Was there a genocide that eliminated nearly all the East Asian and South Asian humans from the Star Wars universe?

Was there a genocide that eliminated nearly all the East Asian and South Asian humans from the Star Wars universe?

No. The movies are just old.

To the best of my recollection there were no Asian characters in the original Star Wars trilogy. There was a single black character in the 2nd and 3rd movies, and another in the prequels. But the first time we saw an Asian character was Jess Pava in Force Awakens.

There is no in-universe reason for this. And both the sequel trilogy and the Mandalorian have been pretty good with casting actors with a wide variety of phenotypes.

But the first film was released in 1977. At the time Hollywood was just really bad at hiring Asian actors. Keep in mind that Mickey Rooney in yellowface in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was released just 17 years before Star Wars.

Ironically enough George Lucas originally wanted Toshiro Mifune, a frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, to play Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original films. But Mifune turned him down as science fiction films had a poor reputation at the time.

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