Star Wars: 10 Secrets Behind X-Wings You Need To Know

3. The X-Wing Was Supposed To Be Blue

Star Wars XWing
Lucasfilm

The X-Wing's design has been tweaked to death over the years and the average Star Wars fan knows there are several variations of the ship. However, pretty much everyone is familiar with the standard starfighter's design. The vessel is normally covered in white plating and has red streaks on the "nose's" sides and on the wings.

However, George Lucas originally envisioned the pilots in Yavin venturing to the Death Star riding blue X-Wings, not red. In fact, it was the Y-Wings that were meant to bear this hue. This was changed at the last minute when Lucas realised the X-Wings' colours weren't coming out right since the crew were filming their scenes in front of a blue-screen. As a result, he changed the blue X-Wings to red and the red Y-Wings to gold.

Bizarrely, blue X-Wings only became a part of Star Wars canon when they were mentioned in the 2015 novel, Before the Awakening, 38 years after the original movie. These marine vessels debuted onscreen for the first time in the 2015 animated series, Star Wars Resistance (which you probably forgot existed until now).

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James Egan has been with Whatculture for five years and prominently works on Horror, Film, and Video Games. He's written over 80 books including 1000 Facts about Horror Movies Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about The Greatest Films Ever Made Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about Video Games Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts About James Bond 1000 Facts About TV Shows