CT At the end of Episode IV

After the Death Star explosion there were a shot of 4 ships heading back to Yavin. Luke and Wedge in X Wings, Han in the Falcon and 1 Y Wing...does anybody have an idea who this was. Only reason I ask is my 8 year old son keeps asking and looks disappointed when I don't know!
Thanks in advance for putting up with my question.

 

Keyan Farlander.

 

It was some random guy

 

...named Keyan Farlander.

 

aka the character you play as in the classic X-Wing flight sim. Oh man those were the days...

 

That's the EU explanation these days. But what I personally always wondered why that Y-Wing was originally there.

 

Maybe to show that at least one of those lumbering old crates survived.

 

Sadly, that guy got no love at the celebration. And Chewie, why he didn't get a medallion, don't get me started.

 

He does in the novelization. I wonder if they opted not to because Carrie Fisher is so short and Peter Mayhew was so tall that it just didn't flow?

 

So...Chewie couldn't have knelt/bent over a bit so Leia could reach him? Or have all three kneel?

 

Leia's racist

Er... specist?

 

The last Marvel comic in the depictions of the ANH movie alludes to it: "Chewie will have a medal- but he will have to put it on hmself- few space-princesses are that tall"

And the Day after the Death Star comic actually shows Leia standing on a table to award Chewie that medal - at Han & Luke's instigation - during the after-ceremony party.

 

I thought this was one of the shots that was updated in the SE? If so then I don't recall the 2nd x-wing or y-wing being in that shot originally... feel free to prove me wrong.

 

The Farlander Papers was written way back in 1993 (for the limited edition version of the X-wing game)- before the Special Edition- and tags that Y-wing pilot as Keyan Farlander.

Suggesting the Y-wing was in fact in the original movie.

 

The Y-wing was there in 77. I remember it.

As for Chewie's alleged medal, it would have been so much easier if only there had been some stairs so Leia could stand on a higher step to reach up to Chewie's head. Too bad there weren't any at the front of the throne room. Wait, what?

 

I got "Day After Death Star" as part of a paperback omnibus a couple of decades ago. It's my preferred explanation for what eventually happened.