Star Wars Almost Turned BB-8 into a Female Droid

Droids might not have any gender to them, but it turns out that Lucasfilm originally wanted BB-8 to be a female droid with a completely different name.

According to a report by Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Lucasfilm had different plans for BB-8 when they started working on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Neal Scanlan, the Academy Award-winning visual effects artist who worked on Episode VII, just recently revealed that BB-8 originally had a different gender and name when the droid was conceptualized for the film. It turns out that the sequel Trilogy's round beep-booping mascot was supposed to be called Snow Girl.

"BB-8, for instance, started out as Snow Girl or Globe at one time – there were four or five names for BB-8. BB-8 didn't come until VERY, very late, and that's probably for very good reasons as he's such an important character," Scanlan said.

We're not quite sure how J.J. Abrams and his team finally settled on BB-8, but we're glad that they did. Snow Girl and Globe doesn't really fit in with the way Star Wars names its droids.

BB-8's gender, however, was something that naturally evolved as production went on. The droid was initially perceived as a female by the filmmaking team, but then as the character became more and more fleshed out, the droid became male.

"I'm still not sure, dare I say, whether BB-8 is male or female. BB-8 was female in our eyes. And then he or she became male," Scanlan explained, "And that's all part of the evolution, not only visually, but in the way they move, how they hold themselves."

It's definitely interesting to see how BB-8's evolved throughout the production of The Force Awakens. We wonder what the character would have been if the filmmakers really shaped it to be a female.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now available on Digital HD.

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