I kinda like this alternate history

[james_davis_nicoll]

Something I posted elsewhere:

POD: 1970s: A healthy Leigh Brackett pitches an interesting twist to George Lucas.


1980: Audiences are somewhat taken aback when, during the confrontation scene between Vader and Luke, Vader takes Luke's head off like an offending dandelion flower. Now the fate of the Rebel Alliance, rescuing Han and all that jazz rests on the shoulders of the last Jedi, Leia.

Comments

[richardthe23rd.livejournal.com]

Never underestimate the latent sexism prevalent as late as those days. Even though it seemed to me that the filmmakers were making it blindingly obvious in the latter scenes of EMPIRE that the "another" Yoda mentions is Leia, I had an argument with a fellow fan who vehemently, almost violently, denied that it could be so, and for no other reason I could see besides she was, you know, a girl. And this was my girlfriend talking! Even in the face seemingly incontrovertible evidence, even many women couldn't seem to conceive of a woman as a Jedi Knight.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

As gareth_wilson mentioned below, in some early drafts of Star Wars the main character (the Luke character) was female. There are poster samples and the like that reflect this.