movies Star Wars

B-Wing… What the funk?

The name “B-Wing” has always bothered me.  I believe I can safely say that some of you are thinking, “hell ya, that’s always bugged the crap out of me too!”  While another percentage of you are thinking, “what the frig is a B-Wing, and why do I care?”

The B-Wing is a spaceship from the movie “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” (don’t you dare refer to it as “Episode 6” around me).  However, unlike all the other letter-named ships in the series (i.e. X-Wing, Y-Wing, and A-Wing), the ship design doesn’t resemble the letter of the alphabet. 

Here are some images to demonstrate my point.  First row (l-to-r): X-Wing and Y-Wing.  Second row (l-to-r): A-Wing and B-Wing.

X-WingY-Wing

A-WingB-Wing

Clearly the B-Wing name doesn’t match its body design.  It doesn’t look anything like a “B”!  In fact, the B-Wing sure looks a lot like the lower case letter “t”.  You’d think it would be called the “T-Wing”.  I suspect someone at ILM had their radio up too loud listening to “Maneater” by Daryl Hall and John Oates.  Because of the noise, they simply misheard “bee” in place of “tee” and it stuck.  Once Kenner started making the toys, they realized they couldn’t go back and change it to “T-Wing” (especially after the whole 4-LOM/Zuckuss debacle from “Empire Strikes Back”).

Now before you go believing that crap about “B-Wing” being named for the Nebulon-B frigate, you gotta realize that’s a “expanded universe” retcon.  So I don’t believe for a second that was the plan back in 1983. 

I blame Hall & Oates. 

3 thoughts on “B-Wing… What the funk?

  1. It should be a “P Wing” ‘cos it looks like a P (as opposed to an upside-down B).

    There. I ended this decades-long argument in seconds…

  2. How clueless. The B-wing actually resembles a lowercase b from the side. The B-wing’s cockpit and centre portion form the loop and the main wing forms the stalk. People these days.

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