Where did the Mon Calamari come from? — Page 2

The way I see it as an adult, the apparent absence of aliens is obviously down to budgetary and logistical restraints.

As a child I'm not sure it really crossed my mind until ROTJ when I just figured that Mon Mothma had united all these splinter groups of various species rebels (including the humans).

Even in ROTJ, I think the only aliens we see involved in the Endor assault and Death Star attack are chewbacca, nien numb, and a pruneface gets on the shuttle never to appear again. I don't recall any aliens flying the A wings, etc. You only see them in the briefing room and the rest of their involvement is implied? Oh, I suppose the ewoks are aliens, too ...

I refuse to believe that if Lucas was really that interested in putting in other aliens he couldn't have at least put one alien mask on somebody in the rebel briefing in ANH or on some rebel in Hoth. The total lack of aliens there, in films that had the cantina and the ugnauts, really stands out and I don't think it's just down to budget.  

xhonzi said:

It seems they could have put a few masks in the Yain briefing scene (re-use ones from the cantina) if they wanted some alien presence.

 Exactly.

It strikes me that Lucas wasn't too concerned with portraying the rebels as anything but humans. And that fits with the way they were overwhelmingly portrayed as male and white as well, in the first two films. In ROTJ, there are female rebels of significance (they're led by a woman, which is a big difference from having one female radio operator), non-white rebels (such as among the pilots) and alien rebels. It's clear the change was a change in the attitudes of the day, not a change in budget or special effects capabilities.

Gaffer Tape said:

Yeah, it seemed that George always wanted to put more and more different races in the films,

Where do you get this info from?

Wanting to put in more different races in the films doesn't necessarily mean putting in more in the rebellion. It could mean putting more in the cantina or in Bespin or on the streets of Mos Eisley.

TheBoost said:

Thinkin' about the original "Star Wars," there's no reason to assume that there ARE any aliens in the Empire or the Rebellion. For all we know it's the Human Empire, the government for human beings, one of many governments in the galaxy far far away, and not of any particular concern to aliens, who all have their own governments with their own problems.

 

 No, that idea is thrown out by the film's opening crawl, which tells you that it's the "galactic empire", implying it runs the whole galaxy. Which doesn't imply a situation in which it's just one of many governments in the galaxy.

Sluggo said:

 

 I was going to argue this, but after racking my brain for a few minutes, I can't think of any threat to alien species at all. 

Stormtroopers killing Jawas comes to mind. It's pretty clear the imperials are going to kick around anybody who gets in their way, human or alien and since they're the "galactic empire" that runs the galaxy, that's going to include the aliens that are in the galaxy.

I suppose I was thinking more about politically ruling rather than stormtroopers going out and shooting a bunch of jawas.  I'm not saying that non-humans will be left in peace while the Empire goes after humans; I'm just saying that on the political level of Star Wars and Empire to a large degree, the Empire is really only staffed with humans while blowing planets up inhabited by humans while trying to crush a rebellion manned by humans.

Granted, this is a logical fallicy, using a lack of evidence as evidence, but I think that this is the best we have.