just as interested in Leia's conversion as he was in Luke's.

Word. The whole smuggling the plans to blow up the Death Star is pretty weak sauce.

Actually, as we say in calculus, to determine if an outlier affects the mean, we have to determine the derivative.

That certainly is a problem. The movie was also filmed in 1976.

It was 1976.

We're agreed that women should be more represented in movies in general.

The test is not "fine just the way it is" if Star Wars can't pass.

Could knowing trivia like this be why you're a happily single woman in your 30s with no children? :)

Because it was for an American audience in 1976. Lucas did make an effort to have female soldiers and female pilots in the prequels.

Maybe that's why they make movies that fail the Bechdel test?

Women, when given the opportunity to serve equally, influenced by societal pressures to serve, and compelled by their government still serve at a ratio of less than 2:1 to men.

Because it's an army?

The guy was kinda on a spraying-trash-cans-and-calling-them-robots budget. Maybe.

I think it's more beneficial for my daughter to see Leia briefing and commanding the all-male fighter squadron than it would be to see Leia and Mon Motha discussing the jungles on Yavin.

Half of the main supporting cast are androgynous robots or aliens.

An arbitrary quota belittles the significance that in 1976 George Lucas made half his movie about a woman and made her more competent than the other, male, protagonist and the mostly male supporting cast.

Leia isn't a token. Leia is a protagonist.

How is talking to another woman better than commanding a subordinate man?